Feature Archives

Fifty members of the Bay Area human rights community protested the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco on February 27th, using chants, songs and street theater to highlight the IPO’s role in whitewashing Israel’s apartheid policies against the Palestinian people. The orchestra’s performances are being met with protests in six of the seven cities on its US tour, including a protest at Carnegie Hall in New York and at Seattle’s Benaroya Opera House.

On February 22nd, Indybay reporter Mark Burdett filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court in a federal civil rights lawsuit stemming from his 2004 arrest for "jaywalking" while covering an antiwar protest in San Francisco. In October of 2010 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Burdett was lawfully arrested. The story was featured in a lighthearted manner on the February 23rd episode of The Colbert Report.

Last month, BART riders complained about anti-Palestinian ads posted in the subway system by a Los Angeles-based pro-Israeli lobby called Stand With Us. When the public complained about the ads, BART officials pulled them. In February, a new version of the same ads appeared in BART stations and this time BART officials are refusing to take them down. Bay Area culture jamming activists installed replacement ads on February 21st that say "Stop Israeli Apartheid — Human Rights for All Is The Answer."

While many people were out buying Valentine's Day gifts or flowers, same-sex couples in San Francisco were asking for the right to marry on February 14th. Every year since 2005 same-sex couples go to the City and County Clerks' office in San Francisco's City Hall on Valentine's Day and request to get married. And each year they are denied, so they a hold sit-in until they are arrested.

On February 12th, a benefit is being held for the Red Vic Movie House on Haight Street in San Francisco. Organizers state that "San Francisco is dangerously close to losing this 30-year old worker-owned community establishment. All the filmmakers and speakers in this series are donating 100% the box office revenue to the keep the Red Vic's doors open so they can continue to give voice to films like these that [the] mainstream does NOT want you you to see!" Lovers + Liberators is a fund-raising event for the Red Vic that brings together three films with the themes of liberation and domestic "terrorism".

UPDATE: On February 11th, Mubarak resigned and passed control of the country to an Egyptian military council.

A new mass protest in Egypt took place Friday, February 4th, as plain clothes police and other Mubarak supporters continued to attack protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square. In the early morning hours of February 3rd, supporters of the regime opened fire on the protesters in the square, killing at least eleven.

An international day of protest in solidarity with the Egyptian people was held February 5th. In San Francisco, thousands of protesters, including many Egyptians, gathered and marched in solidarity with the mass movement in Egypt.

In the fall of 2009, a group of war resisters and veterans from San Francisco traveled to Israel and Palestine to meet with their Israeli counterparts in an effort to strengthen connections and share experiences. The group, calling itself Dialogues Against Militarism (DAM), partnered with David Zlutnick, a Bay Area filmmaker, to ensure that the voices and stories of those they spoke with would be captured and return with them to the United States. The new documentary, Occupation Has No Future, premieres in San Francisco on February 3rd and San Rafael on February 10th.