Peace Activists Arrested on Grounds of U.S. Capitol

By David Swanson

216 Photos -- Photos by Joe Robbins. -- Video by William Hughes

Peace activists were arrested earlier today on the west grounds of the United States Capitol. The event was organized by the Declaration of Peace, and the plan was to march around the Capitol and then proceed to protest in Senators' offices (plans are to go to House Members' offices tomorrow)....
A group of hundreds was stopped by Capitol Police when trying to cross Constitution Avenue from the Upper Senate Park. When the police finally relented and allowed the group to cross, only a few dozen made it across. The group was divided and some reportedly proceeded east to the Senate office buildings. The few dozen who made it initially to the west grounds of the Capitol attempted to walk up a number of paths toward the Capitol steps, and were blocked each time by a wall of police. A group of activists carrying a coffin and led by Max Obuszewski attempted to walk through a police line and were arrested and taken away in vans.

UPDATE: Reportedly a group of about 10 was arrested outside Russell Senate Office Building, and about 22 were arrested inside the Hart Senate Office Building.

UPDATE #2: The count of people arrested is 71, as counted by the arrestees. Of those 71, as of 7:30 p.m. ET 26 had been processed. Of those 26, some have chosen to remain in jail, while others have been released after paying $50 in exact change, as required by the Capitol Police. Efforts to free two people using five $20 bills were rejected.

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Report from CNN:

Peaceful Iraq war protests prompt 71 arrests
POSTED: 8:30 p.m. EDT, September 26, 2006
From Lisa Goddard, CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Two Presbyterian ministers were among 71 people arrested during a series of peaceful protests against the Iraq war Tuesday, said a spokeswoman for a group participating in the protests.

Demonstrators held sit-ins, prayer services and sing-alongs at four locations in the Capitol complex, including the central atrium of the Senate Hart Office Building.

The demonstrations were reminiscent of the Vietnam era, with protesters strumming guitars, singing peace songs, holding flowers and wearing hats made of balloons. (Watch war protesters face the music -- 1:28)

Senate staffers watched the demonstrators from their offices. Protesters said that several workers gave them a thumbs-up or other signs of approval. (Watch how the protests are part of a highly charged day in Washington -- 2:23 )

"We are trying to protest a lack of civil liberties and to try and end a war culture," said protester Alex Bryan of New York.

Thirty-three of those arrested were charged with unlawful conduct inside the Hart Building, said Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of the Capitol Police.

Thirty-eight more demonstrators were arrested at separate protests near the Capitol, she said. Of those, 23 were charged with crossing a police line and 15 were charged with demonstrating without a permit.

All of those arrested were cooperative with police, Schneider said.

The National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, which has organized dozens of anti-war protests around the country, coordinated Tuesday's effort, which included several religious and secular groups.

Among those arrested during the demonstrations were two Presbyterian ministers, a Catholic activist and a member of a Quaker group, said Jennifer Kuiper, spokeswoman for The Declaration of Peace, one of the groups participating in the protests.

Both groups apparently expected participants to be arrested. On a notice posted at The Declaration of Peace Web site, the protests are described as an "interfaith religious procession around the Capitol, followed by peace presence and nonviolent resistance, including risking arrest at the U.S. Senate."

The National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance Web site adds, "Those willing to engage in nonviolent acts of civil resistance against the war and occupation are encouraged to join us. We also enthusiastically call upon those who cannot risk arrest, but who are willing to support those who do."

Despite a rising tide of war opposition, the protesters said they represent no party or political movement.

Baptist minister Jamie Washam of Wisconsin, who led an interfaith service during the protests, said she is adamantly opposed to the war.

"My congregation wants peace," she said. "And I think it's an offense to God."

Tuesday's events in Washington were part of 375 protests and other activities being held around the country this week in opposition to the war, according to The Declaration of Peace.

There were hundreds of arrests in a protest organized by the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance a year ago. On September 26, 2005, 371 people were arrested during the "Resist and Remember" protest in Washington, one of the organization's founders, Gordon Clark, wrote in an online article.

