For Immediate Release On:          

April 1, 2004

Contacts:

DASW Media Hotline 415-305-5345

                    Jackie Thomason         510-332-5998       

www.actagainstwar.org

 
PRESS CONFERENCE : ONE YEAR LATER

 

U.N. Letter Calls for the U.S. and the Oakland Police to Respect Human Rights One Year After the April 7th Police Attack on Peaceful Anti-War Picket

 

Direct Action to Stop the War Announces a Return Picket at the Oakland Docks, Demanding an End to Human Rights Abuses from Oakland to Iraq

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When:            11:00 a.m. Monday, March 5, 2004

 

Where:           Oakland City Hall, Frank Ogawa Plaza (Front steps, 14th and Broadway)

 

Who:              Direct Action to Stop the War, community and longshore union members, and representatives from People United for a Better Oakland (PUEBLO). Speakers will include Willow Rosenthal, who was permanently injured by police on April 7, Clarence Thomas, the ILWU Local 10 delegate to U.S. Labor Against the War and member of a labor delegation to Iraq, and Police Misconduct attorney Rachel Letterman, with the American Civil Liberties Union and National Lawyers Guild legal team in a Federal civil rights class action lawsuit on behalf of ILWU Local 10 and participants in the April 7, 2003 community picket at the Oakland Docks.

What:             The Press Conference will announce the release of the UN Commission on Human Rights� letter to the United States regarding human rights violations at the April 7, 2003 community picket. The U.N. Commission�s letter is scheduled for release before Monday, and the Press Conference will discuss its contents if the letter is released on schedule.

 

The coalition will announce plans to hold a community picket at Stevedoring Services of America Corporation (SSA) at the Oakland Docks on April 7, 2004. They will demand that the U.S. government  respect human rights from Oakland to Iraq and that SSA halt its profiteering from the illegal occupation of Iraq.

 

On April 7, 2003, over 700 residents participated in a community picket against the corporate war profiteers, Stevedoring Services of America and American President Lines. After holding closed meetings with these corporations, the Oakland police opened fire for two hours with potentially lethal wooden bullets, metal-shot-filled bags and concussion grenades. Three  members of the media, nine longshore workers and 50 community members were injured and 31 people were arrested in the most violent attack on any anti-war demonstration in the US in recent history.

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