Activists mobilize for Democratic convention protests

Los Angeles, CA— As demonstrators took to the streets of Philadelphia to protest the Republican National Convention, mobilizing for mass protests at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Los Angeles hit a fevered pitch.

A mass march and rally demanding a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal and an end to the death penalty will kick off the protests Aug. 13. At least 22 buses from throughout the Western United States are scheduled to arrive.

The mass rally will gather at noon at Pershing Square, 5th and Olive streets, and march to the Staples Center, where the DNC is being held. The action is sponsored by the Los Angeles Coalition to Stop the Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal and South Central Solidarity.

Ed Rendell, head of the Democratic National Committee, will lead the convention. Rendell was the Philadelphia district attorney who many believe was involved in framing well-known Black activist and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal in 1981-1982.

Nancy Mitchell, a youth organizer for the International Action Center (IAC), said, “The conventions of the two big-business parties are such an appropriate setting for this struggle against the racist death penalty, and to expose the system of capitalism that uses it to repress workers and the poor.

“We’re mobilizing full force for the demonstrations at the DNC,” said Mitchell. “At the kick-off march on Aug. 13, we’ll be resisting police brutality and showing the world that the people want the racist US prison-industrial complex shut down. We’re in solidarity with Mumia and the peoples of the world.”

Mitchell said the IAC is organizing delegations at actions throughout the week. The group plans a mass rally against the bombing and sanctions of Iraq on Aug. 15 at 5 p.m. outside Staples Center.

Protesters resist LAPD

Mayor Richard Riordian and the Los Angeles Police Department are being criticized for having used violence-baiting in order to intimidate protesters and intensify the climate of repression here.

The LAPD has whipped up fear in order to get more public money to stock up on arms. The police are purchasing guns that shoot pellets containing pepper spray, intended to be fired directly at individuals. This in itself is an act of aggression, protest organizers say, that exposes how the cops want to riot. Police have harassed makeshift organizing offices, spraying mace through mail slots and ordering people to leave.

Throughout the summer, the LAPD refused to issue permits for marches at the DNC and publicly announced plans to maintain a Seattle style “no-protest zone” around the convention area. Recently, defiant organizers won a court victory upholding their right to protest near the convention center at 11th and Figueroa streets downtown. A federal judge ruled July 19 that a “no-protest zone” proposed by the police impeded protesters’ right to free speech.

“We won that ruling through organizing public pressure, at press conferences and with visibility in the streets over the issue,” said Tahnee Stair of Workers World Party. “The courts definitely felt the pressure and that there would be a price to pay if they continued to thwart the desire of the people to protest.

“We refused to be intimated, and we can’t be stopped. The movement is too strong. People are sick and tired of racism and want to see the death penalty ended, and we’re going to march against it Aug. 13,” Stair declared.

A press conference about the Aug. 13 National March for Mumia is planned for Aug. 8 at Pershing Square. Featured speakers will include Southern California American Civil Liberties Union President Steven Robles, the Rev. Bird from South Central Church, a representative of the Nation of Islam, members of the popular Latino rock band Aztlan Underground, immigrants’ rights activists, and IAC Los Angeles Co-coordinator John Parker.

Volunteers are needed for the Aug. 13 march. Call 213-487-2368 to get involved, receive information on IAC contingents, or learn more about the Aug. 8 press conference.

Workers World Party (WWP) plans a public forum on the DNC protests and the struggle against racist repression on Aug. 11 at 7pm. Featured speakers will be WWP presidential and vice-presidential candidates Monica Moorehead and Gloria La Riva. Millions for Mumia leader Larry Holmes will also speak. The location is 422 S. Western Ave., Suite 114, Los Angeles.

Source: Workers World: www.workers.org

Over 100 arrested in Iraq protest

Washington, DC, Aug. 7— On Monday, police arrested more than 100 people who protested against sanctions imposed on Iraq a decade ago by demonstrating in front of the White House and pouring fake blood on the sidewalk.

About 250 people armed with signs like “Sanctions are Mass Murder” and “Sanctions Suck the Life out of Countries” gathered in Lafayette Park across from the White House to deplore the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations after its Aug. 2, 1990, invasion of Kuwait.

Several investigations, such as one recently completed by UNICEF, have revealed that 1.5 million Iraqis have died as a result of the sanctions.

