Sen. Barbara Mikulski Has Her Own Constituents Arrested\
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Nonviolent Maryland citizens protesting Iraq War are taken away by Capitol Police; Senator continues to support war funding\
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Washington, D.C. - At 6:05 p.m. [Tuesday], Sen. Barbara Mikulski had Capitol Police arrest four of her own constituents when they refused to leave her office. The four were part of a group of 20 that nonviolently occupied Sen. Mikulski’s office for three hours that afternoon, reading the names of Iraqi and American dead in a memorial to those killed, and in a plea to Sen. Mikulski to stop voting for continued war funding.\
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Sen. Mikulski has refused repeated requests to meet with the Maryland groups opposing the war, and has said that she will continue to vote for funding for the Iraq war even while she claims to oppose it. She has also called President Bush, whose war plan the Senator is fully funding, a “reckless and dangerous” man.\
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The ceremony was a moving one for the participants, and started with a reading of the names of the 55 Marylanders who have been killed in the Iraq War. A gong was rung softly after each name, and their picture taped to the walls of the Senate office, where they stayed for three hours. Capitol Police and Sen. Mikulski’s staffers also joined the protesters in a moment of silence for those who had died in the war, before clearing the office and arresting those who refused to go.
— David Eldridge, managing editor, washingtontimes.com
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