Feature Archives

6/05/04: As the wheels come off of the Bush war wagon, the June 5 antiwar demonstration couldn't have been more timely. Thousands of protesters, tired of the lies coming out of Washington, fed up with the images of U.S. torture of the Iraqi people, and angry about the bulldozing of homes in the Gaza strip, filled Market Street for a march from UN Plaza to Justin Herman Plaza. Among the groups participating in the march were ANSWER, NION, Veterans for Peace, Women in Black, Code Pink a G8 contingent, a Labor contingent and a Reclaim the Commons contingent. About a dozen counter protesters tried to disrupt the march and several hundred people held a pro-Israel counter protest at the end of Market St. Shortly after 2PM a breakaway G8 solidarity protest left for a march up Market St to Pier 39. Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Videos: 1 | 2 | 3 | Protest info

6/2/04: Today at 8 a.m., Direct Action to Stop the War held an emergency protest and street theatre at the San Francisco office of military and homeland security contractor CACI ("khaki"). Ostensibly an "information technology" firm, CACI has profitted from at least $45 million in contracts for "intelligence work" in Iraq, where, as the Bay Guardian reported last week, CACI employees have been implicated in the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal. On 6/1, S&P changed its outlook on CACI's junk credit rating to negative, amid concern that five investigations into the company's work for the U.S. military in Iraq will find that its employees participated in abusing prisoners. Photos: 1 | 2 | Protest info

5/26/04: SF's Capobianco Gallery has been forced to close after right-wingers made death threats and demanded that owner Lori Haigh shutdown her exhibit of works by East Bay artist Guy Colwell. Colwell's The Abuse depicts Pfc. Lynndie England and another soldier smiling gleefully as they look upon a trio of naked, hooded Iraqi prisoners who are hooked up to electrical wires. In the background, a third American soldier is escorting a Muslim woman in a dress into the torture chamber. The painting is black and white, except for American flag patches on the soldiers' uniforms, which appear to be splattered with blood. Read more on Indybay's Arts Page

5/2/2004: On Friday morning at 10AM, twenty outraged Bay Area residents took over Nancy Pelosi's office in the San Francisco Federal Building, demanding she take a strong stand against the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, condemn the latest brutal attack on the people of Rafa Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip, and end US tax aid to Israel now.
Photos: 1 Video: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
At 5PM, nearly 300 people gathered at the downtown Berkeley BART station to rally against Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Photos: 1 | 2 | Video: 1
For Updates On Events In Gaza see Indybay's Palestine News Page.

On April 27th 2004, the US flew AC-130 gunships over Fallujah firing multiple cannon rounds in one of the heaviest nights of bombing Fallujah has seen in the past few weeks. Earlier in the day, US forces killed over 60 people near Najaf as the standoff near the Shi'ite holy city moves closer to all out war. Meanwhile both Democrats and Republicans in the US refused to ask hard questions of John Negroponte, the man who will soon be running US operations in Iraq. US actions in Iraq combined with US support for Israel's policy of assassinations and statements by Bush that suggest the US now supports Israeli settlements in the West Bank, have created unprecedented hatred towards the US in the Middle East. Attacks against the US in Afghanistan are on the rise as the supposed "US war on terrorism" has lead to an attempted WMD attack on Jordan and is causing death and destruction in Indonesia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Sudan.
Read More On Indybay's Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan pages.

On Friday April 30th, demonstrators gathered at the foot of Market Street, and after several minutes of silent mourning for the people lost in Iraq, made their way to the San Francisco Armed Forces Recruiting Center where they proceeded to remove stacks of recruiting brochures and smiling cardboard cutouts of members of the U.S. armed forces -- throwing them into the street. Continuing through San Francisco the protesters, trailed by a small number of police officers, headed to the British Consulate were they rallied inside the atrium of the consulate building. The march then continued to the Pacific Stock Exchange, and later reconverged at Union Square. Photos: 1 | 2  
On Saturday May 1st at noon, a crowd gathered at 24th and Misson in San Francisco for a "Community Speak-Out Against War & Occupation." Photos: 1
At 2 PM, dozens of people gathered at UN Plaza and then marched through downtown San Francisco. Prayers were given and names of the dead were read as the crowd passed the Federal Building, the Veterans Building and then Civic Center Plaza.
Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4   Video: 1

More than a year after the community picket to shut down War Profiteers of the Oakland Port, charges have been dropped against all protesters. The district attorney's office claims the charges were dropped because the protesters haven't been rearrested during the subsequent year, and the Oakland Police Dept. changed their crowd control tactics.

The DA is behaving as if the arrested individuals committed a crime by standing out at the docks with signs, and they are being let off with a warning. But there is no evidence available for the DA to use to convict the protesters. And neither the OPD nor the police review commision have done anything regarding the violence used by the OPD against protesters. Article by Jack Heyman

Indymedia coverage of April 7th 2003 Protest | April 7th 2004 Return to The Docks Action | 4/26/2003 Rally Against Police Brutality | 5/12/2003 Return to the Docks Protest | 11/7/2003 Pre-Trial Hearing For Arrested Protesters | 1/9/2004 Pre-Trial Hearing | 2/6/2004 Pre-Trial Hearing