Of those, 104 were arrested at the White House for refusing to leave after being denied an audience with President Bush, Clark wrote.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/09/26/dc.protests

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Report from William Hughes:

Protester Arrested at U.S. Capitol Asks: What About the First Amendment?
By William Hughes

“The times are ominous!” - The late Phil Berrigan, Dissenter Emeritus, in his final public appearance, March 19, 2002. (1)

Washington, D.C. - A rally against the Iraqi War at the U.S. Capitol, on Tuesday, September 26, 2006, led to the arrests of 71 protesters by the police, according to a spokesperson for one of the organizers. The passionate demonstration was co-promoted by the “National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance” (NCNR) and the “Declaration of Peace” organizations. These conscience-driven advocacy groups, antiwar and/or religious based, endorse the laudable principle of nonviolent resistance to and noncooperation with “the U.S. government, the military, the corporate merchants of war, and all institutions that feed” the War, Mayhem and Death Machine of the Halliburton-challenged and Big-Oil-oriented Bush-Cheney Gang. The specific focus of the activists today was on pressuring the U.S. Congress to “develop a comprehensive and rapid peace plan” for ending the Iraqi conflict and for bringing the troops home. (2)

One of the protesters arrested was Max Obuszewski of Baltimore. He’s with the NCNR. He demanded to know from the police before being cuffed by them: “What about the First Amendment?” Obuszewski, with eleven other activists, was arrested on the west side of the Capitol for trying to deliver a symbolic coffin to the U.S. Congress. As they were carrying the coffin along the sidewalk, the activists were yelling out slogans like: “This is what democracy looks like!” “We demand an end to the occupation of Iraq!” “No more killing!” “No more war!””We are not afraid!” and “No more war in the name of 9/11!” Prior to the start of today’s event, Obuszewski told me: “We want to bring the war home to the Congress. Unless you cut off the funding, the war is going to continue. More money for the war means more dead U.S. soldiers and more dead Iraqis. We are taking this coffin to the Capitol because they [the Congress] are the people responsible for all the deaths.”

Today’s protest action began at Upper Senate Park, which is across Constitution Ave., and just north of the Capitol, at 10:30 AM, with speeches, prayers, chanting from a Buddhist group; the blowing of a shofar; ballad singing led by Ms. Luci Murphy; and an interfaith ceremony. It included the use, via Christian rituals, of “ashes, stones, flowers,” and the reading of a litany. It was supposed to be followed by a procession around the Capitol itself. However, when the protesters, about 250 of them, marched one block west on Constitution Ave to First St., NW, they were stopped by the U.S. Capitol police from crossing Constitution Ave. This is when the Obuszewski-led group defied the cops. Insisting on the their “First Amendment Rights,” they fast-trotted across Constitution avenue, coffin in tow, with the cops chasing along side them. Next, there were a couple of standoffs between the parties, until the Obuszewksi’s contingent was half way around the west side of the Capitol. It was there, that the activist group decided to cross an ad hoc police line. They were then arrested.

Meanwhile, the bulk of the 59 other arrests took place at or near the Hart and the Russell Office buildings, according to Timi Gerson of the “Declaration of Peace” group. She told me that some of the arrests took place “outside one of the buildings” and the others “in one of the lobbies.” The organizers, who put this event on today, are planning to come back to the Capitol tomorrow to reprise this demonstration. They also said that their initiative won’t end, until the “U.S. withdraws from Iraq.” (2)

Ellen Barfield of the NCNR, a US Army veteran, was one of the speakers at the event. She said: “We are here today to confront our dilatory Congress, who needs to get a spine. And, we hope to help them with that little problem.” Raed Jarrar, who is the director of the Iraq Project, Global Exchange, and a native of Iraq, told the crowd: “Iraqis are standing united for an end to this illegal war.” Some of the other speakers at the rally were: Gordon Clark of the NCNR; Rick Ufford-Chase, President of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship; Ken Butigan of Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service; and Rabbi Arthur Waskow, founder and director of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia.

