August, 21 2015, 01:30pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Email:,communications@nlg.org
FERGUSON, Mo.
In a surprise move, just before the statute of limitations was about to expire, St. Louis County Counselor Peter Krane filed charges last week against at least 100 people who were arrested a year ago peacefully protesting the murder of Michael Brown outside of the Ferguson Police Department.
After the City of Ferguson and the State Prosecuting Attorney refused to file charges against activists arrested last year, County Counselor Krane reconstructed police reports in order to pursue protesters accused of Interfering with a Police Officer. Since the statute of limitations has not expired for everyone, additional protesters could still be charged.
In response to this last-minute filing, a coalition of legal groups issued a statement opposing the excessive and unnecessary prosecutions. The coalition includes: National Lawyers Guild, its St. Louis chapter and National Police Accountability Project, Advancement Project, American Civil Liberties Union and its Missouri chapter, ArchCity Defenders, Black Movement Law Project, Center for Constitutional Rights, Mound City Bar Association, Legal Defense and Education Fund of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and its Missouri chapter, National Association for Public Defense, National Press Photographers Association, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and St. Louis University Civil Litigation Clinic.
The charges filed against scores of Ferguson protesters from 2014 came as people took to the streets last week to commemorate the life of Michael Brown and his murder by white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. More than 150 arrests were made at recent protests as the Black Lives Matter movement continued to call attention to the injustices of the legal system. Police also used chemical weapons and excessive force against peaceful protesters, indicating no change in law enforcement's brutal crowd control tactics.
"The County of St. Louis is grasping at straws to find ways to stifle ongoing protests in Ferguson," said National Lawyers Guild Executive Director Pooja Gehi, who was arrested while documenting police misconduct on August 10. "Despite these forms of intimidation, the people of Ferguson will continue to seek accountability by police and the National Lawyers Guild will continue to have their backs."
Just this last Wednesday, on the one-year anniversary of the police killing of Kajieme Powell, more protests erupted in St. Louis after police fatally shot 18-year old Mansur Ball-Bey. As people took to the streets, police deployed tear gas and arrested nine people. It is clear that there is much work left to do in St. Louis--and nationwide--in the movement for Black lives and First Amendment rights.
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) works to promote human rights and the rights of ecosystems over property interests. It was founded in 1937 as the first national, racially-integrated bar association in the U.S.
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Plastics Summit 'Die-In' Highlights Need to Cut Production
Demonstrators—some wearing fish masks to highlight how plastic pollution impacts marine biodiversity—gathered in front of a 28-foot banner that used plastic trash bags to spell out: "Plastic is poisoning us. Cut production now."
(Photo: Ben Powless/Survival Media Agency)
Participants in the die-in—which followed the weekend's "March to End the Plastic Era" through the Canadian city—held smaller signs with similar messages, demanding that governments and industry "stop fueling climate chaos."
As Common Dreamsreported last week, new research from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California shows that planet-heating pollution from the plastics industry is equivalent to that of about 600 coal-fired power plants, and 75% of the greenhouse gas emissions from plastic production are released before the plastic compounds are even created.
The protesters also highlighted that more than 180,000 Ekō members have signed a petition urging action on plastic pollution. The petition specifically calls for banning all plastic waste exports from the European Union and fully implementing the Basel Convention within the bloc, while the summit has a global focus and the plan is to have a treaty by the end of this year.
After countries agreed to draft a treaty two years ago, the latest talks in Kenya last year were flooded by fossil fuel and chemical lobbyists and ended with little progress, increasing attention on the Canadian meeting that began Tuesday and is scheduled to run through Monday.
"It's a crucial moment of this process," Andrés Gómez Carrión, chair of the negotiations and an Ecuadorian diplomat in the United Kingdom, toldReuters on Monday. "One of the biggest challenges is to define where the plastics lifecycle starts and define what sustainable production and consumption is."
Petrochemical-producing countries including China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia "have opposed mentioning production limits" while E.U. members, island nations, and Japan aim to "end plastic pollution by 2040," the news agency reported. The United States supports that timeline but "wants countries to set their own plans for doing so" and submit pledges to the United Nations.
"We are facing a global plastics crisis that requires urgent, global action. Reducing plastic production needs to be a core component of the solution," Christy Leavitt, campaign director at Oceana in the United States, said in a statement. "Countries must act now to stop the flood of plastic pollution that is harming our oceans, climate, health, and communities by starting at the source to reduce its production."
"The U.S. should support a strong, legally binding plastics treaty that addresses the full life cycle of this persistent pollutant from extraction and production to use and disposal," Leavitt added. "Now is the time for the United States to show its support to reduce plastic production, eliminate unnecessary single-use plastics, prohibit hazardous chemicals in plastics, and establish mandatory targets for reuse and refill systems. The United States and the world must act before it's too late."
Greenpeace last month installed a 15-foot monument outside the U.S. Capitol to send President Joe Biden a message.
"He can be the president who put an end to the plastic pollution crisis, or he can be the one who let it spiral out of control," Greenpeace oceans director John Hocevar said of Biden. "We're calling on him to stand up to plastic polluters like Exxon and Dow and put us on a greener and healthier path."
The petrochemical industry, Reuters noted, "argues that production caps would lead to higher prices for consumers, and that the treaty should address plastics only after they are made."
Sam Cossar-Gilbert of Friends of the Earth International emphasized the need to resist corporate pressure in a statement Tuesday.
"A people-powered movement and some governments are proposing ambitious steps to address the plastic problem, like regulating the harmful waste trade, single-use bans, and reducing global plastic production," said Cossar-Gilbert. "But multinational corporations will also be lobbying with their false solutions, distractions, and delays. Only by stamping out corporate capture can we deliver a new global treaty to end plastic pollution."
Mageswari Sangaralingam from the green group's Malaysian arm, Sahabat Alam Malaysia, stressed the need for strong waste management policies, given that Global South countries have become dumping grounds for richer nations' discarded plastic.
"Waste colonialism, whether in the form of trade in plastic waste and other hidden plastics, perpetuates social and environmental injustice," said Sangaralingam. "However, ending the plastic waste trade without reducing plastic production will likely trigger more dumping, cause toxic pollution, and contribute to the climate crisis. The global plastics treaty is an opportunity to plug loopholes and address policy gaps to end plastic pollution."
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