Support Builds For Big Anti-War March On Michigan Avenue

GLN ANTI-WAR NEWS

Support Builds For Big Anti-War March On Michigan Avenue

Over 100 endorsing organizations, the largest local peace coalition since Vietnam War, plan 1st legal march on Michigan

Gather: 6 PM, State & Walton / March begins promptly at 7 PM

After almost 3 years' legal battle with the City of Chicago, peace demonstrators have finally won the right to march on the City's main thoroughfare -- Michigan Avenue. On March 20, 2003 at the start of the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq, the City took revenge on anti-war protesters by arresting over 800 at the corner of Michigan and Chicago Avenues in the City's largest mass arrest in history. It was also the largest FALSE arrest in the city's history -- ALL of the hundreds of charges were dropped in a manner indicating innocence.

Since then, the City has declared Michigan and other major streets veritable "no free speech zones" for anti-war protesters, going so far as to arrest GLN's Andy Thayer and other anti-war organizers last year when they attempted to hold a press conference on a Michigan Avenue sidewalk.

This year, the growing unpopularity of the war, a tighter legal case developed with the help of the National Lawyers Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union, plus a mayor whose scandal-ridden regime is fighting for its political (and legal) life, forced the City to reluctantly grant a permit for Michigan Avenue to anti-war forces for the first time since the war began (mind you, the City routinely granted such permits to the far more disruptive St. Jude's Police League and the Walt Disney-saturated "Festival of Lights" Parade each year).

The central demands of the march are:

End the War and Occupation

and

Bring the Troops Home NOW!

Protesters will gather at the parking lot of Ogden Elementary School, State and Walton Streets, at 6 PM. The march down Michigan Avenue will begin promptly at 7 PM. Earlier in the day, feeder marches and car caravans will pour into a 3 -- 4:30 PM rally at Union Park, located at Washington and Ashland (for details on all of the days' events, including directions by public transportation and driving directions, go to www.ChicagoActions.org).

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