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News :: Civil & Human Rights : International Relations : Protest Activity |
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Anti-War Activists Disrupt Victor Ashe Lecture at Polish University |
Current rating: 0 |
by Anna Thompson
Email: annathompson32 (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!) |
02 Dec 2004
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Activists disrupted a public presentation given by former Knoxville Mayor Victor Ashe to confront him about US military action and repression of human rights in Iraq. Victor Ashe, who is now the US ambassador to Poland, was George Bush's roomate at Yale and, like Bush, a cheerleader. He has close personal ties to the current Bush administration having visited him many times at his ranch in Crawford, TX. Bush has often refrred to the "special relationship" Poland and the US have in fighting the war in Iraq. |
Victor Ashe, former Mayor of Knoxville and current US Ambassador to Poland tried rather feebly to avoid answering questions with any substance about the war in Iraq when addressing students during his recent lecture at a Polish University. When Ashe was confronted by Polish students critical of the US actions in Fallujah he simply responded with, "Well, we have different opinions about that," and failed to substantively answer their questions, according to student reports.
Students also report that he tried to pretend he wasn't bothered by the questions about US military action in Iraq by saying, "Hey, it's great that Poland is a democracy with vigorous debate" to which students responded, "How can you talk about free speech when there are security guys who've come through the door who look menacingly at us just because we're asking difficult questions?"
Activists report that at first it was unclear whether Ashe was really getting deaf or only pretending not to understand questions posed to him in English because they bothered him; but by the end of the whole session, each time someone asked a question in quite acceptable English and Ashe turned to his translator, the whole audience burst out laughing because he seemed to require English to English translations.
Members of the audience were confused and dumbfounded by Ashe's apparent lack of ability to answer even the most basic questions posed to him, noting that he could be just using delaying tactics while he thought of what to answer, but he did this even to several very innocent questions.
Eventually one of audience asked a question directly in Polish noting that if he doesn't understand English then it would be better speak in Polish and because at least then the audience would be able to understand the questions that Ashe didn't want to answer...
Some audience members felt that the anti-war activists were behaving improperly and tried to discredit their actions with arguments such as "the people who interrupted were
ignorant," and they "were opposing free speech."
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See also:
http://pl.indymedia.org/pl/2004/11/10338.shtml
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This work is in the public domain. |
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Re: Anti-War Activists Disrupt Victor Ashe Lecture at Polish University |
by Moyano
B_Moyano (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
02 Dec 2004
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Good to see our tubby little Skull-and-Bones cheerleader can't escape the people. |
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Re: Anti-War Activists Disrupt Victor Ashe Lecture at Polish University |
by Darek
DarekNovySvet (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
02 Dec 2004
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Nice piece, but where and when exactly the thing happened? Could anybody help, please? |
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Re: Anti-War Activists Disrupt Victor Ashe Lecture at Polish University |
by anna
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 1
02 Dec 2004
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This event happened on November 24th at 10:30am at Wydziału Prawa University in Poland. For more info go to http://pl.indymedia.org/pl/2004/11/10338.shtml |
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Re: Anti-War Activists Disrupt Victor Ashe Lecture at Polish University |
by konradino (Indymedia Poland)
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
04 Dec 2004
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It happened exactly in Torun on Nicolaus Copernicus University, see http://www.uni.torun.pl/en/ |
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Re: Anti-War Activists Disrupt Victor Ashe Lecture at Polish University |
by Beth Maples-Bays
beth_maples_bays (nospam) knology.net (unverified) |
Current rating: 1
05 Dec 2004
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I am delighted to see the young people in Poland are holding Victor's feet to the fire. Too bad he was so ill-prepared that he couldn't give some slick answers in true Rove style. I guess he didn't have the equipment taped to his back as did W during the Presidential debates.
GO POLISH ANTI-WAR ACTIVISTS! |
