Here is a story from the cyber backwaters of my in-box.
............PEACE.........Scott
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
SEATTLE AGREES TO CANCEL ARREST RECORDS, PAY TO SETTLE WTO CASE
BOB YOUNG, SEATTLE TIMES - The city of Seattle will pay $1 million to
World Trade Organization protesters who were arrested in Westlake Park
seven years ago and will clear their records, in a settlement announced
Monday.The money will pay for plaintiffs' legal fees, with the rest
divided among up to about 175 protesters, who will get at least $3,000
each. . . "We think the cash settlement does send a message that what
Seattle did was wrong and we shouldn't have been denied our
constitutional rights," said Ken Hankin, a Boeing engineer and one of
the protesters arrested in Westlake Park during the second day of the
1999 WTO meeting in Seattle. Withey said Monday's announcement "closes a
chapter in Seattle history" because it likely ends the last of the legal
cases arising from protests and arrests involving the WTO meeting. . . A
federal-court jury ruled in January that the city was liable for
arresting protesters without probable cause, a violation of their
constitutional rights.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003648547_wto03m.html
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
THE WTO STORY
SAM SMITH, WHY BOTHER - The storm broke in the fall of 1999, leading to
uprisings on campuses, in Seattle and Washington, and at the political
conventions. The protests encompassed both specific complaints and a
generic critique. Although the corporate media paid little attention at
first, some of the most dramatic revolts occurred on scores of college
campuses as students organized against sweatshops and on behalf of
campus employees, attempting to force academia to live up to its lofty
words. Thousands of students independently decided to bother -- to
confront the immutable armies of the law. The reports came from all
over. . .
The major anti-globalization protests that followed brought a reaction
from police and government as brutal, anti-democratic and
unconstitutional as has been seen in modern times. Dr. Richard DeAndrea
reported from Seattle:
"These rubber bullets took off part of a person's jaw, smashed teeth in
their mouth. I saw the police arrest people who had their hands up in
the air screaming "We are peacefully protesting" . . . I did see
penetration wounds, I did see people bleeding. I did see teeth loss, I
did see broken bones. There were children present, there were families
present, they were firing upon families, mothers, grandmothers ... We're
treating people in a studio loft downtown. I just treated an ear wound.
People have been treated for concussion injuries . . . Lots of tear gas
injuries, lots of damage to corneas, lots of damage to the eyes and
skins. They were using a pepper spray, a tear gas and they were also
using some sort of nerve gas. We had reports of many demonstrators
winding up with seizures the next day. It causes muscles to clamp up,
muscle contractions, seizures ... This shouldn't happen in America. This
is still America, isn't it? I'm beginning to wonder."
The Washington demonstrations brought more of the same. Reported Augusta
Gilman of the Independent Media Center:
"We were not told until we entered the prison what charges were being
made against us. The officers who cuffed us and led us onto the buses
claimed they did not actually know what the charges were. Nor did the
officers who guarded us for three hours on the buses. The commanding
officer on my bus, who did not wear a name tag or badge, told us that
the way the system was supposed to work was that if we believed we were
being held against our rights, we could straighten that out in a lawsuit
after our trial.
"People on the buses with medical conditions were denied relief for
hours. We were not read our rights, and were denied the possibility of
speaking to a lawyer. When I was finally allowed my phone call, I was
told that it could not last more than thirty seconds. There were too
many people in line. I felt like a pig on its way to sausage, not a
citizen on her way through the judicial system."
By the time of the GOP convention in Philadelphia, the government had
dispensed with even the pretension of constitutional procedure. At the
peak of the demonstrations, organizers reported:
- One officer dragging a man in the nude, grabbing a protester's penis,
stepping on necks, jumping on a man's back, and slamming a face into a
cell door.
- An officer who told a prisoner, "I'll fuck you up the ass and make you
my bitch," slamming a man against wall repeatedly, punching a prisoner
in the stomach, holding a prisoner's face in the trash with his knee in
the prisoner's neck, throwing a prisoner against the wall.
- 4 cases of denial of access to medication: 1 person with HIV denied
for 2 days, received on third day. 1 person with migraine, vomiting,
denied all medicine. 1 hypoglycemic person denied access to adequate
food.
- 4 counts of sexual abuse: dragging a man naked, wrenching a man's
penis, twisting a person's nipples, man subjected to random search of
genitals.
- 2 threats of rape from commanding officers.
A leader of the Ruckus Society was arrested while walking along a city
street and charged with possession of an instrument of crime,
obstruction of justice, obstructing a highway, failure to disperse,
recklessly endangering another person and conspiracy. A judge set bail
at $1 million.
