SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Seventy-eight protesters have been ordered to do 5 hours of neighborhood service and pay restitution to keep away from legal proceedings for allegedly blocking site visitors on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for hours in November to demand a cease-fire in Gaza, prosecutors mentioned.
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.
“This can be a victory not just for these exercising their proper to protest a genocide being fueled by their tax {dollars}, however for the rising world motion demanding freedom for the Palestinian individuals,” Aisha Nizar, one of many protesters, mentioned in a information launch. “We emerge from this case even stronger and extra united in our dedication to 1 one other and to the individuals of Palestine.”
About 200 protesters participated within the San Francisco demonstration through the world commerce summit, they usually blocked all lanes of site visitors into San Francisco on the bridge’s higher deck, with some drivers tossing their keys into the bay. Eighty individuals have been arrested, and 29 automobiles have been towed. Protesters demanded that Biden name for a right away cease-fire within the battle 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 courtroom’s provide for a pre-trial diversion program.
The remaining 78 accepted the courtroom’s provide, which is able to embody every particular person paying a to-be-determined restitution quantity to somebody who wanted to be evacuated from the bridge, in keeping with the San Francisco District Legal professional’s Workplace.
“We stay dedicated to making sure that San Francisco is a protected metropolis for everybody who lives and enters our metropolis,” District Legal professional Brooke Jenkins mentioned in a press release. “We are going to proceed to make sure that acceptable avenues for the expression of free speech and social advocacy exist and are protected in San Francisco. I actually imagine that we are able to obtain participating in free expression whereas sustaining the security of our communities.”
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors in January accredited 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 help. Dozens of different U.S. cities have accredited related resolutions that haven’t any authorized authority however replicate stress on native governments to talk up on the Israel-Hamas battle.
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 depend, however it says ladies and kids make up two-thirds of the lifeless. About 1,200 individuals, largely civilians, have been killed in southern Israel through the Oct. 7 assault that started the battle. Round 250 individuals have been kidnapped, and Hamas is believed to nonetheless be holding about 100 hostages.
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