Law and Disorder November 14, 2011

CIA Sponsored Terror, Criminalizing Dissent, Gaza, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

—–

US Boat To Gaza Violence November 2011

Earlier this month, two civilian boats destined for the Gaza Strip and carrying medical cargo set sail from Fethiye, Turkey.  As many listeners may know, the boats, one Canadian (“Tahrir”) and one Irish (“Saoirse”), carried 27 people–including journalists and crew—from nine different countries were met with a violent take over by Israeli military.  The crew of both boats were attacked by high pressure hoses, there was heavy damage. The crew of the Canadian boat were beaten and tasered. Passengers remain in the Givon detention center. President Obama says the passengers are defying Israeli and American law.  Past Law and Disorder shows last year’s flotilla. June 7, 2010 / June 21, 2010 / October 2010  /  June 13, 2011

Felice Gelman:

  • Some are still in prison, the process of getting people out is very opaque. The Israeli courts told them if they wouldn’t sign a false confession, to confess they had entered Israel illegally that they could be held for 2 months in jail.  There were 18 people still left in Israeli jail.
  • I would like to point out that this is exactly what happens to Palestinians every day.
  • There are more than 6 thousand Palestinian political prisoners who go through this same opaque legal process, tortured. 90 percent of the people who have been arrested by the Israelis, Palestinians, have been tortured.
  • Forty percent of the male population at one time has been held by the Palestinians for more than a week. We’re talking about a little over 3 million people.
  • It’s endemic process its happening to foreigners at this point. The little kids are hit and shouted at and hooded. I think the Israelis taught the Americans.
  • The Israelis are regarded as experts in with what they call terrorists.
  • These boats were eagerly anticipated in Gaza. Thousands of people came down to the Gaza harbor and hundreds went out on boats hoping to greet the boats.
  • Since 2006 Gaza has been under complete siege and blockade, everything that is allowed in is under Israeli control, almost nothing is allowed out.
  • There is no economy, without exports, you really can’t have much of an economy. You’ve got 40 percent unemployment. 90 percent of the population is drinking polluted water because the crucial parts of the water treatment plants have not been allowed in by Israel.
  • There’s only one reason Israel has been able to maintain this occupation, and that is because the United States abets it.
  • There are no consequences for expanding settlements (from the Obama Administration)
  • Right now the Israeli government is trying to get the US to attack Iran.
  • Instead of Israel being regarded as an out of control, militarized bully is regarded as a close US ally who should determine our foreign policy.
  • Endtheoccupation

Guest – Felice Gelman is with the Steering Committee that organized The Gaza Freedom March and has traveled to Gaza twice since the Israeli invasion.

—–

Who Killed Che? How The CIA Got Away With Murder

Co-hosts Michael Smith and Michael Ratner discuss their upcoming book Who Killed Che? A groundbreaking examination based on documents obtained from a Freedom of Information Act requests filed in 1995.  This new information helps dispel the stories that the US was not involved with the murder of Che Guevara.  Morning Star Review

“Ratner and Smith cut through the lies and distortions to provide a riveting and thoroughly documented history of the murder of Che Guevara. In an era when ‘targeted assassinations’ and ‘capture and kill operations’ have become routine, and are routinely glorified by the mainstream U.S. press, their examination of the U.S. role in Che Guevara’s death could not be more timely.” —Amy Goodman, host and executive producer, Democracy Now.