Joseph Rogers, a Quaker peace volunteer and President of the Mental
Health Association of Southeast Pennsylvania, witnessed correctional
officers tightening the handcuffs of protesters until their hands became
blue. When Rogers asked the guards to loosen the cuffs, the guards
replied, "This will teach them a lesson, this will teach them to come to
Philly." Rogers was removed from his cell and cuffed from his left hand
to his right ankle. "I told them I was diabetic but they threw me to the
ground so they could cuff me. I was told to hop but my damaged knee
prevented me. They dragged me to my cell."
Other arrestees reported being isolated, verbally abused, punched,
kicked, thrown against walls, bloodied, and dragged naked across floors,
in one instance through a "trash trough" containing refuse, spittle and
urine. Said Paul Davis of ACT UP:
"I saw a man handcuffed to his cell door in a crucifixion position. He
groaned and bellowed for 20 minutes that they were using metal handcuffs
to smash his hands. I heard women screaming and being dragged along the
floor. I saw a woman screaming in pain as a police officer said, 'You
want more?! You want more?!'"
I can not find in either my memory or in the modern record much that is
close to the brutality and lawlessness exhibited by our government
during these demonstrations. On other hand, seldom have so many so
swiftly decided to become engaged -- not merely to petition or stand in
the street but to risk tear gas, rubber bullets, sordid imprisonment,
and torture, and to be personally and politically transformed.
It wasn't just the young. One of the most remarkable events of the
Washington demonstrations occurred with only one cop and a handful of
media in attendance -- as 700 steelworkers gave a warm standing ovation
to the student activists in their midst. From the generational schisms
of the 1960s to the hard-hatted Reagan-Democrat antipathies of the
1980s, it had become widely assumed that students and union members were
the Serbs and Albanians of American politics.
But the sweatshops abroad and the neo-robber barons at home took care of
that -- to the point that a burly George Becker, International President
of the Steelworkers could stand before his members and declare, "These
are my sons and granddaughters. This is my family." And the members
applauded.
"Every generation has to reestablish itself," said Becker. "Each
generation is tested again and again on its resolve."
Looking at the students in the hall, he remarked, "We know that when we
pass the mantle, it will be in good hands."
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
............PEACE.........Scott
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
SEATTLE AGREES TO CANCEL ARREST RECORDS, PAY TO SETTLE WTO CASE
BOB YOUNG, SEATTLE TIMES - The city of Seattle will pay $1 million to
World Trade Organization protesters who were arrested in Westlake Park
seven years ago and will clear their records, in a settlement announced
Monday.The money will pay for plaintiffs' legal fees, with the rest
divided among up to about 175 protesters, who will get at least $3,000
each. . . "We think the cash settlement does send a message that what
Seattle did was wrong and we shouldn't have been denied our
constitutional rights," said Ken Hankin, a Boeing engineer and one of
the protesters arrested in Westlake Park during the second day of the
1999 WTO meeting in Seattle. Withey said Monday's announcement "closes a
chapter in Seattle history" because it likely ends the last of the legal
cases arising from protests and arrests involving the WTO meeting. . . A
federal-court jury ruled in January that the city was liable for
arresting protesters without probable cause, a violation of their
constitutional rights.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003648547_wto03m.html
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
THE WTO STORY
SAM SMITH, WHY BOTHER - The storm broke in the fall of 1999, leading to
uprisings on campuses, in Seattle and Washington, and at the political
conventions. The protests encompassed both specific complaints and a
generic critique. Although the corporate media paid little attention at
first, some of the most dramatic revolts occurred on scores of college
campuses as students organized against sweatshops and on behalf of
campus employees, attempting to force academia to live up to its lofty
words. Thousands of students independently decided to bother -- to
confront the immutable armies of the law. The reports came from all
over. . .
The major anti-globalization protests that followed brought a reaction
from police and government as brutal, anti-democratic and
unconstitutional as has been seen in modern times. Dr. Richard DeAndrea
reported from Seattle:
"These rubber bullets took off part of a person's jaw, smashed teeth in
their mouth. I saw the police arrest people who had their hands up in
the air screaming "We are peacefully protesting" . . . I did see
penetration wounds, I did see people bleeding. I did see teeth loss, I
did see broken bones. There were children present, there were families
present, they were firing upon families, mothers, grandmothers ... We're
treating people in a studio loft downtown. I just treated an ear wound.
