Protesters Take AIDS Message to White House; 31 Arrested in Scenario Coordinated With Police

Several hundred AIDS activists marched in downtown Washington yesterday to call on President Bush to increase funding for global and domestic AIDS treatment, prevention and education, in a spirited protest that ended with planned arrests in front of the White House.

Demonstrators boarded buses from New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore to participate in the noon protest. The event -- organized by the Health GAP Coalition and ACT UP groups in New York and Philadelphia, among others -- was held as World AIDS Day approaches on Sunday.

At Lafayette Square, where large protests are banned, police on foot and horseback stopped protesters. In a scenario agreed on with police ahead of time, 31 protesters, some linked by thin chains around their waists, lay on their backs on the sidewalk outside the White House fence and were arrested and charged with conducting a stationary demonstration in a restricted area, a misdemeanor, US Park Police said.

Activists said more than 3 million people, many in poor countries, will die this year because they lack access to HIV/AIDS treatment. They argue that the Bush administration has made the war effort and tax cuts its priorities, ignoring the plight of those with HIV/AIDS.

Paul Davis, a director of the Health GAP Coalition and one of those arrested, said Bush "has not kept his promises to respond to the global AIDS disaster." Davis and others demanded the United States contribute more to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The US pledge of $500 million is too little, said activists, who also called on the administration to support a global AIDS initiative for $2.5 billion in new spending.

"It's a weapon of mass destruction, and it's being ignored," said Philadelphia resident Tymm Walker, 42, who has AIDS. In addition, he said he has a brother with HIV and another who died of AIDS complications. "I don't want to see nobody else's mother go through what my mother has been through," he said.

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