The following very powerful statement was read at the press conference. The member of the AWC who wrote this does not want to give her name at this time and so she wrote it in the “third person” and another student read it.<\/p>\n
“The counter-recruitment protest was an important event for the HCC Anti war Coalition. For one member in parituclarl it was especially important. In 2004, she watched her big brother go off to war after being recruited by the army. She watched as he was sent to Iraq. She worried endlessly about him but he promised her he could take care of himself and that he would be fine. She read his letters every day and prayed that he was okay. The letters kept on coming until one day she got a phone call instead. The voice on the other line said he was coming home…but not the same way as he left. Her big brother is now paralyzed from the waist down and she takes care of him all by herself. She has to deal with so much now, including trying to support her brother. He is now more like her little brother. He just isn’t the same. That’s why she’s here today and that’s why she supports the Anti War Coalition.”<\/p>\n
Shinah Santiago from the Steering Co. of the AWC read this statement at the press conference on behalf of the AWC<\/p>\n
“We are protesting military recruiters for the same reason as students around the country are protesting recruiters on their campuses:\u00a0\u00a0We reject the economic draft in this country that targets working class students for military recruitment because it\u2019s the only way to get money for college. We have seen classmates, brothers, sisters, family and friends sent over to Iraq who have come back permanently injured in body and spirit\u2014all to feed a war against the people of Iraq that has killed over 100,000 Iraqis and 2000 US soldiers.\u00a0For What? We are also protesting\u00a0\u00a0the fact that the military recruiter\u2019s presence was a blatant violation of the campus anti-discrimination policy because of the military\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Ask, Don\u2019t Tell\u201d policy towards gay and lesbian soldiers.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the student government administration at HCC has passed a resolution banning military recruiters from the campus, which was summarily ignored by HCC president William Messner.\u00a0Contrary to Messner\u2019s claims, student financial aid funding cannot be revoked if such action were implemented.\u00a0We students of Holyoke Community College demand an immediate end to military recruiters on campus.It is important for all concerned citizens to realize that this is not an isolated incident.\u00a0On the same week as the event at Holyoke Community College there were two other acts of police brutality on peaceful protesters.\u00a0At George Mason University a Pakistani-American veteran of the US Air Force was tackled, thrown to the ground and choked for protesting army recruiters on the campus by holding a sign reading, \u201cThe Military Lies.\u201d\u00a0At the University Wisconsin at Madison, campus police prevented students from protesting the presence of military recruiters on campus.\u00a0This all comes on the heels of a national protest in Washington that drew 300,000 people and highlights the increasing inability of the armed forces to convince working-class youth to become cannon fodder for an illegal and immoral war.<\/p>\n
Is it any coincidence that in the same week when there was an increase in repression against students protesting the military recruiters, the Army also released a report that it is facing its worst Recruiting Slump in Decades?\u00a0The College is claiming that anti-war protesters started the melee at last Thursday\u2019s protest. This is simply not true.\u00a0The incident at Holyoke Community College was instigated by the president of the College Republicans chapter, Kevin Orzechowski, when\u00a0he pushed and shoved protesters at which point Campus Security stepped in, ignoring Orzechowski\u2019s assault and instead turning on us.\u00a0After an extended period of time, in which the police grabbed and shoved students, the Director of Facilities,Peter Mascaro, ripped a handmade sign from a protester\u2019s hand that read, \u201cCops are hypocrites.\u201d After the protester attempted to reach for his sign,he was immediately restrained by campus security,though was not placed under arrest or told that he was being detained.\u00a0Charles T. Peterson then tried to help the protester from being hauled off.\u00a0The protester managed to free himself while two campus police officers held Peterson down, as a third officer, Scott Landry, maced him in the face.\u00a0The next\u00a0day, Peterson was served with a document from campus security stating that he is no longer \u201cdesired\u201d on campus and was threatened with arrest and prosecution if he did not abide by the order.\u00a0Without ANY due process, Peterson has now lost both his education and has been put an undue financial hardship because the college is his only place of employment.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Charles T. Peterson has had no formal charges brought against him under the HCC disciplinary system or the Massachusetts legal system, making his summary banishment from campus both immoral and in violation of the established internal discipline system at HCC. He has thus been denied due process and the ability to defend himself. We\u2019d also like to state that the\u00a0\u00a0Peterson, is an outstanding member of the HCC community.\u00a0In addition to being active in the Anti-war Coalition he is Vice President of academic affairs on the student senate, a member on the college\u2019s learning community committee, a frequent contributor to the Phoenix Press, the student newspaper, and a tutor in the math center.\u00a0He is also a recipient of the David James Taylor Excellence in Philosophy award. We\u2019d like to thank the hundreds of people who have called the school to raise a complaint about this injustice.\u00a0Please keep calling and keep the pressure on!\u00a0And we\u2019d like to read a few of the statements of support that have been sent to us from prominent citizens around the country.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The following very powerful statement was read at the press conference. The member of the AWC who wrote this does not want to give her name at this time and so she wrote it in the “third person” and another student read it. “The counter-recruitment protest was an important event for the HCC Anti war… Continue reading HCC Anti-War Coalition Press Conference<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grassrootspeace.org\/campus_antiwar_network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}