The Bush-Cheney Gang legacy: As of today’s date, the Neocon-inspired Iraqi War has led to the deaths of 2,706 U.S. military personnel, with around 20,000 seriously wounded. (3) It has also cost taxpayers $318 billion, and rising. Iraqi civilian casualties have been estimated at over 100,000. An Arab country of 27 millions souls, Iraq had done the U.S. no harm. It also had no WMD, no ties to Al Qaeda and nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. Its ancient roots, according to the brilliant historian Will Durant, helped to seed the civilization of the peoples of the Christian West. Iraq now lays in ruin. Its air fouled with toxic depleted uranium. Its people mostly desolate. Paul Wolfowitz, a raving Neocon, and then Deputy U.S. Secretary of Defense, was the “prime architect” of the conflict. He was aided by other Chickenhawks, like: William Kristol and Richard Perle. Wolfowitz now heads the World Bank, a sinecure, at a salary of $375,000 a year. Kristol and Perle, per the Hard Right line of Israel’s P.M., the ultra-hawkish Ehud Olmert, are now pushing for a U.S. led war against Iran. If there is a Hell, there should be a special place in it for Wolfowitz and for the repulsive Neocons. (4) The Iraqi War is also a stain on our Republic, as is this government’s policy permitting the torture of detainees. The conflict creates, daily, more enemies for America in the Islamic World. (5) At the same time, 18,000 people a year die in the U.S., three times as many who perished at the WTC, because they don’t have any health care. (6) And, global climate change threatens life on the planet. (7) Silence in the face of the rampant evildoings of the Bush-Cheney Gang is consent!

According to organizers, this direct action was inspired, partly, by the nonviolent resistance to WMD of three brave R.C. nuns, known as the “Plowshares Nuns.” They are Sisters Carol Gilbert, OP, Jackie Hudson OP and Ardeth Platte OP. The press release states: “On Oct. 6, 2002, they entered a missile site near Greeley, Colorado. They cut through two gates to enter the silo area. They hammered on the tracks used for the silo lids to open the silo itself. They also used their blood to make the sign of the cross on the tracks and on the silo. They concluded their witness with a liturgy. They were arrested and imprisoned. Jackie received 31 months, Carol 33 [months] and Ardeth 41 [months] for their nonviolent act of civil resistance to protest nuclear weapons.” (2)

Meanwhile, “The System” we live under in this country is fixed and rigged by the Wirepullers. It gives us an economy dominated by greedy Vulture Capitalists, who pay little or no taxes, own most of the wealth and deliberately pit individuals and groups against each other. (8) It is time for the American people to begin thinking for themselves and to see themselves as the real owners of the Republic, with authentic personal power, who in solidarity with others, can change things for the better. (9)Turn off Katie Couric, Bill O’Reilly, Jim Lehrer, Rush Limbaugh and Charley Rose, too!

In summation, the illegal, and totally unnecessary, war in Iraq was contrived. It has maliciously wasted innocent lives and continues to drain our treasury. It’s also a war of aggression, which violates principles of International Law established at Nuremberg, Germany (1947-49). Here’s what you can do: If you see, at a public forum, U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD) and Rep. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and others of that ilk, who have consistently voted in the U.S. Congress to fund the Iraqi war; who green lighted the passage, in the middle of the night, of the draconian USA Patriot Act; and who have endorsed Israel’s horrific war crimes in Occupied Palestine and in Lebanon--boo them--loudly!

I say: Kudos to those gutsy individuals, who are willing to risk arrest and jail in combatting this insane and immoral Iraqi War. (10)

Notes:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyHabFrICz4 and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmbeTXVnckI
2. http://www.declarationofpeace.org and
http://www.iraqpledge.org
For more background on the growing Plowshares Movement, and its spiritual and historical foundations: See:
http://www.jonahhouse.org/
3. For an analysis of the Special Interests, who pushed for the Iraqi War, See, “The Sorrows of Empire,” by Chalmers Johnson.
4. http://batr.net/neoconwatch/
5. “Agencies Say War is Spreading Terrorism,” Richard A. Serrano, 09/25/06/, Baltimore Sun and http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/13104/index.php
6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQFG4Piwegs
7. http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2006/09/25/pf-1894958.html
8. http://www.economyincrisis.org/
9. Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.”
10. A video showing some of the arrests made on the west side of the U.S. Capitol, can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGReqfxnGvQ

© William Hughes 2006.

William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘No’ to the War Party” (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes@comcast.net.

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Report from the Baltimore Sun:

71 War Protesters Seized
Baltimore's Tradition of Civil Disobedience Continues in Capital

by Liz F. Kay

WASHINGTON - The Rev. Andrew Foster Connors remained calm yesterday as a police officer put his hands in white plastic handcuffs and searched his pockets after he crossed a police line outside the U.S. Capitol.

How can we listen to what's going on in our world and not say it's dead wrong?" said Elizabeth McAlister. (Sun photo by Glenn Fawcett)

Less than an hour later, the Rev. Roger Scott Powers was also led away in handcuffs from the interfaith demonstration against the war in Iraq in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building.