Michael Ratner / Michael Smith:

  • One day when I was a baby I filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all the documents the FBI and the CIA had about Che Guevara.
  • You and I had received the first documents 15 years ago and we wrote the first book Che Guevara and the FBI
  • Ten or twelve years later I get another document drop from the CIA and these are the documents that are the most important in my view, relating to Che’s killing in Bolivia.
  • The government had changed in Bolivia since 1819, 189 times.
  • The book tells his story in Bolivia, and what the US did starting the counter intelligence process against him and supported the Bolivian government.
  • Michael and I enjoyed working on it because we got to really know Che in a way we haven’t before.
  • This book had its origin first in a document drop that was about Che’s murder and Che’s time in Bolivia. There are maps we put in the book of the last battles, where he was captured.
  • The idea of the book really came from Michael Smith.
  • A lot of people bought the story that was put out by the CIA agent on the ground.
  • We demonstrate that the US was deeply involved in his murder.
  • Ricardo Alarcon who is the president of the Cuban National Assembly, wrote the introduction to our book.
  • During the Cuban Revolution, it was the Bastista troops that killed tens of thousand of revolutionaries.
  • The book follows Che when he’s in Africa and various places, but then we have him going to Bolivia on November 5, 1966.
  • There was a split between Che and Fidel. Fidel was worried about Che every single day.
  • The first half of the book is a 25 thousand word essay by Michael Smith and Michael Ratner. It links together what happened with Che once he left Cuba.
  • It’s also a biography of the US counterinsurgency program and the characters in that program that tried to make sure they would stop the Cuban revolution from spreading to other countries.
  • We dedicated this book to our friend, the great movement attorney Len Weinglass. Len was the attorney for the Cuban Five.
  • The Cuban Five are an important part of this story, 44 years after Che’s death.
  • The US has attempted to completely destroy Cuba, and squeeze it so it could not carry out the social and economic reforms that really would’ve made it a shining example for the world.

Hosts – Michael Steven Smith is the author, editor, and co-editor of six books, mostly recently “The Emerging Police State,” by William M. Kunstler. He has testified before committees of the United States Congress and the United Nations on human rights issues. Mr. Smith lives and practices law in New York City with his wife Debby, where on behalf of seriously injured persons he sues insurance companies and occasionally the New York City Police Department. Michael Smith also organizes and chairs the Left Forum. Check out Michael’s blog here.

Host- Michael Ratner  NewYork civil-rights lawyer Michael Ratner was in the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday,flanked by the mother of one of the Guantánamo detainees he has represented for the past two years, unsure what to expect. After an hour, he was pleasantly surprised. First, Sandra Day O’Connor, and then Justices Souter, Breyer, Kennedy and even Scalia, indicated through their questions that they were skeptical of the government’s argument that the men Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls “the worst of the worst” have no legal right to file habeas corpus petitions in U.S. courts.

—————————————————


Law and Disorder November 7, 2011

Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Surveillance, Truth to Power

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

—-

 


Brooklyn Fair Food Festival Urges Trader Joe’s To Support Fair Labor Standards For Farm Workers.

Brooklyn, community members joined the Coalition of Immokalee Workers an organization of farm workers in Southern Florida to call on Trader Joe’s to live up to its public image as an ethical corporation by participating in the Campaign For Fair Food.  The Campaign seeks to improve wages and working conditions for Florida tomato pickers by calling on major buyers of tomatoes to pay a premium of one penny more per pound for their tomatoes, ensure that this penny is passed down directly to farmworkers, and work together with the CIW to establish and implement a code of conduct in their supply chains.  Sound gathered and interviews by Michael Ratner.

—

Wall Street Firms Spy On Protesters In Tax Funded Center

It was six years in the planning according to recently uncovered documents that show 150 million taxpayer dollars funding a round the clock surveillance security center in Lower Manhattan where Wall Street firms sit along side the NYPD. That’s right, high wage Wall Street firm workers will sit next to MTA, NYPD and Port Authority employees and monitor the near 3000 spy cameras installed in the area. Any individual can be tracked by the color of their clothes or face recognition with live feed cameras that also read license plates.  In her article Wall Street Firms Spy on Protesters in Tax-Funded Center, investigative journalist Pam Martens also focused on the corrupt alliance of indicted corporate firms merging with police to spy on law abiding citizens funded by tax payer money. Her latest article in Counterpunch titled Financial Giants Put New York City Cops On Their Payroll exposes how private Wall Street corporations are allowed to order a paid detail of New York City Police at an average of 37.00 an hour. The taxpayer again picks up the tab for training, uniforms and any law suit brought from “following illegal instructions from its corporate master.”

