Leading activist group to spearhead protest demanding authorities shut down illegal Qur’an burning.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)—who rallied the Gainesville community in favor of immigrant rights and protests against police brutality—will lead a protest against the controversial Qur’an burning event planned for 9/11 by the Dove World Outreach Center (DWOC). The protest will begin on September 11 at 5PM at the nearby Possum Creek Park from which protesters will march to the DWOC and picket the event.

The DWOC called for an International “Burn a Qur’an day” to coincide with 9/11, which was subsequently met with widespread condemnation from the American public and global community. Although the DWOC was denied a city burn permit twice, they have vowed to illegally burn Qur’ans.

SDS maintains that the DWOC’s Qur’an burning is an illegal hate crime, equivalent to the burning of crosses by the Ku Klux Klan. They are leading a protest of hundreds of people from all over the country to the doorstep of the DWOC to demand and ensure that authorities prevent the crime from occurring. The DWOC’s hate crime sends a message to the Muslim world that the United States lacks any respect for their faith, which only serves to fuel military conflict in the Middle East and Central Asia.

SDS believes that the DWOC’s illegal hate crime must be confronted peacefully but directly by the Gainesville community and the entire American people. This protest is the first step in building a national movement to combat Islamophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment, and racism in the United States.

Who: Students for a Democratic Society, the Arab and Muslim community, the Gainesville community and their progressive allies across Florida.

What: Protest against the organized burning of the Qur’an by the DWOC.

Where: Possum Creek Park, 4009 NW 53rd Avenue, Gainesville, FL 32653

When: 5:00 PM—9:00PM September 11th, 2010

States Attorney’s Office Occupied!!!

Gainesville, FL - Students and community members joined a third rally, April 20, demanding justice for Kofi Adu-Brempong, the African student shot in the face by university police. Over 120 people showed up at the protest, which started in the Plaza of Americas, on the University of Florida campus, and ended at the State Attorney’s office. This took place after several meetings between the Coalition for Justice Against Police Brutality and the University of Florida administration - including the chief of the university police department, Linda Stump and the president, Bernie Machen.

Despite a 50/50 chance of rain, the protest kicked off with a few speakers from Students for a Democratic Society and Michael Leslie, a black professor at the University of Florida. From there, the protesters marched off of campus and into the streets, taking a lane of traffic while chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets!” Marching to downtown Gainesville, the protesters chanted outside the state attorney’s office and shortly afterwards occupied it. The plan was to present a list of demands to Bill Cervone, the state attorney. However, Cervone had left town earlier.

During the occupation, the angry crowd used megaphones and shouted to bring a representative of the attorney’s office out of the back rooms to answer questions. The dialogue ended with a future meeting with him. Afterwards, the Coalition went outside and continued the protest. Gainesville police, who were waiting outside, sat on the sidelines while protesters yelled, “No justice, no peace, no racist police!” The day ended with several speakers and media interviews. The Coalition’s purpose for the rally was to present Cervone with the promise that if he does not side with the demands of the community then he will not keep his job as state attorney for long.

The Coalition will still continue to fight on behalf of Kofi and against police brutality.

By Jared Hamil |

April 21, 2010
Fight Back News Paper

Farmworkers March 22 Miles for Better Wages & An End to Slavery.

Lakeland, FL – Over 1,500 farmworkers and their allies gathered throughout the weekend of April 16-18 to fight for an end to slave-labor practices and for higher wages in South Florida.

Participants of the march gathered first in Tampa and marched over a period of 2 days to Lakeland, ending the march in front of the Corporate Headquarters for Publix Supermarkets. People from Texas, California, Minnes

ota, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Florida and other parts of the country marched in solidarity with the farmworkers. Members of Students for a Democratic Society and the Student/Farmworker Alliance traveled from Gainesville, FL to participate in this historic “Farmworker Freedom March.” The participants marched over 22 miles in their quest for justice.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) has been struggling for several months to make Publix sit down with the farmworkers and sign onto a contract. Such a contract would would make Publix pay a penny more per pound of tomatoes picked by the farmworkers, as well as ensuring that human rights abuses and cases of modern day slavery in the fields came to an end. The Farmworker Freedom March came less than a month after the CIW won their battle against Aramark, a major food service provider, and forced Aramark to sign onto a penny more per pound of tomatoes and a

n end to human rights abuses.

The CIW brought a moving truck that had been converted into a museum to the march. The truck was part of the “Modern Day Slavery Museum” the workers had been bringing throughout Florida as they built for the Farmworker Freedom March. Inside the truck were stories, pictures, and exhibits about the farmworkers who had been chained up at night in such trucks and forced to work, often at gunpoint, as slaves. A group of workers cut through the chains and breeched the roof of the truck before escaping and exposing the wretched conditions their bosses had subjected them to, leading to the prosecution of 7 separate cases of modern day slavery.

Morale was high as the workers concluded the third day of the march by speaking out at rally about why their struggle against Publix was just.