Some protesters crossed Pennsylvania Avenue to attach signs including “Stop Sanctions Now!” and “US has killed 1.7 million Iraqis for oil” to the black iron fence ringing the White House and to stand on the sidewalk in front of the mansion, violating a ban on such stationary protests.

US Park Police spokesman Robert MacLean said about 104 people were arrested for demonstrating without a permit and for violating the “restricted zone” in front of the mansion, where protesters are allowed to march but not to sit or stand.

Police loaded the protesters, their hands tied behind their backs with flexible plastic cuffs, onto arrest wagons and took them to a station where most were expected to be released if they showed identification and paid a standard $50 fine.

The protesters could be given a maximum sentence of one year in jail for demonstrating without a permit but police said this was rarely imposed.

MacLean said the protesters had a permit to demonstrate but this was revoked after they stood in front of the fence around the White House and ignored three warnings to move away.

Source: Reuters

DC protesters file class-action lawsuit

By Brian Becker

Washington, DC, July 27— A class-action lawsuit charging the US government with a conspiracy to violate the rights of thousands of demonstrators in Washington last April was filed today at the United States District Court here.

The lawsuit’s filing received extensive media coverage in Washington, including reports on major TV stations and a prominent article in the July 28 Washington Post.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the organizations Fifty Years is Enough, Mobilization for Global Justice, Alliance for Global Justice, International Action Center, and 12 named individual plaintiffs.

The lawsuit will be a class action. That means it will seek damages on behalf of all those who were arrested, whose offices were broken into, whose property was confiscated, or who were beaten by police.

More than 1,200 people were arrested during the weekend of April 15-17. The arrests took place at protests against meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and in opposition to the emergence of a prison-industrial complex.

Lawyers from the Partnership for Civil Justice, American Civil Liberties Union and National Lawyers Guild are representing the plaintiffs.

“We are filing this lawsuit in advance of the protests scheduled at the Republican Convention in Philadelphia and the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. The suit should be a signal to the authorities in those cities not to engage the same planned and implemented strategy to disrupt the right of dissenters to exercise their First Amendment right to assemble and protest,” said lawyer Mara Verheyden-Hilliard at a news conference outside the US District Court Building.

“This lawsuit claims that federal and DC government agencies and officers unlawfully intimidated and harassed and disrupted the protests of April 15-17,” said Arthur Spitzer, legal director of the ACLU in Washington.

He noted that the 113-point complaint shows that the police and government “falsely portrayed protesters as threatening violence; maliciously closed the protesters’ headquarters for pretextual fire code violations; confiscated protesters’ political literature, banners and medical supplies; wrongfully barred protesters from demonstrating near the World Bank-IMF meetings; arrested hundreds of protesters without cause, and used excessive violence against non-violent demonstrators.”

Among the named plaintiffs in the suit is Larry Holmes, a leader of the April 15 march to “Shut Down the Prison-Industrial Complex” and “For a New Trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal.”

Police suppressed that demonstration of more than 1,200 people, sponsored by the International Action Center. Without warning, cops sealed the demonstration area and arrested 678 people in one of the biggest acts of preventive detention in recent history.

Holmes said in a prepared statement: “The outcome of this lawsuit has far-reaching implications. We believe that the government and the police have embarked on a strategy of repression to stop, crush or marginalize the burgeoning progressive movement that gained world attention in the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle last year.”

Holmes vowed that “the movement to end the racist death penalty and to win a new trial for Mumia will get stronger, not weaker, in spite of government repression.”

For more information: www.iacenter.org
Source: Workers World: www.workers.org

Religious groups join for protests

By Margaret Ramirez

Taking advantage of the national spotlight on the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, religious groups across Southern California are planning interfaith protests on a host of issues — police brutality, juvenile justice, immigrant rights and the death penalty.

Roman Catholics, Jews, Methodists and Episcopalians will join for many of the planned worship services, marches and rallies to express strength and solidarity and to exercise what they consider a moral obligation to speak out.

From praying for prisoners on California’s death row to mourning the deaths of people who died trying to cross the US-Mexican border illegally, most of the groups will be advocating left-wing positions that the Democrats — eager to appeal to centrist voters — have kept out of the convention’s formal activities.

