Solidarity delegates protest inside the Democratic National Convention after Palestinian-American speaker is denied access to the main stage

Protests continued in Chicago on Thursday, with thousands of people taking to the streets to participate in a “March Against the Democratic National Convention.” Protesters continued into the evening, when Vice President Kamala Harris took the stage at the Democratic National Convention to accept the Democratic presidential nomination. Protesters had planned to march to the convention site but were blocked by hundreds of riot police, forcing them to disperse. Democracy Now! covered the protest, asking protesters what they would say to Vice President Harris.

Benin Prindiville“I ask Harris to look inside his humanity and look at images like this and realize that this is what happens every day, hundreds of times a day,” he said. “This has been going on for decades, and most of it in the last 10 months.”

The protester showed on her mobile phone a picture of a Palestinian child with burns on his face.

Meanwhile, a number of delegates from the hardline national movement formed a chain of arms and marched through the halls of the Democratic National Convention, wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh. This came a day after convention organizers refused to allow a Palestinian-American speaker to take the main stage. The delegates from the non-conformist national movement marched side by side through the halls of the United Center’s multisports wing until they were finally able to take their seats in the convention hall, which they were initially denied.

The powerful United Auto Workers union is the latest labor group to condemn the exclusion of Palestinian voices from the Democratic National Convention. “If we want the war in Gaza to end, we cannot bury our heads in the sand or ignore the voices of Palestinian Americans in the Democratic Party,” the union said in a statement.