ANSWER Boston defends activists
'Police-state campaign will not work'
The following news release was issued Aug. 31 by ANSWER
Boston (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) after police
harassment and surveillance of two local activists.
ANSWER Boston strongly condemns the recent front-page
articles in the Aug. 27 New York Daily News and the Aug. 27
Boston Herald attacking Boston activists Richard Picariello and
Kazi Toure for being "dangerous terrorists."
It should come as no surprise that these articles were
published on the eve of the Aug. 29 demonstration in New York
City against war and occupation. Articles of this type, as well
as the continued harassment of activists throughout the
country, are a blatant use of the media as an arm of Homeland
Security to try to intimidate and prevent people from
exercising their right to free speech and their right to stand
up in opposition to war and racism.
Since 9/11 there has been an assault on the rights of Arab
and Muslim Americans and an increase in the harassment of
anti-war activists. Activists from throughout the country have
reported being visited, followed or otherwise harassed by
agents of Homeland Security. Over the past several months we
have seen an increase of this type of activity first in Boston
for the DNC, which included retinal scanning, state-of-the-art
video surveillance and unconstitutional search and seizures on
the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, and now during
the Republican National Convention in New York.
This police state campaign to silence dissent has not and
will not work. Thou sands marched through the streets of Boston
on July 25 and at least 500,000 through the streets of NYC on
August 29. Many more demonstrations will take place during the
course of the RNC. We understand all too well that these
attacks on the anti-war movement, community activists, and
trade unionists are nothing more than the domestic front of
Bush's "endless war" against those who stand up in opposition
to the goals and aspirations of U.S. imperialism for world
domination.
More and more of the people in this country are beginning to
realize that the true terrorists reside in Washington, D.C.
They are the ones who have unleashed horrific wars against the
people of Iraq and Afghanistan. They are the ones who continue
to support the racist genocide of the Palestinian people. They
are the ones who illegally kidnapped the president of Haiti,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and who have murdered thousands of his
supporters and imprisoned thousands more. They are the ones who
attempted to overthrow the government of Hugo Chavez in
Venezuela and when that failed funded the recent referendum to
oust Chavez that also failed. They are the ones who continue to
fund the Pentagon with money stolen from our communities. They
are the ones who fill the prisons with people whose only crime
is to be a person of color. They are the ones who should be
highlighted on the front page of every newspaper with the
caption "dangerous terrorist."
Both Picariello and Toure are well-known activists in the
Boston area who have a long history of standing in solidarity
with those who have been unjustly singled out by the government
for haras sment and/or imprisonment. ANSWER Boston stands in
solidarity with them, unconditionally, and defends their right
to organize and protest free from this state-sponsored
harassment. We call on all justice-loving people to stand up
and let these government agencies and their allies in the media
know that "we will not be intimidated; we will not be
silenced!"
We demand that Bush/Homeland Security cease and desist from
all acts of harassment, surveillance, illegal impris on ment,
etc., of the Arab and Muslim community, the anti-war movement,
community activists and trade unionists.
Homeland Security must be dismantled and the racist,
unconstitutional Patriot Act must be repealed.
Reprinted from the Sept. 9, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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