Dear District Attorney

To the Office of the District Attorney, with special attention to Paul
Gallegos:As you know, a record number of people (relative to the Occupy
movement nationwide) have been arrested involved with or near the Occupy Eureka
demonstration. Redwood Curtain CopWatch has been diligently calling your office
1) to make sure we are privy to each persons' court dates and charges, and 2) to
make sure we know whether there are any attorney conflicts wherein people
arrested in the "same" police actions are not assigned to the same law office
for their defense. We began making such calls on December 6th, specifically
regarding November 14, 2011 arrests, and have continued to follow up with phone
calls and visits to your office. Your office is utterly unaccountable to the
public, and most notably, to persons' who's freedoms are threatened by your
irresponsible prosecutions and your blatant violations of due process
rights.This email is to memorialize above-mentioned calls and visits,
the information provided by your office, some of the attempts (that we are aware
of) by the accused themselves to get accurate information and preserve their
civil liberties, and the unacceptable discrepancies in the information put out
by your office regarding peoples' obligations to appear in court.
Please note that we do not believe that the District Attorney's
Office receptionists should be held accountable for the egregious failures of
your office. It is the District Attorney's responsibility to make sure there is
accurate and up-to-date information available to members of the public and is
the District Attorney's legal duty to properly notice members of the public
regarding charges against them brought by your office, court dates, and any
action that your office takes (i.e. issue warrants) to restrict someone's civil
liberties. Your office has a duty to notice personally the
people being charged and scheduled with court dates.December 5,
2011: Both Elise Gerhart and Marc Ely, in order to comply with the
Agreements to Appear they had signed upon release from jail (from Nov 14
arrests), visited the Humboldt County Superior Clerk's Office and made court
dates (earlier than the dates they had agreed to appear) so as not to have court
interfere with holiday plans. They were given arraignment dates for December
14, 2011. December 6, 2011: Kimberly Starr of Redwood Curtain
CopWatch spoke with Jennifer at your office. Jennifer informed her that the
following listed people who were arrested (all arrested without a warrant) on
November 14, 2011 had cases still "pending" on Deputy District Attorney Kelly
Neel's desk. Jennifer provided the names (and the pending status
information) after she was asked the status of Jacob Green from his arrest on
November 14, 2011. Jacob Green, as per Jennifer's information, was the only
person from the November 14th protest-related arrests for whom the DA reviewed
and rejected to charge due to insufficient evidence. ALL PENDING
ACCORDING TO DEC 6TH CALL TO YOUR OFFICE:Jonah AllenJada
AnneDerek AvilaJoshua AyersKenneth ColemanMarc ElyMichael
EmkeJoseph GentileTheodore GeorgeElise GerhartAndrew
HamerTeresa HartMartin KatzShane LawShane LongKeelan
McWayneMatthew MeslerJonathan MurrayErik
NützSean OcampoZachary PetersonCarmelita HuertaRichard
RandolphAnne RianGary RoachCharla RogersRamiro Rosas,
Jr.Lloyd SmithAmanda TierneyBrianna TuckerStanton
WoodDecember 8, 2011: Teresa Hart received a letter from your
office dated December 5, 2011 (a day before the above phone call), informing her
that she had a court date on December 28th at 8am and if she did not appear, a
warrant would be issued. This information conflicted with the (above-listed)
information provided on the phone the day after the letter was put in the
mail. December 12, 2011: Ms. Hart called your office and was told
the following:
Teresa Hart
and Theodore George are scheduled to appear in CrtRm # 3 at 8am on Dec.
28th.Joshua Ayers, Gary Roach, Micheal Emke, Joseph Gentile, and Zachary
Peterson are scheduled to appear on Dec 27th at 8am in Ctrm.# 3.Amanda
Tierney is scheduled to appear on Jan. 5th at 8am, no courtroom assigned
yet.No one else is set for arraignments from arrests on November 14,
2011.
December 14, 2011:
Elise Gerhart and Marc Ely appeared in court, were arraigned on charges,
reserved the right to demurrer, were assigned to Conflict Counsel and Public
Defender respectively, and were set for January 23 trial on a no-time waiver
basis.
December 16, 2011:
Kimberly Starr called your office and was provided information as follows:
Derek AviaKenneth
ColemanShane LawSean OcampoCarmelita HuertaCharla Rogers
Ramiro RosasLloyd Smith
All above listed as
pending, no charges filed yet, "pended for follow-up, Kelly Neel apparently
needs more information"Eureka Police Department Report
#3C11-8562-6Submitting officer: Detective O'Neill
Jonah AllenTheodore
GeorgeTeresa HartBrianna Tucker
All above charged
Arraignment court date December 19, 2011Eureka Police Department
Report #3C11-8562-3Submitting officer: Sgt Nova
Elise GerhartMarc
Ely
Above charged and arraigned
on Dec 14th Jan 11, Trial ConfirmationJan 23 Jury TrialBoth assigned
to Public DefenderSubmitting officer: Off. Luken
Anne RianMartin
KatzShane LongKeelna McWayneMatthew MeslerJonathan
MurrayAmanda TierneyStanton Wood
All above charged
Arraignment court date January 5, 2011 at 8amEureka Police
Department Report #3C11-8562-4Submitting officer: Sgt. Guy
Gary RoachJada
AnneJoshua Ayers
All above charged
Arraignment court date December 27, 2011 at 8amEureka Police
Department Report #3C11-8562-5Submitting officer: Off. Joshua Siipola
Richard
RandolphMichael EmkeJoseph GentileZachary Peterson
All above charged with PC
647(e); Richard Randolph charge dismissed on Dec 5, 2011Arraignment court
date December 27, 2011Eureka Police Department Report
#3C11-8562-7Submitting officer: Sgt. Watson
Andrew HamerErik Nütz
No charges filed yet for
either above, pending statusEureka Police Department Report
#3C11-8562-1Submitting officer: Off. Endsley
Jacob Green
Deputy DA Max Cardosa
declined to file charges for above.Eureka Police Department Report
#3C11-8562Submitting officer: Off. Stelzig
December 19, 2011:
Jonah Allen, Theodore George, Teresa Hart, and Brianna Tucker were not on any
docket in the courthouse. All four of them has been listed (three days before)
by your office as having arraignment court dates on Dec 19th. Kimberly Starr
went to District Attorney's office on at 8:45am. The following was the
information provided in writing regarding charges and court dates from
your office:
Derek Avila -
pendingKenneth Coleman - pendingShane Law - pendingSean Ocampo -
pendingCarmelita Huerta - pendingCharla Rogers - pendingRamiro Rosas
- pendingLloyd Smith - pendingJonah Allen - need to go to court ops to
set dateTheodore George - 12/28 8amTeresa Hart - 12/28 8amBrianna
Tucker - need to go to court ops to set dateAnne Rian - court ops to set
arraignmentMartin Katz - court ops to set arraignmentShane Long - court
ops to set arraignmentKeelan McWayne - court ops to set
arraignmentMatthew Mesler - court ops to set arraignmentJonathan Murray
- court ops to set arraignmentAmanda Tierney - 1/5 8amStanton Wood -
already arraigned 1/12 next courtGary Roach - 12/27 8am arraignmentJada
Anne - court ops to set arraignment dateJoshua Ayers - 12/27 8am
arraignmentRichard Randolph - already had arrMichael Emke - 12/27 8am
arraignmentJoseph Gentile - 12/27 8am arraignmentZachary Peterson -
12/27 8am arraignmentJacob Green - rejectedAndrew Hamer -
pendingErik Nütz - pendingStanton Wood CR 1105042 - 12/22
next court date CR 1105207 H -1/12 next court
date
The
conflicting information provided in every above communication with your office
(and the court clerk relying on info from you) shows how irresponsibly and
unlawfully your office has been handling, or not handling, notice to each
person. Telling Kimberly Starr that several people should "show up to set their
own court dates" is NOT proper notice for those individuals.
This problem costs people
their freedoms as your office whimsically causes warrants to be issued for
people who have been provided no notice. They can show up to court on
the date promised (and be turned away), they can call the DA's office and/or the
court clerk and get bad information, they can adjust their lives and schedules
to appear, and your office consistently gives false information and expects
people to do things that they are unaware of and have made no legal promises to
do.
Your office conducts its
business with a complete lack of accountability to the public, while it claims
to be in the role of making others accountable. The public has a lawful
expectation of accurate information from you and proper notice to the
individuals whom you decide to prosecute.
We know that this is not an
isolated instance of your office failing to give proper legal notice to people
regarding their charges and court dates. Your office has informed us in the
past that the prosecuting attorney unilaterally decides whether to notice a
person of her/his charges or instead just have a warrant issued. This practice
violates peoples' rights to due process, systematically infringing on their
civil liberties. We hope that your office will begin to comply with the law,
which includes taking action to correct your failures to provide accurate
information and proper notice for the people arrested on November 14, 2011 as
named here, to retract any warrants that have been issued as a result of your
unlawful practice, and to audit your office's practices that violate peoples'
rights. This is not the first time that Redwood Curtain CopWatch has
communicated with you about this problem.
Please immediately tend to
these due process issues, not only for people affected by the November 14 Occupy
Eureka related arrests, but for all people your office investigates and/or
prosecutes.
Be accountable.
Sincerely,
Redwood Curtain CopWatch

