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national lawyers guild
Progressive Delegation Back From Palestine Boosts Case for Embargo on Israel
"The evidence is clear: The genocide in Gaza and the systematic nature of the abuse of Palestinian detainees recall the worst historical abuses committed by colonial powers against Indigenous populations."
Nov 07, 2024
Progressive International's Palestine Delegation—whose members were attacked earlier this week by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank—on Thursday issued "an urgent call to governments across the globe" to impose "a total energy, economic, and arms embargo against Israel" to punish its ongoing 13-month U.S.-backed assault on Gaza.
The Palestine Delegation—which was co-convened by Progressive International (PI), the National Lawyers Guild of the United States, and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers—released a report containing findings of members Ada Colau, the former mayor of Barcelona and lead delegate; Marc Botenga, a Belgian member of European Parliament (MEP) from the Marxist-socialist Workers' Party; and Jaume Asens, a leftist MEP from Spain.
"The Israeli regime must urgently be subject to total isolation on all fronts."
"The evidence is clear: The genocide in Gaza and the systematic nature of the abuse of Palestinian detainees recall the worst historical abuses committed by colonial powers against Indigenous populations... seeking their liberation, from the concentration camps used by Britain against the national liberation movement in Kenya to the internment of millions of Algerians by France," the report states.
Israel's 398-day assault on Gaza has killed or injured at least 155,000 Palestinians, including those who are missing and feared dead, while forcing nearly the entire population of the coastal enclave from their homes and causing widespread starvation and sickness. The International Court of Justice in The Hague is weighing evidence of genocide presented by South Africa in a case backed by more than 30 nations and regional blocs and thousands of experts, advocates, and rights groups around the world.
"Any government providing arms, energy, economic, or diplomatic support to Israel is complicit in these crimes against humanity—and threatens the basic integrity of the international order," PI asserted. "The Israeli regime must urgently be subject to total isolation on all fronts—economic, military, cultural, political, and diplomatic—to lay the groundwork for the end of the genocide and the dismantling of the colonial occupation in Palestine."
The U.S. boosts Israel with tens of billions of dollars worth of armed aid and unwavering diplomatic support. Other nations including Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and India also provide Israel with substantial backing.
The PI delegation said it "arrived in Palestine amid sustained efforts by Israeli authorities to prevent access to the occupied territories and obscure the conditions of deprivation, detention, apartheid, and annexation endured by the Palestinian people."
Delegation members got a small taste of what Palestinians living in the occupied territories endure when they were reportedly attacked with tear gas and stun grenades by armed Israeli settlers and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops Monday while accompanying West Bank farmers in Qusra as they attempted to harvest from the olive trees that are the lifeblood of Palestine's rural economy and a frequent target of land-grabbing settlers trying to drive Arabs away.
Last month, IDF soldiers fatally shot Hanan Abu Salameh, a 59-year-old Palestinian woman who was working with relatives in her family's olive grove in the village of Faqqua, located east of Jenin in the northern West Bank.
"We are dealing with something as simple as harvesting olives," said Colau. "And even this has now been turned into an act of war by the illegal settlers and the army."
Earlier this week, around 50 countries joined in a call for an arms embargo on Israel. All but one of the nations—Norway—are in the Global South. They include: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Palestine, Russia, South Africa, Sudan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
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Legal Coalition Says Chicago Police Must Protect Protest Rights at Democratic Convention
"People have a right to exercise their First Amendment rights to speech and assembly, including rallying, marching, and demonstrating," the letter says, calling on police "to respect and honor those cherished, sacrosanct rights."
Aug 16, 2024
Chicago's history of "unrestrained and indiscriminate police violence" toward anti-war protesters over recent decades—including during the Democratic National Convention of 1968—is on the minds of peace advocates and legal experts planning demonstrations for this year's DNC, kicking off next week, against U.S. support for Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip.
"We are a collective of progressive local and national legal organizations, attorneys, and legal workers writing to express our grave concerns about recent actions of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and city of Chicago to stop protestors from demonstrating at the upcoming Democratic Convention," one coalition wrote in a letter made public Friday.
