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Direct Action Shuts Down Pittsburgh War Profiteer

Large-scale civil disobedience and direct action has successfully shut down the National Robotics Engineering Center in Pittsburgh, a world leader in warfare robotics.
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On Friday, March 2, Pittsburgh Organizing Group (POG) and supporters set out to shut down the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC), a Pentagon-funded venture of Carnegie Mellon University, that has become a world leader in warfare robotics. Hours before the 7am march in Friendship Park, some affinity groups cut the cops to the chase and began barricading NREC. All vehicular and pedestrian traffic was subsequently cut off. More than 20 people barricaded the facility, locked down to various gates and entrances. A tripod structure was erected at the front gate.

The police and fire department took five and a half hours to cut free the protesters at the back gate. During that time, 125 supporters cheered, chanted and sang in solidarity at the railroad tracks facing the barricade. Most of the corporate and independent media were in attendance interviewing people and reporting on the events. Coverage was reportedly on radio and television repeatedly throughout the morning. Midway through the action, the protest marching band showed up playing tunes, waving flags and kept everyone's spirits high. A banner was dropped from the nearby 40th Street Bridge that read, "Shut Down the War Machine: Stop NREC." The march that left Friendship Park brought an additional 30 or so people to the scene earlier on. Protesters at the front barricades unlocked and dismounted around noon after learning that we've successfully shut the facility down for the day.

In total 14 people were arrested (all at the back gate barricade). POG is organizing an emergency jail solidarity action at the county jail on 2nd Avenue downtown starting at 6pm tonight (Friday). Bring blankets, food/drinks to share, and your energy to help support those inside. We are in need of donations to our legal defense fund. If you support tangible civil disobedience against the war, if you want to help those who are putting their bodies on the line, if you want to be there but can't for whatever reason, then please consider ensuring that those arrested will have adequate legal representation and not linger in jail. Please donate on our Web site if you can! Or drop off cash or mail a check (made out to "Brian DiPippa"), to POG, c/o the Thomas Merton Center, 5125 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15224.

For more than four years POG has taken a variety of actions to oppose this war and the militaristic system that gave rise to it. POG has organized 50+ actions at our local military recruiting station (shutting down the station on numerous occasions) and done educational outreach at local high school. We brought 3000 people into the streets before the war began and shutdown downtown Pittsburgh when shock and awe began. We've held sit-ins, organized creative street theatre, banner drops and dozens of other acts of resistance. All of our efforts have been towards one aim: to do everything in our power to oppose this war and change the system that gave rise to it. Today's barricade is but the latest expression of our resistance and the underlying love of peace and justice that drives it.

In solidarity,
Pittsburgh Organizing Group
[ organizepittsburgh.org/m2/ ]
 
 

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