Woman waves blood-colored hands at Secretary Rice, 4 others arrested

5 CODEPINK members arrested this morning at the House Foreign Relations Committee Hearing with Secretary Condoleezza Rice.

Those arrested, Desiree Fairooz of Arlington, TX, Liz Hourican of Phoeniz, AZ, Lori Purdue of Indianapolis, IN, Medea Benjamin of San Francisco, CA and Zool Zulkowitz of Washington, D.C.

Desiree Fairooz of Texas approached Secretary Rice with red paint on her hands to deliver the message that the Bush Administration had the blood of the Iraqis and American military on their hands. Chair Lantos ordered her out. Ms. Fairooz  was escorted out by security guards yelling "war criminal." The Capitol Police then viciously yanked Liz Hourican of Arizona and Lori Purdue of Indiana from their seats, pulling Liz by her arms, legs, feet as she screamed in pain, "you are hurting me! What are you doing?" over and over. They were both dragged into the hall and promptly arrested. Medea Benjamin remained in the hearing room and was asked to leave after flashing a peace sign with her fingers. She collected her belongings, left and was walking down the hall when 2 Capitol Police approached her and cuffed her. Zool Zulkowitz was with arrested with Ms. Benjamin. 

The Deputy Chief of Staff of the House Foreign Relations Committee contacted the Capitol Police later in the day to again relay that their is a policy of that committee to not arrest Citizen protesters but to instead escort them out of the room. The Deputy asked for the CODEPINK members to be released promptly from custody.

For more information please contact Dana Balicki at 202 422 8624 or Gael Murphy at 202 412 6700.

You can see footage of the hearing arrests at www.codepinkalert.org/codepinkarrests and at www.youtube.com/dontbuybushswar

###