Twin Cities, MN and Denver, CO: CONVENTION PROTESTS
The Voice of Resistance Persists Over Startling Repression at Democratic and Republican Gatherings
11 Sep 2008 10:43 GMTThe Republican National Convention (RNC) wrapped up Thursday, September 4, with a sharp escalation in brutal arrests outside the Xcel Center in St. Paul, MN — and a still small voice of resistance inside. After being denied access to convention delegates, at least one member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and two members of Code Pink were able to sneak into the Convention Center and disrupt Presidential Candidate John McCain's acceptance speech with an anti-war message. In contrast, the IVAW had some success in getting their message to Democratic presidential nominee Barak Obama in Denver, CO the week before.
Both weeks saw sustained, peaceful protests and a constant stream of civil disobedience expressing consternation at both parties' continual pursuit of war and imperialism, coupled with the mass incarceration and economic human rights violations of its own residents. In response, police rounded up over one thousand in the streets.
Over 800 of these arrests were at the RNC. Although hundreds of protesters had been arrested the week prior outside the Democratic National Convention (DNC), the scale of repression at the RNC was literally unparalleled — and significant enough to even the attention of Amnesty International. Those arrested included dozens of media workers, both freelance and affiliated, as well as volunteer street medics, who were on hand to assist with unintended injuries. Moreover, reports have surfaced of brutality and torture and racial profiling by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agents at the Ramsey County Jail where protesters were being held.
Many of the arrestees were taken in "pre-emptive" roundups the weekend before the convention began. On Saturday, multiple house and office raids took place and people were detained for hours, most prominently members of the I-Witness Video Collective and the RNC Welcoming Committee. Eight members of the Committee have been charged with “conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism” based on a Minnesota law that was shaped after the Patriot Act. Their group was infiltrated by at least two undercover police officers and the sheriff has admitted that his office spied on local activists.
Many were also taken in mass roundups during protests, such as Tuesday Night's violent police attack on people who had converged from the Poor People's March and a multi-act outdoor concert where "Rage Against the Machine" was prevented from playing. This led to dozens of arrests and "crowd dispersal" tactics involving the use of allegedly "non-lethal" weapons, including concussion grenades, tear gas and pepper spray. Outside pressure and jail solidarity countered these abuses of power somewhat, resulting in improved prison conditions, including some detainees receiving needed medical attention by Wednesday.
Through all of this, activists continued to raise up messages of resistance to the Republican agenda, and independent media workers from around the country documented them. READ ON for archive of roundups & selected dispatches from the streets | | | IMC-US DNC/RNC Organizing Page | Indybay Conventions08 Page | | | Staying Plugged in PostRNC and beyond: a mini-update | Demonstrators Do It with Humor at Republican National Convention from Indybay | Conventions are over, ramifications still unclear from Houston Indymedia
Record of Coverage:
RNC Coverage:
Sept4: RNC Last Day | Sept2: RCN Day 2: Mass Arrests and Jail Resistance | Sept1: RNC Day 1: Category (A) Hurricane Hits Downtown St. Paul | Aug31: Civil Rights Suspended in the Twin Cites | Aug30: Wide Spread Multi-agency Raids Continue in St. Paul | Aug 29: Illegal Police Raid on Anti-RNC Convergence Space in St. Paul | Aug27: MPD Detains Three Indy Journalists; Confiscates Equipment | Breaking news archivess from Portland IMC: #1, #2
DNC Coverage:
Aug28: Final Day of DNC: Small, But Determined, Protesters Continue With Anti-War Message | Aug27-28: Police Threaten Media Center | Iraq War Vets Lead Anti-War March to Convention Hall | Aug27: LA Indymedia Coverage | Aug26: Police Attack Peaceful Protesters in Denver | Aug25: The Party is in the Streets — Unconventional Actions in Denver | Aug24: Protests greet Delegates in Denver — Convention hall fenced off | Aug21: People's Networking Convention Rides to RNC
Other Indymedia Dispatches:
Alex Kane of NYC's Indypendent: Police Block Veterans’ Access to DNC in Largest Protest to Date | Bradley from Santa Cruz: Permitted Dissent in the Streets of St. Paul, Part2 | Coleen Mihal of theuptake.org: Last Night of RNC: Police State, Protesters Locked out of City, Journalists Arrested | Isis from WSQT, DC (Photos): Protesting DNC in Denver | Today's Mass Arrests at the RNC Jay Marx from DC: Straight Outta' Occupied Denver | John Tarleton of NYC's Indypendent: DNC Reflections: This Is What Activistism Looks Like | Kat from Portland: RNC 008 Ushers in New Role for New Media | Marcus from LA: DNC Rally, Stop the War | DENVER Under Police Siege | Mike & James from Indybay: The Battle of Saint Paul | Noah Balloon from Rogue Valley: first-hand counter convention reports | "The Stimulator" from Seattle's Pepperspray Productions: "The Stimulator's" Final Convention Dispatch (with links to previous dispatches)
Other Coverage:
Free Speech TV (based right out of Denver) | Democracy Now! | Denver Open Media
Street Medics, Pepperspray injuries, credibility
Petros Evdokas 11.Sep.2008 22:19
My grateful thanks for including the story of the Portland Street Medics
in the new Feature article you just posted in the central column of the
global imc website.
The Convention Roundup is a very good compilation, thank you! Both the
dark political realities within the US and the limitations and
deficiencies as well as the bravery and beauty of the liberation
Movement are present and well-articulated through your lines.
One detail, though, which I think helps us with issues of credibility.
One of the articles referenced in the third paragraph, where says
"...reports have surfaced of brutality and torture":
links to a Portland indymedia article written by the imc friend/ally
named "Victory!"
I've met Victory! personally and I know that she is committed in a very
genuine way to the revolutionary process and I do not want to imply
anything to cast doubt on her committment. I can personally attest to
her total and honest committment. But she reports in her article that
there were
"Many, many reports of full body 1st & 2nd degree burns from pepperspray
being denied decontamination/medical treatment."
We definitely saw many cases of people injured by pepperspray who had
developed inflammations and lesions, and who while in jail needed
treatment that was denied to them. But to speak of "full body 1st & 2nd
degree burns from pepperspray" is misleading, and it neutralizes our
efforts to provide dependable, authoritative health information about
these chemical weapons that people can use for preparations and
treatments before, during and after protests.
A healthcare worker looking for "2nd degree burns from pepperspray" will
find nothing. And might even be mislead into not treating a real
pepperspray injury if it's already soaked into the skin for many hours,
requiring detoxification from within and treatments that can reach
beneath the upper layers of skin cells.
We want indymedia - especially the global website - to be a dependable
source of information for the Movement. Portland's imc site often
publishes entirely unverifiable stories so there's nothing new to that.
But it would be good if ALL imc work groups paid more attention to what
the publish and what the fail to publish.
Many thanks again,
Petros Evdokas,
volunteer, Portland Street Medics
and
_________
what the heck?
the rats 25.Sep.2008 17:15
bring down king rat