of Iraq. The City denied UFPJ's application for a permit, on the basis that a mass gathering on the Great Lawn would be harmful to the grass, and that such damage would make it harder to collect private donations to maintain the Park. UFPJ charged that Mayor Michael Bloomberg was willing to allow other large gatherings on the Great Lawn, but was discriminating against the demonstration so as to curry favor with the Republican Party, which was holding its quadrennial convention in New York City. Nevertheless, a court rejected UFPJ's challenge to the denial of the permit. The major protest was eventually held elsewhere, on Sunday, August 29, 2004, the eve of the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. The event drew over 500,000 people, according to The New York Times, and received lead coverage (including a double-sized, vertical front page in New York Newsday) in every major newspaper. In March, 2007 NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne stated about the RNC protests: "You certainly had 800,000 on August 29th." On January 27, 2007, a protest of the Iraq war was held in Washington, D.C. with approximately 400,000 people participating. Unity statement UFPJ's lengthy Unity Statement, adopted as a work in progress at the June 2003 UFPJ National Strategy Conference and occasionally receiving minor updates to reflect world events, begins by asserting their opposition to the "pre-emptive wars of aggression waged by the Bush administration" and the "drive to expand U.S. control over other nations and strip us of our rights at home under the cover of fighting terrorism and spreading democracy." It then echoes the rhetoric of Not in Our Name (founded six months earlier and itself a member of UFPJ) stating, "we say NO to [the U.S.'s] use of war and racism to concentrate power in the hands of the few, at home and abroad." It goes on to call for "a broad mass movement for peace and justice" and, in particular, for "peaceful resolution of disputes amongst states; respect for national sovereignty, international law, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the defense and extension of basic democratic freedoms to all; social and economic justice; and the use of public spending to meet human and environmental needs." UFPJ explicitly positions itself as not being a single-issue organization: "We envision UFPJ as a movement-building coalition that coordinates and supports the work of existing groups and builds linkages