Friday, March 27, 2009

Splitting the Sky in the mainstream media!

Protester to fight charges

By THE CANADIAN PRESS

KAMLOOPS, B.C. -- A B.C. political activist arrested in Calgary during a protest against former U.S. president George W. Bush says he is going to fight the charge against him.

John Boncore, an actor who often uses his aboriginal name Splitting the Sky, was released but faces a charge of obstructing a peace officer connected with the March 17 demonstration.

The 57-year-old* Chase, B.C., resident was at the front of a line of protesters objecting to a visit by the former president, who made his first public speaking engagement in Calgary before 1,500 people at a $400-a-plate luncheon.

Boncore is a 57*-year-old one-time activist with the American Indian Movement who came to prominence during a 31-day standoff between the RCMP and Natives occupying a ranch they said was sacred land at Gustafsen Lake, B.C., in 1995.

Boncore, one of four people arrested in Calgary, said he told the RCMP that Bush should be arrested as a suspected war criminal.

Instead, he said they pushed him to the ground.

"They smashed my head on the ground and broke my glasses and gave me a mild concussion," he said. "Snipers came out from everywhere."

Video of his arrest circulated on the Internet.

"I'm getting kudos from all over the world," Boncore said.

He said the arrest has only heightened his determination to see justice served to those many feel are responsible for violations of human rights in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Ramsey Clark, a former U.S. attorney general under Lyndon B. Johnson and now a human rights advocate, is representing him.

http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/National/2009/03/27/pf-8902701.html


NOTE: in the original article they state that my age is 67. I am in fact 57 years old, so I made this one correction to what they reported.


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