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.

Things continue to be ugly in Saint Paul at the Republican National Convention. Watch this video of police seizing the living/working permaculture demonstration bus from activists, not allowing them to remove any of their possessions except for their chickens and dogs–which were left with the bus residents on the side of a highway as cops hauled the bus away–and not giving anything resembling a valid reason for their action.

And not much prettier on the convention floor, where Sarah Palin made an absolutely despicable speech attacking Obama last night. Among other things, she said, “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer’ except that you have actual responsibilities.” Obama, of course, got his start as a community organizer. As did I, and I don’t appreciate the jab.

And I see they’re trotting out the L-Word again–here’s former presidential candidate Fred Thompson at the RNC:

the Democrats present a history-making nominee for president, history-making in that he’s the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee to ever run for president.

Now it’s time for Obama–who has been remarkably classy in attacking the McCain-Bush policies while commending McCain’s personal commitment and his patriotism to say what Dukakis should have said in 1988.

“Liberals gave us the 8-hour day and workplace protection safeguards instead of 12 or 14 hours in near-slave conditions. Liberals passed historic legislation to protect the air and water of our nation. Liberals actually belief that government should serve the people–all of the people, and not just the $5 million a year and more club. Yes, I’m a liberal and I’m proud.. Why aren’t YOU?”

That would have turned around the 1988 election and changed the discourse for decades. It can do the same today.

If you were as horrified as I was by the police violence I wrote about yesterday, please sign this petition from CREDO:

Jailing journalists is unacceptable in a democracy. But that’s exactly
what is happening at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul,
Minnesota.

Award winning journalist and host of “Democracy Now” Amy Goodman was
arrested by St. Paul police while covering a protest outside the
Republican National Convention. Though clearly identified as press,
Goodman was charged with “obstruction of a legal process and interference
with a ‘peace officer.'” Two of her producers were arrested for “suspicion
of felony riot.”

To tell you that this arrest was brutal and upsetting simply doesn’t do it
justice. Watch this video
https://act.credoaction.com/campaign/dont_arrest_journalists/
to see for yourself. Then take action.

I just e-mailed the presidents of CNN and NBC News (which oversees MSNBC)
to demand that their networks cover this important story. I hope you will
too.

Please have a look and take action.
https://act.credoaction.com/campaign/dont_arrest_journalists/

Also this report from Leslie Cagan of United for Peace and Justice,w ith the phone number for the St. Paul Mayor’s Office:

We are sending you this message because the situation in St. Paul is very grave and we’re concerned that the real story is not being told by the mainstream media.

Over the past few days, the heavily armed and extremely large police presence in St. Paul has intimidated, harrassed and provoked people; and, in a number of instances, the police have escalated situations when they used excessive force. They have used pepper spray, including spraying at least one person just inches from her face as she was held down on the ground by several police officers. They have freely swung their extra long night sticks, pushed people around, rode horses and bicycles up against peacefully gathered groups, and surrounded people simply walking down the streets. On Tuesday evening, they used tear gas on a small group of protesters in downtown St. Paul.

The massive police presence and the uncalled-for actions by the police on the streets has not been the only problem. The police raided a convergence center and several locations where people are staying over the weekend and they have stopped and searched vehicles for no clear reason. https://www.counterpunch.org/cohn09022008.html

On Tuesday afternoon, they literally pulled the plug and turned off the electricity at a permitted outdoor concert. The timing of this led to a situation where hundreds of understandably angry people ended up joining a march being led by the Poor Peoples Campaign for Economic Human Rights, a march that organizers were insisting be nonviolent. In other words, the police set up a dynamic that could have turned ugly, but the skill of the organizers kept things calm and focused.

All of this – and much more – needs to be understood in the context of the overwhelming presence of police. Police from all around the Twin Cities have been put to work, and they have also brought in police units from around Minnesota and from as far away as Philadelphia, PA. The National Guard and state troopers are in the mix, to say nothing of the Secret Service, Homeland Security and who knows who else from the federal government!

We are very concerned about what this all means about the right to protest, the right to assemble, and the right to have one’s dissenting voice heard. We are worried about what it means about the growing militarization of our nation and the ongoing assault on the Constitution. We shudder to think about how the influx of new weapons and armed vehicles and everything else will be used in the neighborhoods of St. Paul and Denver: both communities each received $50 million from Homeland Security to purchase the equipment and pay for the policing during the conventions.

There are still two more days of the Republican Convention in St. Paul — two more days of protest and possibilities of police mis-conduct, over-reaction, and excessive use of force.

We urge you to call the Mayor of St. Paul right now! Let him know that people around the country know what’s happening! Urge him to stand up for the Constitution and to take action to end the militarization of the downtown areas of his city! Urge him to reign in the police and help bring civility to the streets of St. Paul!

Mayor Chris Coleman: 651-266-8510

And call your local media outlets to demand that they tell the real story of what’s happening in St. Paul this week.

Peace,

Leslie Cagan, UFPJ National Coordinator