[Peace-discuss] berkeley anti-war activists need our help - please read

[Ra Ravishankar]

Dear All,

Greetings! Three anti-war activists at UC berkeley have been slapped with
"student conduct charges" for participating in an act of (peaceful) civil
disobedience. A total of 119 activists participated in the act, but these
three are among the most prominent activists, so the berkeley
administration seems to have clamped down on them.

At least one of the three -- snehal shinghavi -- is also a prominent
palestine activist and has been the target of among others, daniel pipes'
mccarthyite website "campus watch", nationalreview etc. "I've been spat at
and yelled at on the street ... I've received over 20 death threats and
an enormous [amount] of hate mail - 100 pieces between October 2001 and
January 2002. I've been the victim of an Internet smear campaign," he
says.

As anyone present at the local anti-war demonstration on march 20th (I
assume that was the day after the invasion) would know, notwithstanding
what was happening in Iraq, the demonstration was a huge morale booster.
So it's not surprising that some people don't take kindly to such acts,
lets make sure our voices don't get drowned.

http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display/13755/index.php has all the
details. Please consider signing the online petition, mailing and/or
calling the UC berkeley chancellor and others listed and signing on to
the letter to "daily cal" (their local newspaper). The list of
signatories include Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Peter Camejo (Green
Party candidate for governor)

peace,
ravi.

ps: a berkeley press release admits the demonstrations were peaceful.
(http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/03/20_antiwar.shtml)