"We do not want a repeat of the violence and violations committed by the CPD during the Democratic National Convention of 1968, the anti-Iraq war protest on March 20, 2003, the 2012 NATO summit, and throughout the 2020 summer of demonstrations in support [of] Black lives," the coalition wrote to Superintendent of Police Larry Snelling and Mayor Brandon Johnson.
The coalition—made up of more than a dozen groups and over 50 individuals—noted that "CPD's protest-related civil rights violations are not just historical fact; they are the present reality. During the last eight months, CPD officers have targeted people protesting for a cease-fire and justice in Palestine with violence, verbal harassment, and unnecessary arrests."
"People have a right to exercise their First Amendment rights to speech and assembly, including rallying, marching, and demonstrating," the letter stresses. "We are calling on you to respect and honor those cherished, sacrosanct rights."
The letter specifically expresses concern about "recent intimidating comments made by Superintendent Snelling about arresting peaceful protestors"; "revisions the CPD made to its mass arrest policy were publicly released on August 8"; "Corporation Counsel's efforts to punish pro-Palestinian demonstrators in pursuing convictions for misdemeanors for mere ordinance violations for obstructing traffic"; and "CPD's communication of contradictory information regarding where people will be jailed and how family members and loved ones will be able to locate them."
WBEZreported Friday that "protest marches are planned for the first, third, and final days of the DNC, which runs from August 19 through August 22. They're focused on a myriad of issues—housing, education, policing, but the cause expected to draw most protesters is the ongoing conflict in Gaza."
As WBEZ detailed:
As the start of the convention draws near, organizers are still advocating to make space for more protesters to get their messages heard. Hatem Abudayyeh, spokesman for the Coalition to March on the DNC, a pro-Palestinian group, is continuing to push for the city to extend the route from one mile to more than two miles in length for Monday and Thursday's protests to accommodate as many demonstrators as possible.
"We've got 150 organizations that have joined the coalition from across the country. We expect to have tens of thousands of people in the streets," Abudayyeh said. "One mile is not going to be enough for everybody to be able to practice their First Amendment rights and to be able to protest the DNC."
The new letter emphasizes that "despite the CPD and city's efforts, people will demonstrate during the DNC. We urge you to follow CPD's policies by a) allowing demonstrations in public thoroughfares; b) using the least intrusive enforcement action consistent with public safety including refraining from issuing dispersal orders and/or engaging in arrests unless all other reasonably available options for restoring public safety have been exhausted; c) in the event a dispersal order is required, providing protesters with ample opportunities to leave and instructions on how those assembled can do so."
"Should enforcement action be necessary, CPD must follow its policies and state law to ensure that officers cite and release people suspected of minor offenses from the field, as opposed to arresting individuals and holding them for hours," the letter continues. "It is cruel, unnecessary, and a waste of our taxpayer money to detain protestors for hours and possibly days."
The coalition—which includes the ACLU of Illinois, First Defense Legal Aid, Law for Black Lives, Palestine Legal, and the Chicago and Loyola University Chicago chapters of the National Lawyers Guild—also warned that "we as a legal community are organized and prepared to ensure that protestors' rights are honored and respected."
"If necessary, we will hold the CPD and other law enforcement agencies accountable should they eviscerate people's constitutional rights," the letter concludes. "Please do not force us to do so."
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NYC to Pay Millions to Police Brutality Protesters Violently Arrested by NYPD
"They dragged me on the ground and beat me with batons," said one protester. "Somewhere in the process of being cuffed, I had a knee on my neck."
Mar 01, 2023
Hundreds of people who were trapped, beaten, and wrongfully arrested by New York City police officers during a nonviolent 2020 racial justice protest in the Bronx will each receive $21,500 if a judge approves the terms of a settlement filed in federal court late Tuesday.
Around 300 people were arrested, many of them brutally, on June 4, 2020 in the Mott Haven neighborhood while peacefully protesting police violence and systemic racism following the May 25 murder of unarmed Black man George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
"We had every right to protest, yet, the city of New York made an explicit statement that day that the people of the Bronx are at will to be terrorized," 31-year-old Samira Sierra of the Bronx, one of the protesters who sued the city, toldThe New York Times.
