Protesters Arrested for Aping Abu Ghraib as Bush Motorcade Approached

July 23, 2004

When some anti-war activists from Lancaster City, Pennsylvania, heard that President Bush and his motorcade would be coming through nearby Smoketown on the afternoon of July 9, they decided to plan an unusual protest.

Rather than carrying the usual signs, they opted for street theater of a novel kind. They decided to replicate the human pyramid at Abu Ghraib: the stacking of naked Iraqi prisoners.

"We thought it would be an effective way to show our revulsion about the war," says Tristan Egolf. "We took a specific photo of the Abu Ghraib scandal, and we planned to arrange ourselves exactly as in the photo."

Egolf and seven others waited for the Bush motorcade by the side of Old Philadelphia Pike. There were many more Bush supporters there than protesters, he says.

Shortly before 3:00 p.m., Egolf's group heard cheers. Thinking that the motorcade was approaching, the men stripped down to their thongs and got in position.

A woman with the group pretended to be a U.S. soldier mocking the faux prisoners.

The reaction from the Bush supporters was immediate, says Egolf.

"They called us scumbags and faggots," he says. "One guy came up to us and said, 'I don't care how many people we have to kill as long as my gasoline prices are lower.' "

After a couple of minutes, "the police came in and started pulling us apart," Egolf says. They handcuffed six of the seven men, without reading them their rights or charging them with anything, according to Egolf and three of the others.

"They took us down a bank and out of view of the crowd and put us down in a ditch," Egolf says. They stayed there until the Bush motorcade was well out of town, and then the police took them down to the East Lampeter Township station.

There, they were given tickets for disorderly conduct and released after about three hours.

Ben Keely was one of those arrested. "I was roughed up a little bit," he says, explaining that the handcuffs were too tight on him. "My left hand was numb for about three days afterwards."

Keely views street theater as an important way to get a message out. "Holding signs doesn't always get the point across," he says. "We want to make people aware of what's going on in the world around us."

Egolf agrees: "It was an obscene spectacle we did in the name of common decency." But, he is quick to add, "it wasn't an act of public indecency; there was no anatomy displayed."

The police evidently were looking to pin an obscenity or indecent exposure charge on the protesters.

"I heard one of the state cops going up and down the line asking pro-Bush people if they had photos that would show the protesters' genitalia, because it 'would be easier to charge them,' " recalls Van Gosse, a professor at Franklin and Marshall College and a member of the Lancaster Peace and Justice Coalition.

The protesters believe their civil liberties were trampled on. "It's a pretty clear-cut Bill of Rights violation," Egolf says.

The Pennsylvania chapter of the ACLU agrees.

"Street theater is a constitutionally protected form of expression," says Vic Walczak, litigation director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, which is assisting the protesters. "As long as they're not blocking traffic, they have every right to engage in this venerable and creative form of protest."

Lieutenant Jim Ely of the East Lampeter Township police department says, "I'm sorry we're not going to comment."

All six of the protesters pleaded not guilty on July 19.

Once their criminal case is disposed of, they say they are planning on suing the police.