From John Stoner, Every Church a Peace Church:

Sunday 12/7/03 York Immigration Demonstration

We traveled over slushy roads after the night's snowfall to Springettsbury Park in York, PA. We assembled there and walk along busy roads and Rt. 30 intersections to the York county prison, carrying our Every Church A Peace Church signs.

The police were out in force. More of them than there were of us! Riot gear, dogs, guns, handcuffs, support vehicles and all. Yellow tape along all the perimeter of the prison and a phalanx of black uniformed police with a dog or two marching beside us inside the tape as we processed toward the rally point.

Near the rally point (let's say rally line, since we had to stay on the 4 foot sidewalk, strung out like a string bean) everyone had to give up a metal (keys, cameras, etc.) to be held until they returned from the rally line a hundred yards down the sidewalk. Each person was frisked with a wand.

Our message was that there is something wrong inside these walls. After this half-hour rally we marched on to the Caterpillar tractor factory over a mile away to protest Caterpillar's sale of bulldozers to Israel, used to demolish Palestinian homes. The YORK SUNDAY NEWS today reports our vigil purpose with these words: "The activists were protesting the post-Sept. 11 detention of immigrants. York County Prison is one of the largest detention centers for the federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, holding 500 detainees. They were also rallying against Caterpillar's sale of bulldozers to Israel, which they say assists in Israel's "illegal occupation of Palestine." That's fairly accurate.

My reflections afterward are several:

1. It is important for citizens and people of conscience to give public visibility to issues of conscience.

2. It would be impressive if whole congregations, as an act of worship, took their people to this kind of public witness. What a peace church witness that would be -- surely a challenge for ECAPC churches to do what they say they believe!

3. There should be several "layers" of protesters and demonstrators at such an event. In other words, with the increasingly repressive and neo-facist atmosphere of the country, it is increasingly risky to engage in protests, and obviously, increasingly important to do so. There should be concentric circles of participants.

First, at the center, "vigilers" who speak, sing, chant, and listen. Some of these may more intentionally risk arrest. All of these will be at same risk of arrest, given the respressive atmosphere of the country and police/military forces.

Second, a circle of "observers, "people with cell phones, note pads and media contacts who stay on the perimiter as interested citizens; think of them as a citizen's press corps, or media observers. They may be walking, or passing back and forth in cars, sitting nearby, etc.

Third, at the original staging point where the rally assembles, there should be families, children, fresbee throwers and pickners by the score or hundreds, people out to swell the crowd, have a fund day, again with their cell phones, in touch with the second circle of media observers and with thousands of relatives and neighbors across the land. This crowd is made up of people who take no risk of arrest but let the police/military/state know that there is a lot of grass roots awareness of this cause, and acquaintance with everybody who is doing this demonstration. If these people are abused, their civil rights trammeled, more than a few people and newspapers are going to know about it. -- John Stoner