I don't know a whole lot about what is going on in DC (no tv or paper), the date 4/18. am forwarding from nocut list for FYI, will write Antonia for more info /d >From: Antonia Juhasz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >To: "Chris O'Brien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Matt Shaffer ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Joseph Juhasz ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Pat Rasmussen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Please Call Now to Help 200 IMF/WB Detainees >Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 19:16:23 -0400 > >Please Circulate Widely >IMF, World Bank Demonstrators Subject to Widespread Police Abuse >New Accounts Detail Gross Mistreatment in Jail and in the Streets > >New reports of peaceful protesters beaten by police and U.S. Marshals, >denied food and water and stripped of their basic constitutional rights >give the lie to early accounts of police restraint during massive >protests against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund >(IMF). > > Detainees have deen denied food, water, toilets, medical >attention, and access to lawyers. > > One instance was reported of an interrogator posing as a member >of the Midnight Special Legal Collective, the volunteer lawyers >representing the activists. > > One non-violent protester had 3 ribs broken while he was >arrested. > > Another protester was beaten in the face and then loaded into a >patrol wagon, leaving a pool of blood in the street. A police official >told the drivers not to offload him at the jail but to drive him around >for several hours, and then to drop him off near a hospital. > > At midnight on Monday, many activists still reported being >denied food and water. Some were arrested at 4 AM, 20 hours earlier. >Rachel Weber, a recent Harvard graduate from Boston, watched as one >woman in her cell, who has hypoglycemia, began to throw up from lack of >food. Police denied repeated requests for food or medical assistance. > > One group of men was taken into a basement, put into a cage, >and told by a U.S. Marshall, “There are no cameras here. We can do >whatever we want.” Anyone who looked up while the Marshall was speaking >was punched in the face. > > Another activist saw a U.S. Marshalls slam people’s faces into >a wall. > > Jennifer Kirby, a housing advocate from Washington D.C., was >part of a group of activists who took over an abandoned home to protest >unfair evictions and social service cuts in the District of Columbia. >“The police came in and dragged us out of the house. As the police >dragged the last person out of the house, one officer was kicking him >and saying ‘stop attacking my foot’ and then all the police slammed him >against a wall, saying ‘stop attacking the wall.’ They dragged him into >a six-inch deep puddle and left him in it got five minutes while they >kicked him,” said Kirby. > >Officers also used a variety of abusive tactics to pit activists in Jail >against each other and to break “Jail Solidarity,” cooperation between >activists designed to ensure fair treatment by police. > > Black Echo a spectator at the arraignment of several hundred >activists, heard the presiding commissioner Ringelle imply that if >activists did not cooperate he would place them with the general jail >population, where they they would be raped. “He told us ‘For a day or a >week or a month [Jail] is not a pleasant place. People get sodomized. >The inmates run the D.C. Prison. … In the prison, the weak are preyed >upon,” said Black Echo. > > Another group of activists was also threatened with >incarceration with the general population, and told “they love to kill >white boys over there, you pussy-faggot protesters.” > > Detainees are taken into solitary confinement and lied to, told >that they are the last ones in jail, that they won’t be released before >their court date in July, that they have no rights. > >The Midnight Special Law Collective is asking all concerned to call as >many of the following numbers to help them in their efforts to gain >justice for the remaining 200 IMF/WB detainees. Giving no names, >express concern that detainees are being abused, and demand their >immediate release. >All area codes are 202. >DC Mayors office: 727-2980 >DC Chief of Staff: 727-2643 >DC Public Advocate: 673-4421 >Dept. of Correction: 673-7316 >DC Chief Judge: 879-2770 >DC Executive Officer Ulysses Hammond: 879-1700 >Police Academy: 645-0055 (detainees held here) >Central Holding: 727-2894 >1st Dist. Substation: 727-4655 >Superior Court Chief Judge Eugene Hamilton: 879-1600 >Clerk of the Court: 879-1401 >US Atty. For DC: 514-2000 (insist on an investigation and >prosecution on >abuses, civil rights violations, and homophobia) >Cell Blocks B & C: 727-2392 >-- >Antonia Juhasz >Director, International Trade and Forest Programs >American Lands Alliance >726 7th Street, SE >Washington, DC 20003 >phone: 202-547-9230 >fax: 202-546-9213 >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >http://www.americanlands.org
