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Cindy Sheehan Arrested After U.N. March
Mar 06 6:20 PM US/Eastern
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By PAUL BURKHARDT
Associated Press Writer


NEW YORK


e09012ab987e@news.ap.org Cindy Sheehan, who drew international attention when she camped outside President Bush's ranch to protest the Iraq war, was arrested Monday along with three other women during a demonstration demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

The march to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations by about a dozen U.S. and Iraqi anti-war activists followed a news conference at U.N. headquarters, where Iraqi women described daily killings and ambulance bombings as part of the escalating violence that keeps women in their homes.



Women Say No to War, which helped organize the news conference and march, said Sheehan and three other women were arrested while trying to deliver a petition to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations with more than 60,000 signatures urging the "withdrawal all troops and all foreign fighters from Iraq." Police said they were arrested for criminal trespassing and resisting arrest.

Richard Grenell, the spokesman for the U.S. Mission, said in response to Sheehan's arrest: "We invited her in to discuss her concerns with a U.S. Mission employee. She chose not to come in but to lay down in front of the building and block the entrance. It was clearly designed to be a media stunt, not aimed at rational discussion," Grenell said.

At the news conference, Sheehan said when her 24-year-old son _ a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq _ died in April 2004, "the morgues were filled with innocent men, women and children."

Entessa Mohammed, a pharmicist who works at a hospital in Baghdad, became tearful when recalling the deaths and injuries she said she has witnessed daily.

She estimated that 1,600 Iraqis are killed in Baghdad every month, with a greater number injured. "Thanks for the liberation from Saddam" Hussein, Mohammed said, addressing the Bush administration, "now please go out."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

alicia-w wrote:People have been arrested for years for peaceful demonstrations. This isnt anything new. She has my sympathies. My son was in the Air Force and got out due to a heart ailment right before the Iraq war. It was an answer to my prayers. Being against a war doesnt make you against your country. I'm a DoD employee and I dont support this Iraq war effort one little bit. (Afghanistan is a totally different story.) It's a free country. The woman's lost so much. Let her do what she think she must to say her peace.

Aslkahuna wrote:If you have listened to her speak then you know that she is a hypocrite of the first order using her son's death in the service of his Country to pursue a political agenda of Condemnation of that Country. She deserves no sympathy whatsoever at this point. The main question about this thread though, is how a political topic slipped through the Mods because anything about Sheehan is political.

Steve

Aslkahuna wrote:As long as she was protesting the war, it was acceptable but when she started cozying up to people like Hugo then she crossed over.

Steve