Pam Martens:

  • I had the benefit of managing my own client base, so Wall Street did not have the same type of leverage over me that it has over so many of its other workers.
  • About 10 years into my tenure, I started reading about the private justice system Wall Street had set up where both customers and employees had to waive their rights to the nation’s courts.
  • I started complaining and advocating against that. They were self policing, that was totally corrupt.
  • Then I started protesting in the streets, filed a large federal rights action, and testified at several venues, the SEC and the Federal Reserve.
  • The story is much more insidious than I first realized.  I came across a 60 Minutes expose on the counter-terrorism unit of the NYPD. At the very end of the piece there is a tour of the facility, the one that I’m talking about.
  • The Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center, which is jointly operated by Wall Street’s potential felons and the largest law enforcement police force in the country. It’s actually at 55 Broadway.
  • Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, sitting next to public sector employees.
  • It consists of 3 rows of computer terminals. 2 of those rows are dominated by Wall Street firms, the NYSE, the Federal Reserve and only one row has uniformed officers.
  • I called up the producer at 60 Minutes, and said you had to have seen all these people in civilian clothes.
  • The NYPD has used tax payer money to have one massive computer to look at all the individual feeds. That massive computer has artificial intelligence.
  • There is absolutely no explanation for why Wall Street firms get to sit there and have access confidential databases that belong to the NYPD.  I have 2 FOIA requests with the NYPD. Every detail of us is under surveillance.
  • There are some reports, they can zero in and read text messages on your cell phone.
  • These Wall Street firms that have committed crime after crime, after crime, they’re currently under 51 separate state and federal investigations for securities fraud and essentially looting the public.  They’re the partners, the potential felons, are the partners with the law enforcement.
  • Credit Suisse v. Billing, 551 U.S. 264 (2007), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which held that Congress’ creation of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) implicitly exempted the regulated securities industry from antitrust lawsuits under other existing laws. Justice Thomas dissented, arguing that the laws creating the SEC explicitly mention that securities regulations are in addition to, not instead of, existing law.

Guest – Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years. She spent the last decade of her career advocating against Wall Street’s private justice system, which keeps its crimes shielded from public courtrooms.  She has been writing on public interest issues for CounterPunch since retiring in 2006.   She has no security position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article.

—————————————————————————————————-

Law and Disorder October 31, 2011

Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

  • UN Votes 186-2 To Lift Cuba Embargo – US and Israel
  • Anxiety Over Economy: Concentration Of Wealth Seen As Key Issue At A Volatile Time
  • OWS Albany Arrest Controversy

—

Occupy Des Moines Arrests

Police abuse of authority including excessive use of force are on the increase as more Occupy movements around the country are forced to disperse. Last week, 37 demonstrators were arrested in Des Moines, Iowa when 24 state troopers closed in on the Occupy movement there, arbitrarily enforcing curfew in a local park.  Still more people were arrested in the downtown area that same night. While capturing his friend being pepper sprayed in the face on video, and then arrested, an officer directed Justin Norman to back off the sidewalk into another area. Justin was then arrested for trespassing and interfering with official acts. The officer grabbed his camera, but other protesters were able to wrestle it away from him.

