Amy Goodman Manhandled, Arrested for Protesting Arrest of News Staff
Thousands of protesters rallied against the Iraq War at the Republican Convention on Monday.
The thousands of protesters were almost all peaceful. I had US cable news on all day off and on, and never saw anything on it about the protests. Some teenager was pregnant, which is not their business or mine, but that was what they were talking about. Protesting the Republican Party's warmongering and lethal corruption for the past 8 years-- a record that has made it impolitick for George W. Bush to attend the conference of the party he still technically leads-- now that was unworthy of public comment.
A few at the rally were accused of breaking windows or throwing bottles at the police. 284 arrests were made.
The press accounts suggest that in some instances police acted overly aggressively (i.e. unconstitutionally), moving in on protesters who were peaceful.
Over the weekend, police seized printed materials and protest plans from some of the organizers and arrested a handful, charging them with conspiracy to commit civil disorder. Gee, you could have arrested Martin Luther King every day of the week on that charge.
That something was very wrong with at least some of the police response in Minneapolis is demonstrated by the arrest and manhandling of Amy Goodman and two of her staff members. They were there as press. They were not throwing anything. I know them, and have been on the show numerous times. They are honest, committed people, and if they say they were wrongly treated, they were.
Over the weekend, Democracy Now! reporter Elizabeth Press had been arrested, apparently for planning to film police response to the protests.
Among those arrested was Amy Goodman (video below), who was later released.
This site gives Amy's side of the story:
' ST. PAUL -- Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar have all been released from police custody in St. Paul following their illegal arrest by Minneapolis Police on Monday afternoon.
All three were violently manhandled by law enforcement officers. Abdel Kouddous was slammed against a wall and the ground, leaving his arms scraped and bloodied. He sustained other injuries to his chest and back. Salazar's violent arrest by baton-wielding officers, during which she was slammed to the ground while yelling, "I'm Press! Press!," resulted in her nose bleeding, as well as causing facial pain. Goodman's arm was violently yanked by police as she was arrested.
On Tuesday, Democracy Now! will broadcast video of these arrests, as well as the broader police action. These will also be available on: Democracynow.org.
Goodman was arrested while questioning police about the unlawful detention of Kouddous and Salazar who were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman's crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.
Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were arrested on suspicion of rioting, a felony. While the three have been released, they all still face charges stemming from their unlawful arrest. Kouddous and Salazar face pending charges of suspicion of felony riot, while Goodman has been officially charged with obstruction of a legal process and interference with a "peace officer."
Democracy Now! forcefully rejects all of these charges as false and an attempt at intimidation of these journalists. We demand that the charges be immediately and completely dropped.'
Ever since Bush and his gang came to power, there has been a concerted attempt to destroy the First Amendment right to peaceful assembly.
New York City recently settled with antiwar protesters illegally arrested in spring of 2003, paying $2 million. Those protesters, remember, had been trying to avert the catastrophe that was the Iraq War, or at least not have it go without public expression of dissent.
Ironically, Democracy Now! is among the few news programs that tries to deliver real news to the American public, not the babysitting pap that passes for such so often in the corporate media. Of course, in our Bushwellian State, its staff would have to be arrested for committing News.
Hang in there, Amy.
posted by Juan Cole @ 9/02/2008 01:03:00 AM
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17 Comments:
Gee, you could have arrested Martin Luther King every day of the week on that charge.**********************
Didn't they?
Bravo.
Everyone is saying "We should respect her privacy" and then they spend an hour to discuss her.
If you want to respect her privacy, shut up!
We should be much more concerned with the privacy, security, health and wealth of those millions of innocent Iraqis and Afghans who are actually suffering in these ridiculous wars.
It's funny how the US populace will spend billions of dollars and thousands of lives to destroy their homes, but will not even spend five minutes to talk or think about the real, tangible, consequences of these wars.
I'm happy to see you covering this militarized police response to lawful dissent. Readers should also see
Glenn Greenwald's column on Salon.com; he offers what is probably the most timely, informed and thoughtful coverage on the topic available.
It is absolutely outrageous to see Ms Amy Goodman so barbarically treated. For what reason did the police hand-cuff Ms Goodman? She certainly was not acting violently and could not possibly be perceived as a threat! If the arrest of Ms Goodman were unavoidable (due to some undisclosed facts), as the bare minimum the police could have shown some respect and civility and simply invited Ms Goodman to follow them to the police van.
I avoid discussing the cases of Mr Sharif Abdel-Kouddous and Ms Nicole Salazar only because I have as yet not seen the images pertaining to their reported maltreatments by the police. In other words, I do not wish to prejudge the police.
I was not aware of the existence of the term "Bushwellian", but it is a sign of the shock that I experienced on seeing the outrageous maltreatment of Ms Goodman, that the YouTube images invoked in my mind the thought of the society in Orwell's 1984, in which people were arrested on the charge of committing "thought crimes". Given the fact that Ms Goodman was demonstrably not involved in any violent action, I am led to believe that Ms Goodman's arrest must have been due to her perceived "thought crimes".
