by A
Friday, May. 29, 2009 at 12:12 PM
BEVERLY HILLS, May 27, 2009 – A wide range of groups turned out to protest Obama’s visit to Southern California this Wednesday at a Democratic Party fund raiser. Protests began around 3:00 pm with a contingent of primarily anti-war protesters, who are disappointed with the contradiction between what Obama said on the campaign trail and what he is saying and doing now as commander in chief.
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There are reports that Obama heard some of the protesters chants of “Obama Keep Your Promise” and that he addressed the protesters calls in his speech, asking them to work with him. However he did not give a direct response to the issue of US troops still waging war against the people of the Middle East.
Also protesting were members from the local Armenian community who want formal recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Among the various other groups participating were CodePink Women for Peace, the 911 Truth Organization, and the World Can’t Wait campaign against torture, which is a project of the Revolutionary Communist Party.
Later in the evening hundreds of Right to Marry demonstrators joined the scene. Things got more lively when the Obama contributors exited the event to the sight and sound of hundreds chanting “Marriage is a Civil Right”. LGBTQI activists, although mostly supportive of Obama, are concerned that he might betray them in much the same way that Clinton did and they are gearing up to put pressure on Obama to take action for marriage equality nationwide.
No arrests or police violence has been reported. However there was a dispute over the use amplified sound in the City of Beverly Hills. Police, (citing municipal code section 5-210-8) repeatedly warned Armenian Youth with a megaphone to stop and eventually threatened arrest. James Lafferty of the National Lawyers Guild challenged the police and asserted that the code did in fact allow for amplified sound with conditions and that the demonstrators were in compliance, but to no avail and the megaphone was silenced. Lafferty said after the incident that he believed that the free speech rights of the Armenian demonstrators had been unlawfully infringed.
