Victory for 'David Price Six'

Due to overwhelming community support and pressure on North Carolina Rep. David Price, first degree trespassing charges were dropped against six students who were arrested during a Feb. 16 occupation of Price’s Chapel Hill office demanding that he vote against war funding.

Laura Bickford, Ben Carroll, Alisan Fathalizadeh, Sara Joseph, Dante Strobino and Tamara Tal, six members of both Raleigh FIST (Fight Imperialism-Stand Together) and Chapel Hill SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), dubbed the “David Price Six,” appeared in court on May 7 to face trespassing charges stemming from the occupation of Rep. Price’s office on February 16, expecting a full trial. Prior to when the trial was supposed to begin, a powerful rally with over 100 supporters was held on the steps of the courthouse, during which time solidarity statements were delivered from other organizations, and supporters chanted against the war and continued war funding. Those rallying outside packed the courthouse when the time came, demonstrating support and solidarity with the six facing charges. The David Price Six had planned to use the witness box to project their political message and put Rep. Price, the Democratic Party and the Iraq war on trial. Instead, when their lawyers presented a letter written by David Price asking for the charges to be dropped, the judge dismissed the case in the “interest of justice.”

With the courtroom no longer available as a platform to put forth their politics, the six students and their supporters again took to the steps of the courthouse, this time to testify as they would have in court. They demanded that Price and other Democrats, who were elected into the majority of both houses of Congress in November 2006 with a mandate to end the war, move beyond empty rhetoric and take concrete steps to end the war—this means cutting off the war funds now! The six pointed to the needs of people here—including rebuilding the Gulf Coast and providing health care, education, housing, jobs, and childcare—that the money that is continuing the occupation should be used for. While the Democrats and the rest of the politicians in Washington continue to play games with war funding and hide behind non-binding timetables, the working people of this country continue to suffer and the people of Iraq are forced to live under the violence of occupation. The David Price Six vowed to continue to build the struggle against war funding and maintain pressure on Rep. Price until he acts upon the will of the people he claims to represent.

While the Democratic Party continues maneuvering to pretend that it is offering a challenge to the continuation of the war, the movement must stay in the streets and keep taking actions like those of the David Price Six and the more than 200 other people arrested at the offices of Congressional representatives across the country since February 2007. Every day that the occupation continues, resistance in Iraq and here at home is growing. It is the power of the people that will stop this criminal war, not the whims of politicians in Washington.