Longest Night of the Year

We will be, in Eureka, honoring Homeless Persons' Memorial Day. Your suggestions, candles, names of people who have passed on, and your participation on the 21st are encouraged. Email back.

Please honor this day and night appropriately wherever you are. And remember, every other day of the year. Struggle with the People on the Streets!

Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day

HOMELESS PEOPLE DIE FROM SYSTEMIC VIOLENCE

Homeless people die from illnesses that affect everyone, frequently without health care.
Homeless people die from exposure, unprotected from the heat and cold.
Homeless people die when government policies deprive them of everything.
Homeless people die at the hands of police and civilians in unprovoked hate crimes.
Health care is a human right.
Housing is a human right.
Physical safety is a human right.
Sleep is a human right.
Remember our neighbors and friends who have died without homes.
Remember why they died.

December 21st The Extreme of Winter.
The Longest Night of the Year.

Sat 12/17: Occupy Eureka Celebrates OWS 3 Month Birthday with New Free Speech Kiosk

Contact: occupyeureka@gmail.com

On Saturday, December 17^th, at noon – Occupy Eureka invites you to the Humboldt County Courthouse to attend the unveiling of our new information kiosk as we call out for justice and equality for the 99% through the exercise of our first amendment rights. This event is part of a movement-wide call to "re-occupy" in the wake of coordinated attacks and subsequent evictions of occupations across the nation and around the world.

Occupy Wall Street has sparked a national movement that has exposed the moral bankruptcy of an economy of homeless families and vacant homes, crowded classrooms and empty schools, corporate executive bonuses and endless unemployment lines. This weekend -despite ongoing harassment by the Eureka Police Department, Humboldt County Sheriff's Department, Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, Eureka City Council, and the Humboldt District Attorney's Office -we will defy misinterpreted municipal codes and embrace the spirit of the Geneva Convention. We demand the Eureka Police and Humboldt Sheriffs produce LEGAL DOCUMENTATION to justify their relentless attacks on protesters' civil liberties and human rights.

Do the right thing and stand with us as we mark the three-month anniversary of the Occupy Movement and the one-year anniversary of the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, which sparked the Arab Spring uprising and a global movement for social justice.

Join us at the Eureka Courthouse this Saturday at noon for Occupy Wall Street's three month anniversary celebration. Millions around the globe have taken action to support this movement for economic, environmental, and social justice—now's your chance to join forces with the 99% and be on the winning side of history.

###

Check out: Occupy Eureka FACEBOOK

Wikipedia Co-Founder Threatens Blackout Over Anti-Piracy Law

Wikipedia should temporarily shut down in protest against new US laws designed to clamp down on online piracy, its co-founder has argued.

by Christopher Williams

Jimmy Wales proposed the blackout, saying a “public uprising” was required to halt the progress of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) through Congress.

Jimmy Wales called for a 'public uprising' against SOPA. (Photo: Terry Foote) “Right now, what I'm thinking is that if there is a credible threat that this might happen, this could have a positive impact on the thinking of some legislators,” he said in a posting to his personal page.

“Do not underestimate our power - in my opinion, they are terrified of a public uprising about this, and we are uniquely positioned to start that,” he added.

Mr Wales said a “community strike” in which the English version of Wikipedia would be shut down worldwide would put most pressure on Congressmen. He invited Wikipedians, as contributors to the non-profit website are known, to give their views on such action in preparation for a more formal poll.

Wikipedians have previously used similar tactics to apply political pressure, albeit on a smaller scale. For three days in October, visitors to the Italian version of the encyclopaedia were greeted only by a statement criticising new laws that would have forced it to immediately delete material in response to defamation claimsThe Italian Parliament backed down immediately,” said Mr Wales, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001 and now serves as “chair emeritus” of the Wikimedia Foundation, the charity that funds the website.

“As Wikipedians may or may not be aware, a much worse law going under the misleading title of "Stop Online Piracy Act' is working its way through Congress on a bit of a fast track,” he added.

“My own view is that a community strike was very powerful and successful in Italy and could be even more powerful in this case.”

Mr Wales is attending a series of meetings in Washington DC this week with representatives of the web industry in an attempt to persuade politicians to block SOPA. Google, Facebook, Twitter and others claim the laws “pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation's cybersecurity”.

Scores of Wikipedians have weighed in on Mr Wales’ proposal for a Wikipedia strike, with most registering their support since he made it on Saturday. The most controversial provisions of SOPA would force websites that carry user-generated material, as Wikipedia, to impose new restrictions or constantly monitor activity, it’s claimed.

“At a minimum, this means that any service that hosts user generated content is going to be under enormous pressure to actively monitor and filter that content,” said the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group.

Supporters of the Bill argue it will protect copyright holders from pirate websites that circumvent existing laws, such as unlicensed film streaming services based overseas.

Anticapitalist activists convert empty bank and vacant lot into community spaces; police threat imminent

http://www.theprecarious.com/content/anticapitalist-activists-convert-empty-bank-and-vacant-lot-community-spaces-police-threaten#

SANTA CRUZ, California - Santa Cruz raised the bar of what it means to “Occupy Everything” in two separate actions last week. Community members organized to convert two unused spaces into gathering places.

“I think it is important to directly reinsert ourselves as communities who need space to connect and share, to connect with one another outside of commercial space and monetary exchange,” said one protester, who like all who attended this action chose not to their names due to legal concerns.

Santa Cruz maintains strict laws: It is illegal to sit within 14 feet of any building, public bench, public telephone, public trash can, drinking fountain, bus stop, open air dining area, street or intersection or piece of public artwork; to sit on benches for longer than an hour; to blow bubbles; to hacky-sack.

Rejecting these laws and the broader capitalist system, hundreds occupied a vacant bank and turned an empty lot into a community garden.

Nearly 75 hours at 75 River Street

Covering the city, posters called for a Nov. 30 march that would lead to an empty property. “While many people are denied basic needs like shelter and social space, capitalism forces numerous spaces to remain empty and unused,” the poster read.

Around 2 p.m., Nov. 30, people assembled near the Occupy Santa Cruz encampment. Less than an hour later, approximately 75 people marched to the sounds of Lady Gaga and Dead Prez.

At a nearby Chase bank, protestors held a brief picket line before moving toward an empty bank at 75 River Street.

