WASHINGTON : US police arrested Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a
US soldier killed in Iraq who has become a prominent war opponent,
along with two dozen people for demonstrating without authorisation
in front of the White House.
Sheehan and the other protestors staged a "die-in" in front of the
White House, lying on the ground to symbolize US soldiers killed in
Iraq.
Several dozen sympathizers applauded as Sheehan and others were
taken away, while counter-protestors booed the group.
"Cindy Sheehan has been arrested with about 25 other people because
she was demonstrating without a permit in front of the White
House," said Lieutenant Phil Beck of the US Park Police.
"They lay down on the sidewalk without a permit, they were advised
three times to leave the area, they chose not to leave therefore
they were arrested," Beck said.
"Most of them will probably be released tonight," he said. They
face a 75 dollar fine.
Sheehan became an icon of the anti-war movement when she camped
outside President George W. Bush's ranch in Texas during his August
vacation, demanding he meet her for a second time. Sheehan had met
the president earlier with a group of families of fallen
soldiers.
She had called Tuesday for civil disobedience around the country to
demand the withdrawal of the 140,000 US troops from Iraq as the US
military death toll hit 2,000.
"There comes a time when we have to break a small law, like sitting
down in front of the White House, in order to point out a greater
law that's being broken," Sheehan said in a statement
Wednesday.
"I can't imagine a greater law being broken than a war being waged
in our name, whose justifications have proven to be false, and yet
goes on and on anyway, taking the lives of thousands of people,"
she said.
Ann Wilcox, a protestor with the anti-war group Code Pink, called
Sheehan "the Rosa Parks of our movement."
Parks, who died this week at age 92, helped spark the civil rights
movement nearly 50 years ago when she refused to give up her bus
seat to a white man in segregated Alabama, an act that led to the
black woman's arrest.
"I think middle of the road people are starting to see the futility
of this war," Wilcox said. "We are going to continue putting our
bodies on the line and being arrested."
Sheehan was arrested in front of the White House late last month
along with 370 other protestors and then released.
- AFP/ir