Demonstrators protest Gitmo
Article Last Updated: 08/25/2008 03:03:32 PM MDT
Protesters walk down the 16th Street Mall past mounted police as the city prepares for the start of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Monday, Aug. 25, 2008. (AP | Matt Rourke)
A crowd of several hundred protesters and curious onlookers made their way down the 16th Street Mall downtown for a protest about the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The group, also supporting jailed activists, is now gathered in front of the U.S. District Courthouse listening to speeches and watching a mock interrogation of prisoners.
The event began at Civic Center, and was led by two men in orange jumpsuits, and others in black hoods. Marching down the 16th Street Mall, they shouted, “Stop the torture, stop the war.” The protesters, estimated at several hundred, were at a rally at Civic Center Park near the state Capitol when they began pouring down the mall at midday, hours before the Democratic National Convention was to start.
Some were dressed like inmates at the infamous Abu Graib prison in Iraq.
They said they were protesting U.S. detention of people they called political prisoners, including American Indian activist Leonard Peltier. Peltier is serving a life sentence for killing two FBI agents during a 1975 standoff on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Some of the marchers said they were headed toward the federal courts complex several blocks from the Capitol. They briefly walked in two lanes set aside for shuttle buses on the mall, but they got back onto the broad walkways at the direction of police.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Monday, August 25: Tensions flare briefly as anarchists block 16th Street Mall buses, tangle with cops. Go here for the article.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
The Denver Post reported that more than a thousand protesters marched to the gates of the Pepsi Center, temporarily closing down access to the site of the Democratic National Convention. Go here for that article.
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