“I think some people thought we were going to picket Wells Fargo, but then we went to this one. A smaller crowd took to the building with a lot of excitement but a lot of them seemed hesitant. Within the hour a lot more people took it seriously,” said one protester.

As soon as the crowd moved into the bank, protestors unfurled two banners from the roof: “Occupy Everything” and “Reclaim Space, Reclaim Our Lives.”

Everyone was “running around like chickens with their heads cut off,” commented one protester, as they painted signs, erected barricades, claimed rooms and passed out candy that still stocked the vending machine.

By the time dozens of police arrived in full riot gear, the crowd had swelled to around 200. As the police tried unsuccessfully to enter the barricades, about 150 people linked arms to block the officers. After 20 minutes the police left with no arrests.

“Once we did that, we felt like we had it. It was this tiny victory that felt enormous,” said one occupant.

Over the next days, occupiers strategized with what to do next. Many wanted to turn the empty bank into a community space, but others found that action incompatible with the way the building was designed.

Dec. 3 occupiers decided to vacate the building. “It was this labyrinth, a cavernous space that wasn't conducive to creating a community space,” said one participant.

The official reason for leaving was because it appeared that police were targeting individuals not involved in the occupation.

In a press release, Santa Cruz Police Chief Kevin Vogel stated that the actions were, “senseless and childish and diverted our limited resources.” He also stated that the department intends to work with members of the District Attorney's Office to identify those responsible for the trespass.

Despite the threat of police reprisal, the occupants of 75 River Street left inspired.

“I think that collective confrontation is a liberating thing, the sense of community that comes from reclaiming space is different from anything else,” said one participant.

The former Coast Commercial Bank was purchased three years ago by Wells Fargo and since has been left empty.

A Garden is Built

The same day the bank at 75 River Street was vacated, a new space was being created on an abandoned lot on Pacific Street in downtown.

Gardeners wearing orange vests and carrying sledgehammers arrived Saturday morning to find an empty lot full of cigarette butts, broken glass and concrete slabs.

Others decked in Santa hats and dressed as candy canes gathered on the same corner for the Annual Downtown Santa Cruz Holiday Parade. They asked the gardeners what they were doing. The reply: working on a city beautification project. Passerby vocalized support and even stopped to dig and break apart concrete.

Before the gardeners arrived, “it was horribly ugly looking. It was shocking how ugly it was; they put in a lot of effort and made it really beautiful really quickly. It really speaks to the vibe of Santa Cruz,” said one observer.

Supporters dropped off mulch and horse manure. The growing, evolving crowd cleaned up trash and broke the cement slabs into smaller pieces from which they built raised garden beds and benches.

By the end of Saturday, they had transformed the lot into a community garden replete with four raised beds planted with apricot tree seedlings, succulents and other drought tolerant plants.

“It helped to make that part of town nicer, which is what we need. It was a place for someone to stop in and read a book and relax,” said Arden, who owns a jewelry and art store across the street.

The space was only half finished. Sunday plans to create four more beds were put aside until everyone had a chance to recover.

“There wasn't really the energy to finish it on Sunday,” one gardener said, “We were exhausted by the past few days. Some people were hanging out but nothing else was done.”

At 2 p.m. Monday, Datum Construction based out of Boise, Idaho, was scheduled to demolish the garden. Word spread and by 1 p.m. nearly 60 people had gathered to protect their new community center.

Protestors’ presence stalled the bulldozers for the day. Early the next morning, fences and police surrounded the garden.

“They planted a garden on private property and we took it out because that property is under construction to be improved anyway,” said Jason Reisinger, the construction manager with Datum Construction. He would not comment on what the planned improvement was.

Santa Cruz has a long history of radical actions. The most recent was a series of student occupations at University of California, Santa Cruz in 2009 to protest tuition hikes.

At that time in 2009 the words “Occupy Everything” were far from the public consciousness. Since the start of the Occupy Wall Street Movement Sept. 17 the words have gained widespread recognition.

“These continuous actions have sparked a certain use of language that began as kind of illegible by the broader population, but now they are part of the common discussion. It shows a movement building upon itself,” said one gardener. “I think that actions like this will serve as a form of experimentation, in terms of continuing to take spaces and hold them for longer, and we can learn to create something more cohesive and long lasting, here and everywhere.”

Us Army used to put down protest

Notes from the US – Protest against tar sand oil pipeline, Big strike of the year at telecoms giants Verizon, government in the dock

The silly season is over – inasmuch as it ever is in the United States (it emerged in late August, for instance, that Senator John McCain, former 2008 presidential candidate, promised to provide arms and military aid to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi during a meeting in August 2009. And there are a few small victories for common sense.

A federal court, for instance, has refused to dismiss a lawsuit against former US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, for his role in devising policies of torture in Iraq. In mid August the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that two American citizens (Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel) who were tortured at a US military base in Iraq have adequate evidence to suggest that Rumsfeld was personally responsible for their treatment and not entitled to qualify for immunity.

Then a federal jury has also found four New Orleans police guilty of civil rights violations over the shooting deaths of two civilians and the subsequent cover-up after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The charges were linked to shootings on the Danziger Bridge that also seriously wounded four others.

Also in the legal arena, though not so encouraging, the Obama administration is drawing criticism for the way in which is has dealt with the case of a married bi-national gay couple in San Francisco who risk being separated by deportation (Obama has already deported more people than Bush). The US Citizenship and Immigration Services has denied immigration benefits to Bradford Wells – actually a US citizen – and Anthony John Makk, an Australian national, who were married in Massachusetts seven years ago. Makk has been ordered to return to Australia.

But in New York City, an 82-year-old resident of Brooklyn who faces foreclosure was allowed to stay in her house in mid August after more than 200 people gathered near its front to block the eviction. Mary Lee Ward has lived in her home for 44 years but is now facing foreclosure as a victim of deceptive and predatory lending practices. “We are not slaves anymore. My grandfather was a slave, but I’m not. And they’re not going to force me to do anything against my will. You gotta put up a hard fight for the faith, and that means the fact that you have to stick with it when you know that you’re right. You know you have the evidence. You know you have the facts. Don’t let nobody walk over you. Don’t let nobody make you a slave.”

Unions

Some 45,000 unionised workers at telecom giant, Verizon, struck for several days last month after negotiations broke down between Verizon and two unions representing the workers (the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers). Verizon tried to cut health and pension benefits for workers and make it simpler for the company to sack workers. The strike was the largest and most significant this year. Verizon, which is the nation’s second largest phone company, earned US$6.9 (£4.2) billion in net income for the first six months of the year – or about a £1,000 an hour.

According to government data the share of the eligible population holding a job declined to just 58%, the lowest since July 1983. The official unemployment rate is 9.1%.

Other revealing official statistics released last month show that by the end of April this year the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had cost an average of US$9.7 (£5.9) billion a month. That’s £8m an hour and roughly the entire annual budget for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Also protesting were activists blocking the entrance to a US Navy base in Washington state which houses nuclear submarines; the protest was timed to mark the 66th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Then in Arizona, 10 protesters were arrested in mid August after chaining themselves together and blocking a road leading to the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff. They were protesting plans for a ski resort which would use recycled sewer water to make artificial snow on a mountain considered sacred by 13 Native American tribes.

Environment

Protests continue against the Alberta tar sands project which would build a pipeline 1,500 miles from north to south (the Keystone XL pipeline) to deliver tar sands oil from Canada to refineries in Texas. In late August more than 500 people protesting outside the White House were arrested on several separate occasions. Indeed, the protest is being widely described as one of the environmental movement’s biggest and important campaigns for many years. Dr. Sydney Parker of Maryland: “We are here because it’s not just an environmental issue, it’s also a very big health issue and that’s why we’ve come out today and that’s why we’re so committed. So personally I’ve never been arrested before. I don’t do this for fun. I’m here because I think it’s such an important issue that it really demands that kind of action and it demands that level of commitment from myself.”

