NATURECOAST COALITION FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE

NEWS RELEASE
TIME SENSITIVE
Effective: Immediately
Friday, June 1st, 2007
For more information, please contact:
Brian Moore (352) 686-9936
Cell: (352) 585-2907

IRAQ WAR DEAD READING AT BUSHNELL NATIONAL CEMETERY NOT SACROSANCT DESPITE POLICE THREATS

Veterans Cemetery Administrator Blocks Peace Group---Senator Nelson's Office and VA Staff in Capital address Police Action on Activists Forced to Wait at Entrance

Some Motorcyclists and Veterans Leaving Entrance Make Ugly Gestures to Group

Bushnell, Florida---Friday, June 1, 2007: Antiwar activists from the NatureCoast Coalition for Peace and Justice and Vets for Peace Chapter 119 Tampa were blocked today by Cemetery police from making a belated Memorial Day reading inside the Bushnell National Cemetery for 170 Florida Soldiers killed in Action in the Iraq War (139) and Afghanistan War (31) since 2003.

Cemetery Administrator Bill Murphy road out in his golf cart to the highway, surrounded by Federal Police threatening to have the peace readers arrested if they entered the cemetery grounds. Brian Moore, Chair of the Peace Coalition and coordinator of the event, challenged Murphy and the police as to "What authority they had to block citizens wishing to commemorate the dead with a quiet reading." Murphy told the small group he had the authority to "block peace activists" because we would "be protesting" and "making a demonstration" by reading names of dead soldiers in the cemetery grounds. Moore challenged Murphy's authority and reminded him that "they were American citizens with freedoms and rights to visit the dead and to honor them with readings in quiet areas of the cemetery."

The police urged the activists to make their "reading of the dead" across the street from the cemetery "on the other side of the highway." Federal Veterans Affairs Police Captain Lunas and her assistant, Sergeant H. Flores, identified themselves as police from the James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital in Tampa. They threatened the small peace group with arrest if they "dared to enter the federal cemetery, or if they did not take their cars off the front lawn" next to the highway, outside the entrance of the Bushnell Veterans Cemetery.

The Peace group crossed the street to avoid arrest, but immediately telephoned Florida's U.S. Senator Bill Nelson's office in Washington, DC and Orlando, to seek assistance. Veterans Affairs Legislative Assistant Jeff Sarpiello, in Senator Nelson's office, advised the activist group he would make inquiries with the VA as to their assumed authority to take such action in a federal cemetery. Sarpiello called the group back on a cell phone at the end of the event and advised them that "apparently the VA ordinances give them the right to deny citizens entry into the cemetery "for demonstrations and protests." Moore told Nelson Aide Sarpiello their "readings of the dead" did not constitute a "protest" nor a "demonstration." No signs nor other instruments were to be used, he said, other than reading from a piece of paper.

Deron Mikal, a Korean War veteran, and local veteran service counselor, and Jay Alexander, leader of Vets for Peace in Tampa, and a veteran of the Panama Invasion in 1989, several of the attendees and readers, were offended by the cemetery officials' denials. Alexander recently led a group of peace activists in an evening vigil outside the gates of a closed Bay Pines Veterans Cemetery in St. Petersburg, where they read off names of the war dead at that time. Mr. Mikal also stated that "these commemorative readings are being conducted all over the country by thousands of Americans prepared to recognize sacrifices made by the country's younger generation as well as being opposed to this war and its destructive impact on our citizens and nation." Mikal concluded that what this reading effort also proves is that "National veterans cemeteries are not sacrosanct nor off-limits to Americans wishing to display their true feelings about ending this war, the welfare of our soldiers and our desire to bring them home now."

This coming Saturday morning, June 2nd, the Coalition will also demonstrate against the Iraq War from 10 AM to 12 noon, at its traditional location of U.S. Highway 19 (Commercial Way) and State Road 50 (Cortez Blvd.) in Weeki Wachee, Hernando County, Florida.

