POLICE AND GOVERNMENT ILLEGALLY CARRIED OUT  MASS ARRESTS AGAINST PROTESTERS IN WASHINGTON  DC APRIL 15-17 ACCORDING TO CIVIL LAW SUIT

CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT TO BE FILED THURSDAY, JULY  27 IN WASHINGTON DC

July 26, 2000

Statement by Larry Holmes and Brian Becker for July 27 Washington  DC press conference announcing the filing of a class action lawsuit.  The press conference location and time: 300 Constitution Ave. NW at 2:30 pm, July 27.

"The International Action Center, as a named plaintiff in this historic class action law suit, wants to express our gratitude to the broad coalition of attorneys and activists who have come together to challenge the dangerous and far reaching conspiracy by government and police forces to violate the First and Fourth Amendment of the Constitution as was in evidence during the weekend of protests in Washington DC April 15-17.

"The outcome of this suit has far reaching implications.  We believe that the government and the police have embarked on a strategy of repression to stop, crush or marginalize the burgeoning progressive movement that gained world attention in the protests against the WTO in Seattle last year.

"The police and government are utilizing the tactics of preventive  detention, office break-ins, police spying of protest organizers, denial of protest permits and other methods to obstruct or invalidate the constitutionally-protected right of free speech and assembly.

"In our case, we were arrested along with 678 other individuals on  Saturday, April 15, in a protest starting at the Justice Department.  We were protesting against the rise of what we believe is a Prison- Industrial Complex in the United States and in opposition to the continued incarceration and planned execution of famed African American journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal.  We were not engaged in civil disobedience.  We were violating no law when we were trapped by a premeditated police action to seal the area and then arrest all those who were corralled in the zone.  Among those arrested at our demonstration were shoppers, tourists, passers-by, a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer, other reporters, a visiting park ranger and others.  All of us were the victims of preventive detention.

"The goal of the police action was not to stop an illegal activity.  It was to sweep the streets of Washington DC of demonstrators and potential demonstrators so that the conference of the IMF, World Bank and banking establishment could proceed smoothly.  The police and government functioned as the gendarme for the banks, the corporations and the agents of capitalist globalization.  We were held for up to 36 hours, handcuffed in school buses, remote police detention centers, the basements of parking garages, and in holding pens.

"This lawsuit should be a signal to the government and police in  Philadelphia and Los Angeles (the sites of the upcoming Republican  and Democratic Conventions) that they will be held accountable if  they engage in illegal actions aimed at repressing those who plan to demonstrate against the Prison-Industrial Complex, racism and for freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal."

International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, Room 206
New York, NY 10011
email: iacenter@iacenter.org
web: www.iacenter.org 
CHECK OUT THE NEW SITE www.mumia2000.org 
phone: 212 633-6646
fax:   212 633-2889