Meanwhile a new report by Canada’s environmental agency has found that extracting oil from the Alberta tar sands will more than offset emission reductions in other areas. Greenhouse gas emissions from oil sands would triple to 92-million metric tons by 2020. But then Canada’s current conservative government has abandoned more ambitious efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The National Climatic Data Center confirmed that July was the fourth-warmest month in US history. In Dallas, for example, the temperature exceeded 100 degrees on 30 of the 31 days in July. This didn’t stop Texan presidential candidate Rick Perry from advocating – along with the teaching of creationism – that climate change be dismissed as a hoax.

Still, if you look at the website WorldNetDaily the 5.8 magnitude earthquake that shook the East Coast on August 23 is the result of the nation’s declining morals… “Washington, D.C. deserves more than the wallop it got today. It needs a much bigger shaking up than it got”. Whereas for rabbi Yehuda Levin “…there’s a direct connection between earthquakes and homosexuality. There was in Haiti, and there is here in New York and Washington, D.C., where they passed homosexual legislation and ordinances”.

Also in political news, far right candidate, Michelle Bachmann, in addition for saying that hurricane Irene was god’s punishment, effectively for those who don’t support the Republicans, has had to deal with reports that one of her staff, Peter Waldron, was arrested in February 2006 in Uganda for possessing a number of assault rifles and ammunition just days before Uganda’s first multi-party elections in 20 years. Another candidate, Mitt Romney, has applied for a permit to bulldoze his 3,000-square-foot, US$12 (£7.3) million beachfront vacation home in California – so as to replace it with one nearly four times its size. A campaign official remarked that the existing home is, “inadequate for their needs”. Romney lives in Massachusetts, but also has vacation homes in New Hampshire and Utah.

Louis Further

National Climatic Data Center: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html

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Fascists out of our cities! Updates on racist murders in Florence, Italy

Shut down the fascist dens, shut down Casapound. Fascists out of my city!

After the shootings of 3 days ago in Florence at the hand of a right-wing extremist who killed two Senegalese street vendors and injured another three, Senegalese migrants joined by local residents and antiracist organisations improvised a march through the city centre, ending at the local Court. Interestingly enough, the police, who, after the first murder, should have in theory been trying to catch the murderer, decided instead to focus on and repress heavily the spontaneous demonstration with charges and beatings.

The same happened in Rome the following day, where a protest against the neofascist organisation’s local centre was charged by riot police. Numerous initiatives are being organised all over Italy; in Pistoia a picket appeared outside the local Court a few hours after the shootings, and a banner was hung demanding the closure of Casapound and other similar neofascist groups. More protests took place yesterday and today in various places, organised by migrants and antiracist groups.

In the meantime, Casapound and other fascist groups are doing their best to delete any proof of the killer’s connection with them: Casseri’s writings have been taken off websites of organisations he had collaborated with in the past – he was a writer and editor, had his own magazine and had a reputation as one of the main contemporary far right “intellectuals”, fond of fantasy literature and poets like Ezra Pound. Although not officially a member of Casapound, Casseri was in fact very close to the group, had spoken at many talks and more than once had worked with them. The national Casapound’s website had a whole page about him that was swiftly taken off a few hours after the murders. Despite Casapound’s attempt to take distance from Casseri, some activists from Pistoia, as soon as they saw his picture in the newspapers, recognised him as the man they’d seen in tribunal at a trial against some left-wing activists wrongly accused of attacking the local Casapound centre. He’d been at every hearing, unknown to the defendants, as a delegate of the local Casapound group in Pistoia.

Moustapha Dieng, one of the Senegalese men injured, is still in hospital fighting for his life. In the meantime, the media can’t find anything better to do but give space to the fascists: one of the leaders of Casapound, Gianluca Iannone, was interviewed by Rai3 (one of the public channels) and described Casapound as a “voluntary organisation whose work revolves around culture, sports and politics”. When the journalist questioned the “voluntary” nature of Casapound and referred to it as a far right organisation, he got really angry and refused the accusations of racism and antisemitism, claiming that these myths are created by ignorant people whose only interests are “creating monsters and scapegoats”. On Casseri, he contradicted himself: he started by saying he was a very normal person with a normal life, and later stated he was obviously insane, and isolated in his actions.

These murders, like the racist attacks against a Roma camp in Turin a few days ago and many other attacks that are unfortunately becoming more and more frequent, are not caused by isolated “crazy loners”, but are the product of a xenophobic, neofascist mentality that groups like Casapound, and parties like the Northern League, have been preaching about for years.

Thanks to Osservatorio Repressione for the info included in this article.

Italy Calling is on http://italycalling.wordpress.com

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Allentown Police Tase 14 YO Dieruff Student in Her Groin

• Lawsuit says student did nothing to warrant being tasered
• Police claim she was cursing, inciting a crowd, resisting arrest and elbowed officer in chin
• 100 seconds of video showing what preempted attack missing
  

By Rachel Quigley

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2074114/Allentown-police-officer-tases-girl-14-groin-YouTube-video.html#ixzz1gisLqP1R

A surveillance video showing a police officer tasering a 14-year-old girl in the groin has been released as part of a lawsuit she has filed against the officer and the city.

Keshana Wilson, from Allentown, Philadelphia, was tasered by the police officer on September 29 outside Dieruff High school as she was walking with a group of friends.

Though 100 seconds is missing from the video according to the lawsuit, it captures the final encounter between Miss Wilson and officer Jason Ammary, but not what preempted it.

Scroll down for video

Quietly: The video shows Miss Wilson and her two friends walking towards the dark-coloured car (bottom right)

Violent: The video then cuts to the officer and Miss Wilson in a struggle where he seems to be trying to restrain her

Aim: The officer takes a few steps back and raises his Taser pointing it to her groin

The officer claims the girl resisted arrest and elbowed him in the chin, the lawsuit claims he grabbed her from behind without identifying himself and shoved her into the car.

The 14-year-old is seen walking towards the car before it abruptly cuts to her being slammed against the side of it by the officer.

A struggle ensues, before the officer steps back and fires his Taser at her groin, causing her to collapse in agony on the ground.

More...

• Yet ANOTHER racist rant on public transport is caught on camera as abusive woman aims kick at bus passenger... and falls flat on her back
• Desperado: Cowboy tasered by police after three people ride horses into Safeway and Starbucks during 10-hour town crawl

According to the lawsuit, the police report claims Mr Ammary aimed his weapon lower because Miss Wilson was using her backpack to block the Taser.

But in the video Miss Wilson’s upper body is clearly exposed.

Fire: He shoots it at the 14-year-old and she collapses in agony on the ground

Down: Miss Wilson writhes in agony on the ground before becoming motionless as the officer calls for backup

In the video, Miss Wilson appears to raise her arms about a second before he shoots at her.

Attorney Richard J. Orloski, who filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court on behalf of Victoria Geist, the mother of the 14-year-old, says that Mr Ammary used excessive forced when he fired the Taser directly at the teenager's groin.

According to the Morning Call, Miss Wilson was taken to hospital to have probes removed before being arrested and charged with aggravated assault on the officer, simple assault, riot, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, failure to disperse and walking on the highway.

The assault and riot charges were dismissed in juvenile court.

USE-OF-FORCE CONTINUUM

The continuum is a standard that gives law enforcement officials guidelines regarding how much force may be used against a resisting subject in a given situation.

It allows officers to use non-lethal means to restrain and control an active resister after their presence and verbal commands fail.

These can include pepper spray, hands, baton or the taser.

Source: The Morning Call

The lawsuit filed against officer Ammary and the city of Allentown claims that the girl did nothing to provoke the officer, according to the Morning Call, but that he grabbed her from behind and shoved her into the car while making insulting remarks.

