POOR PEOPLE’S ECONOMIC HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN TO ANNOUNCE MASSIVE NONVIOLENT CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE ON OPENING DAY OF THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION

ESPANOL

The poor, homeless, and disabled to risk arrest on August 30th.

On August 19th, the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) again announced its pledge to march from from Dag Hammarskjold Plaza at the United Nations to Madison Square Garden on opening day of the Republican National Convention, with or WITHOUT a permit. Despite threats from the NYC Police Department and false press releases that have gone out from the NYPD stating that we are marching from the free speech zone, in a press conference in front of the Statue of Liberty, the PPEHRC made it clear that we will not give up our freedoms during the Republican National Convention.

From August 23 to August 30, poor and homeless families from across the United States, led by the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, will set up a tent city called BUSHVILLE in the New York City area. On August 30, 2004, thousands of poor and homeless families and others from across the United States will peacefully march on opening day of the Republican National Convention from New York City's United Nations at 45th and 1st Avenue through downtown Manhattan to the site of the RNC at Madison Square Garden. There we will ISSUE A CITIZEN'S ARREST FOR GEORGE W. BUSH FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. We have invited international human rights monitors from across the world to join us and bear witness to our attempts to break the isolation that the poor in this country face everyday.

Background:

Four years ago, the PPEHRC drew international attention (and police repression and infiltration) when we held the largest march during the Republican National Convention in July 2000 in Philadelphia - a non-violent march which was not "permitted." The situation has become gravely worse since then.

The MARCH FOR OUR LIVES: STOP THE WAR AT HOME will show for the world the miserable conditions and human rights violations being suffered by people in the United States, under George W. Bush. We will march because, as poverty, hunger, unemployment and homelessness grow throughout this country, we have been abandoned by our political leaders from both parties, and we cannot afford to be silent. We cannot afford to be "disappeared" from the public eye and the political debates as our families suffer.

While the US government continues to make war and hurt people around the world, it is committing grave human rights violations against its own people as well, implementing economic policies that impoverish and kill people across the US (homelessness, unemployment, denial of health care, water and heat, food, education), while at the same time limiting and repressing efforts of the poor and others to speak out on the human rights situation in the US. THE REAL WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION ARE THE POLICIES WHICH HAVE IMPOVERISHED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES AND AROUND THE WORLD.

During the week-long Bushville, we will be highlighting the WEAPONS OF MASS
DESTRUCTION which exist in our country, and which are being used to violate human rights in this country and around the world. At Bushville, we will be taking international and high level national observers on a special "Reality Tour" in which we will expose these true WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION to be documented by the international human rights community.