Hundreds of Protestors In Washington, D.C., Demand Increase in Bush Administration Contribution to Global AIDS Fund
Hundreds of AIDS activists yesterday marched in downtown Washington, D.C., demanding that the Bush administration give more money to international and domestic HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs, the Washington Post reports. Protestors at the event said that the administration's $500 million pledge to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was not enough, and they called on the administration to spend $2.5 billion on global AIDS initiatives, according to the Post. During the march to the White House, some protestors carried fake body bags with the words "Bush: Stop AIDS Deaths" stenciled on them. Paul Davis, a director of the Health GAP Coalition, said that President Bush "has not kept his promises to respond to the global AIDS disaster," the Post reports. "He's a man without a plan," Davis said. The march -- organized by the Health GAP Coalition, the New York and Philadelphia chapters of ACT UP and others -- drew several hundred people from cities such as New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore and ended with the pre-arranged arrest of 31 people who linked themselves together with chains and lay down on their backs outside the White House fence. U.S. Park Police said that the protestors were charged with conducting a stationary demonstration in a restricted area, which is a misdemeanor (Fernandez, Washington Post, 11/27).
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