Justin Norman:

  • There’s an 11:00 PM curfew at the park that’s normally not enforced. Some of the people said they would walk their dogs in the park after 11:00 and no one cared. The Iowa State Patrol brought out about 24 state troopers.
  • I was down there doing some video taping. The protesters began to sit as the police approached.
  • The police began to be strangely brutal with some of the protesters.
  • One of the leaders of the chant was asked if would like to be arrested or go. He said he would go. As he was leaving they shoved him on the ground and cut open his knees.
  • They dragged him off to a police van anyway. Another person was shoved to the ground, the state trooper stepped on his head and struck him the face multiple times.
  • Another guy I believe is a ten year Air Force veteran, was refusing to leave the park, arms linked with another protester, in response, one of the state troopers maced him in the face.
  • I was videotaping him from the edge of the sidewalk, the state trooper told me to step back, back into the park.  I’m about 20 feet from the trooper and he’s still telling me to move back.
  • He tells me if I don’t continue to move back, I’m going to be charged with interference and trespassing.
  • They arrested me and tried to take my camera. They took the camera and I yelled out to one of my friends and ran up and tore the camera out of the troopers hands.
  • I do a demonstration against torture on a regular basis in west Des Moines.
  • People got a bit frightened by the police brutality they witnessed and they decided to apply for a permit in the park. They stayed there for about 3 days, the permit expired in 3 days.

Guest – Justin Norman, activist who has filmed police misconduct, including recent raid on OWS movement in Des Moines, Iowa.

—

Guantanamo Murder Case: Al-Zahrani v. Rumsfeld

Last week, Center for Constitutional Rights attorney Pardiss Kebriaei present oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in the case of Al-Zahrani v. Rumsfeld. The case is a civil action filed on behalf of two men who died at Guantanamo Bay Prison in June 2006. There deaths, highly questionable and last year, four soldiers came forward with eye-witness accounts suggesting a cover up of the cause of the deaths and that they may have killed at a black site in Guantanamo.  The military has maintained that the deaths were suicides, having once famously called them “acts of asymmetrical warfare.”  Also, CCR attorneys have pointed to other documented examples of deaths and killings covered-up by the military in the recent past, including the falsification of records in the death of former football player Pat Tillman and the premeditated murders of Afghan civilians by members of the Army’s Bravo Company.  Our own Michael Ratner has recently returned from Norway after meeting with family members of one of the men.  Scott Horton article

Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei:

  • This case is on behalf of the families of 2 of the 3 who died in June 2006. They were high profile deaths, the military came out immediately and said they were suicides that the men had died from creating nooses from bed sheets and hung themselves in their room.
  • Then there were offensive remarks made by government spokespeople, they called them asymmetric warfare.
  • They saw this as an attack, the fact that these men for having taking their own lives, from having been detained without charge in solitary confinement for 4 years, as an attack on the US government.
  • They were characterized as a good PR move. These were military and Department of State spokespeople.
  • Yasir was 17, he was from Saudi Arabia, he was, almost like everyone there not charged, held for almost 4 years. He was apparently a long time hunger striker.
  • Along with the torture and solitary they were subjected to in terms of their condition, just the torture they were subjected to in general, they were forced into restraint chairs. Restrained at five points, their forehead, shoulders wrists and ankles, had a tube inserted up their nose and a liter of fluid pumped into their stomachs.
  • In 2008 from a Freedom of Information Act litigation, the government was finally compelled to produced its information, investigation into these deaths.  Supporting the claim that the deaths were suicides.
  • Our clients were really disadvantaged to find out what’s really going on. I don’t think they believed these were suicides.
  • The case was dismissed because the case raised special factors of national security and the military and foreign policy that were issues that were within the realm of political branches and basically not the business of courts to interfere in.
  • It’s not enough to criticize the administrations anymore because the courts are accepting those arguments.
  • If you’re DC, the district courts and the circuit courts in particular have been accepting those arguments.
  • In 2010, 4 soldiers stationed at Guantanamo at the time came forward with eye witness accounts and were actually on duty on the night of the deaths.
  • One of the soldiers came forward with direct evidence of a cover up of the actual cause the deaths.  They were transported to “Camp No”
  • Hickman reported hearing screams for Camp No. They reported seeing plain clothes officers sometimes going there. It was thought to be a site possibly run by the CIA or used by the CIA or Joint Special Operations Command forces of the military who are again, not accountable.
  • The disdain from the DC Circuit Court for this case and every case coming out of Guantanamo was absolutely evident from the moment I opened my mouth.

