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BERKELEY — Hoping to avoid violent clashes at a planned white supremacist rally this weekend, Berkeley’s mayor on Tuesday issued a plea for counter demonstrations to be held elsewhere in the city.

His message was backed by several prominent East Bay politicians at a press conference on the steps of Berkeley City Hall, but some demonstrators responded that they still plan to turn out for a united message against hate.

“Today and always, we stand together as a community against bigotry, racism, and intolerance – and we are stronger for it,” said Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin. “As mayor, I am working closely with officials at every level of government—including various law enforcement agencies—to keep peace on Sunday.”

The mayor said the city would print up and distribute “Berkeley Stands United Against Hate” posters for residents and businesses to post.

Berkeley Mayor responds to questions about this Sunday expected rally pic.twitter.com/VcqnW66Q0c — Angela E. Ruggiero (@Aeruggie) August 22, 2017

Arreguin was joined by Congresswoman Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, California Assembly members Rob Bonta and Tony Thurmond, state Sen. Nancy Skinner, Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson and Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley.

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Letters: Using Hangar One | Curfew breakers | Climate Catch-22 | COVID ‘fairy tale’ | Column stays rational | Kumar for Congress | Testing priorities “President Trump has emboldened white nationalists but we must hold steadfast to our progressive values as a community, regardless of the challenges,” Lee said. “We cannot allow anyone, certainly not the President, to roll back the clock on progress. We must stand united against hate.”

Officials have continued to urge residents and visitors to stay away from a 1 p.m., Sunday, “No to Marxism” rally at the city’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Park, noting that “no permit has been sought, nor has one been granted.” The mayor called the event a white supremacist rally.

But organizer Amber Cummings said Sunday’s demonstration is an anti-Marxist rally, and doesn’t want white nationalists to attend. She said she organized the event before the events in Charlottesville, Virginia on Aug. 12. She called Arreguin’s characterization of the rally as a white supremacy event as “an outright lie,” in an effort to incite violence against the people who will participate.

During a question and answer session after the leaders spoke Tuesday, some residents asked Berkeley leaders for an alternative response and to prepare for large numbers of peaceful demonstrators.

Although the city said there is no explicit connection between Sunday’s gathering and this month’s “Unite The Right” white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville that led to the deaths of a counter protester and two state troopers, it reminded others of previous rallies that have devolved into violence.

Arreguin encouraged residents to execute their right to speak out against hate through the counter demonstration, away from where the Sunday rally is expected to take place. Thousands are expected in the city this weekend.

“We don’t want nonviolent protesters to be in a situation where they can be in a middle of a fight,” he said.

Counter protests are planned, including one led by Unite for Freedom from Right Wing Violence in the Bay Area, who have called for a “Bay Area Rally Against Hate” from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Aug. 27 on UC Berkeley’s Crescent Lawn at Oxford and Center streets.

“We’re residents of the Bay Area — people of color, working class people, immigrants, queer, lesbian, gay, bi, and trans people, liberals, leftists, and others,” the group wrote in a news release promoting the event. “We think it’s time to get together, to celebrate our differences in solidarity, and peacefully speak out against the hateful currents in American society.”

Meanwhile, the Berkeley-based group “Network of Spiritual Progressives,” along with Tikkun magazine and Beyt Tikkun Synagogue-Without-Walls, put out a call on Facebook to “Stand for Love and Justice while saying ‘No’ to the Nazis” in Civic Center Park from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, the day before the announced right-wing rally.

Arreguin said the city does believe, “It’s important for people to express their outrage, their concern for what happened in Charlottesvillle… our opposition for white supremacy, bigotry, hatred and racism.”

Skinner said the purpose of such rallies is to incite violence. Staying a safe distance away at a counter-protest means that rally organizers will be isolated.

“They only get attention when we give it them to them. ‘When they go low, we go high'” she said, quoting former First Lady Michelle Obama.

Despite encouragement to stay away from Sunday’s demonstration, some such as Reiko Redmonde, of the “Refuse Fascism” group, said the message needs to be united. Others from her group held a poster of a cartoon President Trump wearing a KKK-type white hood with the words “This is what Fascism looks like.”

“I’m concerned (Trump has) given the go-ahead and the thumbs up to these white supremacists and Nazis through his various statements and Tweets,” Redmonde said.

She said the remedy is to stand together.

“Yes, maybe people are risking their safety, but shouldn’t people have risked their safety early on in the Nazi regime when Hitler came to power? Shouldn’t they have stood out and not let their neighbors be taken away?” Redmonde said.

Another group, the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary — better known as By Any Means Necessary, or by its initials, BAMN — made it clear, in a Facebook post titled “Charlottesville: Never Again!” that it does not intend to heed officials’ requests to stay away from downtown Berkeley on Aug. 27.

In the post, the group announced an organizing meeting for Wednesday on “Shutting Down and Defeating the Fascists.” For Sunday, the group called on its adherents to gather at 10 a.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park, adding, “Fascists officially gather 1pm – 4pm.”

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Bay City News contributed to this report.