PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Pittsburgh Denies Permit for Anti-War Convergence
by Quinten Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2002 at 6:13 PM
quinten@andrew.cmu.edu (email address validated) Pittsburgh

A regional anti-war event to take place in Pittsburgh on the weekend of January 24th-26th, billed by organizers as the largest anti-war event to take place in the last 10 years, is attracting interest from across the Northeast. The event, aimed to protest the seemingly impending war on Iraq, will include a parade, marches, and concerts by artists travelling from as far away as California, and organizers expect over 1,000 to attend. But the City of Pittsburgh's refusal to grant some permits has left part of the weekend up in the air.

strike_.jpg, image/jpeg, 503x329

In 1991, an Oakland rally against the Gulf War timed to coincide with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day had over 1,200 in attendance, according to Pete Shell, longtime local activist and member of the Thomas Merton Center. A newspaper article in the January 16th Post-Gazette in 1991 reported that 500 community members -- including veteran protestors, students, the homeless, and some university officials -- were gathered at that rally. Seventeen protestors were arrested for blocking the entrance to Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute. The Software Engineering Institute is one of the largest recipients of military funding in the area.

The January Anti-War Convergence seems to be running into legal trouble as well, even before it gets started. The City of Pittsburgh has refused one of the key permits for the event, a permit that would have allowed the groups to hold a "parade for peace" on January 25th. Shell said that the organizers have not shelved plans for the parade yet, and noted that the second permit, for a march to take place on Sunday, has not been denied and no problems are anticipated with it. Shell declined to comment further on plans for the parade, citing pending legal consultation with representatives from the ACLU and the Democratic Lawyer's Guild.

The Merton Center has run into problems with permits in the past. The organization is still fighting what they feel is an unfair charge stemming from a rally held to oppose Benjamin Netanyahu's October appearance at Robert Morris University.

"This kind of charge discriminates against poorer, smaller groups," said Shell.

The charge was assessed to cover what the city thought would be the needed level of security for the protest. No problems developed at the rally, which drew an estimated 200 people and a heavy presence from the county SWAT team.

The January convergence -- a term meant to encompass the diversity of tactics and groups that will be involved in the event -- is aimed at the war in Iraq, just as the 1991 Martin Luther King Jr. Day rally was. But a number of things are different. While the 1991 rally took place as US Army reserves were being called up, this rally may take place before any military intensification of the campaign against Iraq has begun. While Shell reports that the rally in 1991 was organized in only four days by a loose coalition of mostly students, this event has been in the works for months and already has drawn 17 endorsing organizations. Labor has also signed on to some of the anti-war events, with the United Electrical Workers local District Council 6 among those endorsing. And while the event in 1991 drew mostly people from Pittsburgh, January's rally is expected to bring people together from a much larger region.

The Pittsburgh Organizing Group's website for the event says that groups are organizing to come from across Pennsylvania -- Erie, Indiana, Latrobe, Greensburg -- but also from neighboring states, including a group from Lansing, Michigan, one from Ithaca, NY, another from Buffalo, NY, and more from Ohio and Virginia. Musical acts are coming from locations as disparate as California and North Carolina.

More information:
http://www.thomasmertoncenter.org/peace/regional%20actions.htm

http://www.organizepittsburgh.org

Photo Caption:
Members of the picket line at the King Farm strike. Morrisville, Pennsylvania in 1938. Farm Security Administration -- Office of War Information, Provided. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540 USA.

add your comments