NYP Brutality of Peaceful Protesters

[neversremedy8]

Police aggressively pursue and beat protest marchers who were peacefully assembling in front of the UN on public sidewalks.

So much for freedom of assembly. I guess we lost that one around 2002.

Comments

[cocco.livejournal.com]

Protesting in New York is prohibitively terrifying. The police are in no mood to humor you or uphold any sort of facade of "freedom of speech." Any excuse is good enough to arrest you. I protested in NY once, maybe back in 2004.... one of the more frightening experiences of my personal protest history.

[neversremedy.livejournal.com]

Gods, we have it easy here in the Seattle area. People were shocked in '99 at the WTO response. Use of tear gas, beatings, et al here in Seattle. I wasn't protesting at the time, I was downtown at a temp agency trying to get a job at the beginning of my pregnancy with Ana. I had to wade through the protest after the tear gas had cleared to get to my partner's car a few miles away. Ugh, ugh, ugh. At the time, I wasn't very politically active--I was a responsible citizen in terms of voting and reporting those who were harming my neighborhood--but it wasn't until Bush (and having a child to think about) that lead me to become fervently political.