Law and Disorder RNC Street Coverage: Audio Document
Heidi Boghosian, Law and Disorder co-host and Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild took to the streets of St. Paul Minnesota with producer Geoff Brady during the Republican National Convention. We bring you the voices and sounds of protesters, demonstrations, and interviews with legal observers, lead activists and lawyers. We begin this audio document with attorney Bruce Nestor, president of the Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. Amid this heavily militarized area of St. Paul, Bruce Nestor describes how riot police use minivans as quick, efficient transport and the trapping of protesters on a bridge.
Just blocks from the Xcel Center, Heidi catches up with local activists and independent journalists who describe first hand accounts of police confrontations. A local journalist named Nick tells of the launching of paint and flash-bang grenades, the arrests and detainment of journalists and unwarranted use of pepper spray and tasers. On 4pm on Tuesday, marchers rally at Mears Park for the scheduled Poor Peoples March. There we spoke with a New York videographer named Dan, he described the pre-convention raids on I-Witness Video and more accounts of excessive police force. Below is a photo of the pre-convention raids from their website.
National Lawyers Guild attorney Bruce Nestor provides a chronology of events beginning with legal details involving the pre-convention raids on convergence centers. He also analyzes the overall impact of free speech when various factors come together. 1) Demonizing protesters and their message. 2) This allows use of military force by police. 3) Intelligence gathering and targeting lead organizers of alternative press. Combined, these tactics squelch the voice of dissent in all age groups and keep people from exercising their first amendment rights.
Below: Scenes gathered from the streets of St. Paul during the Republican National Convention 2008
Four former Abu Ghraib detainees are suing two U.S. military contractor corporations and three individual contractors. The four were wrongly imprisoned, tortured and later released without charge. According to the complaints, the defendants abused detainees physically and mentally and then destroyed documents, videos and photographs; prevented the reporting of the torture and abuse to the International Committee of the Red Cross. They actually hid detainees and other prisoners from the Red Cross; and misled non-conspiring military and government officials about the state of affairs at the Iraq prisons.
The American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Pennsylvania challenged the government’s efforts to deport an Egyptian torture victim of Sameh Khouzam. The government claims to be relying on unreviewable “diplomatic assurances” from Egypt that it will not torture him upon his return. Last January, in the first decision of its kind, a federal district court sided with the ACLU and ordered the government to stop the deportation of Sameh Khouzam based on such secret and unreliable promises and release him under conditions of supervision.
However, the Bush administration appealed this ruling, claiming that the executive branch has unfettered authority to deport Khouzam and to detain him indefinitely pending his legal proceedings. Khouzam, a Christian who came to the United States in 1998 fleeing religious persecution in Egypt and a charge of murder, was granted protection from deportation under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) in 2004. This after a federal appeals court found that he would likely be tortured if sent back to Egypt.
Josh Key moved to Canada during a 2 week leave from the Army. On July 4th, 2008, Joshua Key won a Federal Court appeal thus forcing the Refugee board to re-examine his asylum claim of conscientious objector and Iraq war veteran. The court ruled that Key had been forced to systematically violate the Geneva Conventions as part of his military service in Iraq and that such misconduct amounts to a legitimate refugee claim.
In another case, former National Guard soldier Corey Glass of Fairmount Indiana is facing deportation from Canada. He was recently told that his application to stay in Canada for “humanitarian and compassionate†reasons has been rejected. This, as Pentagon officials suggest he has been discharged and the U.S. Army is not seeking to persecute Glass. But Glass’ lawyer, Alyssa Manning of Parkdale Legal Community Services, says the reports are untrue. Manning says quote “He would be a felon, he’d be criminally inadmissible to Canada; he’d potentially be imprisoned as well as subjected to non-traditional punishment such as ‘hazing’ (within the military)
We hear excerpts from speeches at the Brecht Forum by our own Michael Smith and Citizen Soldier’s Tod Ensign. The anti-war soldier panel started with Michael Smith describing his work defending anti-war GI’s at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina and the formation of the GI Civil Liberties Defense Committee.