Guest – Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei, she joined the Center Constitutional Rights in July 2007. Since then, her work has focused on representing men detained at Guantánamo Bay in their habeas corpus challenges, before international human rights tribunals, in diplomatic advocacy with foreign governments to secure resettlement for men who cannot return home, and in post-release reintegration efforts. Her clients have included men from Yemen, Syria, Algeria, and Afghanistan. Her work includes seeking accountability for torture and arbitrary detention at Guantánamo.

———————————————————–

 

Law and Disorder October 24, 2011

Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Truth to Power, War Resister

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

—-


Occupy Wall St. – Think Tanks and Organizing

Like many protesters down at Liberty Plaza, Tim Weldon has been under employed for years. He’s got a Masters Degree, one in economic development and 10 years experience in international business.  He’s now part of Occupy Wall St working with the think tank group.  The first step is taking all the ideas and solutions generated from the movement and collating them into a more accessible format.

Tim Weldon:

  • The food is hit or miss, you cycle through, get in line, whatever is there at the time, that’s what you get.
  • There’s sanitation, first aid, media press, PR. The group that I’m specifically on is the think tank.
  • Similar to a lot of people, said, how do I fit in and what exactly is going on? Like most people I got down there and thought how do I fit in to where I most belong?  So, I walked around for most of the day, I got to the stage to where I thought, what I would be good at and what could fit in here.
  • Then I found some very like minded people who were thinking the same thing, to sort of create an opportunity for all of the ideas to be collected, organized and collated together. The think tank, we’re going to have four different receptacles for information.
  • One will be from the park where we’ll have discussion groups on topics. We’re trying to develop a web platform within the NYCGA.net .
  • We’re getting all walks of life, one of the best participants was a disabled man.
  • The discussions have been so positive and energetic and we’re saying how can we take both of these ideas and forget about the established dichotomies and all this dogma that people are working with.
  • Let’s go straight to us right here, let’s create a productive use of this information where everybody is happy.
  • I found that everybody I’m working with open and wants to listen, wants to learn, the way most of the groups work is there’s no leaders. I like to draw differentiation between leaders and leadership.
  • People are coming here after they’ve been setup and more streamline or coming here to get things more streamline. Take a step back, try to envision something different.
  • Everybody seemed united around, well, they want it clean, lets get things clean.
  • People were doing what had to be done and getting things done, but there was a subtle apprehension there, what’s going to happen tomorrow? How serious is it going to be? How much are we going to have to fight, not in a physical sense but in all sort of senses for this space?
  • Most of the country can get behind the fact, whether your left or right, whatever it is, you’ve got some apprehension about what’s going on in the country right now and that’s what we’re trying to voice.
  • Holding that space is really important to the movement.
  • Maintaining that park is very important because it is the symbol.  You control us in every other aspect of our lives perhaps, but you don’t control us here.
  • I left my job last week, this to me is the movement of our generation.

Guest – Tim Weldon is from upstate New York. He quit his job to dedicate his time to help the Occupy Wall Street movement. Specifically, Tim is working with the think tank group, pulling together ideas and solutions pouring in from around the country and making them more accessible to media and others. Tim has a Master’s Degrees in economic development. He also has 10 years experience in international business.

—

Occupy Wall Street: Attorney Margaret Ratner-Kunstler Part 2

We continue the “know your rights”  discussion on the Occupy Wall St protests, encampments and demonstrations. Last week we talked about how the NYPD collected intelligence data from protesters.  When more than 800 people on the Brooklyn Bridge were arrested a few weeks ago,  that event was more about getting protester names and pedigree information into databases says attorney Margaret Ratner-Kunstler with the National Lawyers Guild.  Meanwhile students from 90 colleges and universities are protesting the price of education, being saddled with student loan debt and more. There are many aspects to knowing your rights as a demonstrator and we’ll discuss more details today with returning guest attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler.