But Allentown police say that Miss Wilson was cursing, inciting a crowd of students and resisting arrest - which included elbowing the officer in the chin.

The Morning Call reports that Allentown Assistant Police Chief Joseph Hanna claimed the officer was justified in using the Taser because of the 'use-of-force continuum'.

They are trained to use Tasers in accordance with amount of force used and not related to age or gender.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2074114/Allentown-police-officer-tases-girl-14-groin-YouTube-video.html#ixzz1girtkZSR

Why Are Indian Reservations So Poor? A Look At The Bottom 1%

When customers who live and work on the nearby Crow Indian reservation don’t make their car payments, there’s not much Square One Finance of Billings, Montana, can do. Going to state court to repossess the car or garnish wages is not an option. Instead, Square One enters the murky realm of international affairs. The reservation is a separate nation—judgments in American courts can’t be enforced. And the chances of finding the customer and the car on the sprawling rural reservation, or winning in the unpredictable Crow courts, are slim. “We take on such a huge extra risk with someone from the reservation,” says Square One’s Nancy Vermeulen. “If I knew contracts would be enforced, then I could do a lot more business there.”

At a time when there’s a spotlight on America’s richest 1%, a look at the country’s 310 Indian reservations–where many of America’s poorest 1% live–can be more enlightening. To explain the poverty of the reservations, people usually point to alcoholism, corruption or school-dropout rates, not to mention the dusty undeveloped land that doesn’t seem good for growing much and the long distances to jobs. But those are just symptoms. Prosperity is built on property rights, and reservations often have neither. They’re a demonstration of what happens when property rights are weak or non-existent.

The vast majority of land on reservations is held communally. That means residents can’t get clear title to the land where their home sits, one reason for the abundance of mobile homes on reservations. This makes it hard for Native Americans to establish credit and borrow money to improve their homes because they can’t use the land as collateral–and investing in something you don’t own makes little sense, anyway.

This leads to what economists call the tragedy of the commons: If everyone owns the land, no one does. So the result is substandard housing and the barren, rundown look that comes from a lack of investment, overuse and environmental degradation. It’s a look that’s common worldwide, wherever secure property rights are lacking—much of Africa and South America, inner city housing projects and rent-controlled apartment buildings in the U.S., Indian reservations.

More than a third of the Crow reservation’s 2.3 million acres is individually owned, and the contrast with the communal land—often just on the other side of a fence—is stark, as Google satellite maps show. Terry Anderson, executive director of the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana, co-authored a study showing that private land is 30-90% more productive agriculturally than the adjacent trust land. And this isn’t because the land is better: A study of 13 reservations in the West put 49% of the land in the top four quality classes, while only 38% of the land in the surrounding counties was rated that highly. For the Crow reservation, 48% of the land made the top four classes; only 33% of the adjacent land did. “The raw quality of the land is not that much different, it’s the amount of investment in that land that’s different,” he says.

Canada faces the same issues with its 630 bands—as tribes there are called—but thanks to the effort of a dogged reformer, there’s a push to allow reservation land to be privatized. Manny Jules, a former chief of the Kamloops Indian band in British Columbia, is lining up support for the First Nations Property Ownership Act, which would allow bands to opt out of the government ownership of their land and put it under tribal and private ownership. Reserves would become new entities that would have some of the powers of municipalities, provinces and the federal government to provide schools, hospitals and other services, and to enact zoning laws. He expects that the bill will be introduced in Parliament early in 2012 and is confident of approval by the end of the year. What’s forcing the issue is an acute housing crisis on the reserves. Without private property rights, little housing is being built even as the Indian population grows, and the Assembly of First Nations estimates that the reserves need 85,000 new houses immediately; the government is building only 2,200 a year.

“Markets haven’t been allowed to operate in reserve lands,” says Jules. “We’ve been legislated out of the economy. When you don’t have individual property rights, you can’t build, you can’t be bonded, you can’t pass on wealth. A lot of small businesses never get started because people can’t leverage property [to raise funds]. This act would free our entrepreneurial spirit, but it’s going to take a freeing of our imagination. We have to become part of the national and global economies.”

But even if Jules succeeds, there is no reformer like him in the U.S. to lead the charge here. Any effort at land reform must go through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. But the bureau, originally part of the War Department and one of the federal government’s oldest agencies, isn’t about to pave the way for its own demise by signing off on an effort to privatize reservation land. The bureau faced this situation before: Under the 1887 Dawes Act, land could be allotted to individual Indians, but by 1934 so much land had been privatized that Congress reversed course and communal tribal property was back in favor. “Allotment threatened the bureau so it had an incentive to end the process,” says Dominic Parker, an economics professor at Montana State University. In any event, tribal councils wouldn’t be keen to give up the patronage and power that controlling vast amounts of land gives them. And the $2.5 billion a year that Washington spends on programs for Native Americans is a powerful deterrent to change. “For the bureau and other narrow interests, staying with the convoluted system of land ownership is safer than improving property rights,” he says. The bureau declined to comment.

Plus, there are practical issues. Any Indian who didn’t win clear title to land by 1934 was left with a fractional share of the reservation’s land held in trust. With every generation, each share was divided among more family members and today hundreds of people may have a partial claim to one share of trust land. Often there are no records of where many of these people are. In the Crow reservation, 1 million of the 2.3 million acres are held in trust for such individuals. The Dawes Act created another problem: The owners of privatized land in a reservation have always faced legal questions over whether they come under the jurisdiction of the tribal authority. The checkerboard pattern of private and trust land in some reservations make it tough for tribes to provide services and do land-use planning.

Anderson puts the choice for tribes in sharp terms. “If you don’t want private ownership, and want to stay under trusteeship, then I say, ‘fine.’ But you’re going to stay underdeveloped; you’re not going to get rich.”

The problems of the reservations go well beyond residents not having the right incentives to upgrade their surroundings. With some exceptions, even casinos haven’t much benefited the several dozen reservations that have built them. Companies and investors are often reluctant to do business on reservations—everything from signing up fast food franchisees to lending to casino projects—because getting contracts enforced under tribal law can be iffy. Indian nations can be small and issues don’t come up that often, so commercial codes aren’t well-developed and precedents are lacking. And Indian defendants have a home court advantage. “We’re a long way from having a reliable business climate,” says Bill Yellowtail, a former Crow official and a former Montana state senator. “Businesses coming to the reservation ask, ‘What am I getting into?’ The tribal courts are not reliable dispute forums.”

Many reservations are rich in natural resources, but there’s no big rush to develop them, given the tangled issue of property rights and the risk of making a big investment without a secure legal footing. “We have 9 billion tons of high-quality coal sitting under the reservation, going largely untapped,” says Yellowtail. “Natural gas, too. Potential development galore, but that potential is never realized.” Indeed a $7 billion coal-to-liquids plan fell apart in April, though it was revived in a scaled-down version in July. Anderson adds that with any investment, “the tribe could change the deal after the fact because it’s sovereign.”

Some tribes are taking steps to improve their legal structures, such as adopting new commercial codes to make their laws more uniform. Over a 30-year period, reservations that had adopted the judicial systems of the states where they’re located saw their per capita income grow 30% faster than reservations that didn’t, according to a study by Anderson and Parker. A separate study by Parker shows that Native Americans are 50% more likely to have a loan application approved when lenders have access to state courts. “Putting reservations under the legal jurisdiction of the states, and facilitating better legal codes and better functioning court systems, would assist tribes in developing their land,” says Anderson.

A bigger obstacle to these reforms may not be logistics or special interests, but the culture of the reservations and the generations after generations of dependency. Indeed, a notice on a bulletin board in Garryowen, Montana, inside the Crow reservation and near the site of Custer’s Last Stand, announces when the next round of “per capita payment checks”—derived from Crow Nation trust income–will be mailed.

