San Francisco, CA – About 3000 people joined a spirited anti-war rally and march here, April 10, to demand an end to the war on working people at home and aboard. Organized by the United National Anti-War Committee, protesters gathered at the Dolores Park, marched through the Mission District and returned to the park for a closing rally.

Keynote speakers included Malalai Joya, who was suspended from Afghanistan’s parliament and has denounced the U.S. occupation of her country, and Mick Kelly of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression.

Kelly, one of the international solidarity activists raided by the FBI and summoned to a Chicago grand jury, told the crowd, “The United States has built an empire that spans the globe...in every part of the world people are standing up to oppression and exploitation. The government is trying to criminalize those of us who stand in solidarity with the peoples of Palestine, Colombia and other places who are fighting to free themselves.”

Masao Suzuki, of the South Bay Committee Against Political Repression told the crowd, “As a Japanese American, I see the combination of racism, war hysteria and political misleadership that sent 120,000 Japanese Americans to concentration camps during World War II at work again with the persecution and harassment of Arab Americans and American Muslims such as the Irvine 11.” The Irvine 11 are students who interrupted a speech by an Israeli ambassador, and were then the target of a grand jury. They currently face criminal charges.

The April 10 rally in San Francisco followed the successful April 9 anti-war protest held in New York City.

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