Attorney Margaret Ratner-Kunslter:

  • You can be anywhere to express your first amendment rights. I think occupation is a new first amendment right.
  • The occupation movement is relatively new and we haven’t really tested it in the federal courts or state courts and I think we have a good opportunity to do that.  They haven’t got people out of the park because when they threatened to do so, the number of people swelled from about 1000 to 6000.
  • I think it was a question of mass support for the demonstration that prevented the police from clearing the park.
  • Seattle was a successful protest (1999) it interfered with delegates going to the convention center and it was a very embarrassing thing for the police because it was an international conference.
  • Kettling is those big iron fences, they put people in these fenced areas to keep them separated so they can be crowd control.
  • By the time Michael and I finished this book, we were saying, oh, they’re never going to be able to demonstrate again. But lo and behold, a new form of demonstrations is upon us, and its just thrilling.
  • The police officer who pepper sprayed the young woman, lost ten vacation days.
  • That was the immediate result after Seattle, there were fusion centers. Those are centers where the FBI and local police get together and collect information.
  • Every time they hear of a demonstration, they try to prevent it, they have many ways to dissuade people from coming to demonstrations.
  • Militarization of the police: It was no longer a family occupation to protest against the war, it was a dangerous thing to do. You got stuck in a pen and you couldn’t get out.

Guest – Magaret Ratner-Kunstler, an attorney in private practice. As education director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, she originated the Movement Support Network and authored “If an Agent Knocks.” Margaret is the President of the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice, a foundation established in 1995 in the memory of her late husband to combat racism in the criminal justice system.

——————————-

 

Law and Disorder October 17, 2011

Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Green Scare, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Truth to Power, War Resister

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

—-

Occupy Wall Street: Attorney Margaret Ratner-Kunstler

There is a North America-wide strategy to take away the right to mass protest. We’ve talked about the book Hell No: Your Right To Dissent in 21 Century America, but today we have both authors of this book in the studio, attorney Magaret Ratner Kunstler and our own co-host Michael Ratner.

In Hell No, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the country’s leading public interest law organization, offers a timely report on government attacks on dissent and protest in the United States, along with a readable and essential guide for activists, teachers, grandmothers, and anyone else who wants to oppose government policies and actions. Hell No explores the current situation of attacks upon and criminalization of dissent and protest, from the surveillance of activists to the disruption of demonstrations, from the labeling of protestors as “terrorists,” to the jailing of those the government claims are giving “material support” to its perceived enemies. Offering detailed, hands-on advice on everything from “Sneak and Peak” searches to “Can the Government Monitor My Text Messages?” and what to do “If an Agent Knocks,” Hell No lays out several key responses that every person should know in order to protect themselves from government surveillance and interference with their rights.
Attorney Margaret Ratner-Kunslter:

  • This is a time that we don’t know the return dates are because they weren’t put throught the system, they were given desk appearance tickets or summons, people arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge and elsewhere.
  • Politically what do you make of the fact that they let these people stay in the park? Perhaps Michael they had an opportunity to do something about it if they did something quickly.
  • In Boston, they closed it down much more quickly. Each Lawyers Guild office has a hotline.
  • They (the NYPD) actually led people down to the bridge walkway. There’s a law in New York that says you can’t block roadways, but you can march on sidewalks.
  • They led people down to the roadway, then announced with a bull horn that not everybody could hear of the more than 800 people on the bridge – – you’re now doing something illegally and we’re going to disperse immediately or we’re going to arrest you. Most people were chanting, nobody could hear that announcement.
  • Why do this? There was no place to put these 800 people. To get their names, to get their pedigree information, to do intelligence work.
  • Early on with the RNC arrests, they had a sheet of paper asking what political affiliations they had. We stopped that quickly. The police department in New York City has a tremendous intelligence division.
  • Some people we have no idea why they were arrested.
  • Yesterday morning a young woman was chalking on the sidewalk, “good morning NYPD.” Not only was she arrested, but the people photographing her arrest, were arrested.
  • Much of the planning on how to stop demonstrators, happened after Seattle 1999. At that point there was this training program that began with all of these local police forces across the country and the FBI.  It wasn’t til 9/11 that they were fully funded.
  • When Michael Ratner and I wrote this, we were totally depressed because we thought that demonstrations were over. There were so many ways of preventing demonstrations and people were penned.
  • You can film the police in NYC. The law may be on your side, but the police don’t follow the law.
  • If you’re recording audio, and only one party knows you’re recording, that’s ok in New York.
  • The cop doesn’t have to give you his name, or badge number. If you ask a cop his badge number, he’ll give you the wrong number.
  • I’d like to last through winter, I’m worried about these children.  The demand for justice and equality is the demand basically all over the world.
  • How can we say this is too abstract for us, isn’t this what we all want?