“Privatizing land is fine but it falls far short of the answer,” says Yellowtail. “Our people don’t understand business. After 10 or 15 generations of not being involved in business, they’ve lost their feel for it. Capitalism is considered threatening to our identity, our traditions. Successful entrepreneurs are considered sell-outs, they’re ostracized. We have to promote the dignity of self-sufficiency among Indians. Instead we have a culture of malaise: ‘The tribe will take care of us.’ We accept the myth of communalism. And we don’t value education. We resist it.”

But Yellowtail believes that the situation is improving. He says there are more entrepreneurs than 20 years ago as networks of Native American business people have sprung up in Montana and elsewhere. “We have to start with micro loans, encouraging small businesses. Then we have to make it okay to leave the reservation because the most successful are going to want to branch out. Entrepreneurs are going to have to stick their neck out, be a role model. We Indians are going to have to do it.”

Missing 72-year old womyn in Humboldt.

The Eureka Police Department is requesting the public's help in locating a missing 72-year-old woman.

According to a press release, Mary Mallatt is 5-feet tall, weighs 120 pounds and has gray hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing black shirt and pants in the 900 block of Third Street in Eureka around 1 p.m. today. Due to brain damage, she has a 90-second memory. She likes to walk and is in good shape, the release said.

If you see this woman, contact the Eureka Police Department Dispatch at (707) 441-4044.

(Or kick the pig shit out of whoever stole her)

No Veto to the fascist ass bullshit pig law put in place by our representatives and that uncle tom-ass Barack Obama

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Wednesday abandoned its threat that President Barack Obama would veto a defense bill over provisions on how to handle suspected terrorists as Congress raced to finish the legislation.

Press secretary Jay Carney said last-minute changes that Obama and his national security team sought produced legislation that “does not challenge the president’s ability to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists and protect the American people.”

Based on the modifications, “the president’s senior advisers will not recommend a veto,” the White House said.

The statement came just moments after the House wrapped up debate on the $662 billion bill that would authorize money for military personnel, weapons systems, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and national security programs in the Energy Department in the budget year that began Oct. 1.

The House was expected to vote for the measure later Wednesday. The Senate planned to wrap up the bill in the evening and send it to Obama.

The White House had threatened a veto over the detainee provisions. Specifically, the bill would require that the military take custody of a suspect deemed to be a member of al-Qaida or its affiliates and who is involved in plotting or committing attacks on the United States. There is an exemption for U.S. citizens.

House and Senate negotiators announced late Monday that they had modified that provision. They added language that says nothing in the bill will affect “existing criminal enforcement and national security authorities of the FBI or any other domestic law enforcement agency” with regard to a captured suspect, “regardless of whether such … person is held in military custody.”

The bill also says the president can waive the provision based on national security.

“While we remain concerned about the uncertainty that this law will create for our counterterrorism professionals, the most recent changes give the president additional discretion in determining how the law will be implemented, consistent with our values and the rule of law, which are at the heart of our country’s strength,” Carney said.

Uncertainty was a major concern of FBI Director Robert Mueller who expressed serious reservations about the detainee provisions.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mueller said a coordinated effort by the military, intelligence agencies and law enforcement has weakened al-Qaida and captured or killed many of its leaders, including Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki. He suggested that the divisive provision in the bipartisan defense bill would deny that flexibility and prove impractical.

“The statute lacks clarity with regard to what happens at the time of arrest. It lacks clarity with regard to what happens if we had a case in Lackawanna, New York, and an arrest has to be made there and there’s no military within several hundred miles,” Mueller said. “What happens if we have … a case that we’re investigating on three individuals, two of whom are American citizens and would not go to military custody and the third is not an American citizen and could go to military custody?”

The legislation also would deny suspected terrorists, even U.S. citizens seized within the nation’s borders, the right to trial and subject them to indefinite detention.

The escalating fight over whether to treat suspects as prisoners of war or criminals has divided Democrats and Republicans, the Pentagon and Congress.

The administration insists that the military, law enforcement and intelligence officials need flexibility in the campaign against terrorism. Obama points to his administration’s successes in killing bin Laden and radical Islamic cleric al-Awlaki. Republicans counter that their efforts are necessary to respond to an evolving, post-Sept. 11 threat, and that Obama has failed to produce a consistent policy on handling terror suspects.

In a reflection of the uncertainty, House members offered differing interpretations of the military custody and indefinite detention provisions and what would happen if the bill became law.

“The provisions do not extend new authority to detain U.S. citizens,” House Armed Services Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., said during debate.

But Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the bill would turn “the military into a domestic police force.”

Highlighting a period of austerity and a winding down of decade-old conflicts, the bill is $27 billion less than Obama requested and $43 billion less than Congress gave the Pentagon.

Frustrated with delays and cost overruns with the troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft program, lawmakers planned to require the contractor, Lockheed Martin, to cover the expense for any extra costs on the next batch and future purchases of the aircraft. The Pentagon envisions buying 2,443 planes for the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy, but the price could make it the most expensive program in military history — $1 trillion.

The legislation freezes $700 million for Pakistan until the defense secretary provides Congress a report on how Islamabad is countering the threat of improvised explosive devices.

It would impose tough new penalties on Iran, targeting foreign financial institutions that do business with the country’s central bank. The president could waive those penalties if he notifies Congress that it’s in the interest of national security.

The bill begins a reduction in defense spending, a reality the Pentagon hasn’t faced in the decade since the Sept. 11 attacks. Pentagon spending has nearly doubled in that period, but the deficit-reduction plan that Obama and congressional Republicans backed this summer sets the Defense Department on a budget-cutting course.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and several other GOP defense hawks pledged to return to Washington next month with a plan to avoid automatic across-the-board cuts to defense required in 2013. The failure of the deficit supercommittee last month means $1.2 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years, with half from defense.

Defense hawks said the 10 percent cut would hollow out the Pentagon and devastate U.S. military readiness.

____

Associated Press writer Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.

Eureka Wal-Mart confirmed without consent of community

Eureka Wal-Mart Confirmed

The North Coast Journal is confirming in this week’s print edition that the new mystery tenant in the old Gottschalks building in the Bayshore Mall is indeed the largest grocery-apparel-pharmacy retailer in the world.

“What Wal-Mart was denied in 1999 — a foothold in Humboldt County, where land for big box retailers is surprisingly scare — becomes a reality in the spring of 2012.”

This week’s Journal is on newsstands now. The full story will be online by noon Thursday.

POLICE BASTARD, ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST POLICE FORCE PUNK ROCKERS TO ABANDON IDENTITY!

Police in Indonesia's most conservative province stripped away body piercings and buzzed off spiky mohawks from 65 youths detained at a punk-rock concert because of their perceived threats to Islamic values.

The teens and young men were also stripped of dog-collar necklaces and chains and then thrown in pools of water for "spiritual" cleansing, local police chief Iskandar Hasan said.

After replacing their "disgusting" clothes, he handed each a toothbrush and barked "use it."

It was the latest effort by authorities to promote strict moral values in Aceh, the only province in this secular but predominantly Muslim nation of 240 million people to have imposed Islamic laws.

Here, adultery is punishable by stoning to death. Homosexuals have been thrown in jail or lashed in public with rattan canes. Women are told, wearing headscarves is a must, but please, no tight pants.

Punk rockers have complained for months about harassment, but Saturday's roundup was by far the most dramatic.

Baton-wielding police broke up the concert, scattering young music lovers, many of whom had traveled from other parts of the sprawling archipelagic nation.

Dozens were loaded into vans and brought to a police detention center in the hills, 60 km from the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, for "re-education."

They will be held there for at least 10 days, after which they'll be returned to their parents.

Twenty-year-old punker, Fauzan, was mortified.

"Why? Why my hair?!" he said, pointing to his cleanly shaven head. "We didn't hurt anyone. This is how we've chosen to express ourselves. Why are they treating us like criminals?"