A very sad day indeed for the democracy, not only in the USA, but everywhere in the world. What moral authority remains there to criticise, or even contemplate to criticise, certain countries in which in particular women are treated in exactly the same way by the police for similarly exercising their basic civil rights as law-abiding citizens of their respective countries?
BF
I was a student at UW-Madison in the late 60's-early 70's when demonstations involving 10-20k people were fairly common and were permitted. But that kind of democracy is no longer permitted in the Land of the Free. The police have changed into militias, with their own political agenda and methods. Pre-emptive arrests are common practice. Most of the charges will be dismissed and perhaps damages will be paid eventually, but that's all irrelevant. The police militias are effective in preventing "disorder." The constitution is what the police say it is. God bless America.
She need to be protesting these bank failures. I see your point, but the real scandal to me regards all these bank failures. Neither the dems or GOP talk about deflation or all these bank failures, had another one today in GA, Dang, That’s makes 10.
"Ever since Bush and his gang came to power, there has been a concerted attempt to destroy the First Amendment right to peaceful assembly."
But St. Paul is a Democratic City and mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul are Dem. This is a bigger problem than Bush, and therefore more ominous.
Bruce
Sadly, these tactics are not new. At the 2000 RNC here in Philadelphia (followed shortly by the DNC in LA), pre-emtpive house raids, military-state style patrolling and unwarranted provocations and (and mostly acquitted) arrests of protesters certainly scare the rank and file protesters afraid to be abused by the 'troops'. Protest is no longer welcome here in this nation. Local police over-react, baited by state and federal peers. Then the commissioners might publicly apologize for the actions, and call for an 'investigation'. Court cases take years to get dismissed. And as usual, the national press shows only the worst scenes, with no evidence of the peaceful protest which most set out to do. It's a sad state of affairs. Freedom of assembly is severely curtailed.
The police militias are effective in preventing "disorder." The constitution is what the police say it is.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the King's horses and all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
It is almost certainly past the time when we still might have resurrected our killed constitution.
The so-called Joint Terrorism Task Forces managed by the FBI were/are an attempt to infiltrate local groups under the guise of protcting "national security." Here in Oregon, the good people of Portland exerted pressure to have that program driven out of taown and state!! Too bad this wasn't done in the Twin Cities and elsewhere as it's no more than the old COINTELPRO dressed in new clothes.
Scary.
I encourage all who read 'Informed Comment' to go here:
https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advocacy?JServSessionIdr012=i06ym8gso2.app44b&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=281
and sign the petition demanding that all charges against journalists be dropped.
Juan, look at my title for your comment on Reddit: Arrests in the GOP convention: charged with conspiracy to commit civil disorder (Gee, you could have arrested Martin Luther King every day of the week on that charge)
Today's (Tuesday, September 2, 2008) videocast of Democracy Now! covers the event, between 9 - 30 min into the programme. The pertinent address is as follows:
http://www.democracynow.org/
It just defies comprehension what the riot police must have been thinking in doing what they have done to peaceful people, even to those bystanders who had just happened to be in a certain area at a certain time. A very sad day in the history of a constitutionally democratic nation, where one can get maltreated and subsequently charged for felony merely for standing on a street of one's own city. Such and similar events devoid citizenship of its meaning.
BF.
Terrfying example of what America has come to. Hang in there, Amy.
The NEOCON mentality is inherently imperial. Their mouthpiece, Francis Fukuyama wrote in "The End of History" that a unipolar world was at hand. Last Saturday, President Medvedev (Russian Federation) revealed that "multipolarism" is one of the 5 pillars of that country's foreign policy. Ask Armenians if they want a single NATO protectorate in the Caucasus. Ask the 90% of Georgians who either are opposed to or wary of Bush unipolarism. That is a hot issue in that country.
Ready for a shock? A NATO member, Turkey, has called for a new regional arrangement in the Caucasus. Would the leader have done so without prior discussions with the Russians? Hardly! Bush's Caucasus policy will flop, like every other thing that has issued from his NEOCON supremacists. See for yourselves:
http://www.panarmenian.net/library/eng/?nid=197
The NEOCON war Mentality:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/5357919/BushMcCain-War-Crimes-In-South-Ossetia
BTW: the 9 OSCE Monitors who were in South Ossetia when Saakashvili launched the Midnight-Massacre barrage, are about to release a report that will accuse the Georgian leader of war crimes. But, why didn't Bush want Russian troops to occupy the site where the barrage was launched? Were some of the 137 American Advisors in Georgia, assisting genocide. We will have the answer if Barack Obama wins the US presidency. Otherwise, there will be yet another NECON coverup.
Where is democracy? I am afraid that it no longer exists! How can the police and guardsman react so violently unless they have been "brainwashed" to treat their fellow beings without compassion. Beware-watch what's going on around you and pay great attention to every little freedom you are losing! Soon Blackwater will be knocking on you doo-by then it will be too late!!!!!!
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