People have been treated for concussion injuries . . . Lots of tear gas
injuries, lots of damage to corneas, lots of damage to the eyes and
skins. They were using a pepper spray, a tear gas and they were also
using some sort of nerve gas. We had reports of many demonstrators
winding up with seizures the next day. It causes muscles to clamp up,
muscle contractions, seizures ... This shouldn't happen in America. This
is still America, isn't it? I'm beginning to wonder."
The Washington demonstrations brought more of the same. Reported Augusta
Gilman of the Independent Media Center:
"We were not told until we entered the prison what charges were being
made against us. The officers who cuffed us and led us onto the buses
claimed they did not actually know what the charges were. Nor did the
officers who guarded us for three hours on the buses. The commanding
officer on my bus, who did not wear a name tag or badge, told us that
the way the system was supposed to work was that if we believed we were
being held against our rights, we could straighten that out in a lawsuit
after our trial.
"People on the buses with medical conditions were denied relief for
hours. We were not read our rights, and were denied the possibility of
speaking to a lawyer. When I was finally allowed my phone call, I was
told that it could not last more than thirty seconds. There were too
many people in line. I felt like a pig on its way to sausage, not a
citizen on her way through the judicial system."
By the time of the GOP convention in Philadelphia, the government had
dispensed with even the pretension of constitutional procedure. At the
peak of the demonstrations, organizers reported:
- One officer dragging a man in the nude, grabbing a protester's penis,
stepping on necks, jumping on a man's back, and slamming a face into a
cell door.
- An officer who told a prisoner, "I'll fuck you up the ass and make you
my bitch," slamming a man against wall repeatedly, punching a prisoner
in the stomach, holding a prisoner's face in the trash with his knee in
the prisoner's neck, throwing a prisoner against the wall.
- 4 cases of denial of access to medication: 1 person with HIV denied
for 2 days, received on third day. 1 person with migraine, vomiting,
denied all medicine. 1 hypoglycemic person denied access to adequate
food.
- 4 counts of sexual abuse: dragging a man naked, wrenching a man's
penis, twisting a person's nipples, man subjected to random search of
genitals.
- 2 threats of rape from commanding officers.
A leader of the Ruckus Society was arrested while walking along a city
street and charged with possession of an instrument of crime,
obstruction of justice, obstructing a highway, failure to disperse,
recklessly endangering another person and conspiracy. A judge set bail
at $1 million.
Joseph Rogers, a Quaker peace volunteer and President of the Mental
Health Association of Southeast Pennsylvania, witnessed correctional
officers tightening the handcuffs of protesters until their hands became
blue. When Rogers asked the guards to loosen the cuffs, the guards
replied, "This will teach them a lesson, this will teach them to come to
Philly." Rogers was removed from his cell and cuffed from his left hand
to his right ankle. "I told them I was diabetic but they threw me to the
ground so they could cuff me. I was told to hop but my damaged knee
prevented me. They dragged me to my cell."
Other arrestees reported being isolated, verbally abused, punched,
kicked, thrown against walls, bloodied, and dragged naked across floors,
in one instance through a "trash trough" containing refuse, spittle and
urine. Said Paul Davis of ACT UP:
"I saw a man handcuffed to his cell door in a crucifixion position. He
groaned and bellowed for 20 minutes that they were using metal handcuffs
to smash his hands. I heard women screaming and being dragged along the
floor. I saw a woman screaming in pain as a police officer said, 'You
want more?! You want more?!'"
I can not find in either my memory or in the modern record much that is
close to the brutality and lawlessness exhibited by our government
during these demonstrations. On other hand, seldom have so many so
swiftly decided to become engaged -- not merely to petition or stand in
the street but to risk tear gas, rubber bullets, sordid imprisonment,
and torture, and to be personally and politically transformed.
It wasn't just the young. One of the most remarkable events of the
Washington demonstrations occurred with only one cop and a handful of
media in attendance -- as 700 steelworkers gave a warm standing ovation
to the student activists in their midst. From the generational schisms
of the 1960s to the hard-hatted Reagan-Democrat antipathies of the
1980s, it had become widely assumed that students and union members were
the Serbs and Albanians of American politics.
But the sweatshops abroad and the neo-robber barons at home took care of
that -- to the point that a burly George Becker, International President
of the Steelworkers could stand before his members and declare, "These
are my sons and granddaughters. This is my family." And the members
applauded.
"Every generation has to reestablish itself," said Becker. "Each
generation is tested again and again on its resolve."
Looking at the students in the hall, he remarked, "We know that when we
pass the mantle, it will be in good hands."
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
No comments:
Post a Comment