Hasan insisted he'd done nothing wrong.

"We're not torturing anyone," he said. "We're not violating human rights. We're just trying to put them back on the right moral path."

Aceh was given semi-autonomy as part of a peace deal with Indonesia's central government after the province agreed to end a separatist struggle in 2005.

- AP

Chaideer Mahyuddin / AFP / Getty Images

Police shave the hair of detained Indonesian punks at a police school in Aceh province on December 13, 2011

by Nurdin Hasan

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Indonesian sharia police are “morally rehabilitating” more than 60 young punk rock fans in Aceh province on Sumatra island, saying the youths are tarnishing the province’s image.

Since being arrested at a punk rock concert in the provincial capital Banda Aceh on Saturday night, 59 male and five female punk rock fans have been forced to have their hair cut, bathe in a lake, change clothes and pray.

“We feared that the Islamic sharia law implemented in this province will be tainted by their activities,” Banda Aceh deputy mayor Illiza Sa’aduddin Djamal, who ordered the arrests, told AFP on Wednesday.

“We hope that by sending them to rehabilitation they will eventually repent.”

Hundreds of Indonesian punk fans came from around the country to attend the concert, organised to raise money for orphans.

Police stormed the venue and arrested fans sporting mohawks, tattoos, tight jeans and chains, who were on Tuesday taken to a nearby town to undergo a 10-day “moral rehabilitation” camp run by police.

A girl cried as women in headscarves cut her long unruly hair into a short bob, and some of the men groaned as their heads were shaved, according to an AFP correspondent at the camp.

Chaideer Mahyuddin / AFP / Getty Images

A group of arrested Indonesian punks are jailed in Bandah Aceh police station, December 13, 2011

“Why did they arrest us? They haven’t given us any reason,” said Fauzal, 20.

“We didn’t steal anything, we weren’t bothering anyone. It’s our right to go to a concert.”

A 22-year-old man from Medan city, who did not want to be named, said he feared he would lose his job for staying at the camp for 10 days.

“I’ve just started with a bank in Medan. I don’t even know what to tell them because I don’t know why I’ve been arrested.”

Police said the objective was to deter the youths from “deviant” behaviour.

“They never showered, they lived on the street, never performed religious prayers,” Aceh police chief Iskandar Hasan told AFP.

“We need to fix them so that they will behave properly and morally. They need harsh treatment to change their mental behaviour.”

A local rights activist Evi Narti Zain said the arrests breached human rights.

“What the police have done is totally bizarre. Being a punk is just a lifestyle. They exist all over the world and they don’t break any rules or harm other people,” she said.

Mr. Hasan denied the accusation, claiming the rehabilitation programme was merely an “orientation into normal Indonesian society.”

Aceh, on the northernmost tip of Sumatra island, adopted partial sharia law in 2001 as part of a special autonomy package aimed at quelling separatist sentiment.

Only Muslims can be charged under sharia law, although the non-Muslim community is expected to follow some laws out of respect.

Nearly 90% of Indonesia’s 240 million people are Muslims, but the vast majority practise a moderate form of Islam.

Reuters / Stringer

The detainees stand in a at the local police school, December 13, 201

HOOLIGAN (Muhfuggn) SOCCER SIGNUP'S!!!

A splinter cell group within the RC.AFA network have decided to pull together a soft court soccer league with enough volunteer's to create a co-operative team effort. Futbol has been a unifying sport that has pulled nations together in a mix of competitive, yet, appreciative sports(womyn/man)ship. All you need to play is a good pair of shoes, maybe some light shin guards, water, BEER. So, get your ass on out there and give us a sign-up.
This is CO-ED. All person's considered. Arcata/Eureka sites to be announced.

Hooligan (Muhfuggn) SOCCER
sign-up here.
antifalovecore@yahoo.com

also check out...
Soccer v.s. the State
and..

Antifa Dance Party a Success!

While 7pm rolled around and a group of 25-30 folks started mobilizing, music blasted and echoed throughout the downtown area where the Humboldt County Courthouse is located. Hip-hop, Punk rock, and new wave set the tone
for the beginning of the march/dance party snaking it's way off and on the 101 thoroughfare which runs through Eureka, temporarily blocking traffic. The partyr's paraded onto the Gazebo in Old Town Eureka and shook their heinies something fierce. Unfortunately, a few blocks from the gazebo, the battery for the sound system ran out. Chanting began while backtracking to the courthouse for a 'jump' of the battery. The battery, as old as it is, would not hold a charge, but a comrade of our's decided to let us use his vehicle to keep the music going. Applying our advanced sound system technology to the car battery we kept up our dance party at the courthouse until 10pm when numbers dwindled. At one point the group even consented to toss the stereo into the car and do a run around the block. We caught wind that police had been notified of our movements and a group decision unanimously decided to bring the dance party back to the courthouse for safety reasons. Small in numbers, ten or so folks kept the scene alive until 10pm. Antifa declares this a successful mission and more are to follow with more battery life and some killer revolutionary dance tunes!

SOLIDARITY FOREVER!
Redwood Curtain Antifa!

ANTIFA - Chasseurs de skins/ Hunters of Skins

Rightists Woo The Occupy Wall Street Movement

Rightists Woo The Occupy Wall Street Movement

Rose City Antifa Celebrates four years of antifascism in action.

Rose City Antifascists celebrates its fourth year as an active antifascist organization this October. We would like to take the time to reflect on our successes, thank those of you who helped us over the years, and renew our commitment to eliminating organized bigotry in our city.

Flash back to 2007. Volksfront--an international neo-Nazi organization that was founded in Oregon's prison system--teamed up with the neo-Nazi Hammerskin Nation gang to bring over one hundred violent racists to the Willamette Valley. The president and founder of Volksfront, Randal Krager, called Portland his home, and large white supremacist gatherings--like Hammerfest, Aryan Fest, etc.--had been taking place in our region on a semi-regular basis for decades.

In four short years, the landscape has changed. We attribute this in no small part to the hard work of those active in the fight against fascism. There has not been a single large gathering of neo-Nazis in the Portland area since the Ad-Hoc Coalition Against Racism and Fascism--RCA's predecessor--was successful in shutting down Hammerfest, and Volksfront's Oregon leadership no longer reside in Portland after RCA's repeated campaigns exposing their white power activity. Our city is not a safe organizing base for fascists.

Over the past four years, RCA has maintained constant research and monitoring of organized fascist activity in our area, received hundreds of tips, given workshops, hosted a national anti-racist conference, participated in strategy sessions with neighbors about combating fascist activity in their area, mobilized to protest bigotry, "outed" active white power organizers to their neighbors and workplaces, published news reports, developed educational materials to fight bigotry, and supported fellow antifascists in the Pacific Northwest.

We couldn't have done it without help. Rose City Antifascists sincerely thanks our friends and allies, anonymous tipsters, event spaces which have taken a stand, community members and neighbors who have shared our research or contributed their own, and all of those who make confronting bigotry a priority in their lives. Thank you for fighting alongside us.

As we enter into our fifth year of actively opposing fascism in Portland, we remember ways in which RCA has had a positive impact on our city. We also take note of the many sobering reminders that organized racism, homophobia, and other oppression remains a big problem in our area. Rose City Antifa will continue to build off of our successes, and learn from our missteps. Our organization remains absolutely committed to opposing fascism and helping build a culture of dignity and respect in Portland.

Nazi Couple Extradited to Washington on Murder Charges

White supremacists David Pedersen and Holly Grigsby recently made headlines in the Pacific Northwest as suspected perpetrators of a killing spree across Washington, Oregon, and California. Pedersen is easily recognizable by the SWP (Supreme White Power) tattoo across his throat, as seen in his mugshots and court photos. Grigsby and Pedersen have been extradited from Northern California back to Washington state, where the murder spree began.

