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War protesters take their cause to the mall

BY MATTHEW CHAYES | matthew.chayes@newsday.com

9:01 PM EDT, June 28, 2008

Anti-war protester Shineye Wright, 49, from Mastic Beach, right, confronts counter-demonstrators along Route 110 in front of Walt Whitman Mall. (Newsday / Julia Gaines / June 28, 2008)

Iraq War protesters once again all but dared a mall chain to eject them Saturday for wearing T-shirts identical to the red-splotched one that landed an 80-year-old peace activist in jail earlier this year when he refused a mall's demand he take his shirt off or leave.

But the Simon Property Group -- which owns the Smith Haven Mall where the elderly activist was arrested in March, as well as the Walt Whitman Mall in Melville where the protesters laid down their T-shirt challenge Saturday -- let the dozen people parade around en masse wearing the shirts.

The shirts read "4,000+ troops, 1 million Iraqis dead. Enough!"

As the protesters walked, they were trailed by at least a dozen mall officials, security guards and publicists.

Guards on foot and riding on Segway motorized scooters talked into two-way radios. A mall-hired cameraman videotaped the group's every move. The mall has said it is legally entitled to eject anyone protesting on its property. In a statement, the mall owner said its policies do not allow "protests or demonstrations of any kind ... on mall property regardless of the topic."

At one point, the group formed a circle near Tourneau and Banana Republic stores, reciting prayers and holding hands.

Saturday's protests were triggered, organizers say, by the arrest in March of the elderly activist, Don Zirkel, who refused an order at the Smith Haven Mall to take off his shirt or leave. The mall says Zirkel was distributing pamphlets without permission. He was arrested by Suffolk police, but criminal charges were later dismissed.

Last month, the group wore the shirts at the Sunrise Mall without incident until they started displaying photos of service members who have died. The group didn't show such photos Saturday.

The same anti-war group plans to picket at three more malls -- Roosevelt Field on July 26, the South Shore Mall on Aug. 23 and the Smith Haven Mall in September, said Janet Egan of the Suffolk Peace Network, which is organizing the protests. The group is using malls for the protests because they are suburbia's public squares, Egan said.

Immediately after Saturday's T-shirt march inside, protesters assembled outside on Route 110, where they vied for the attention of passing motorists with counterparts who support the war in Iraq.