(Published Friday, March 16, 2007 11:17:45 AM CST)
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
By Frank Schultz Gazette Staff
BELOIT
A demonstration for peace and against the war in Iraq is set for Sunday night in Beloit's Riverside Park.
The event kicks off "Peace Week," a series of activities being organized by a Beloit College student group.
Student Alex Marr of Beloit College Peace and Justice said the activities are timed to coincide with the fourth anniversary of the start of the war, March 19, 2003.
Marr said his group isn't calling Sunday's event a protest, although most or all of the group's members oppose the Bush administration's Iraq policy.
"It's kind of splitting hairs," Marr acknowledged, "but we really prefer to call it a demonstration because the connotations of that word are more peaceful than a protest, and a lot more positive."
The student group is affiliated with a national coalition called United for Peace and Justice, Marr said.
Marr, whose hometown is Mineral Point, said his group is trying to emphasize that the peace movement has a local base.
Speakers scheduled for the demonstration are Todd Dennis of Madison, a veteran of the Iraq war who campaigns for peace in Iraq; Liam Madden, a co-founder of the activist group Appeal for Redress and a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War; Sunsara Taylor, also a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War; and Zainab Abdulhadi Alkahawaja, a Beloit College senior from Bahrain whose father is a human rights activist in that country.
Marr said his group held a demonstration at Riverside Park last year, but much has happened since then.
"There's been such an incredible shift on the ground, the country (Iraq) has dissolved into civil war," Marr said. "The American public is every day more and more against it, and I think the elections in November really showed that, so we really view this as the right time to say what needs to be said."
If you go
A Beloit student group has scheduled the following Peace Week activities, all open to the public:
-- Demonstration in response to the United States' involvement in the war in Iraq, 8 p.m. Sunday at Beloit's Riverside Park.
-- Candlelight vigil, 9 p.m. Monday in front of Pearsons Hall on the Beloit College campus.
-- "Litanies," or readings of the names of Americans and Iraqis who have died in the war, at unannounced times and places.
-- "Fish bowl" discussion with three Beloit College professors, 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Moore Study Lounge, second floor of Pearsons Hall.
-- Presentation by a Beloit College class called The Art and Science of Negotiation, all afternoon Wednesday in the Moore Study Lounge.
-- Public forum titled Student Voices on War, about the future of Iraq and developments in the peace movement, 4 p.m. Thursday in Weeks Lounge of Pearsons Hall.
For more information, e-mail Alex Marr at marra@stu.beloit.edu.
