By Amy Goodman, Columnist
Article Last Updated: 09/06/2008 09:37:35 PM PDT
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Government crackdowns on journalists are a true threat to democracy. As the Republican National Convention met in St. Paul, Minn., this past week, police were systematically targeting journalists. I was arrested with my two colleagues, Democracy Now! producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, while reporting on the first day of the RNC. I have been wrongly charged with a misdemeanor. My co-workers, who were simply reporting, may be charged with felony riot.
On the streets of St. Paul, the press was free to report on the official proceedings of the RNC, but not to report on the police violence and mass arrests directed at those who came to petition their government, to protest.
On Labor Day there was an anti-war march, with a huge turnout, with local families, students, veterans and people from around the country gathered to oppose the war.
The protesters greatly outnumbered the Republican delegates. Later in the day, there was a splinter march. The police - clad in full body armor, with helmets, face shields, batons and canisters of pepper spray - charged. They forced marchers, onlookers and working journalists into a nearby parking lot, then surrounded the people and began handcuffing them. Nicole was videotaping. Her tape of her own violent arrest is chilling. Police in riot gear charged her, yelling, "Get down on your face." You hear her voice, clearly and repeatedly announcing "Press! Press! Where are we supposed to go?" She was trapped between parked cars. The camera drops to the pavement amidst Nicole's screams of pain. Her face was smashed into the pavement, and she was bleeding from the nose, with the heavy officer with a boot or knee on her back. Another officer was pulling on her leg. Sharif was thrown up against the wall and kicked in the chest, and he was bleeding from his arm.
I was at the Xcel Center on the convention floor, interviewing delegates, when I got a call on my cell phone with news that Sharif and Nicole were being arrested. Filmmaker Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films and I raced on foot to the scene. I went up to the line of riot police and asked to speak to a commanding officer, saying that they had arrested accredited journalists. Within seconds, they grabbed me, pulled me behind the police line and forcibly twisted my arms behind my back and handcuffed me, the rigid plastic cuffs digging into my wrists. I repeated we were accredited journalists, whereupon a Secret Service agent came over and ripped my convention credential from my neck.
I was taken to the St. Paul police garage where cages were set up for protesters. I was charged with obstruction of a peace officer. Nicole and Sharif were taken to jail, facing riot charges. The attack on and arrest of me and the Democracy Now! producers was not an isolated event. A video group called I-Witness Video was raided two days earlier. Another video documentary group, the Glass Bead Collective, was detained, with its computers and video cameras confiscated. On Wednesday, I-Witness Video was again raided, forced out of its office location.
When I asked St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington how reporters are to operate in this atmosphere, he suggested, "By embedding reporters in our mobile field force."
