Activists: “We still live here”

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For three nights last week, Mina Leierwood was a polar bear. She, along with more than a dozen other individuals and groups, were players in a production at the Bedlam Theatre that encouraged proactive and creative reflection on the contentious and clash-heavy Republican National Convention. Dressed in a white, furry suit with a painted white face and a black nose, Leierwood acted out what she called a polar bear’s fantasy. As a big-haired, fur-coat-clad rendition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin emerged from the tiny Bedlam Theatre backstage, Leierwood — the polar bear — grinned and winked at the audience. She lured in the caricatured Palin, promising oil, and pounced, surfacing with a bloody arm in her mouth to audience laughter and applause. Continue Reading

FREE SPEECH ZONE | Anti-War RNC March organizer responds to critics

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Earlier this month, someone posted an article on this website called “March organizers failed to protect message.” As a member of the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, I felt compelled to respond. The writer suggested that those who organized the permitted anti-war march on the opening day of the RNC should have tried to prevent “unruly protesters” from engaging in direct action or should have denounced those who did after the fact. The writer suggested that our message was stolen by “a few who acted mindlessly and that we should have stood side by side with police to denounce them. The Free Speech Zone offers a space for contributions from readers, without editing by the TC Daily Planet. This is an open forum for articles that otherwise might not find a place for publication, including news articles, opinion columns, announcements and even a few press releases. Continue Reading

City Hall forum on RNC

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On Wednesday evening, September 24, St. Paul city council member Dave Thune hopes to bring together five groups of people to talk about what happened at the RNC. The forum will include discussion of police action, Thune says, but will go beyond that to discuss the impact of the RNC on business, residents, and observers, as well as demonstrators, peacekeepers and medics. Wednesday’s event will not be an open forum. Thune has invited representatives from “regular citizens,” peace marchers and organizers, journalists, business, and the police. Continue Reading

Voices from the streets during the RNC

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The week of September 1-5 brought many passionate activists from near and far to St. Paul to speak about the policy issues they care deeply about. Here are some of their messages. Twin-City-area attorneys Marianne and John volunteered with the ACLU as ‘Liberty Guards’ to distribute “Know Your Rights” pamphlets for protesters at the Sept. 1 rally and march and to keep an eye out for civil rights abuses. Continue Reading

Putting it in perspective: U of M hockey riot worse than RNC

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by Eleanor Arnason, September 18, 2008 • I have been doing more research on the Internet. This is from the Minnesota Daily, the University of Minnesota student newspaper:

Autumn
Continue Reading

Mpls council members call for investigation of police actions at RNC

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Minneapolis City Council Members Cam Gordon (Green-Ward 2) and Gary Schiff (DFL-Ward 9) have called for a public hearing and independent investigation into law enforcement actions taken against protesters and the journalists who covered them during the Republican National Convention (RNC) in St. Paul. There are reports of as many as 40 journalists being arrested during the convention. Police detained at least six photojournalists on Labor Day, including one from the Associated Press. The arrests prompted a formal complaint from National Press Photographers Association President Bob Carey, who said in his letter to St. Continue Reading

City Council says NO to investigation of Minneapolis police over RNC

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A minority of the Minneapolis City Council decided Wednesday against requesting answers from Chief Tim Dolan on police actions during the Republican National Convention (RNC). And by killing a proposed staff directive in committee, four members of the council’s Public Safety and Regulatory Services Committee made sure that the seven council members not on the committee won’t have a say on the issue. Two backers of a more expansive inquiry — Gordon (Green Party) and Schiff (DFL) — presented what they termed as reasonable additions to the scope of the police department after-action report that Mayor R.T. Rybak outlined last week. (See the five proposed points of inquiry which appear as italicized additions to the mayor’s list.) But the day found the duo falling into now-familiar Don Quijote/Sancho Panza roles as they continue struggle in vain for elevated police accountability — first by casting lone votes against putting city cops under other jurisdictions’ control last fall, then by calling for an independent, blue-ribbon review of RNC law enforcement two weeks ago. Council Members Paul Ostrow and Diane Hofstede and Council President Barbara Johnson — joined in the end by Committee Chair Don Samuels — quickly framed the proposal as an unwarranted call for investigating police work mounted by elected officials who were overstepping their authority. Continue Reading

VOICES | Dissent under fire at the RNC

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“Our right to protest the government and its policies is not ‘suspicious behavior’; it’s Constitutionally protected speech.” Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office
I’ll admit it: since the Republican National Convention brought a militarized police occupation to St. Paul, Minnesota. I’ve been shell-shocked. It’s one thing to have predicted the dangers to our civil liberties since the September 11th attacks and quite another to see one’s prediction in action. For eyewitness accounts of the RNC protests, there are several local events:
The RNC Protests: What happened and what can we learn? Continue Reading

New video of mass arrest on Shepard Road during RNC

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The Glass Bead Collective released video on Thursday of the mass arrests of protesters, media and bystanders at Shepard Road on day one of the Republican National Convention. A number of those arrested were heading to or from the SEIU Labor Day concert on Harriet Island. (Three members of the Glass Bead Collective were among those arrested in the week before the RNC in St. Paul.)
The Glass Bead Collective said the video came from a cameraman who hid his video before being arrested. From the press release, “Video released today shows the indiscriminate arrest of a crowd of two hundred at the waterfront across from a concert on Harriet Island Regional Park during this month’s Republican National Convention in St. Continue Reading

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