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State of the Union: Cindy Sheehan Arrested for "Unlawful Conduct" - Wearing an Antiwar T-shirt

by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 1 February 2006
7 comments

Movement Wars and conflicts Police - Repression USA Cindy Sheehan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested in the House chamber on Tuesday shortly before President Bush gave his State of the Union address because she refused to cover up an anti-war slogan on her shirt.

Sheehan, who was attending the speech as the guest of Democratic Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California, was taken from the Capitol in handcuffs and charged with unlawful conduct, said Capitol Police Sgt. Kimberly Schneider.

A Reuters photographer said Sheehan entered the House gallery a few minutes before Bush was to speak and was directed to her seat. She had been seated for less than a minute when a plainclothes Capitol Police officer took her by the arm, said, "You’ve got to leave," and rushed her from the gallery.

Sheehan did not resist and left with a smile. Rather than hearing Bush say in his speech that there would be no sudden U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, Sheehan was being processed at the Capitol Police headquarters near the Capitol.

Schneider said Sheehan was arrested because she was wearing a T-shirt with an anti-war slogan and refused to cover it up. She said the unlawful conduct charge carries a maximum sentence of one year in jail.

Sheehan, who became a central figure for the U.S. anti-war movement after her son Casey was killed in the Iraq war, won wide attention with an anti-war vigil outside Bush’s Texas ranch.

Sheehan and other activists were arrested in September for protesting outside the White House without a permit, a misdemeanor that carriers a $50 fine.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsA...

Forum posts

  • FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY !!!! YEAH !!!

  • Arrested for "unlawful conduct"??? What happend to the First Amendment?

  • The neocons have no one with the media savvy of Cindy Sheehan. In one brilliant stroke she shows the entire world that this administration couldn’t care less about freedom of speech, and manages to upstage the POTUS. Why aren’t there any Democrats with her backbone? The world could use a million more Cindies, and a whole lot less of the mealy-mouthed, gutless wonders we call our political leadership.

    • Does anyone know what the slogan of the T-shirt was? Please email crowheart @ gmail.com if you do.

  • As Brits, we’re not too sure of the content of the constitution or its ammendments, we were under the impression however, that freedom of speech was the right of the "free people". It seems we too should be watching what we wear as we rapidly become the 51st state. For anyone who wants to keep informed www.starttherevolution.org

    • Cindy is lucky she was not clubbed, handcuffed or shot to death. The Bush goon-squad surrounds him every moment of the day or night. Anyone that comes within a block of him with a critical message, sign, word, ornament, slogan, etc. must be put in irons, arrested, locked up for life. Bush lives in a bubble of security which guarantees that everyone that comes within his sight loves him. Any mosquito that would dare land on Bush would be instantly killed, clubbed, flame-throwed by any of a hundred security guards. Bush travels with an entourage of 1,000 people to ensure that he will never have to view any dissent. He has the greatest security of any president in history.

      For Bush, criticism is tantamount to treason and merits indefinite detention in some secret jail where critics can be tortured, abused, broken, and "reeducated" as in the worst of the Communist days, or in the Mao regime.

      To wear a sweatshirt with an anti-bush slogan or icon, to hold a sign expressing discontent with Bush, is for him a grave felony. Free speech has disappeared with the Bush empire and replaced with NewSpeak, Double-Think. The inquisition in Europe during Medieval times was probably the model for Bush on freedom of speech, or perhaps some of the Adolph Hitler provisions by which people would be shot or forced to work until death let them escape his clutches.

      Freedom of Assembly may not be practiced within six blocks of Bush. And now, if the Secret Police Force is adopted by the Republican SEnate, any criticism will bring instant breaking down of your door, and hauling off to jail for torture and abuse. Bush is the greatest terrorist of our age. There was none in Iraq before Bush invaded by lies, but Bush created terror for the Iraqi people by killing 30,000 innocent people. Who would not seek vengeance for those crimes?
      Peter Fredson

    • Sorry, but she was handcuffed.