Atlantans to mark 6th year of Iraq occupation with march, speakers and sneakers
Atlantans will commemorate six years of death and destruction, and demand an end to occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, this Thursday, March 19. Activities will include an educational forum at 3 p.m. at Georgia State University; and a veterans-led march from Woodruff Park to CNN at 5, which will culminate with a symbolic shoe-throwing at an effigy of George W. Bush.
“The Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at Bush, was sentenced to three years in prison,” said Azi Ebrahimi of the American Friends Service Committee, cosponsor of the day’s events with the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition. “Yet no charges have been leveled at those who caused the deaths of a million Iraqis and thousands of US troops, and the displacement of 4 million more. As we throw our shoes at an effigy of Bush, we will repeat the words of al-Zaidi: ‘This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.’”
The 3 p.m. forum in room 24 of GSU’s Aderhold Learning Center, 60 Luckie Street, is the Atlanta stop of the Cost of War tour, which is visiting 6 Georgia cities this week. Speakers include Iraqi native Raed Jarrar, who has been featured on Western media outlets as an Iraq War expert; and Jason Hurd, southeast regional director of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Jarrar, who was born in Baghdad, came to the US in 2005 and has worked on many Iraq-related projects as a translator, interpreter, consultant and political analyst. Beginning in 2006, he has arranged a series of face-to-face meetings between U.S. and Iraqi leaders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raed_Jarrar). Hurd spent ten years in the Army and National Guard and was deployed to Iraq in 2005 as a medic. Since returning to the U.S. he has been an advocate for Iraq veterans and a leading voice in the G.I. resistance movement.
The day will end with a Free Concert at 8 p.m. at Metropolitan Warehouses, 675 Metropolitan Parkway (fishmarket D-125).