[Onthebarricades] Fw: [EF!] Boston: Biotech protest draws modest turnout

[Andy]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: CraigGingold 
To: Earthfirstalert at yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 1:38 PM
Subject: [EF!] Boston: Biotech protest draws modest turnout



Photo caption: A smattering of protesters marched yesterday against 
the biotechnology lab being built in the South End. 
http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2007/05/07/1178534353_7543.jpg

BOSTON GLOBE 

Biotech protest draws modest turnout
Marchers say lab will pose hazards
By Scott Allen, Globe Staff | May 7, 2007

About 150 people paraded through mostly empty streets in Roxbury and the South 
End yesterday in an attempt to rally opposition to a high-security research 
laboratory now under construction at Boston University Medical Center. However, 
the protest fell far short of the mass demonstrations that some had predicted.

The "Environmental Justice Parade" had been billed as the biggest public event of 
a broader protest against a national biotechnology conference in Boston this 
week, and police had been bracing for what they said could be the city's largest 
demonstrations in three years.

But the peaceful march, led by a ragtime band and a Vermont-based theater group, 
drew only a fraction of the 1,500 protesters police have anticipated for the four-
day conference. There were no arrests by the dozens of officers escorting the 
protesters.

Leaders of BioJustice 2007, as the protest against biotechnology is called, said 
they were not disappointed with the modest turnout against the biological 
laboratory, where researchers will work with highly infectious diseases to 
develop defenses against bioterrorism. They contended police had exaggerated 
expectations of a big protest.

"We're not playing a numbers game. We are trying to get as clear a message out to 
the public as we possibly can," said Brian Tokar of the Vermont-based Institute 
for Social Ecology, one of the BioJustice organizers. He said the biotechnology 
officials meeting at the convention center "are seizing control of our food, our 
seeds, and our health and they need to be stopped."

"It represents a very serious hazard to our future, and the biolab issue is one 
that really brings all the pieces together," Tokar said.

For weeks, Web-based activists have been urging supporters to come to Boston to 
counter the BIO International Convention, a biotechnology conference expected to 
draw about 25,000 people. Biotechnology may be better known to the public for 
developing new treatments for disease, but critics say it has a dark side, such 
as the genetic manipulation of foods, the cloning of human embryos, and the 
potential for creating dangerous new biological weapons. BioJustice organizers 
had planned nine protest events around the conference, with yesterday's parade 
expected to be the biggest.

Police are monitoring Internet chatter for the possibility that anarchists and 
radical environmentalists not associated with BioJustice 2007 could be planning 
significant disruptions this week. Police have set up a block long protest zone 
at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in South Boston, though there were 
no protesters in sight there yesterday afternoon.

Yesterday's parade, which began on Dudley Commons in Roxbury, brought together a 
wide assortment of organizations, including Boston-area anti war groups, 
environmental activists, and Bread & Puppet , a Vermont-based theater group that 
often joins in protests. The signs carried a cacophony of messages against 
corporate greed and genetically modified products; the sign of a 7- foot-tall 
multi-eyed puppet read, "Property of Genzyme."

Marchers said they were united in opposing construction of the biolab in an urban 
neighborhood populated largely by low-income people of color.

"Right now I want to stop the biolab," declared Bobbi Keegan of South Boston 
Residents for Peace.

However, the protest drew only a scattering of residents to the streets as it 
meandered to Blackstone Park in the South End, and many of them were lured 
outside by the loud music, enormous puppets, and protesters dressed as corporate 
executives. For blocks at a time, especially in industrial areas, no spectators 
lined the sidewalks to see the gyrating dancers, the man on stilts wearing 
monarch butterfly wings, the huge blue-headed mutant and other colorful symbols 
protesting biotechnology.

"I don't even know what they're doing," said Rafael Pena as he watched from the 
door of a high-rise apartment building a few blocks from where the biolab is 
under construction. Adonis Smith of Dorchester was nonplussed when a protester 
handed him a leaflet against the biolab. "It's a sideshow," said Smith, who said 
he opposes the biolab. Powerful people "are going to do whatever they're going to 
do regardless" of the protest.

Howie Rotman , a 34-year Boston University Medical Center employee who has 
organized protests against the biolab, said he was disappointed with the low 
turnout of people living closest to the facility.

"I wish there would be more people because they are the people at risk," said 
Rotman. He said a medical waste fire in March in an existing Boston University 
lab shows the dangers of the new lab, which would be authorized to experiment 
with deadly pathogens such as the bubonic plague and the Ebola virus.

Klare Allen , of the grass-roots organization SafetyNet, which has long opposed 
the lab, said she is still hopeful, citing resolutions against the lab passed by 
Cambridge and Somerville. The Boston City Council is considering similar action. 
In addition, the state's Supreme Judicial Court has scheduled a hearing for 
September to listen to arguments against the lab.

"The structure may be here, but the stuff is not inside and the people have the 
power to stop it," said Allen through a megaphone as she stood in front of the 
skeletal frame of the research laboratory on Albany Street.

BioJustice's Tokar estimated that the protest crowd reached 250 people in 
Blackstone Park, but he said the numbers don't tell the whole story.

He said many people register their objections to the excesses of biotechnology 
through online groups or through actions such as buying organic vegetables and 
getting medical treatment from alternative sources . He said yesterday's event 
was "about what we were expecting."

And Danny McNamara , a member of Bread & Puppet, said the problem of low protest 
turnouts goes far beyond Boston.

"Protests are harder and harder to find," he said.

Scott Allen can be reached at allen at globe.com

====================================================

***

[==> If you're not part of the solution... you're part of the problem <==]

***



__._,_.___ 
Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic 
Messages | Links | Database | Polls | Calendar 
 
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) 
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional 
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity
  a..  3New Members
Visit Your Group 
SPONSORED LINKS
  a.. Northern california lodging 
  b.. Northern california whitewater rafting 
  c.. Northern california 
  d.. Northern california wedding photographer 
  e.. Issue management 
Got Yodel?
Best Yahoo! Yodel

Give us your best

yodel and win!

Yahoo! News
Kevin Sites

Get coverage of

world crises.

New web site?
Drive traffic now.

Get your business

on Yahoo! search.
. 
__,_._,___ 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/onthebarricades/attachments/20070508/7e917155/attachment.html>