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AP (with additional material by WABC in New York). 5 March 2003. U.S. Students Protest Possible Iraq War. NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES -- High school and college students around the country walked out of class Wednesday to protest a war with Iraq, holding a series of rallies organizers predicted would be the biggest campus demonstrations since the Vietnam War. Tens of thousands of students at more than 300 colleges and universities had pledged to join the protests, according to the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition. Manon Terrell, a 19-year-old sophomore, missed three classes to take part in a rally at Stanford University attended by about 300 people carrying signs bearing slogans such as, "It's the Middle East, not the Wild West." "This is a personal thing for me because my friends are going to fight this war," said Terrell, a civil engineering major. "It's not going to be Bush and his cronies in business suits on the front lines. They're going to take people of color and poor people." Dozens of Stanford professors endorsed the rally, either by telling students there would be no penalties for leaving class or by canceling class. The protesting students say it is their duty to tell people, anyone who will listen, why war is wrong. Protestor: "If I help stop the war then I have lived as a human being." Turnout Wednesday could match last month's antiwar protest, where police had some difficulty controlling the crowd. But the protestors insist they are peaceful, and ask the same of President George W. Bush. In Los Angeles, 18 demonstrators were arrested for blocking an intersection during an interfaith protest as several hundred people cheered. About 1,000 students at Santa Monica City College rallied and 500 Venice High School students left class for a protest on the school's front lawn, waving signs and chanting "No more war, no more war." About 500 students walked out of class at the University of Maryland. Hundreds of students walked out in Texas. Sporadic rain fell as about 1,500 protesters gathered at Penn State University. The protesters later presented the mayor with petitions asking the borough council to oppose war with Iraq and resist elements of the USA Patriot and the Homeland Security acts. About 125 students and a few faculty members turned out in gray, drizzly weather for a rally at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Andrew Pearson took the day off from work to hang anti-war banners from highway bridges and later joined a demonstration at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. "We're trying to show folks across North Carolina that people are ready and willing to disrupt their daily lives to stop the war," Pearson said. And in Milwaukee, 40 students lined the sidewalk in front of the Marquette University student union during an hour-long protest. "It's good to let people know students have a say in what happens in the world," said Abir Chaudhry, 19, who carried a sign that read "God Does Not Bless America Only." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ProletarianNews http://www.utopia2000.org with photos --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bdn7KI.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html ==^================================================================
