3 Flags Burned During Protest at UC Berkeley
BERKELEY — Demonstrators burned three U.S. flags on the edge of the UC Berkeley campus Friday to protest federal legislation making it a crime to desecrate the flag, university spokesman Ray Colvig said.
Campus police watched the sidewalk flag-burning but made no arrests, he said.
The protesters complained that the legislation, recently approved by both houses of Congress, is an attempt to limit free speech.
Colvig confirmed that at least two of the protesters were UC Berkeley students, but he said he had no way of knowing how many of an estimated group of 50 demonstrators were associated with the university.
“I love America and I love the flag, but I’m going to destroy one as a symbol of my protest of this attack on our basic freedoms,†senior Darrel Jarmusch said.
The Associated Students of the University of California voted last month to send a letter to Congress expressing opposition to the flag-burning measure.
Some who watched Friday’s demonstration were not sympathetic to its purpose.
“If these people don’t respect the country they’re in, they can at least respect the symbol,†said Brian Koelher, 26, a non-student. “It makes me sick to see them do this.
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