The two Presbyterian ministers from Baltimore were among 71 people who were detained yesterday as they protested the war in Iraq - and continued Baltimore's long tradition of civil disobedience against wars.

"I was just happy to be able to be a witness for peace," said Connors, 33, who wore a multicolored stole, clerical collar and blue armband. "It's one thing to talk about nonviolence, but to enact it ... nonviolence is a powerful thing."

Baltimore's legacy of nonviolent protest against violence began with the Berrigan brothers' burning of draft records during the Vietnam War and continued through the nuclear proliferation during the Cold War. It persists today as clergy in Baltimore and elsewhere answered a national call to pressure Congress to end the war in Iraq.

Not everyone can take such extreme measures to oppose war, but Roman Catholic moral theologian Joseph J. Fahey said the Jonah House form of protest made the stance more acceptable and mainstream. Jonah House was the West Baltimore pacifist community founded by Philip F. Berrigan.

War protesters lie on the floor of the Hart Senate Office Building as police make arrests after the protesters refused to disperse.
(Sun photo by Glenn Fawcett)

"I think the Jonah House people showed that it is patriotic and love of your country to perform civil disobedience," said Fahey, who specializes in war and peace at Manhattan College in the Bronx and was a founding member of Pax Christi USA, a Catholic peace organization.

He described religion as a double-edged sword that has called people to war, sexism, racism and hatred. But "protest - that's religion at its best," Fahey said.

Yesterday's peace action was one of a weeklong series of events through the Declaration of Peace campaign, an initiative organized by a collection of secular and faith-based groups.

The arrests included Presbyterian Peace Fellowship Director Rick Ufford-Chase, who served for two years in the denomination's highest office, moderator of the 216th General Assembly. He sent a letter to Presbyterian congregations nationwide explaining his decision.

"If God opens the way for me to do so, I will risk arrest to make it clear that I believe the War in Iraq is a violation of my most fundamental beliefs as a Christian," he wrote. "Whether or not such a witness is effective, it is clear to me that I must do everything in my power and in keeping with my values as a follower of Jesus Christ to stop this war."

Elizabeth McAlister, a former nun who founded Jonah House with her husband, Philip F. Berrigan, held a banner and wore a chain of origami paper cranes around her neck yesterday.

"How can we listen to what's going on in our world and not say it's dead wrong?" she said. "'Thou shalt not kill' - they're all one-syllable."

"We need more," she said. "You don't do enough. I don't do enough."

Patrick G. Coy, director of the Center for Applied Conflict Management at Kent State University, said he was surprised that there has not been more nonviolent protest and civil disobedience linked to this war, given its length and the intensity of the opposition before it began.

Coy says the lack of a military draft, media management by the Bush administration, economic pressures on students and a broader cultural shift toward conservatism have all contributed to a smaller-than-expected outcry.

"They have dramatically increased from the second year forward, but it's not as broad-based as I would expect," he said.

Fahey agreed. "I'm disappointed that it's always been a small minority of clergy," he said. "I wish more academics were involved."

Connors, pastor of Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church in Bolton Hill, said he was called to bear witness because he believes that imposing democracy through violent means is a contradiction.

"In a democratic society, we trade up killing each other with weapons for a vote," he said. "Voting is a form of nonviolence. What's called for now is a witness - people who are willing to put their bodies where their words are."

Yesterday, about 250 people gathered in the Upper Senate Park for an interfaith service. A small group, including Connors, brought a coffin covered with pictures of wounded Iraqis to the U.S. Capitol, where the arrests took place.

Most of the group marched to the Russell Senate Office Building, where some protesters were arrested. Leaders, including Ufford-Chase, negotiated with U.S. Capitol Police, who later let them enter the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building.

Most of the activists stood in a circle to listen to readings and sing as Senate staff members gathered on walkways overlooking the atrium.

"This is what democracy looks like," said Gordon S. Clark, coordinator of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance. "Hopefully, this message will get back to those Senate offices."

Connors was released about 6 p.m. Each of the 71 people arrested was processed one at a time - handcuffs removed, searched, interviewed and given a wristband. He received a citation and a November court date.

The police were very courteous but did not allow them to make noise, he said. "We broke into song a few times and they quickly tamped down on that."

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