BOSTON--About 50 students and citizens gathered outside the National Peoples' Campaign building last night for a demonstration against American policy toward Iraq.

Demonstrators urged the U.S. government to refrain from any military strike against Iraqis. The protest yesterday was one of about 15 similar demonstrations held by several advocacy groups across the world, said Imani Henry, an organizer for the National People's Campaign.

"This is an emergency", Henry said. "There's been six years of sanction since the Gulf War. It's really devastated the people in the Middle East."

Demonstrators say that the Clinton administration's threat to bomb Iraq forced them to act.

"We're really hoping that there won't be a military intervention, but we're bracing ourselves for the worst," Henry said.

The National Peoples' Campaign, an advocacy group, contacted students by e-mail to invite them to the protest. Representatives of the Boston Committee on the Middle East, the Workers World Party and the Spartacus Youth Club also attended.

"We're opposed to a foreign policy that has done irreparable harm to the Iraqi people," said Donald H. Veach, an organizer with the Boston Committee on the Middle East.

"The U.S. needs to craft its foreign policy in Washington, not Tel Aviv," Veach said.

Many students were present from local colleges.

"I'm here to protest the U.S. sanctions against Iraq," said Matt J. Hine, a junior at Northeastern University. "They're not fair, and they're just another example of U.S. imperialism."