A Vigil for Peace will be held at McDill AFB, June 9th, from 3 to 5 PM, at Dale Mabry Highway and Gandy Blvd. in Tampa.
[attached photos by Jay Alexander;video of event will be placed on YouTube]

 

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NATURECOAST COALITION FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE

 
NEWS ADVISORY
TIME SENSITIVE
Effective: Immediately
Thursday, June 7, 2007
For more information, please contact:
Brian Moore (352) 686-9936
Cell:  (352) 585-2907
 
 
Criticizing Iraq War Funding, Iran Saber Rattling, War Death Increase and Political Promotion of Fear and Intimidation
 
-----Saturday Demonstration, June 9th, Weeki Wachee, 10 AM-Noon
 
Spring Hill, Florida:   Thursday, June 7, 2007:     Antiwar activists will demonstrate against the Iraq War this coming Saturday morning, June 9th, from 10 AM to 12 noon, at its traditional location of U.S. Highway 19 (Commercial Way) and State Road 50 (Cortez Blvd.) in Weeki Wachee, Hernando County, Florida.
 
Demonstrators will voice their opposition on the recent vote in congress for continued war funding with Democratic Party support, America's increasing threats against Iran, surge in civilian and troop deaths in Iraq and use by Republican presidential candidates' of Islamic terrorist threats, national security fears and free speech intimidation in America.
 
Peace activists will also question their own antiwar national organizations fear of speaking out against two major political parties, corporate America and the American military.
 
 
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NATURECOAST COALITION FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE

 
NEWS ADVISORY
TIME SENSITIVE
Effective: Immediately
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
For more information, please contact:
Brian Moore (352) 686-9936
Cell:  (352) 585-2907
 
 
Peace Coalition Co-Sponsors Antiwar Demonstration With Florida Peace Action Network in Port Richey Saturday Morning
 
 
Protest to Include Criticism of U.S. Efforts to Overthrow Democratically Elected Hamas Government in Palestine
 
-----Saturday Demonstration, June 23rd, Port Richey (Pasco County), 9:30 - 11 AM
 
Spring Hill, Florida:   Tuesday, June 19, 2007:     Antiwar activists will demonstrate against the Iraq War and the US Government's latest action to undermine democracy by supporting efforts to overthrow the democratically elected Hamas government in Palestine.
 
The demonstration will take place this coming Saturday morning, June 23rd, from 9:30 AM to 11 AM, at Ridge Road and U.S. Highway 19 (sw corner), in the city of Port Richey, Pasco County, Florida.
 
The Bush administration is funding the opposition party in Palestine, named Fatah, against the democratically elected government led by the Hamas faction who legitimately defeated the Fatah party group in parliamentary elections in early 2006.  The American government on Monday ended an economic and political embargo of the Palestinian Authority in a shameless bid to bolster the new Fatah-led emergency government in a "coup" on the West Bank. 
 
The American decision yesterday to support the Fatah faction, freed up tens of millions of dollars in US aid, plus the European Union has now resumed direct aid; and also Israel is releasing tax revenues to Fatah---that was withheld since Hamas gained electoral control in early 2006. 
 
Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, said in that the American move to back the Fatah faction "looks suspiciously like there's an effort afoot to reimpose single party rule on the Palestinian body politic."    Levy added, "This is not only strange in the context of the democracy flagship that the [Bush] Administration waves,  but its not something which can be done.  The toothposte is already out of the tube."
 
AP reported that a Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, accused the international community of hypocrisy.  
 
The American troop deaths in Iraq this week stand at 3,528.  7 Children were also killed Monday in a US-led Coalition airstrike on a religious compound in Afghanistan, thought to be a Queda sanctuary.  More than 130 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan in the last six months, and the toll is expected to increase dramatically.  There are now 25,980 American wounded in the Iraq War.  Civilian deaths in Iraq, according to "Iraq body count," total 72,000.  The UN claims the figure is in the 600,000 range.
 
 
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