CONFRONTATION IN PINK — CODEPINK Activist Arrested At Rove Protest

Earlier that afternoon, about 70 protestors gathered on the property of the Renaissance Hotel in Austin. One activist was almost arrested, but the police officers with the City of Austin let that person go. At that point, the police were “great,” according to Carl Rising-Moore, field director for Veterans of Peace. A negotiation was brokered with hotel security officials to move the protestors onto a grassy area at the hotel’s entrance.

Along both sides of the street, the protestors chanted slogans, performed music, recited poems, and unfurled such banners as “Rove: Guilty of crimes against humanity,” “Bring Troops Home Now,” “Turd Blossom = Bush’s Brain,” and “Liar Liar Bush On Fire.”

“Give me liberty or give me death,” shouted one protestor. “Save our republic!”

Vehicles driving by the protestors honked their horns in support. Three protestors handed out leaflets to vehicles pausing for the stop sign. Several vehicles in the hotel parking lot were dotted with flyers denouncing the dinner guest of the Associated Republicans of Texas.

To enter the hotel to get closer to the reception inside, the protestors then decided to have a snack inside the hotel’s restaurant. In all, about four or five other tables filled up with protestors who displayed their posters, talked amongst themselves, and nibbled on their food in relative peace. At one table, a protestor was breast-feeding her child; however, one person, perhaps accident prone, spilled some water at another table.

Some activists also stood inside the hotel silently holding American flags and signs: “Peace Now,” “We Love Our Troops! Don’t Let Them Die For Lies!!” “King Karl The Kleptocrat Stealing Elections,” and “Killer King Karl Murdering The Bill of Rights.”

Other activists attempted to start conversations with the guests of the Republicans during a happy hour reception, but the guests for the most part kept on sipping their drinks and chatting amongst themselves. A handful of Austin police officers were present, one standing between the two groups. Rove, ART’s guest of honor, did not attend the reception, though he was scheduled to speak to the Republicans during the dinner.

Inside the hotel, the activists escalated their message-making. One protestor was seen traveling up and down the elevator with a pink sign that read “Rove Is A MISleader.” On the other end of the hotel’s closed courtyard, a small group of protestors unfurled a three-story banner that read “Rove v. Truth: No Contest. Pink Slip Rove.” from a sixth story balcony and chanted “Tis the Season. Karl Rove For Treason.” A dozen guests at the hotel, hearing the chants, came out from their rooms to check out the action. The chanting soon petered out.

However, moments later, Cindy Sheehan and a half a dozen members of CODEPINK Austin, the later of whom were dressed in their very own handmade pink police uniforms, arrived downstairs from one of the six hotel rooms they had reserved there. With yellow crime scene tape, the wom