Feature Archives

On November 8th, more than 50 people protested at the San Francisco Consulate General of India against India's banning of Richard Shapiro. Since 2006, Shapiro has regularly traveled to Kashmir, and interacted with various human rights defenders, scholars, and youth to bear witness and to learn from their experiences. Friends and Allies of Richard Shapiro point out that when academics, writers, and journalists are banned, such actions speak to the intent of the Indian State in maintaining impunity, and in deliberately isolating Kashmiris from the world, and the world from Kashmiris.

A week before the November 2nd elections, a group of artists liberated six San Francisco billboards and sixty bus shelter ads to defeat Proposition L, a ballot measure that would ban sitting on the sidewalk. The group, calling itself the Sit/Lie Posse, replaced ads throughout the city with handmade prints rendered in the style of corporate advertising. Confronting the backers of the proposition, the posse lavished attention on sites around City Hall, the Chronicle, the Haight-Ashbury district and many other neighborhoods.

New Leaf, a 35-year-old San Francisco center that offered mental health and substance abuse services for low-income, queer, and trans folks, has closed. Gay Shame organized a protest in front of the Department of Public Health and dramatized their frustration with the department's lack of support for New Leaf with street theater.

A credentialed reporter, who was prominently displaying a press pass issued by the very police agency who arrested him, can be lawfully arrested for jaywalking simply for standing in a parking indentation/turnout while filming an incident on a street blocked off to traffic, according to a decision issued on October 12th by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Indybay journalist Mark Burdett's attorney Ben Rosenfeld says the ruling “confirms many people’s disgust that courts today exist to launder the bad behavior of the rich, the powerful, and the police.”

On Sunday, October 10th, a group known as Creative Housing Liberation occupied Hotel Leslie in downtown San Francisco. This occupation was planned as part of a rally and march for World Homeless Day. Over 120 people convened for this event, which began around noon at Civic Center with speakers, musicians and spoken word. Eventually, the group marched up Larkin Street to the hotel, gathering outside for more performances and speakers, food and music, tours of the abandoned building, and the eventual occupation of the building by a core group of people.

On October 7th, students, workers, & faculty gathered in solidarity to defend public education across the U.S. At UC Berkeley, supporters gathered in Sproul Plaza, marched, and later occupied the North Hall Reading Room at Doe Library. At San Francisco State, supporters rallied, with speakers including Oscar Grant's Uncle Bobby.

On the morning of September 24th, FBI agents served grand jury subpoenas and raided the homes of several anti-war and social justice activists in Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois. The federal law cited in the search warrants prohibits, "providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations." The Supreme Court recently rejected a free speech challenge to the material support law from humanitarian aid groups.

A protest took place in San Francisco on Tuesday, September 28th at the Federal Building at 7th St. and Mission St.