“We from Immokalee may be poor, but we're not alone,” coalition member Lucas Benitez said to the crowd that had gathered from all over the country. The CIW has never lost a campaign.

SDS participates in the justice for Kofi march.

Gainesville students protest police shooting

By Jared Hamill |

March 17, 2010

Gainesville, FL - Over 400 angry protesters - a coalition of students, local residents and university professors - rallied and marched to protest the racist police shooting of Kofi Adu-Brempong.

Adu-Brempong is an international graduate student from Ghana who was shot in the face by a University of Florida policeman. After receiving a call from a neighbor concerned that Adu-Brempong was screaming, due to stress over his studies and his immigration status, campus police stormed his apartment, tased him three times and then shot him in the face with an assault rifle.

Adu-Brempong is hospitalized in critical condition, having lost his tongue and jaw. Incredibly, the police action took less than 30 seconds. Having suffered a case of childhood polio, Adu-Brempong was unable to walk without a cane. To add to the outrage, the University of Florida police charged him with a felony for ‘resisting arrest with violence.’

Gainesville Area Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) led the campus action. Beginning with a rally and speakers at Turlington Plaza, the mass of protesters marched through campus to the Board of Trustees in the Emerson Hall Alumni Building. The Board of Trustees governs the entire university. Since the building was closed to the public, the protesters pulled the doors open, pushed past security and took over the building.

They presented the board with a list of demands, including dropping all charges against Kofi Adu-Brempong. The other important demand is the firing of Keith Smith, the officer who shot Kofi in the face. In 2008, Keith Smith was given a verbal warning by the Gainesville city police department where he previously worked. Smith and three other police officers were throwing eggs and harassing African Americans in the local community. The university police ignored this warning and hired Keith Smith.

As the students settled in, waiting to see how the Board of Trustees would respond, tension rose inside the boardroom. After a half hour, a trustee came out to speak to the protesters. Following his lead, the students proceeded to give speeches about stopping police brutality and continuing the fight for Adu-Brempong. An hour later, the protesters decided the demands of the coalition were clearly received by the board and left the building.

Then the protesters marched to the Tigert Hall Administration Building for another rally, targeting University President Bernie Machen. Unfortunately President Machen was “out of town.” The students chanted, “Justice for Kofi!” and “No justice, no peace! No racist police!”

Fernando Figueroa, of Gainesville SDS spoke: “We will not let up until we gain justice for Kofi. We are taking a stand against police brutality and racism on our campus and throughout the country.” Figueroa continued, “It is astounding to see so few reporters covering the point blank shooting of an African man in the face here. This is the same campus where you could not walk ten feet without bumping into a reporter or TV crew following a white student’s famous ‘Don’t tase me bro!’ incident.”

Late in the afternoon, the student protesters attended a student government meeting to demand a resolution calling for a grand jury investigation of the racist cop. With some persuasion, the resolution passed. With protests heating up in Gainesville, the Coalition for Justice Against Police Brutality vows to continue the fight for Kofi Adu-Brempong.

Source: fightbacknews.org

How We Beat Aramark.

It is slightly old news by now, but after about 6 months of work, we were able to get Aramark to sign an agreement with the CIW that will help improve the lives of thousands of farm workers in Immokalee Florida. It is definitely one of our biggest accomplishments, and one we are definitely proud to have played a large role in.

Gainesville Area SDS had been involved before with the CIW, back when they were focusing on Chipotle and Subway. I attended a protest with some CHISPAS people outside Chipotle, and several of us gave letters to the management of Subway next to the old Civic Media Center, but that's about it. We didn't really kick things off till the Fall of 09, when some of our people went down to Immokalee Florida. They would come back and form a chapter of the Student Farmworker Alliance.

One of the first things we did to kick the campaign off was to submit a piece of legislation to Student Government asking for Aramark to sit down and meet with the CIW. It met with fierce opposition from some members of the majority party, and was unable to get the necessary 2/3 requirement for it to pass. After the election cycle was over, we resubmitted and got the necessary support the next time around. It was a major victory for us, one that other campuses would replicate and something we would put on a lot of our literature.

Our first major protest happened on October 24, 2009. The Alligator reported “over 100” people were at the protest, but it seemed more like 150 to me. It was a Saturday morning, which made it slightly more difficult to get students out, but older community members and a bus load of people from the CIW more than made up for it. We marched from the Plaza of Americas to the Reitz Union, where we heard speeches and went to the Gator Dining offices to leave information. We then went to Gator Dining and chanted outside there for awhile, before going to Publix. It was an exciting day, and got a lot of us pumped up to do more.

At later meetings, we would frequently discuss the idea of how to escalate our tactics to the next level. One of the more powerful ideas we came up with was to create a pamphlet directed towards the Preview students, informing them about the nature of Aramark services on campus and directing them to other sources of food, including free food (which there is a lot of in Gainesville). Some of our people were asked to leave the first couple of time we did this to the Junior level transfers, but Aramark didn't seem to take this very seriously until we did it to the incoming group of Spring Freshman. I had the cops called on me by two different people when I refused to leave.

