Monday, March 31, 2008

Wearing antiwar T-shirt gets 80 year old arrested














you can purchase this T-shirt at http://www.vegethics.com/peace.cgi/peace06/queerspiritart.30945709


Democracy Now informs us that an 80 year old clergyman was arrested at a mall in Long Island wearing an antiwar T-shirt. He was asked to turn it inside out and when he refused he was arrested. That just seems so strange to me.

It's bad enough that people get ejected from events and arrested for doing this when someone from the presidential administration is speaking - but at the mall?

As long as Bush is president, maybe we all should think twice about what we wear to a protest march, on a plane, to a speech or most any other public event.

just a few more months for his administration to end - 10 to be exact- hope we make it ok.


p.s. be sure not to wear an anti-war T-shirt to the Smith Haven Mall in Long Island.
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Democracynow.org
March 31, 2008


80-Year-Old Deacon Arrested at Mall for Antiwar T-Shirt

In Long Island, New York, an eighty-year-old church deacon was removed from a shopping mall Saturday and arrested after he refused to remove a t-shirt protesting the Iraq war. Deacon Don Zirkel was handing out antiwar pamphlets when he was approached by security guards at the Smith Haven Mall. The guards placed him under citizen’s arrest after he refused orders to turn his t-shirt inside out. When the local police arrived they charged him with criminal trespassing and resisting arrest.


for link to DN headlines click the title of this post


photo: http://images.cafepress.com/product/30945709_240x240_Front.jpg

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Regarding the arrest of DOn Zimmer, the 80-year old former military chaplain, he wasn't even demonstrating when he was arrested. He was sitting in the food court of the Smithhaven Mall trying to digest a cup of coffee and some french fries when mall security guards approached him and demanded that he either remove or turn inside out the antiwar t-shirt he was wearing.

I attended the demonstration. This arrest and the companion arrest of Susan McKeon Steinmann, makes me wonder if we are living in a democracy.

I urge everyone who cares about democracy to write,email and phone the corporate entity which owns the Smithhaven Mall and explain the Bill of Rights to them. Here is their address:

Simon Property Group, Inc.
225 West Washington Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46204

(317) 636-1600

www.simon.com