Though entering not guilty pleas at their October 19 arraignment, the couple has confessed to 4 murders total, including the murder of a 19 year old man, Cody Myers, who they believed to be Jewish, and Reginald Alan Clark, a 54 year old black man from Eureka, CA.

During her confession, Holly Grigsby told Washington State prosecutors that she and Pedersen were on their way to Sacramento to “kill more Jews” when they were arrested for the murders on October 5 in Yuba City.

In 2001, David Pedersen was convicted of threatening the life of Edward Lodge, the federal judge who presided over the trial of Randy Weaver, a white nationalist who shot and killed a U.S. marshal during the infamous standoff at Ruby Ridge in 1992. The Ruby Ridge standoff remains a hot issue for white supremacists.

A condition of Pedersen’s supervised release from prison earlier this year was that he “not associate with current or past members of the Aryan Death Squad or any other criminal group.”

Update: Combined News Dec. 8th , 11' from 'Occupy Eureka, HSU and Arcata

This strong ongoing movement is putting those who have run our lives on notice. . . how protests have already changed the framework by which this country looks upon itself politically and socially, inspiring all kinds of organizing efforts to overcome stagnant, dead end processes with our greater 'progressive energies!

Recent session of combined groups of 'Occupy sites in Humboldt

attended by 150 people

Working committees of these Humboldt collective Assemblies have been formed to tackle upcoming actions and event, better communications, help with more presence at "Occupying sites, legal work, including cases of a permanent injunction against illegal local homeless ordinances and a civil right case against police raids and brutalities.

The continued use of force in attempts to eliminate "Occupy protests in Eureka and across the country by local government and their police best exposes their assault tools for assuring their economic and social control locally, nationally and worldwide.

That this 'Occupy' movement has merely been framed as unlawful 'camping' and some kind of public nuisance by wealthy governing corporate rule is totally beside the point. Demonstrations continue to highlight the right to protest insufferable consequences of any social, economic or environmental policies backed by military force anywhere, as exemplified by this local attempt to forcefully make it lawful to eliminate homeless rights to sleep, or in some cases to even continue living in Eureka without constant harassment and/or jailing.

Locally the Board Of Supervisor, Eureka City Council and District Attorney Gallegos have chosen to ignore protest rights, while never once addressing the pivotal concerns. . . control by means of their oppressive use of force.

+ Asking for Your continued support with much needed food,

early morning coffee, warm clothing, socks, gloves,

thermals, coats and sleeping bags.

especially in face of these recent cold nights.

+ And Your financial contributions are most appreciated

Please send to:

P.O. Box 1082

Eureka, Ca., 95502

We Can never thank you enough for all your support

these past two months.

.gov

---

This coming Mon:

DEC. 12, 11' - 3:00

In Solidarity with the Longshoremen's Union

to shut down all west coast ports.

Gathering at the "C" Street Bayfront, in Old Town

"Wall Street On the Waterfront" is supported

by all of 'Occupy groups in Humboldt

Although no shipping of goods is calendared for this port at present, it is imperative to know about Sierra Pacific and also, Simpson Timber, the parent company of California Redwood Company and Green Diamond Resource Company, which owns roughly 400,000 acres of some of the highest producing lands in the redwood region, lands in various states of recovery from past excessive logging practices. 'the lungs of out Earth'. . . much of which is shipped out of this port.

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Join Us

4-6 pm Every Friday

""Celebrating Our Determination"

In support of 'Occupy Eureka

Demanding Our Civil Rights!

Music- Dancing -Coffee - Tea- Cookies

Please write or call your elected representatives to:

1) Demand a return of all confiscated property including signs, literature, and banners; 2) Insist that the police respect the Humboldt Bay Occupies' right to peacefully assemble in protest; 3) Stop the physical abuse of protestors and violations of their civil rights!

Call the District Attorney's Office at 707.267.4400, or email at:
districtattorney@co.humboldt.ca.us; pgallegos@co.humboldt.ca.us

Call the Board of Supervisors at 707.476.2396, or email at:

jrsmith@co.humboldt.ca.us; cclendenen@co.humboldt.ca.us; mlovelace@co.humboldt.ca.us; vbass@co.humboldt.ca.us; rsundberg@co.humboldt.ca.us

Call the Eureka City Council at 707.441.4144, or email at:

fjager@ci.eureka.ca.gov; mbrady@ci.eureka.ca.gov; latkins@ci.eureka.ca.gov; mnewman@ci.eureka.ca.gov; mciarabellini@ci.eureka.ca.gov; lmadsen@ci.eureka.ca.gov; cityclerk@ci.eureka.ca

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'Occupation humboldt writes:

Since Oct 8th, local police & officials have confiscated every 'Occupy Eureka possessions, arresting them en masse, with no warning or crime. As police cite 'camping ordinances', the protestors cite their constitutional right to assembly and speech. Yet EPD has fenced off the courthouse lawn, prohibiting public assembly. And everyday EPD takes more signs and literature, thus robbing Occupy Eureka of their voice. There have been numerous reports of the EPD arresting and detaining citizens merely for filming police actions, a practice that Occupies around the nation have also been subjected to. There is no justification for halting this demonstration. It's time to SPEAK OUT!

Occupiers setting up the informational booth that would be promptly confiscated. Photo by Occupy Eureka / Source: Facebook

Occupy Elected Officials
Letter Writing Campaign

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The nationally coordinated, brutal police attacks on the Occupy Movement were supported by the 1%, and now we will strike back with our own coordinated attack on the 1% - a West Coast Port blockade and shutdown on December 12th in order to economically disrupt "wall street on the waterfront."

When we say "Wall street on the waterfront" we point particularly to EGT and Goldman Sachs. The West Coast Ports will be blockaded on December 12th in solidairty with longshoremen and port truckers struggles against EGT and Goldman Sachs.

EGT is an multinational grain exporter consortium. Bunge Ltd is the largest partner in ETG who reported 2.5 billion dollars in profit last year alone and has direct ties to Wall Street and has caused economic despair in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and now the United States. EGT has been rupturing ILWU jurisdiction in Longview, Washington and bringing in scab labor.

Read more at WestCoastPortShutDown.org

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From the Redwood Curtain Anti Fascist Action:

RCAFA is hosting a mobile dance party in solidarity with #Occupy Oakland and their call-out for a west coast port shutdown. We have asked folks interested in involving themselves in the dance party to dress in dark clothing and blue jeans with a change of clothing available. We have done this to ensure the safety of the folks involved. Police routinely use surveillance against activists in an attempt to link them to specific actions. These profiled activists tend to get harassed the most. Being detained, jailed, incriminated, and profiled is what many outspoken activists in our community, a well as elsewhere, face when organizing. We ask the community to respect our call out for a similar clothed bloc to tactically refuse the use of profiling by police. If we look the same, it's harder to tell whose who in the above-ground organizing circuit.

We make 3 proposals for our dance party we wish for all attendee's to respect.

1.DO NOT CONFRONT THE POLICE

2.WALK! DO NOT RUN IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY (people get hurt that way)

3.RESPECT ALL TACTICS SET IN PLACE BY RC.AFA TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF ALL ATTENDING.

This is a festive event meant for all who wish to attend. RC.AFA takes full responsibility for all folks showing up to dance their booties off and we would never intentionally put anybody in harm's way.
SOLIDARITY FOREVER

ANTIFA

It is clear that, reports in the mainstream media notwithstanding, the Occupy movement continues to grow. A Field Poll released last week showed that 58% of Californians agree with the underlying reasons for Occupy. Some of our encampments may be dormant for now, but Occupy certainly is not. We are continuing with vigils, other direct action, outreach efforts, capacity building, and planning for the future. Our spirits are strong, and our will is unbroken.

Occupy Eureka, In Solidarity

Occupy Wall Street, Humboldt

http://occupywallst.org/