Anti-war GI’s were pivotal to the movement’s success. The growing protests from within the U.S. military today echo the Vietnam War soldiers experience. The panel discusses the role of anti-war GI organizing in the anti-war movements from 1917 to 1968 and to the present.
There are several significant events surrounding the US policy on torture taking place this week. Already last week, the US Senate Committee on Armed Services held hearings on the origins of aggressive interrogation techniques. Among the events this week is the fifth session of the United Nations Committee against Torture, Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in Geneva.
Amnesty International releases a report on torture and unfair trials in Tunisia’s war on terror, Amnesty International’s Guantanamo prison cell replica opens to the public in Washington, DC, through Sunday, June 29 and there is also the World Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
New York City artist and activist Laurie Arbeiter joins hosts to update on upcoming anti-war events in Washington DC. Laurie and her colleague Ann have previously been on the program discussing their counter-civilian psy-ops campaign of thought provoking anti-fear placards and posters. These posters are memorable, such as the one using similar layout and font as the IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING subway poster.
Guest – Artist, activist – Laurie Arbeiter
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Torture and Democracy
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve taken an in depth look at torture with various authors and guests including authors Al McCoy, Marnia Lazreg and Henri Alleg. Today we speak with Reed College professor Darius Rejali, author of the book Torture and Democracy. In this book, Rejali tracks behaviors, trends and traditions that have brought torture to where we see it has emerged today. Rejali, a leading expert on government interrogation techniques, argues that torture is an ancient craft and technique passed on from teacher to apprentice. He says knowledge of the torture craft often flows both ways between colonial powers and occupied peoples. This is a powerful book filled with information on techniques. One review writes, this book lays the groundwork, torturers and their keepers may find it useful, not as an academic study but as a field manual. Guest – Professor Darius Rejali
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FIRST NATIONAL TEACH-IN ON FREEDOMS AT RISK IN AMERICA
We listen to our own Michael Smith, New York City Attorney and author. Michael is on the Executive Board of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He recently edited William Kunstler’s publication “The Emerging Police State.†We’ll also hear from civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart, and Mark Crispin Miller, professor of Media Studies at NYU and author of Fooled Again, How the Right Stole the 2004 Elections, in later programs.
US Marine Corporal Adam Charles Kokesh and other members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) wore parts of their Marine Corps Combat Utility Uniforms during a street theater demonstration that marked the 4th anniversary of the Iraq War. The Marine Corp warned the soldiers of disciplinary action for violating uniform policies at political demonstrations. Kokesh tells hosts that he responded with a letter (ending it with “[I] … ask you to please, kindly, go f&%# yourself.”). As a result, a military court convened to look at changing Kokesh’s military discharge from “honorable” to “other than honorable” because of “Disrespect toward a Superior Commissioned Officer”, and violating “Wearing of the uniform” regulation.
At the time Kokesh was part of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) Kokesh’s attorney, Mike Lebowitz, claimed that the Marine Corps is attempting to stifle Kokesh’s constitutional right to free speech. Lebowitz and JAG defense counsel LT Joseph Melaragno argued that the military did not have jurisdiction over Kokesh based on the Marine Corps’s use of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, since the UCMJ does not apply to members of the IRR. Ultimately Kokesh was given a general discharge a step lower than honorable, instead of the harsher penalty that included losing access to certain veteran’s health benefits and being forced to pay back more than 10 thousand dollars in educational benefits.
Guest – Adam Kokesh
Guest – Michael Lebowitz, attorney for Adam Kokesh.
Former Staff Sergeant of the Florida National Guard and anti-war activist Camilo MejÃa became known in the antiwar movement in 2004 when he applied for a discharge from the Army as a conscientious objector. After serving in the Army for nearly nine years, he was the first known Iraq veteran to refuse to fight, citing moral concerns about the war and occupation. Mejia spent six months in combat in Iraq where he witnessed the killing of civilians and the abuse of detainees.
After he returned to the United States he decided never to return to fight in Iraq. He went into hiding to avoid redeployment and was classified as AWOL by the military. MejÃa was ultimately convicted of desertion by a military court and sentenced to a year in prison. He has recently written a book titled – Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant MejÃa which recounts his journey of conscience in Iraq.
