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On January 23, hundreds of local activists met the anti-choice Walk for Life at Market and Powell Streets, shouting down their repressive message with loud, spirited, no-holds-barred pro-choice chants. The religious-based walk busses in thousands of anti-choice activists annually on the anniversary of Roe v Wade in an attempt to drown out locals in the pro-choice city of San Francisco.
Walk for Life marchers are told to keep eyes forward and not engage with their adversaries, but some members of the anti-abortion group giggled, pointed and stared when they witnessed a counter-demonstrator in a clever vagina costume on the sidewalk alongside their march. The two sides were kept apart by a long line of policemen with riot gear. Other street theater tactics included women wearing bloodied white pants and men waving hangers. One of the Raging Grannies held up a twisted wire hanger and a knitting needle shouting, "illegal abortions...never again!"
Stop Patriarchy organized the pro-choice response for the second year in a row, bringing a renewed radical presence to the annual event. The Walk for Life has marched through San Francisco since 2005.
 Audio |
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Pro-Choice Counter Protesters Block Anti-Abortion Walk for Life in Washington D.C. | Stop Patriarchy
Previous Related Indybay Feature:
Anti-Abortion Forces Bused in to San Francisco Counter-Protested by Pro-Choice Activists
(2015)
On Black Friday 2014, following the grand jury announcement it would not recommend indicting police officer Darren Wilson for the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, fourteen Black activists chained themselves together on a BART transit platform “to prevent trains from moving at the West Oakland station, in response to the seemingly unending war against Black communities.” District Attorney Nancy O'Malley and BART pursued criminal charges and originally $70,000 in restitution. Now, after a year-long campaign by the Black Friday 14 and a broad coalition of allies, the DA has dropped all the charges.
The ACLU of Northern California and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office have reached a settlement agreement that will ensure that women are able to choose whether they receive pregnancy testing in the county’s jails. The agreement is the result of a lawsuit, Harman v. Ahern, filed by the ACLU on behalf of two women who were forced to take pregnancy tests while in custody. The suit argued the policy was a violation of the California Constitution, the U.S. Constitution and state statutory law.
Phyllida Burlingame, Reproductive Justice Policy Director at the ACLU of Northern California, said, “The county’s stated intent was to protect the reproductive health of women in its custody, but forcing all female arrestees to undergo pregnancy testing violated their rights and left our clients feeling humiliated.”
Susan Harman, one of the plaintiffs, who was 69 when she was required to undergo a pregnancy test, is happy with the outcome of the case. “I am pleased that Alameda County is changing its practices to better support women. Pregnancy testing may be useful and should be offered, but it should always be up to the individual.”
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Over 2000 protesters from many different Indian American communities joined together outside the SAP Center in San Jose on September 27 to counter Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of "Digital India" and Hindutva. They raised many issues with Modi's leadership, ranging from forced conversions to Hinduism, Internet surveillance, arrest of political bloggers, harassment of human rights activists, blind eye to rapes, dispossession of small farmers, rewriting of Indian history, and the 2002 Gujarat massacre.
Students at UC Santa Cruz occupied the Stevenson Coffee House for a short period of time on April 27 to expose a person they say is a known rapist who is presently employed at the business. The small cafe, which is privately owned and operated under a lease with the university, is located within Stevenson College on the east side of the UCSC campus.
Women of color are often the invisible victims of police terror. On April 12, the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP), in conjunction with Yuvette Henderson’s family and a handful of other organizations, held a vigil and caravan in the name of Yuvette. The mother of two was killed feet away from an ExtraSpace Storage surveillance camera, yet both the storage facility and the police have refused to release those tapes. Yuvette suffered a head-wound at the hands of Home Depot security, paramedics were called, yet tapes of this encounter not released Yuvette’s family either. The vigil and caravan were held on the corner of 34th and Hollis street in Emeryville, half a block away from where Yuvette was killed. Numerous other demonstrations have been held to demand justice for Yuvette as well.
On April 21, the Oakland Police Department conceded to community pressure and allowed the brother and sister of Yuvette Henderson to review the videos leading up to her murder by Emervyille police, which is rare after a police killing. The family left that meeting disappointed. Upon arrival, they were told that there was no video of Yuvette's assault inside of Home Depot and that the DVD controlling the video at ExtraSpace Storage — where she was killed — was broken that day. So the two most critical events of the day Yuvette was killed are not available for review.
Oakland Police Release (Some) Video to Family of Yuvette Henderson After Community Pressure |
OPD to Reveal Surveillance Video to Yuvette Henderson's Family After Community Pressure |
Vigil, Caravan Demands Justice in the State-Sponsored Killing of Yuvette Henderson |
Anti Police-Terror Project hosts vigil for Yuvette Hendersen and delivers demands to OPD |
Anti Police-Terror Project returns with demands to Home Depot and OPD
Previous Related Indybay Features:
Emeryville Home Depot Shut Down for Yuvette Henderson |
Yuvette Henderson Gunned Down by Emeryville Police in Oakland
The annual Walk to Stop the Silence was launched nine years ago in order to break through the silence surrounding the issue of sexual abuse and provide a healing space for survivors. The event is always well-attended, but this year, on April 11, the crowd was noticeably packed with families and young people whose energy led the walk with chants such as, "Walk to Stop the Silence!" and "Sí se puede!"
On April 13, a group gathered at the Santa Cruz County Courthouse in support of Alix Tichelman, the woman charged with killing a Google executive named Forrest Hayes in 2013. Dozens of pamphlets were handed out in front of the courthouse detailing the case against Alix. Her parents personally thanked the group for their presence.
Free Alix! writes: Inside the courthouse, the defense and the prosecution explained to the judge how much time they would need to sift through all of the available evidence. According to the defense, this amounts to over a terabyte of data. Much of this data is from the computers and cell phones that belonged to Forrest Hayes and they undoubtedly contain many secrets. The court appearance was brief and the next date was set for May 11th. It will be a few months before the trial itself will begin. We hope more people can learn about the case through these words and come to support Alix when the time comes. She is being unfairly railroaded into jail for an accident that was not her fault.
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Previous Coverage: Demonstration on Courthouse Steps for Alix Tichelman
Yuvette Henderson was gunned down by Emeryville police officers Michelle Shepard and Warren Williams on February 3 within minutes of an incident at the Emeryville Home Depot about a block away. Concerned that Yuvette was killed because she was a Black woman, and that police agencies are involved in a massive cover-up, the Anti Police-Terror Project held a rally at Emeryville PD headquarters on February 21 before marching to the Home Depot, where activists used chains and lockboxes to shut the store down for most of the day.
According to the Transgender Law Center, five transgender women of color have been violently killed within the first two months of 2015 in the United States. One murder locally has rattled the nerves of the local transgender community. On February 1, Taja Gabrielle de Jesus was stabbed repeatedly by an unknown assailant while walking down a street in the Bayview district in San Francisco. The stabbing death has mobilized the local transgender community to address their concerns with the San Francisco city government.
Approximately 200 people rallied on the steps of city hall for Transgender Tuesday on February 10. A permit was requested for the event but was denied by the SF sheriff’s department purportedly because the Board of Supervisors were meeting that day. The rally was held anyway without a permit.
 Murders Motivate Transgender Community |
Taja Gabrielle de Jesus Memorial Fund |
TransgenderLawCenter.org
8PM Friday Apr 29
Word to Our Mother
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