Press Release
The Canary Coalition
The Canary Coalition has obtained the necessary permit for a protest demonstration at Harrah’s Casino in Cherokee this Saturday, June 7 in response to the North Carolina state government ruling party’s statewide convention taking place inside the casino hotel. Inside attendants will include NC House Speaker Tom Tillis, NC Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, Governor McCrory and other major political figures in state politics, as well as several prominent national figures who have been invited.
The current North Carolina state government is responsible for a host of controversial legislative and regulatory actions that have generated deep and widespread opposition including the exponential growth of the Moral Monday/Forward Together Movement and a broad coalition of civil rights groups, environmental organizations, labor activists, teachers, doctors, students, the elderly and womens rights groups. These groups are reacting to what are viewed as politically extreme measures resulting in voter suppression, an end to the long standing moratorium on fracking in North Carolina, the denial of Medicaid expansion funds to 500,000 people, the denial of extended unemployment benefits to out-of-work employees, the diversion of money from the public schools to private school vouchers, the degradation of environmental and public health regulations, rolling back safeguards against discrimination in the criminal justice system, negligent public policy on highly toxic coal ash storage facilities and more.
“We don’t care what political party they belong to,” explains Avram Friedman, the Executive Director of The Canary Coalition. “Their policies are mean-spirited, short-sighted and they’re hurting the vast majority of people in the state for the sake of benefiting a few economically. What they are systematically doing to this state is wrong. Big money is controlling our state government and it’s no longer of, by and for the people. These purchased and unscrupulous politicians came to distant Cherokee, far from the population center of Raleigh because they thought they could hide from the people and the visible opposition they were encountering back in the State Capitol. We’re going to show them on Saturday that there is no place they can hide. They are going to encounter protest wherever they go.”
Protesters will be congregating across the street from the main entrance to Harrah’s Casino on Hwy 19, at 10 am, Saturday morning.
For more information contact info@canarycoalition.org, 828-631-3447.
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