Now They're Busting Journos at the RNC–An Outrage!

I am absolutely outraged! the Republican National Convention is turning into a replay of the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968, where cops went crazy violent against activists, who were hauled into court.

Enough is enough!

The first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the right to peaceful protest, as well as the right to freedom of the press. Here is the full text. with the relevant parts in bold:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or

abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

.

At the RNC this weekend, legitimate journalists, credentials around their necks, were thrown roughly to the ground, handcuffed, assaulted, and arrested by police who violated all sorts of protocols. Earlier in the week, the police engaged in pre-emptive raids against citizen-journalists who have been known to record police brutality incidents.

You can read, watch, or listen to the entire account by clicking here. But I want to share a few of the most outrageous bits.

NICOLE SALAZAR: Cars were behind me. We were in a parking lot. And, you know, I was telling them that “I’m press. I’m press. Please, you know, don’t—you know, let me pass.” But I couldn’t turn around. And I tried to move in between the—between two cars, and instead of, you know, letting me pass and following the crowd, they instead came right after me and slammed me into the car, at which point I think my camera came back and hit me in the face. And two cops were also behind me, and they pushed me through that row of cars into the next area of the parking lot and slammed me to the ground and said, “Get your face on the ground! Get your face on the ground!” And I was, you know, at that point—

AMY GOODMAN: So you were on your stomach, on your face, on the ground.

NICOLE SALAZAR: I was on my stomach on the ground. And one of the officers, I think he was trying to grab me. He was trying to drag me. He was grabbing my leg. And another officer put his boot on my back and was pressing me to the ground.

AMY GOODMAN: Had they handcuffed you by now?

NICOLE SALAZAR: Yes, they had put me in those plastic cuffs, and my hands were behind my back. And my camera was, you know, two feet away from my face, lying on the ground. And I think shortly thereafter one officer came over and picked up the camera and took out the battery. And at that point I was worried that they were going to take my tape, but I don’t think—I mean, they didn’t, because now we have the tape, but he did take the battery out, I guess so the camera wouldn’t be recording.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, I made it to the police line, where the police in riot gear were lined up. I asked to speak to a commanding officer. They immediately grabbed me. I said, “Sir, I just want to speak to a commanding officer. My reporters are inside.” They’ve got their ID. I mean, we’ve done this in New York, as well, when there is confusion about a reporter. They immediately grabbed me, handcuffed me—and as you haven’t quite talked about, those plastic handcuffs cut right into your wrist, and they make those tight—pushed me to the ground.

AMY GOODMAN: As I came in and I was speaking to the corrections officers, who did identify themselves—I kept asking every officer to identify themselves—a St. Paul cop behind them kept screaming, “Shut up! You, shut up!” And I asked—I said, “I want to know what your name is or your badge.” “Shut up! Shut up!” he said, I think to the chagrin of the corrections officers. One of the head guys in the jail came over and said, “He’s not ours. We can’t force him to identify himself. Our policy is that they identify themselves.” And stayed there for several hours.

Ultimately, they released me, interference with, I think they said, the judicial process or with a peace officer.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: I was taken to prison, as well. But I think one thing that was left out also in the story, and I think this happened to you, as well, Amy, was that while we were standing waiting to be processed and put on the bus, I was standing there with three credentials around my neck: my Democracy Now! press pass, which has my picture; the RNC press one, which gets you inside the convention; and a separate one, which I was supposed to put on Nicole, but I never actually did, was a limited RNC press one. A man walked up to me, who was not in uniform of St. Paul or Minneapolis police—I was later told he was Secret Service—came up and looked at my RNC press badge, said, “What is this?” I said, “It’s my pass to get inside the Xcel Center.” He said, “Well, you won’t be needing that to go—you’re not going to be going inside the convention center today,” and took it and walked off. I immediately protested. I said, “I want this around my neck to prove I’m an accredited journalist to go inside the convention center.” And he said, “You won’t be needing it today,” walked off.

I asked my arresting officer, who incidentally was not my arresting officer—they just assigned some guy to take the picture of me and process me—he said, “I don’t know who that guy is. He looks like Secret Service.” I said, “Well, why don’t you acknowledge that this was taken, witness it somehow?” And he refused to do so. And I believe they did the same to you. They took that pass off your neck.

AMY GOODMAN: Right. The Secret Service came up, and they—he ripped it off of my neck.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: And I said, “That is my pass. I want a receipt that you have taken that.” But of course, they didn’t give it.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And then, once I was put on the bus, as well—and just to reiterate what you were saying, while I was being arrested, I was, you know, slammed violently. I got scratches on my elbow and bruises on my chest and back. But the most painful part of it was these plastic handcuffs. They were extremely tight. Getting onto the bus, I asked one of the officers, I said, “Can you just cut these off and put on new ones?” because you can’t loosen those. And his response to that was to grab them and tighten them. So it was very painful on the way. I actually still don’t have feeling in part of my hand.

In the Bush years, the right to dissent has been unnaturally restricted and restricted. As one among many examples, national political party conventions have colluded with local police departments to deny these rights of free speech, assembly, and redress of grievances, by forcing demonstrators into restricted areas where the politicos don’t have to see and hear them.

But vicious physical attacks on and arrests of journalists is something that isn’t supposed to happen here, in the land of the free–in the dictatorships of developing countries (all-too-often propped up with the help of the U.S., unfortunately), it might be common. But here? The land to which our forefathers and foremothers gave their lives in order to ensure that it would always be free–Thomas Jefferson must be spinning in his grave.

Why there wasn’t mass outrage about the idea that you can cage up demonstrators and herd them away from the institutions they’re protesting against–or why this idiocy hasn’t been thrown out by the courts–is beyond me. But it’s time for the people to say, enough, we won’t take it anymore.

We demand our right to assemble in public places–including directly outside the gates of those we want to reach.
We demand an end to police violence against peaceful protest.
We demand an end to harassment, assault, and arrest of journalists, including the mainstream press, the alternative press, and citizen-journalists
We demand our rights under the First Amendment to the United states constitution to speak, to be heard, and to register our protests, and our rights as citizens of the United states to vote, and to have our votes counted honestly.

Tell your Senators, your Representatives, and your local political party structure.

And it’s not just journalists. I received this via e-mail from A.N.S.W.E.R this afternoon:

The police have engaged in a widespread riot against social justice organizations, resulting in the arrest of around 300 protesters. Most of the arrested are still in jail, and at least one person with a serious medical condition has been refused care.

Even before the Convention began, protesters had the organizing centers raided. Armed groups of police in the Twin Cities have raided more than half-a-dozen locations since Friday night in a series of “preemptive raids.” The raids and detentions have targeted activists planning to protest the convention, including journalists and videographers from I-Witness Video and the Glass Bead Collective. These media organizations were targeted because of the instrumental role they played in documenting police abuses the 2004 RNC Convention. Their comprehensive video coverage helped more than 400 wrongfully arrested people get their charges thrown out.

You can go sign their petition to protest and demand the release of these hundreds of people.