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American Morning
Protests Underway in New York City
Aired March 27, 2003 - 08:55 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: You're looking at a live picture provided by WABC News this morning. This is what mid-town New York looks like at this hour. War protesters demonstrating their opinion in the streets of mid-town Manhattan. They are staging what they call a "die-in" right now. Our own Maria Hinojosa is in the thick of it -- good morning, Maria.
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Paula. This is rush hour in the middle of mid-town Manhattan, Fifth Avenue. Perhaps you can get a sense of what we're seeing out there. Probably about a hundred protesters who at the sound of an air raid came in and laid themselves down in the middle of the Fifth Avenue. They are taken away peacefully with plastic handcuffs by police and taken into paddy wagons that have been set up around the area. The protesters are saying that they want to take to the streets and do these actions of civil disobedience because they believe that the message that they're trying to get out is not getting out unless they do actions like these that are pretty, well critical and taking the anti-war movement to another level.
They have said that they want to disrupt business, as usual. They have clearly done that. The traffic is stopped up back on Fifth Avenue. Probably a lot of people quite upset about that, which is an interesting issue for what happens in an anti-war movement, when you've got to make these decisions. Here is one of the organizers here Judith LeBlanc (ph). What happens when you have Americans who are not so clear about what the anti-war movement is doing and then have you them disrupting and this could alienate a lot of people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think the American people are smart, they see hundreds of thousands who march in the streets of New York City and holding candle light vigils and marches throughout the country. These are people who want to peacefully demonstrate their strong opposition to an illegal war, Nobel laureates, and religious leaders yesterday outside the White House, this is part of a big movement to try to stop this war.
HINOJOSA: Thank you, Judith (ph). What we know at this point, Paula, is we have been told there are going to be actions throughout the day, throughout Manhattan. This is the premier action that has a level of coordination, but they are what you call affinity groups that are going to be doing these spontaneous actions all across the city that we don't even know about, so we will try to capture them as they happen and bring them back to you as we can.
ZAHN: From my perspective here, it almost looks like the police outnumber the protesters. Is that a fair assessment? It's hard to tell from this picture.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, what you're seeing is the police outnumbering the number of people who are on the street and getting arrested. But there are a lot of people who have been marching on the sidewalks that perhaps you can't see, maybe an aerial shot will get that. In terms of the actual people who are getting arrested, absolutely, more police. Although these police are specifically trained to deal with issues of civil disobedience, this is what they do.
ZAHN: We will be checking in with you throughout the day, Maria Hinojosa thanks so much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired March 27, 2003 - 08:55 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: You're looking at a live picture provided by WABC News this morning. This is what mid-town New York looks like at this hour. War protesters demonstrating their opinion in the streets of mid-town Manhattan. They are staging what they call a "die-in" right now. Our own Maria Hinojosa is in the thick of it -- good morning, Maria.
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Paula. This is rush hour in the middle of mid-town Manhattan, Fifth Avenue. Perhaps you can get a sense of what we're seeing out there. Probably about a hundred protesters who at the sound of an air raid came in and laid themselves down in the middle of the Fifth Avenue. They are taken away peacefully with plastic handcuffs by police and taken into paddy wagons that have been set up around the area. The protesters are saying that they want to take to the streets and do these actions of civil disobedience because they believe that the message that they're trying to get out is not getting out unless they do actions like these that are pretty, well critical and taking the anti-war movement to another level.
They have said that they want to disrupt business, as usual. They have clearly done that. The traffic is stopped up back on Fifth Avenue. Probably a lot of people quite upset about that, which is an interesting issue for what happens in an anti-war movement, when you've got to make these decisions. Here is one of the organizers here Judith LeBlanc (ph). What happens when you have Americans who are not so clear about what the anti-war movement is doing and then have you them disrupting and this could alienate a lot of people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think the American people are smart, they see hundreds of thousands who march in the streets of New York City and holding candle light vigils and marches throughout the country. These are people who want to peacefully demonstrate their strong opposition to an illegal war, Nobel laureates, and religious leaders yesterday outside the White House, this is part of a big movement to try to stop this war.
HINOJOSA: Thank you, Judith (ph). What we know at this point, Paula, is we have been told there are going to be actions throughout the day, throughout Manhattan. This is the premier action that has a level of coordination, but they are what you call affinity groups that are going to be doing these spontaneous actions all across the city that we don't even know about, so we will try to capture them as they happen and bring them back to you as we can.
ZAHN: From my perspective here, it almost looks like the police outnumber the protesters. Is that a fair assessment? It's hard to tell from this picture.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, what you're seeing is the police outnumbering the number of people who are on the street and getting arrested. But there are a lot of people who have been marching on the sidewalks that perhaps you can't see, maybe an aerial shot will get that. In terms of the actual people who are getting arrested, absolutely, more police. Although these police are specifically trained to deal with issues of civil disobedience, this is what they do.
ZAHN: We will be checking in with you throughout the day, Maria Hinojosa thanks so much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
