Seventy-eight protesters have been ordered to do 5 hours of neighborhood service and pay restitution to keep away from felony proceedings for allegedly blocking visitors on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for hours in November to demand a cease-fire in Gaza, prosecutors stated.
The Nov. 16 protest got here as San Francisco was internet hosting President Joe Biden and different world leaders for the Asia-Pacific Financial Cooperation summit. Protesters calling for a cease-fire have additionally blocked main roadways in cities together with Los Angeles, New York, Boston and Philadelphia.
“It is a victory not just for these exercising their proper to protest a genocide being fueled by their tax {dollars}, however for the rising international motion demanding freedom for the Palestinian folks,” Aisha Nizar, one of many protesters, stated in a information launch. “We emerge from this case even stronger and extra united in our dedication to 1 one other and to the folks of Palestine.”
About 200 protesters participated within the San Francisco demonstration in the course of the international commerce summit, and so they blocked all lanes of visitors into San Francisco on the bridge’s higher deck, with some drivers tossing their keys into the bay. Eighty folks have been arrested, and 29 automobiles have been towed. Protesters demanded that Biden name for a right away cease-fire within the struggle between Israel and Hamas.
The 80 suspects confronted prices of false imprisonment, refusing to adjust to a peace officer, illegal public meeting, refusing to disperse and obstruction of a road, sidewalk or different place open to the general public. Prosecutors dropped one case for inadequate proof, and one other particular person declined the court docket’s provide for a pre-trial diversion program.
The remaining 78 accepted the court docket’s provide, which can embrace every particular person paying a to-be-determined restitution quantity to somebody who wanted to be evacuated from the bridge, based on the San Francisco District Legal professional’s Workplace.
“We stay dedicated to making sure that San Francisco is a secure metropolis for everybody who lives and enters our metropolis,” District Legal professional Brooke Jenkins stated in an announcement. “We’ll proceed to make sure that acceptable avenues for the expression of free speech and social advocacy exist and are protected in San Francisco. I really imagine that we will obtain participating in free expression whereas sustaining the protection of our communities.”
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors in January authorized a decision calling for an prolonged cease-fire in Gaza that condemned Hamas in addition to the Israeli authorities and urged the Biden administration to press for the discharge of all hostages and supply of humanitarian assist. Dozens of different U.S. cities have authorized related resolutions that haven’t any authorized authority however replicate strain on native governments to talk up on the Israel-Hamas struggle.
Greater than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, the territory’s Well being Ministry says. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its rely, however it says ladies and youngsters make up two-thirds of the useless. About 1,200 folks, principally civilians, have been killed in southern Israel in the course of the Oct. 7 assault that started the struggle. Round 250 folks have been kidnapped, and Hamas is believed to nonetheless be holding about 100 hostages.
