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Sam Penrod reporting While President Bush was in Park City, protesters gathered in downtown Salt Lake City to hold a peace rally.
There were not as many protesters tonight as there were in August 2006, the last time the president visited Utah, but several hundred people, possibly more than 1,000, gathered tonight to protest the president and the war.
They gathered to cheer, shout and hold signs in a rally for peace. Protesters spoke out against the war in Iraq, President Bush and what they call the eroding moral values in government.
Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson said, "We raise our voices in unison today because President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other members of the administration have engaged with the sad complacency of Congress and much of the mainstream media in unprecedented egregious human rights violations, vast deceit of Congress and the American people, astounding crimes against peace, of the same nature as those for which men were convicted during the Nuremberg Trials, war crimes, crimes against humanity."
Anderson helped organize the rally and not only denounced the war in Iraq, but spoke out against further military action. "There is a substantial risk, especially with the complacent citizenry, the president will order an attack against Iran, having continued the case for another illegal, tragic war of aggression against a people who largely stood in sympathy and solidarity with us on 9/11," he said.
Some high school students who are not old enough to vote were there, believing their voices can still make a difference. Rose Nelson told us, "No matter how old you are, you can still exercise your First Amendment right, and that's the right to protest, to assemble. We've got to say something because we can."
Even though the president did not see the rally today, the protesters did not seem discouraged.
E-mail: spenrod@ksl.com
