Blocking Traffic is NOT Terrorism!

The week of attacks on First Amendment freedom in the streets of St Paul is finally over–a shameful episode in American history. But the legal struggles have only just begun. I’ve already referred to the riot charges brought up against legitimate journalists for Democracy Now, the AP, and elsewhere who were just trying to do their very important job: covering what was really going on at the RNC.

Those cases, if not dismissed, will drag on for years, and suck away resources that should be used for reporting.

Now comes word that eight activists have been charged with “conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism”–for nothing worse than planning to block some streets, as county officials were well aware–they had infiltrated the organizing groups for up to a year (a crime in itself).

Sound like Chicago in 1968? These activists are facing serious time, even as no one seems to be holding accountable the police who ran rampant and created a climate of fear before and during the convention week.

Let’s listen to the father of one of the eight, interviewed on Democracy Now (you can read the entire interview at the above link:

AMY GOODMAN: David Bicking, your daughter Monica is one of the eight. First, can you talk about her, talk about her activities?

DAVID BICKING: Yeah. My daughter Monica is a wonderful person, very concerned—

AMY GOODMAN: How old is she?

DAVID BICKING: —very committed. She’s twenty-three. And she and all the people—I mean, the people they have charged here are not criminals. They’re some of the best people in our society. She’s really dedicated to her activism. She’s experienced activist already. She’s come about this through her own experience in her life over a long time. She is always concerned about the feelings of others.

She has done some travel abroad. And when she was eight, we were in Ecuador for four weeks, and she saw the poverty and the children begging, but also humanized it by playing with the children, the maids in the, you know, inexpensive hotels there. She has—went to Honduras for eight weeks after her junior year to work in a very remote village, humanitarian work.

After high school, she took off a year before college and worked as an intern with the American Friends Service Committee, which is a Quaker peace group. She was based in Chicago and helped in their organizing and their peace work and liaison with other groups.

So she has a lot of experience, and she’s really seen what it means when—you know, the United States’ actions through war, through injustice at home, through poverty and how that’s affected people’s lives. And it’s affected her very deeply. And so, she’s strong. She’ll get through this one way or the other.

AMY GOODMAN: Is she still in jail?

DAVID BICKING: She is still in jail right now.

AMY GOODMAN: When was she picked up? How was she picked up?

DAVID BICKING: She was picked up on Saturday morning at 8:00 in the morning. She was staying in her house, which she had just bought a month before. And there were several roommates there and a whole bunch of people who had come in for the week. And at 8:00 in the morning, they were woken out of a sound sleep. The police came banging through the back door, held everyone at gunpoint. They had automatic weapons, assault rifles, forced everybody—ordered them to the floor, face down, handcuffed them behind their backs and then proceeded to search the entire house, just ransack everything.

When I got there forty-five minutes later, she and her boyfriend Eryn and a housemate, Garrett, were already in one of these big black SUVs they have, you know, and were taken off to jail just after that. And then, for the next hour or so, they released the other people in the house one by one, after photographing them, checking ID and searching them.

Then the search of the house went on for another like six hours probably, as they carted all sort of stuff out of the house. I watched, you know, as they took things out of the garage. There were old tires. I suppose those could be burned someplace. You know, there were just the sort of things homeowners would have, especially people fixing up a house. Many cans of paint, each which was patiently labeled and loaded onto the truck. It was just an absurd, absurd overreaction.

Are they going to try to tell us that Quaker peace activists are considered terrorists now? For shame!

You can be part of the movement to demand that charges against both the 8 and the journalists be dropped immediately, as outlined in this email from Democracy Now (note that you have to replace the spaces at written out word “at” with the @ sign:

Here’s the letter I sent in response to this appeal:

I am totally appalled that working journalists were arrested arbitrarily during the RNC. I have watched the video of Amy Goodman’s arrest and do not see how the simple act of asking to speak to the officer in charge in order to help her just-arrested colleagues was in any way arrest-worthy. I find the unnecessary force used by the police objectionable. And I find the act of ripping a journalist’s credentials off her neck and telling her she won’t be needing it to be straight out of Kafka.

I am even more appalled that the terrorism conspiracy statute was dredged up for the first time against Quaker peace activists who were in no way terrorists. Blocking a street is not akin to bombing a building. And the right to dissent is fundamental.

Tens of thousands of young Americans have died to protect our freedom. When the government tries to suppress peaceful protest and censor/arrest journalists covering that protest, I have to wonder if those brave young men and women died in vain. As a business owner, an author, and an American, I urge you to remember the Bill of rights, the Constitution as a whole, and the importance of safeguarding our democracy.

The U.S. is not supposed to act like some two-bit totalitarian country where freedom doesn’t exist. Drop the charges.

CONTACT THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE – DEMAND THAT ALL CHARGES OR POTENTIAL
CHARGES BE IMMEDIATELY DROPPED:
Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner
janet.hafner@co.ramsey.mn.us and
susan.gaertner@co.ramsey.mn.us
(cc: dropthecharges at democracynow.org)
651-266-3079

Susan Gaertner for Governor
info at susangaertner.com (cc: dropthecharges at democracynow.org)
(612) 978-8625
(612)804-6156

St. Paul Mayor Christopher B. Coleman
chris.coleman@ci.stpaul.mn.us
Bob.Hume@ci.stpaul.mn.us
sara.grewing@ci.stpaul.mn.us
(cc: dropthecharges at democracynow.org)

Make your voice heard in the Ramsey County Attorney and St. Paul Mayor’s
offices. Demand that they drop all pending and current charges against
journalists arrested while reporting on protests outside the Republican
National Conventions.

The Ramsey County Attorney’s office is in the process of deciding
whether or not to press felony P.C. (probable cause) riot charges
against Democracy Now! Producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole
Salazar. Please contact Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner by all
means possible to demand that her office not press charges against
Kouddous and Salazar.

The St. Paul City Attorney’s office has already charged Amy Goodman with
misdemeanor obstruction of a legal process and interference with a peace
officer. Contact St. Paul Mayor Christopher Coleman by all means
possible to demand that the charges against Goodman be dropped immediately.

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.

During the demonstration in which the Democracy Now! team was arrested,
law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion
grenades and excessive force against protesters and journalists. Several
dozen demonstrators were also arrested during this action, as was a
photographer for the Associated Press.

IMPORTANT
Be sure to cc: dropthecharges@democracynow.org on all emails so that our
team can deliver print outs of your messages to the St. Paul City
Attorney, the Mayor and Ramsey County Attorney offices.