Pro-Palestinian protest disrupts City Hall news conference called to condemn flag-burning

Pro-Palestinian protesters on Wednesday shouted down City Council members demanding that Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) either apologize or be forced to resign as chairman of the Council’s Housing Committee chair for appearing at a rally outside City Hall where an American flag was burned to protest U.S. support for Israel.

Southwest Side Ald.. Silvana Tabares (23rd) joined roughly a dozen colleagues who have called for a special City Council meeting at 2 p.m. Monday to vote on censuring Sigcho-Lopez. They will go ahead with that plan unless Sigcho-Lopez apologizes, or Mayor Brandon Johnson forces him out as a member of the mayor’s leadership team.

Downtown Ald. Bill Conway (34th) stood his ground as protesters denounced him and his colleagues.

“Genocide is reprehensible, you sell-out,” one protester yelled.

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Conway countered: “Byron has the right to be inflammatory, as you do. But he has a bigger responsibility as a committee chair and a member of the mayor’s leadership team because this job isn’t about elevating people who want to burn everything down. It’s about bringing people together to build our communities up.”

A U.S. Navy intelligence officer and the first Council member to serve while still on active duty, Conway said he would “rather not be standing here.”

“I’d prefer Ald. Sigcho-Lopez apologize for his role in this, the mayor condemn his actions as a leader who seems to somehow [foment] division. But unfortunately those things have not happened,” Conway said.

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Sigcho-Lopez said he has nothing to say “I’m sorry” for.

He reiterated that he arrived at the rally outside City Hall Friday night after the flag was burned — and, he added, the military veteran responsible for the protest has apologized for putting Sigcho-Lopez in an awkward position and making him a political target.

Photos of the event show Sigcho-Lopez speaking a few feet away from the burned remains of an American flag on the sidewalk in front of him. But Sigcho-Lopez said again he “personally didn’t see it” burned. Zachary Kam, a Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan, burned it before the Council member arrived.

Provided by Matthew Kaplan

“I’m not sure what they want me to apologize for. It seems like they want me to apologize for maybe not realizing that there was a burned flag in front of me. And I’ve already been clear that I wasn’t there,” Sigcho-Lopez said Wednesday.

Sigcho-Lopez said the apologize-or-resign ultimatum is “nothing but political theater that explains why they’re so eager to remove” him as Housing Committee chair. “It’s a small minority of reactionaries in the Council. … These are the puppets of the ruling class who want to keep 80,000 [housing] units empty and normalizing veterans being in the streets.”

Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez (33rd) tweeted a photograph of Wednesday’s news conference and wrote, “McCarthyism is back and brought to you by these alders.”

Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th), City Council champion for veterans issues, spoke at the news conference, joining in the call for censure or an apology. But asked later if a special meeting would attract the 26 members needed for a quorum, Villegas said: “Probably not.”

Contributing: Anthony Vazquez

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times