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Anti-Torture Activists Acquittal a Victory for 'Free Speech'
D.C. judge acquits 27 Guantanamo protesters - including 4 from Pioneer Valley - of charges from Capitol Hill protest
WASHINGTON - Some two dozen anti-torture activists — including four from Western
Massachusetts — were acquitted Monday in Washington D.C. Superior Court
on charges of unlawful assembly following their arrests in January
during a political demonstration on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
Judge Russell Canan granted a motion for judgment of acquittal, dropping
charges against all 27 defendants after federal prosecutors presented
their case. The trial had been expected by some to last up to a week.
Witness Against Torture, Fast for Justice in front of the Whitehouse. Jan 2010. (Flickr Photo by Jerica Arents) Most of the activists sat in the courtroom wearing black shirts
during the bench trial.
The group was arrested while protesting the failure of the Obama
Administration to follow through on its promise from a year earlier to
close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. They
were arrested after refusing a police order to disperse.
Jeremy Varon, spokesman for the group Witness Against Torture, said “This is a victory for free speech.”
Among the 27 defendants were Patricia “Paki” Wieland of Northampton, Elizabeth Adams of Leverett, Sherrill Hogen of Conway and Ellen Graves of West Springfield.
Wieland, contacted by cell phone outside the court house, called the ruling a major victory because it upheld the First Amendment, namely the protections for freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful assembly.
“We did exactly what the First Amendment tells us to do,” she said. “We actually exercised the First Amendment and won.”
Graves praised the ruling, saying “what it said was we had a right to protest in Washington.”
Hogen said the ruling amounts to a small victory in part of a larger campaign that continues.
The group will continue to speak out as long as Guantanamo is still open as a detention facility, as are other facilities around the world, and some detainees from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are still being held without indefinitely without a trial.The Associated Press contributed to this report.
8 Comments so far
Show AllSome good news finally. Not fantastic news, like Gitmo closure or a release of the known innocent detainies at Gitmo, but some small hope.
ditto!
YES! YES! YES! ... and a precedent set, which shouldn't have been necessary, given the First Amendment itself.
Thank goodness, it didn't have to go all the way to the Robert's Supreme Court which would have ruled that only Corporations are People and the First Amendment only applies to them ... see January, 2010, decision.
YES! YES! YES! Judge Russell Canan!
/cm
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
A very RARE ruling these daze. This judge will soon be targeted for replacement no doubt.
This is wonderful news. Thank you, Witness Against Torture, from the bottom of my heart for standing up, risking arrest, and speaking out about torture. This ruling gives my spirit a little uplift to keep demanding accountability.
Used to be the public could walk right into the White House, as they, as "we the people" own it...that was before the fascists took over (both Democratic fascists and Republican fascists)
The USA has been shit ever since.
These protesters are getting arrested and risking their safety to oppose torture.
More power to them. They are beautiful heroes.
Torture has made major comeback due to the Crusaders and their zionist allies. History repeats.
The crusaders can hold their castles and walled cities for now, but the countryside is rife with a mass jihad awaiting its Saladin.
During the last millenial crusades, torture and brutality ran amok. People died by the millions.
Ultimately, the muslims rose up, pushed their turgid old leadership out of the way and united behind war leaders. This spelled the end for the crusaders.
All this took 200 years to unfold then, but in our hyper millenium it will take less than 20. We are already in the millions on the death toll.
Pogobama, we have met the enemy and he is US.
Erdogan Rising, anyone?
This doesn't look like any sort of victory to me.
The pattern of police action is: arrest anyone you don't like, particularly protesters and people making the government look bad. Worry later about whether they're convicted, whether the charges stick, or even if there ever are charges.
The main goal, for the police, is to have the authority to prevent people from protesting or from trying to hold the government accountable. The main thing is to get people off the streets, out of the news and out of public view.
So they make up fake charges, or charges that really stretch the interpretations of reality. If there is an acquittal or a conviction, that's not the point.
For people to say that the protesters were vindicated and justice was served is to say "It's ok to let the police break up all direct action and protest, or even mundane attempts of a constituent to speak with her representative. Just so long as we get vindicated in the end."
To view this as a victory is to accept police policy of continuing to violate the First Amendment.