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NEWS & LETTERS,
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2003
Californians rally against PATRIOT Act
San Francisco--A campaign against the USA PATRIOT Acts I
and II kicked-off here on July 7. The rally heard from an Oakland high school
organizer (bottom left in photo montage), who related her principal’s
suppression of any opposition to the war: from throwing away all of her leaflets
to calling in the FBI to intimidate and terrorize three students who made a
disparaging remark about Bush in their class. She ended by saying that her
principal’s every oppressive measure was in fact legal under the PATRIOT Act. Another speaker, an Iraqi-American (center), related the
persecution faced by her son, a UC Davis student, whose car was towed and who
was held in jail though he broke no laws. The police’s “excuse” for the
harassment was that the car registration was with his mother at home, not with
him. A Japanese-American preacher (right), whose parents were
interned during World War II, said that the difference between then and now is
that then no one spoke up. Now he reported his entire congregation signed a
petition to oppose the PATRIOT Act. A reporter, who was fired from the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
for being arrested in an anti-war demonstration, spoke not of his own case, but
of the OAKLAND TRIBUNE story which brought to light that the brutal attack on
the peaceful demonstrators at the Oakland port came after the California
Anti-Terrorism Information Center warned that this anti-war protest is a
“terrorist act.” The unity of the many emerging voices represent a new
challenge to the increasing intrusion into all aspects of our lives by this
government. --Urszula Wislanka |
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