Guest – Magaret Ratner-Kunstler, an attorney in private practice. As education director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, she originated the Movement Support Network and authored “If an Agent Knocks.” Margaret is the President of the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice, a foundation established in 1995 in the memory of her late husband to combat racism in the criminal justice system.

———

Law and Disorder October 3, 2011

Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Updates:

————–

Irvine 11 Case Update

Earlier this year 11 Muslim students were arrested on charges for disrupting a speech of the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. The incident took place last year on the campus of the University of California at Irvine. The local District Attorney claims that the students had no right to disrupt the event, charging them with conspiracy to shut down the ambassador’s speech, even though he was able to complete the speech. Supporters claim that the Muslim students’ actions are protected by the first Amendment, and that are being charged for being vocal critics of Israel.

Last month, an Orange County court has found 10 Muslim students guilty of two misdemeanors. Facing up to one year in jail on multiple misdemeanor charges, they were sentenced to three years of probation, 56 hours of community service and fines. Each was convicted of one misdemeanor count of conspiring to disrupt Oren’s Feb. 8, 2010 speech and a second count for disrupting it.

Attorney Lisa Holder:

  • I knew there were some very difficult challenges in this case. The students modeled their protest after a protest that took place in Chicago.
  • There 11 students who stood up serially, one after the other, with about 3 or 4 minutes in between.
  • Each student made a short statement of protest. None of the protesters in Chicago were arrested.
  • A lot of the students who had a pro-Palestine perspective were targeted.
  • The prosecutor framed his whole case on the notion that the students shut down the First Amendment rights of the speaker.
  • This is the way they framed it at the beginning; in the statements they made to the media.
  • In terms of their framing, it makes no sense from a legal perspective.
  • The way the Bill of Rights work, is to protect individuals from the government. In terms of the First Amendment which protects free speech, the Fourth Amendment that protect against unreasonable searches and seizure.
  • It protects the individual from the government impeding on those rights.
  • An individual can’t impede or violate another individual’s First Amendment rights, only the government can do that.
  • The prosecutor should not have been allowed to argue to the jury, these students violated Mr Oren’s free speech rights.
  • These are wonderful young men, they’re very gracious people and there’s no way that the judge could lose sight of that.  It was outrageous, because really what was being prosecuted in their conspiracy charge was their First Amendment right to assemble.
  • Penal code section 403a violates the First Amendment essentially says you can’t disrupt a meeting, violates our First Amendment to free speech.