"We had every right to protest, yet, the city of New York made an explicit statement that day that the people of the Bronx are at will to be terrorized."
Joshua S. Moskovitz, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, toldBuzzFeed News they hoped the settlement "marks an inflection point for policing in New York City."
"This unprecedented settlement recognizes that the NYPD's actions in Mott Haven were grievously wrong," he said.
\u201cNew York City has agreed to pay $21,500 to each of hundreds of demonstrators who were penned in by NYPD officers in the Bronx during the George Floyd protests in 2020 https://t.co/Y8vWUBZI6G\u201d— Allison McCann (@Allison McCann) 1677691761
In social media posts, organizers of the June 4 "FTP4" protest—Take Back the Bronx and Bronxites for NYPD Accountability—urged participants to "take back the streets." One Instagram post featured a burning New York Police Department (NYPD) van.
The protest was overwhelmingly peaceful. However, less than an hour into the demonstration—and 10 minutes before an 8:00 pm curfew—a phalanx of heavily armored NYPD officers and cops on bikes began "kettling," or trapping, protesters so they could not leave. Attorneys for the arrested protesters—whose cases were ultimately dismissed—called it a "preplanned show of force."
After 8:00 pm, officers began violently attacking and arresting people for violating curfew. They beat demonstrators "packed like sardines" and unable to escape, with some officers standing atop vehicles swinging their batons down at bodies. Some protesters said they saw officers smiling as they swung into the crowd.
"We went there to protest police brutality and we became victims of police brutality," one demonstrator recounted.
\u201c@LegalAidNYC @shaunking @NYSDOCCS https://t.co/huiAa7g0FX\u2026 police brutality on peaceful protesters in the #Bronx no one is reporting on please help this be seen #DefundThePolice #DefundNYPD Mott haven please retweet - no reporting on this nypd violence they kettled the group 7:30 and beat them at 8 #bronxprotest\u201d— The Legal Aid Society (@The Legal Aid Society) 1591904715
Other officers shoved people to the ground or fired pepper spray in their faces and under their clothing. Arrestees' wrists were bound so tightly by zip ties that some of their hands turned purple due to lack of circulation.
"They dragged me on the ground and beat me with batons," one protester told Human Rights Watch after his arrest. "Somewhere in the process of being cuffed, I had a knee on my neck."
According to the demonstrators' lawsuit: "Many protesters were left injured and bleeding. Some protesters fainted, or lost consciousness and went into convulsions."
24 Minutes in Mott Haven: Ikaikawww.youtube.com
Dr. Mike Pappas, a medical volunteer, recalled how "we were blocked off in a sea of cops. I was standing there watching people being carted out on stretchers with head injuries."
Among those arrested—and sometimes brutalized—were medical and legal volunteers, as well as journalists covering the demonstration and even passers-by.
Arrestees were held in "dangerously overcrowded and unsanitary detention conditions with many people who lacked masks, exacerbating health risks during the Covid-19 pandemic," according to Physicians for Human Rights. Many officers wore no masks.
\u201c.@P4HR documented police violence against protesters and medics in this Mott Haven investigation:\n\nhttps://t.co/Zu1WXoB875\u201d— Joanna Naples-Mitchell (@Joanna Naples-Mitchell) 1677685696
Then-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea defended NYPD tactics after the arrests, pointing to violence and looting at past protests. Shea said the operation was "executed nearly flawlessly."
NYPD subsequently said its policies for handling large demonstrations have been "re-envisioned."
If a judge approves the settlement filed Tuesday, the $21,500 per-protester payout would be one of the highest ever awarded in a mass arrest case. The agreement could cost city taxpayers as much as $6 million, according to the Times, which said that as many as 90 protesters have already settled their claims in separate complaints.
In 2021, Democratic New York state Attorney General Letitia James sued the NYPD over the Mott Haven arrests and "to end the pervasive use of excessive force and false arrests by the New York City Police Department against New Yorkers in suppressing overwhelmingly peaceful protests."
Last year, 12 legal observers from the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild who were arrested at the protest collectively received a $49,000 settlement in a federal lawsuit against the city.
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