Politicians Shouted Down In Elmhurst By Pro-Palestinian Group

ELMHURST, IL – Elmhurst's chapter of the League of Women Voters shut down its congressional candidates forum Sunday after members of a pro-Palestinian group loudly protested one of the candidates.

The group responsible for the demonstration later bragged it forced the end of the event, which was at Elmhurst City Hall.

The Democratic 6th Congressional District candidates forum was to last an hour. The candidates were U.S. Rep. Sean Casten and his challengers, Mahnoor Ahmad and Charles Hughes.

More than a half hour in, a woman stood up and shouted about Israel's killings in Gaza.

"What about all the bombs that have been dropped on Gaza? Sixty-five thousand tons of bombs and the environmental impact," she yelled. "What about that, Rep. Casten? You are supporting genocide."

She then wrapped herself in a Palestinian flag. The moderator asked her to leave the room, but she did not.

Then others chanted, "Sean Casten, you cannot hide. You are funding genocide!"

A man in the back filmed the demonstration. An organizer asked him to stop, and another person briefly held up a jacket to block the camera.

The event ended, with the candidates retreating into a backroom.

In a news release on Sunday evening, the Chicago chapter of the U.S. Palestinian Network said it forced the shutdown of the forum.

While the release focused on Casten, the group's protest also prevented candidates Ahmad and Hughes from speaking any longer.

"(The network's) disruption prompted the moderator to end the event early and completely, and the entire audience left," the pro-Palestinian group said.

The group said it would continue to target Casten and other state Democrats as well as President Joe Biden.

“We will continue to make it clear to Sean Casten, Jan Schakowsky, Dick Durbin, Tammy Duckworth, Bill Foster, Mike Quigley, #GenocideJoe Biden, and all their colleagues that there is #NoBusinessAsUsual while they continue to back the #GazaGenocide!” Nick Sous, leading member of the Chicago group, said in the news release.

Officials from the pro-Palestinian group couldn't be reached for immediate comment Monday morning.

In an interview, Jan Dorner, a co-president for the local league, said she had not seen such a protest in her two decades of participating in the league's forums.

"Our moderator did make a statement at the beginning because we had heard that this would be a possibility that there would be a disruption," Dorner said. "We believe in everyone's First Amendment right to speak. There's always common courtesy and civil discourse that should be followed."

The league had contacted the police before the event, she said.

"The police were in the building, but not in the room," Dorner said.

She said the police would not remove individual people, only requiring that everyone leave if organizers had believed a disruption had become too great.