San Francisco Chronicle - Saturday, November 11, 2000
Christopher Heredia, Chronicle Staff Writer

Superior Court Judge Ina Levin Gyemant's ruling stems from an April incident in which members of ACT UP were charged with assault and trespassing after getting in a scuffle at a Project Inform meeting where members were discussing the benefits of taking breaks from AIDS drugs.

According to people who witnessed the incident, ACT UP members pushed their way past security, and pelted Project Inform's founding director, Martin Delaney, and others with hard, pelletlike pills, while yelling epithets.

"We're delighted at the outcome and at the same time saddened that at this point in the AIDS epidemic we're being forced to protect our employees and constituents from violence and threats of violence," said Project Inform board president Joe Garrett.

ACT UP/San Francisco has for years been at odds with mainstream AIDS groups over its philosophy that HIV does not cause AIDS. Its members have aligned themselves with other AIDS dissidents including controversial University of California at Berkeley Professor Peter Duesberg. They operate their marijuana dispensary, maintaining that marijuana is less harmful than the side effects of the drugs.

ACT UP member Andrea Lindsay said yesterday that the group is considering appealing the ruling.

"We're disappointed that after going to great lengths to tell the truth in the courtroom, this is what the judge has decided," Lindsay said. "We still maintain that we engaged in no violence at the (April) forum."

In her ruling Gyemant said her decision was justified by past violent acts in which ACT UP members targeted, harassed and stalked officials from mainstream AIDS organizations, including a 1996 incident in which member Ronnie Burk dumped cat litter over the head of San Francisco AIDS Foundation executive direct Pat Christen.

That incident led a San Francisco judge to grant three-year restraining orders barring several members of ACT UP from coming near offices or employees of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

Judge Gyemant has two weeks to finalize her ruling.

ACT UP -- an acronym for AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power -- gained notoriety in the late 1980s, at the height of the AIDS epidemic by demanding lower drug prices and research for a cure. ACT UP/San Francisco splintered in the early 90s because of differences over the group's mission. Since 1994, ACT UP San Francisco has been led by a handful of HIV-positive activists who say they have been living healthy lives without medication.

In September, dozens of AIDS activists held a press conference denouncing ACT UP's tactics and calling on people with AIDS to boycott the group's marijuana dispensary.

The judge's ruling applies to ACT UP members Lindsay, David Pasquarelli, Michael Bellefountaine, Ronnie Burk and Todd Swindell.

"This is not a really big city and we don't know where most of these people live," Lindsay said. "We have no intent of being near them but their offices are four blocks from ours. This ruling is really Draconian."

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