We had another major protest on February 10th, following a failed meeting attempt with the local Aramark representative. We chanted and marched around the Reitz Union, and refused to stop when one of the Reitz Union managers tried to grab our people. Though smaller, this protest was more militant than the last one and I believe played a large part in showing the administration we were dead serious about our threats of escalation.

When we finally met with the “Big Whigs” from Aramark, they realized we weren't just a group of stupid kids who they could make go away. Shortly afterward, we were informed that their cave was imminent. Aramark apparently cited us as a significant source of pressure for why they caved to the CIW.

The lesson, I think, people should take away from this is the need to continuously escalate. Raising awareness about the issue isn't simply enough: you have to be prepared to demonstrate and to take some direct action against your target that will hurt them financially. Every person we convinced with our fliers not to buy the meal plan cost Aramark $2,000, and our conservative estimate is we convinced about 20-30 students not to do it. Money is the language these people speak, and paying $20 extra for every ton of tomatoes they purchase is a lot cheaper than ignoring a campaign like the one we waged going nation-wide against them.

I would recommend campuses everywhere replicate our campaign. Many people told us our Aramark campaign was hopeless, as they were a pretty stubborn company. It only took us 6 months to force them to meet with the CIW. It probably won't take very long to take companies like Sodexo down with these same tactics, especially if practiced on a much wider scale than our single campus.

Minutes--March 1 Meeting

I. Washington DC, March 20
• Saturday, March 20—Washington DC protest against the war in Iraq hosted by the ANSWR Coalition.
• Transportation—Beto
- Discounts with AVIS, 7 passenger van for $122 (including limited liability and unlimited mileage) for the entire event.
- $35-40 per person to get to and from Washington DC
- Shoot for 14 people
- Travel time: 14 hrs and 45m
• Lodging and Food—Fern
- In contact with a couple friends who could possibly offer lodging
- Food estimates—$20-25
• Networking and Outreach—Justin
- Need volunteers to go to interested groups (IOC [Karim], SJP [Dave/Justin], HWA [Alan Brooks], Amnesty [Jeremiah], ISO [Diana])
- People should see if they have obligations on Friday, because tentatively we would be leaving Friday morning
• Facebook event/Fliers—Diana, Jerimiah
- It will be up tonight.
• $10 non-refundable commitment fee due by final planning meeting on Tuesday, March 16th

II. Summation of Saturday’s Protest
• Titusville rally in opposition to potential NASA privatization by AFL-CIO national office.

III. New terms of affiliation with YAYA
• Youth and Young Adults (Farmworker Group) wants to affiliate with SDS.
• Beto read off several conditions, which SDS already meets.
• The group agreed to allow YAYA to affiliate with SDS in Gainesville.

IV. SJP Event, Wednesday
• This Wednesday at 1130 AM in the Plaza of the Americas
• Guerrilla Theater event representing Palestinians roped off in Gaza from international aid
• Try and show up in red, green, and/or black

V. Quick SLAP Update
• SLAP chapter being started up to link Students with Labor (part of the AFL-CIO)
• Essentially a subcommittee taking on SDS’ labor issues.
• Meeting after Spring Break

VI. March 4th Day of Action
• To defend education rights and oppose budget cuts
• Richard will head up the planning on the Day of Action.
• Justin will contact the Alligator on getting press on the event.
• Meeting to discuss this further will happen tomorrow at 8PM at Beto’s place (Diamond Village on 13th St.)

SDS-SFA Meet With Corporate ARAMARK Representatives

Tuesday, Feb. 16 -At 2pm, a six member delegation of SDS-Student/Farmworker Alliance(SFA) met with two ARAMARK corporate executives and two local operation managers: Robert Dennill (Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility), Rick Martella (C.V.P of Corporate Affairs), Bill Zemba ( Resident district manager), and Terry Stevens (Vice President of Florida Higher Education Sales), respectively. The meeting went as expected-nothing productive was accomplished and the truth was obfuscated. The officials tried to pacify the delegation though rhetoric with claims of "working with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)."

However, we are in direct contact with the folks in Immokalee and we know that nothing meaningful has come out of these meetings between the CIW and ARAMARK and that ARAMARK is just stalling. We learned what pacification sounds like coming from eloquent corporate lips but in the end we always stand with the workers over the bossman. In solidarity with the CIW, we promised to escalate the campaign, along with national SFA, until the three demands of the CIW are met:

1) A Penny per Pound increase in pay for tomato pickers

2) An enforceable code of conduct in the fields

3) Workers having a seat at the table

All we offered to these suits was our promise to fight against the racist exploitation of farmworkers and we made it clear that we won't be satisfied until there is justice for farmworkers.

-El Flaco, J-Miah y El Beto