Victims of the mass arrest of 678 people in Washington D.C. April 15 will stand trial in that city on Tuesday, July 18.
The defendants,who face 90 days in jail and fines if convicted of disorderly conduct, include Brian Becker, Co-Director of the International Action Center, which organized the protest that took place during several days of actions against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
The arrests were made at a peaceful, "legal" march in Washington demanding, "Shut down the Prison-Industrial Complex" and calling for a "New Trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal."
A class action law suit alleging a police-government conspiracy to deny the First Amendment rights of demonstrators will be filed in the coming weeks.
"This trial is itself a brazen miscarriage of justice," said Becker.
"The police violated our constitutional rights to assemble and protest and exercise our First Amendment guarantee of free speech. All 678 arrested people were protesting against the Prison- Industrial Complex, racism and to demand a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal. We broke no laws and yet we were illegally detained, handcuffed hand to foot and held for 24 to 36 hours in school buses, basements and remote ad-hoc detention centers in the Washington DC area," Becker asserted. For a detailed description of events, see http://www.iacenter.org/rept415.htm.
"The outcome of this trial is important and must be put into the context of a new, aggressive and we believe unconstitutional policing strategy directed at denying the constitutional rights of those engaged in protest," said Larry Holmes, a leader of the IAC and one of those arrested on April 15. "This is the post-Seattle backlash by the police. They want to intimidate and prevent mass protests at the Republican Convention in Philadelphia and the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. These efforts by the state will fail. Our movement against the death penalty, against racist police brutality and the Prison-Industrial Complex is getting stronger, not weaker. We will fight in the memory of Shaka Sankofa (aka Gary Graham) and all those freedom fighters who have struggled against a system that breeds racism, repression and death." ------------- International Action Center 39 West 14 Street, Room 206 New York, NY 10011 (212) 633-6646 fax: (212) 633-2889 web: http://www.iacenter.org email: iacenter at iacenter.org