19 Anti-War Protesters Arrested

The next generation of anti-war protesters was in Times Square yesterday, and, as was the case with its famous Vietnam War forebears, some of its members were arrested for acts of civil disobedience.

On the eve of the third anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, 19 people including the daughter of the late Philip Berrigan, a radical journalist, and a high school senior were arrested for blocking traffic when they stepped into the intersection of 43rd Street and Broadway, planning to read out the names of Iraqi civilians killed in the war.

Frida Berrigan, 31; Eric Laursen, 45, a journalist who has written for Practical Anarchy, the Village Voice, and the Nation; 18-year-old Patrick Korte, a senior at Stonington High School in Connecticut, who co-founded a new incarnation of the 1960s-era Students for a Democratic Society, and 16 others were issued summonses for disorderly conduct, police said. They were given an April 17 court date.

The demonstrators were part of a group of 275 protesters that began a march to Times Square from 59th Street and Fifth Avenue at about 1:30 p.m. Led by the New York City chapter of the War Resisters League, the activists walked in silence, accompanied by the steady beat of a gong and a few drums. Marchers carried posters with anti-war messages, pictures of victims, and three makeshift open coffins.

"We wanted this to be a solemn procession of warning," Mr. Laursen, one of the organizers of the War Resisters League, said. He said he considered the march successful, citing as evidence the fact that some passers-by joined the protesters, bringing the total number of participants to between 350 and 400.

Ms. Berrigan, a senior research associate at the Arms Trade Resource Center of the World Policy Institute who had been arrested for civil disobedience six times previously, was not critical of the police, saying, "They were really decent."

A prominent civil rights lawyer, Norman Siegel, agreed, telling a reporter for The New York Sun that it sounded like police took "appropriate action."

"In my opinion, civil disobedience makes a bigger impact" than simply marching, Mr. Korte said. "We're saying what the government is doing is wrong and we will do what we have to stop it."

The student movement and the antiwar movement in general needs to shift gears to resistance from protest, Mr. Korte said. This was the first time he was arrested. "This is a step. We need to be relentless and we're not going to stop until the United States is out of the Middle East."

Philip Berrigan, whose 1960s anti-war efforts included breaking into a Selective Service office and pouring blood on draft files, was often joined in his antiwar activities by his brother, Daniel, a Catholic priest.