About 1000 students from campuses across the United States and Canada rallied outside the White House today and then marched a half mile to the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization in downtown Washington in an angry protest against the Iranian “terrorists” holding 50 American hostages in Teheran and “the PLO terrorists who trained them.
Chanting slogans such as “Free the 50 Now,” “Hell No PLO” and “We Say No to Terrorists,” the students called for national solidarity with the hostages and stressed that then captors were not students but terrorists masquerading as students.
The well-organized rally and march ended at DuPont Circle where the students staged a mock trial and handed down “guilty” verdicts against Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — “a terrorist, not a saint” — the Iranian government, the Iranians holding the hostages and the PLO. The “charges” read against the PLO enumerated its acts of international terrorism including attacks at Athens Airport, the Lod Airport massacre and the murder of Israeli Olympic athletes at Munich.
The demonstration was co-sponsored by eight student organizations representing campuses in 40 states and Canada. They were : The College Republican National Committee; College Democrats of America; Youth Institute for Peace in the Middle East; the North American Jewish Students’ Network; Young Americans for Freedom; Young Social Democrats; Frontlash: Youth Labor Project for Voter Registration and Political Education; and the Young Republican National Federation.
The rally outside the White House lasted about 90 minutes. It was opened with an invocation recited by Rabbi Samuel Goldman of the Washington Board of Rabbis, and the singing of the American and Canadian national anthems. Fifty of the youths wore blindfolds and had their hands tied to simulate the American hostages held at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran.
Yesterday, a large though unspecified number of the students joined the daily vigil opposite the Soviet Embassy which has been conducted each day for the last 10 years to express solidarity with Soviet Jews seeking emigration. Natasha Levit-Milman, wife of refusnik Grigory Levit, was ad mitted to the Embassy briefly and was allowed to submit a letter on behalf of her husband. Milman, who immigrated to Israel from the USSR in 1977, is a student at Tel Aviv University.
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