WRMEA, August 2010, Page 64

Waging Peace

Free Gaza Protesters Dare Sherman to Arrest Them

(L-r) Medea Benjamin, Ramzi Kysia, Col. Ann Wright, and Susan Kerin risk arrest at Congressman Brad Sherman’s Capitol Hill office. (Staff Photo Imaan Ali)

ACTIVISTS from the Free Gaza Movement voluntarily offered themselves up for arrest in Congressman Brad Sherman's (D-CA) office at the Rayburn House Office Building on June 10.

The demonstrators were reacting to Sherman's public statement that those aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, attacked by Israel in international waters on May 31, should be prosecuted under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

"We are here to call his bluff," said Ramzi Kysia, a leading Free Gaza activist. The demonstrators were not arrested, thereby proving that Sherman's statements were mere publicity tactics.

During the demonstration, participant Tighe Barry held up a picture of a playground in Palestine. "I built these playgrounds in Gaza for the children," he said.

In the midst of making these statements in the main entrance of the Rayburn House Office Building, the demonstrators were urged by security to relocate outside the building.

"There are press conferences here all the time," pointed out Kysia, but the group complied.

Once outside, Medea Benjamin, activist and co-founder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace, drew attention to the positive impact Israel's May 31 attack has had on U.S. policy. According to Benjamin, "the fact that the U.S. government realizes the siege is not sustainable" is a sign of hope for future policy changes.

"We cannot allow our country to become a place where human rights workers...fear for their government," said Kysia.

Other demonstrators included activist Susan Kerin (see p. 32) and retired U.S. Army Col. and diplomat Ann Wright, who resigned from the State Department in opposition to the war in Iraq, and participated in the flotilla.

CODEPINK is currently taking donations to fund a tour for activists who were on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla to tell the truth about the events off the coast of Gaza.

—Karina Kainth