Sacramento Coalition to End the War

UPDATE: For Immediate Release
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Contact: Cres Vellucci, Coalition to End the War, 916-996-9170

ATTN: NEWS DESK

January 9 trial set in Federal Court
for 4 vets, mother of U.S. Iraq veteran for
asking Rep. Doris Matsui to sign a peace pledge

SACRAMENTO – A date of January 9, 2008 was set Tuesday in a Federal Court
hearing here for 10 peace advocates – including four veterans and the
mother of a soldier who just returned from Iraq – arrested last Sept. 17 in
the office of Rep. Doris Matsui.

The "Matsui 10" were arrested Sept. 17 after they walked into the 12th
Floor office of Rep. Matsui and asked her to sign a "Declaration of Peace,"
which commits members of Congress to not vote for any further funding for
the war in Iraq. She would not do so, and then her staff was directed to
arrest the peace advocates, including several grandmothers and great
grandmothers.

They are being charged under a federal code section for "disturbance,"
which carries a fine of up to $5,000 and/or 30 days in jail.

All demonstrations pleaded not guilty Tuesday. They issued the following
release:

"We find it sad and disturbing that Rep. Doris Matsui will not meet with
veterans opposed to the war, then directs her staff to arrest nonviolent
peace advocates who were only asking that she sign a peace pledge.
Meanwhile, last week, she voted not to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney,
the one person most responsible, in addition to the President, to starting
the Iraq War.

"According to a report in the news today, the total cost of this war is
more than $2 trillion dollars. In the human terms, nearly 4,000 U.S. troops
have died with tens of thousands horribly wounded, and as many as hundreds
of thousands of Iraqi killed.

"We have politely tried to meet with Rep. Matsui. She refuses, and claims
she is opposed to the war, but she will not agree, in writing, to stop
funding the war. It is past time for the voters of her district to not only
ask, but demand, that Rep. Matsui sign the Declaration of Peace to end the
war now, not, as she says, when it is ‘responsible' to do so."

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