Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that HIV/AIDS protestors have occupied Kevin McCarthy’s office demanding more money to treat their condition.
HIV/AIDS protestors have occupied Kevin McCarthy’s office demanding more money to treat their condition or something like that.
Several people were arrested after entering the office of Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House, during a protest for HIV/Aids funding on Monday.
The US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), a widely bipartisan program, has since been reauthorized three times, and Joe Biden earlier this year indicated that he would work with Congress to extend it a fourth.
U.S. Capitol police arrested four men and three women for alleged unlawful entry in their occupation of an office in a House office building, said Brianna Burch, a Capitol police spokeswoman. The demonstrators were asked to leave, but Burch said in a statement that they “refused to cease demonstrating.”
Burch said Capitol police were called to the demonstration at about 11:18 a.m., but did not confirm the exact location.
Social media video posted by a Politico reporter shows protesters sitting on the floor of McCarthy’s office, linking arms and chanting “Pass PEPFAR now, McCarthy!”
But the program’s latest extension has been caught up in a partisan fight over abortion and is under threat amid Congress’s negotiations over a government shutdown. Some Republicans are opposing Pepfar’s reauthorization, arguing that current restrictions do not sufficiently prevent the funds from being used to support abortions, according to an August report by the Federation of American Scientists.
“Any multi-year PEPFAR reauthorizing legislation must ensure that Biden’s hijacking of PEPFAR to promote abortion be halted,” wrote New Jersey Republican Representative Chris Smith, who chairs the House foreign affairs subcommittee, in a letter to colleagues in June.
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