Like Carr,Costa and Bracks in my hometown...
http://boston.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=9107&group=webcast
12 animal rights activsts were indicted in Boston for speaking out against
the slaughter of innocent animals inside of HLS during peaceul protests.
Boston Attorney General Seeks to Make Freedom of Speech a Crime
Activists and civil rights advocates nationwide are crying "fascism" at
Boston Attorney General Tom Reilly and Assistant Attorney General Philip J.
McGovern for procuring 43 indictments against 12 animal rights activists.
The indictments allege that threats and acts of attempted extortion were
made during public protests against the insurance company Marsh Inc. in
Boston. However, in over 7 months of protests, at which police and private
security guards were present, no arrests have been made at any
demonstration to date.
Now, more than 2 1/2 months since the last set of Marsh protests, the
Attorney General is claiming crimes were committed at those same protests
that continued for 7 months without incident.
"If these alleged 'crimes" were so felonious, in fact if the Attorney
General has any case at all, why were there zero arrests, zero citations,
and zero police confrontations when the police were standing 5 feet away
from the protesters?" asks activist Steve Schure. "Clearly the police
didn't feel the protesters actions were illegal, private security didn't
feel they were illegal - in fact the grand jury didn't even feel the
protesters were doing anything illegal for 2 1/2 months." [The prosecution
reportedly requested more time to conduct its investigation, as numerous
earlier grand jury hearings did not produce the desired result.]
The indictments do not even alleged any physical action - civil
disobedience, vandalism, etc. - other than participation in public, vocal
demonstrations, an action supposedly protected by the First Amendment of a
Constitution the Attorney Generals are pledged to uphold and protect.
Additionally, some of the indicted activists are believed never to have
attended a protest against Marsh anywhere in the country; some of them are
believed never to have attended a protest in Boston regarding any issue.
Rather, the indictments seem to underscore a pattern of repression and
harassment activists have experienced in the Boston area. Marsh, in Boston
and other cities, has also sued many of the indicted individuals, among
them those rumored to have never protested in Boston or against Marsh. Some
have been called for depositions in as many as 5 cities and grilled for up
to 7 hours with extremely invasive questions, including family details and
their whereabouts. Marsh has demanded activists produce an outrageous list
of discovery materials, including 'any computer you've used in the past year.'
Some of the indicted activists have even had their apartment searched and
trashed by "authorities" under the USA PATRIOT Act. Computers, TV's,
documents and other items were confiscated. No receipt was left.
Schure goes on, "These indictments are clearly attempts by a frustrated
corporate and political elite to scare activists into silence. Luckily, we
are driven by injustice and will only fight harder as we come up against
more of it. These charges are bogus, as will be shown in court. And the
defendants will fight back with every offensive and defensive legal means
possible, despite the Attorney General's championing the fight obliterating
American civil liberties. In the end, the indicted individuals will be
shown to uphold the law and civil rights - by exercising them - ten times
over the Attorney General."
Marsh is the insurance broker for Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), a
product-testing laboratory with a long history of animal brutality, and
unsafe and inaccurate testing. The protests were part of the Stop
Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign, an international effort to close HLS
that has decimated the company's value by over 90% since it began in 1999.
www.shacamerica.net
