From Coast to Coast, a Cry for Peace

Police arrested at least 150 people nationwide for highly choreographed acts of civil disobedience, including 99 demonstrators who blocked the entrance to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

In cities from coast to coast, groups sponsored candlelight vigils, marches, teach-ins, food drives and interfaith prayer services to mark International Human Rights Day.

The goal, organizers explained, was to show the breadth of what they said is a burgeoning movement against the Bush administration's threats of war.

Sponsors said the events were intended as a smaller follow-up to massive demonstrations held in October in Washington and San Francisco.

At the White House, a spokesman said the demonstrations were a "time-honored tradition" of democracy.

"We held over 120 events across the country

In Anchorage, a memorial celebrated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights while in Vero Beach, Fla., marchers gathered by candlelight to press for peace for Iraq.

Protesters also were arrested in Chicago on charges of criminal trespass in the lobby of a federal office building, in Sacramento on charges of blocking the entrance to a U.S. courthouse and in Washington on charges of refusing to leave a military recruiting station.

"It shows you opposition to the war is not just a marginal opinion of a few activists," said Jen Carr, a spokeswoman for Peace Action, a principal member of the coalition that organized the events.

In Washington, activists held a lunch-hour march near the White House; in the early evening, about 100 people gathered outside the offices of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.

"No war for oil," the picketers chanted, charging that the committee serves as a front for the pro-war lobby.

Many of the roughly 500 people who gathered in New York sang protest songs from the Vietnam War era and recalled massive and sometimes violent rallies during the 1960s and '70s.

"I went to my first demonstration in Washington, D.C., Nov. 15, 1969, and that kind of convinced me to be a peace activist and work for social justice," said Bill Steyert, who is a retired worker for a public interest organization.

At the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, protesters and police engaged in a polite, well-practiced political ballet.