—-

Attorney Dan Stormer:

  • Islamophobia is really taking hold.
  • I tend to believe it is Islamophobia, 9/11 hysteria, more Arab / Muslim focus than Israeli / Palestine focus.
  • The use of conspiracy in this case allowed them to get in all sorts of evidence that might not otherwise be admissible.
  • Penal Code 403 says if you upset a meeting and substantially interfere with its progress, you can be criminally prosecuted.
  • I think the statute is unconstitutional and that’s going to be a primary basis for our appeal.
  • The district attorney was calling for jail time. The D.A. attacked the judge subsequently for failing to give jail time. I think it is a severe sentence but given Orange County, and given the nature of hysteria against our clients, I’m ultimately please with the sentence.
  • The background is they actually took this to a Grand Jury, and alleged they might file a felony conspiracy and felony allegation against them.
  • Its shocking and horrifying that this prosecution went forward.

–

Guest – Attorney Lisa Holder, Los Angeles, criminal trial attorney since 2000. Ms Holder is a member of the California Bar, The National Lawyers Guild and the California Employment Lawyer’s Association. She is a member of the board of directors for the Southern California ACLU. In addition she is an adjunct professor at Occidental College, teaching pre-law classes. Ms. Holder graduated from New York University School of Law in 2000 after obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree at Wesleyan University.

Guest – Attorney Dan Stormer, a Civil Rights, International Human Rights and Constitutional lawyer for thirty-five years and has been recognized internationally, nationally and locally as one of the top attorneys in the United States.  A graduate of New York University School of Law and Wagner College, Stormer has lectured and published extensively and has taught law school at Hastings College of Law and Loyola Law School.  He has obtained a number of large verdicts in gender discrimination in employment, civil rights violations, and age discrimination.  He has appeared before the U. S. Supreme Court and  is currently one of the attorneys on a Guantanamo Bay case.

————-

 

People Wasn’t Made to Burn – Joe Allen

People Wasn’t Made to Burn is a shocking personal story of a Mississippi Black share cropping family that faced incredible hardship and tragedy after moving to Chicago in 1947. Within the year, 4 of their infant children perished in a massive blaze in an overcrowded tenement. The father sickened with grief took justice in his own hands and shot the landlord, thought to have the set the fire. James Hickman was jailed and facing murder charges. The story takes off, author Joe Allen gives the reader an inside look into the strategy to defend Hickman in the most racist area of the country.

Joe Allen:

  • I think his story is really symbolic of a whole generation of African Americans who left the South for the North or the West to find a better life and a measure of dignity and freedom.
  • He came to Chicago and permanently settled here in 1945. He got a job in the steel industry which was very typical of African American men who came to the Midwest.
  • While you were sort of welcomed here for the hard work and labor you would give particularly to the big steel plants, finding a home was the thing which was a source of incredible frustration and humiliation.
  • Housing is the whole that Joe Hickman’s trial really revolves around.
  • The African American population really up until the second world war, was really confined to a thin sliver of land on the south side of the city (Chicago)
  • It was overcrowded, and what the banks do is try to use this limited space to make as much money as possible.
  • Kitchenette apartments, one room hovels, that didn’t have running water, no electricity, rat infested.
  • Richard Wright’s book – Native Son.
  • James Hickman would go from one end of the city to the other looking for a place and would have the door slammed in his face each time.
  • Black landlords were not very common at that time. Coleman took his money and never gave the apartment that he wanted. When James Hickman raised the issue of what happened with the money, Coleman threatened to set fire to the place.
  • On January 16, 1947, a fire breaks out, it spread so quickly that Annie Hickman, the mother and wife, and one of the eldest sons, made it out of their attic apartment and jumped to safety.
  • Because of the speed of the fire and incredible smoke, the four youngest kids, they suffocated and burned to death.
  • Six months to the day of the death of children, he confronted Coleman at his home.
  • The police acted very quickly in this case. He faced execution in the electric chair or minimum 14 years in prison.
  • They pulled together a Hickman defense committee. They organized a very broad based campaign.
  • Even though he was a man racked by grief he went out to find some measure of justice for his children when he couldn’t get that from the criminal justice system.
  • Housing is still a crucial issue for working class people.

Guest – Joe Allen, a frequent contributor to the International Socialist Review and a long-standing activist, based in Chicago.

——————————————————–