WASHINGTON
Becker acquitted at protest trial
By Workers World
Washington bureau
In an important legal ruling, International Action Center
Co-Director Brian Becker was acquitted of disorderly conduct
and unlawful assembly in the Superior Court of the District
of Columbia Sept. 25. Becker had faced 90 days in jail for
charges stemming from the mass police arrests of
demonstrators in Washington last April 15.
That demonstration was called by the IAC to demand "Shut
down the prison-industrial complex" on the day prior to the
planned protests to "Shut down the International Monetary
Fund and World Bank" April 16-17.
Attorney Mark Goldstone defended Becker. Goldstone, who
represented many of the defendants from the April 15-17
arrests, said to a group of supporters after the trial, "This
was an important victory because the court recognized that
what was at stake was the First Amendment right to
demonstrate.
"This has national implications because it is precisely
this right which we have seen was under attack in Seattle and
at the demonstrations at Philadelphia and Los Angeles in
front of the Republican and Democratic conventions,"
Goldstone said.
Becker was acquitted in a ruling by Associate Judge Harim
Puig-Lugo of the Superior Court. Puig-Lugo ruled that the
government had failed to prove its case that the
demonstrators on April 15 and Becker in particular had
engaged in an "unlawful assembly."
On April 15 police illegally closed a whole downtown block
in Washington and arrested 678 demonstrators, tourists,
shoppers and passers-by in what has been described as the
largest act of preventive detention in recent decades in the
United States.
"We were arrested in a planned act of preventive detention
by the police," Becker told Workers World. "They wanted to
put us in jail not because we were breaking a law but because
they wanted to clear the streets prior to the IMF/World Bank
meeting."
While many of the cases stemming from the April 15
demonstration were later dismissed, the Washington district
attorney proceeded with the trial against Becker, who is one
of the named plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit charging
that the cops and government conspired to violate the
protesters' constitutional rights.
"We believe they proceeded with this trial because they
wanted to get a conviction to defend themselves against the
class-action lawsuit for the unlawful arrests of more than
1,300 people that weekend," Becker charged.
Readers who want to participate in the class-action
lawsuit defending the rights of those arrested April 15-17,
as a witness or potential plaintiff, should go to the Web
site www.justiceonline.org/a16.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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