“We are ordinary citizens trying to speak out on these issues that we can’t vote on. We are not here to crucify anyone. We are called to be people who proclaim life, not death,” said Eric DeBode, a member of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker, one of the groups helping to organize the protests.

The protesters hope to call attention to issues that they feel should be more prominent in the Democratic Party’s platform, DeBode said. Catholic Worker, in particular, is concerned with the growth of the nation’s prison population and continued US economic sanctions against Iraq, he said.

The protesters include a predominantly Latina support group, from Dolores Mission Catholic Church, of mothers with children in prison. The group is planning an Aug. 16 rally in front of the Criminal Courts Building. At the same time as the mothers’ march, members of Catholic Worker will congregate at MacArthur Park in a demonstration against police brutality which is being labeled “No More Ramparts!” The title refers to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division, which is at the center of an enormous corruption scandal.

On that same Wednesday, California People of Faith Working Against the Death Penalty will hold a candlelight vigil at St. Vincent Catholic Church, where religious leaders and community members from various denominations will pray for the more than 565 prisoners on death row in California.

Though several of the protests are being organized by Catholic churches, Tod Tamberg, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said Cardinal Roger M. Mahony is not expected to participate in any of the marches or prayer services and will probably be out of town for much of convention week.

On Aug. 13, the day before the convention opens, members of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice will convene an interfaith service at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Los Angeles.

Source: Grassroots Media Network: tta@mail.utexas.edu

Community outrage as killer cop goes free

By Pat Chin

Brooklyn, NY, July 29— Haitians and their supporters demonstrated here today against a grand jury decision not to indict undercover narcotics detective Anthony Vasquez in the shooting death of Patrick Dorismond.

The protest, organized by the Haitian Coalition for Justice, started with a rally in front of the home of the slain security guard’s parents. It was followed by a militant and spirited march to the Holy Cross Church, the site of Dorismond’s March 25 funeral.

Demonstrators carried a lead banner that read “Stop police brutality.” Numerous signs were hoisted, some of which declared “Jail killer cops, free Mumia,” and “Justice for Patrick Dorismond.”

Also held aloft were huge placards with pictures of Dorismond and other victims of police terror, like Kevin Cedeno, Anthony Baez and Nicholas Heyward Jr. Other signs reflected the struggle against racism.

“Whose streets? Our streets,” chanted the protesters when police tried to redirect the march.

The cops, who were deployed en masse, had come prepared to make arrests in this mostly Black and immigrant community. But no one was intimidated.

“The people united will never be defeated,” they shouted at the blue phalanx that lined the sidewalks.

Speaker after speaker took the microphone to denounce Dorismond’s killing and the travesty reflected in the grand jury decision handed down two days earlier. Marie Dorismond demanded justice for her son.

“Patrick,” she told the multinational crowd, “is the first Black man to be killed for saying ‘no’ to drugs.”

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgantheau, who prepared the grand jury case, was called a police accomplice and subjected to blistering criticism. Speakers urged unity and multinational solidarity.

Dorismond, a 26-year-old Haitian man, was shot and killed March 16 after rebuffing undercover cops who tried to ensnare him in a buy-and-bust drug sting. The attempted set-up for his arrest was carried out under “Operation Condor,” crafted by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the Police Department.

The huge increase in drug arrests under “Condor,” many for minor offenses, was calculated to make the mayor appear tough on crime in his now-defunct bid to win right-wing support for a US Senate run.

After the killing, Giuliani enraged the Haitian community and others by distorting and releasing the slain man’s sealed juvenile record. It was a gross and callous attempt to demonize Dorismond in order to justify the police action. The cop-coddling mayor also refused to meet with the victim’s family.

When Dorismond was fatally shot by Vasquez, he became the fourth unarmed man of African descent to be killed by city cops in 13 months. His life was taken only weeks after a jury in mostly white, upstate Albany County had acquitted the four white cops who gunned down Amadou Diallo.

Dorismond’s death, like Diallo’s, sparked numerous street mobilizations against racist police killings. Protests led by the Haitian Coalition for Justice demanded that Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir resign.

In March, a massive turnout at Dorismond’s funeral escalated into a violent clash with the police, who were deployed in large numbers, some in riot gear. Twenty-three cops and four demonstrators were injured in front of the Holy Cross Church. More than 27 were arrested.

