(Lancaster, MA) Residents of a number of Massachusetts towns gathered at the shuttle bus location at the Bolton Fair Grounds in Lancaster to protest Saudi Arabia’s LIV golf tournament taking place at “The International” golf course in Bolton. They sought to raise awareness about the numerous crimes of the Saudi regime and to oppose the Saudi attempt at “sportswashing” to improve its tarnished reputation.
Residents from Bolton, Hudson, Sterling, Quincy, Acton, Somerville, Dorchester and Newton held banners with statements including “Saudi Money is Blood Money” and “Saudi Arabia Kills Journalists and Kids in Yemen”. They also leafleted some of those boarding the shuttle buses to “The International” for the beginning of the LIV golf tournament with pamphlets thanking all the golf pros who have refused to participate in the LIV tour so as not to be associated with an event created with millions of dollars from one of the most repressive regimes on the face of the earth.
“The Saudi bombing and blockade of Yemen has brought devastation to the people of that country,” said Paul Shannon, chair of Massachusetts Peace Action’s Middle East Working Group. “That destruction has been enabled by our country’s support for the Saudi invasion and by bombs, planes and missiles sold to the Saudis by U.S. military contractors like Lockheed, Boeing and Raytheon.”
They expressed strong concern that President Biden recently went to Saudi Arabia to shore up relations despite the Saudi repression of those speaking up against the regime’s repression, its murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, and its war in Yemen.
