Protestors to announce final plans for march on NATO summit

Press conference with the Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANG8) to be held at 10 a.m. today in front of the Hyatt Hotel at McCormick Place, 2233 S. Martin Luther King Blvd.

 

CHICAGO, IL – After months of negotiating with the City of Chicago and with the NATO summit only four days away, organizers of the only permitted march to the summit site at McCormick Place will announce their final plans for the event.

“After eleven months, we’ve come to the event we’ve been preparing for,” said Pat Hunt, a leading organizer for CANG8.  “NATO is not a defense organization:  it’s an alliance of nations engaged in warfare, we are a coalition opposed to war, and so we will march on Sunday to where the NATO warmakers are holding their summit.”

CANG8’s struggle with city authorities for the right to protest has taken an enormous amount of time and energy by the activists from the broad coalition of unions, community groups, religious groups and peace activists.  Andy Thayer commented, “We’ve worked hard to negotiate these permits because we know that had we not done this, many would fear expressing their free speech in such a charged atmosphere in the shadow of the summit.  It is a sad reflection on the state of our rights that we have to do this, a reflection of the permanent war our country is now in, where as a result, civil rights are increasingly imperiled.”

Organizers hope to have by the time of the press conference a document with the confirmation of plans for the details of stage and sound for the closing rally at Cermak and Michigan.