Speakers at the July 29 demonstration against the grand jury decision called for support of those who still face criminal charges stemming from the rebellion that erupted at Dorismond’s funeral. At least seven people now face felony counts. WBAI-Pacifica reporter Errol Maitland, who was brutally beaten by police and hospitalized, was charged with disorderly conduct at that protest.

Kevin Kaiser, who was with Dorismond when he was killed, told the crowd that there was no justification for the shooting. He testified before the grand jury and has filed a $15 million civil lawsuit against the city.

Solidarity came from Elombe Brath of the Patrice Lumumba Coalition and Colette Pean of the December 12 Movement. There were also representatives from the Haiti Support Network, International Action Center, Oct. 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Shades of Power, Women in Mourning, and other groups.

A speaker from Workers World Party reminded the crowd that the cops and the courts function only to protect the interests of the rich. “Stay mobilized,” she said. “Don’t give up, keep marching. Organize yourselves for people’s justice.”

To support the movement to win justice for Patrick Dorismond and those arrested at his funeral, readers can call the Haitian Coalition for Justice at (718) 284-0889.

Source: Workers World: www.workers.org

PUSH forum says “zero tolerance” policies racist

By Andrew Buchanan

Zero-tolerance policies in America’s schools are racist, criminalizing the relatively minor misbehavior of students of color, depriving them of educational opportunities and shunting them from the schoolhouse to the jailhouse, participants in a forum sponsored by the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition said.

Zero tolerance has become “a code word for race,” said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, appearing Friday at the forum in conjunction with PUSH’s annual convention. While many such policies were created in reaction to the spate of school shootings around the country -- most committed by whites -- zero tolerance disproportionately impacts minorities, Jackson and others argued.

For the 1997 school year, federal Department of Education statistics show that while black children represented 17 percent of public school enrollment nationally, they constituted 32 percent of out-of-school suspensions. A Harvard University study found that zero-tolerance policies are more likely to exist in predominantly black and Latino school districts.

“Who’s the zero in zero tolerance?” asked LeRoy Pernell, dean of the College of Law at Northern Illinois University. “In truth, it’s children of color, the poor, who are the zero and are not tolerated in schools.”

Last year, Jackson brought the issue to national attention by defending six black teen-agers suspended for up to two years as the result of a bleacher-clearing fight at a football game in Decatur. The suspensions were later reduced. Decatur school officials did not return a call on Friday seeking comment on their disciplinary policies.

While zero tolerance has created headlines with seemingly absurd examples of its enforcement -- a 6-year-old suspended for bringing a toenail clipper to school; a kindergarten boy suspended for having a toy ax as part of his Halloween costume -- that has overshadowed its racial impact, panel members said.

Libero Della Piana of the Applied Research Center in Oakland, Calif., said doing away with zero tolerance was only part of the solution. The attitude that has criminalized minor misbehavior must be dealt with as well, he said.

He cited statistics from Chicago, where expulsions have risen from 10 in the 1993-94 school year to 571 in the 1997-98 school year. The school district also “projected” 1,000 expulsions for the 1998-99 school year but fell short of that total, Piana said.

“What does that mean? They didn’t reach 1,000 so they didn’t meet their quota?” he asked.

“Zero tolerance, in and of itself is a joke, it’s a misnomer,” he added. “If it was eliminated we would still have zero tolerance ... for students of color.”

Forum participants suggested that disciplinary policies be standardized, urged more diversity among school administrators and said students should have advocates at their schools that they can consult when facing punishment.

A representative of the Chicago Public Schools did not immediately return a phone call Friday.

Defenders of such policies say zero tolerance has been important in cutting down on the presence of guns and drugs at schools for three years running. They also note that disproportionately high suspension rates for black students predate the new policies and go back as far as the mid-1970s.

“I think it’s a sweeping generalization to say those things about zero tolerance,” said Bill Modzeleski, the director of the Department of Education’s Safe and Drug-Free Schools program. “It fits in some places, under some conditions, for some crimes, and it doesn’t fit in others.”

He said the statistics that break down suspensions and expulsions by race do not all involve violations of zero-tolerance policies. He said zero tolerance was created to handle only the most serious offenses.

“You have to build common sense into the implementation of some of these rules and policies,” Modzeleski said.

Source: Grassroots Media Network: tta@mail.utexas.edu