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but only if  you don't wear face paint in public or express your 
opinion......
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Arrested at Ground Zero

By Ted Glick

It is hard not to believe that yesterday's illegal and
repressive arrest of approximately 200 peaceful sidewalk
walkers across the street from Ground Zero was not ordered
from the top. And by top I don't mean Chief Ray Kelly or
Mayor Bloomberg. I mean the honchos of the Republican Party.

Maybe they wanted to send a message: stay away from that
location during our convention. That's our prop to use as we
see fit.

They obviously didn't see the tragic irony in what happened.
Ground Zero is a sacred piece of land for many Americans, a
place where we should rededicate ourselves to the struggle
for justice and democracy for all. Ultimately, this is the
only defense against the terrorism of the dispossessed or
those angered by the USA's increasingly militaristic and
repressive go-it-alone role in the world.

And yet yesterday it was the backdrop for one more
demonstration project of 21st century police state tactics.

I was one of those swept up by these arrests. I had gone to
Ground Zero with no intention of getting arrested. Fifteen
minutes before I was, I had spoken with a friend explaining
to her that I just wasn't moved to do so on this occasion,
although I've been arrested 10 times in the past for
nonviolent civil disobedience actions of some kind.

What I was prepared to do was to walk peacefully on the
sidewalk in support of this War Resisters League-initiated
action. And when a white-shirted policeman spoke over a
bullhorn about 4:00 p.m. telling us that although this
demonstration did not have a permit, everything would be OK
if we walked in ones and twos on the sidewalk and obeyed
traffic signals, the walk began. About 200 of us crossed
Church St. headed across Fulton towards Broadway, where we
intended to head uptown.

But within a couple of minutes we were stopped by a police
line across the middle of the sidewalk and by several rows
of police in the street. A few minutes later a four foot
high orange mesh fence was rolled out and everyone who
happened to be within this half block was trapped, unable to
leave.

No warning was ever given that if people did not leave they
would be arrested. No opportunities were given to leave
despite requests by a number of people to do so. The arrests
just started happening as the first paddy wagon rolled up.

Over the course of the next 15 hours that I spent in the
holding areas at Pier 57 and 100 Centre St., I would learn
of similar, smaller, police state actions. There were the
three people who were putting on an anti-Bush skit on the
sidewalk on 7th Avenue who were illegally arrested as they
exercised their first amendment right to free expression. I
was told about six young people who painted their faces
white to symbolize sickness and death and who were arrested
while riding the subways. There was the man from Istanbul,
Turkey who was arrested with me at Ground Zero as he was
distributing religious tracts to us peaceniks. The list can
go on.

It was not fun being transported in the paddy wagon to Pier
57 with my hands handcuffed behind my back. It was not fun
being shut in with 40 other men in a 25 by 15 foot pen with
three short hardwood benches and a concrete floor to sit or
lie on. It was not fun being forced into a small, caged
space on a police bus, handcuffed again, with another
arrestee for our bumpy ride from Pier 57 to 100 Centre St.
It was not fun being held there in a similar type of holding
cell arrangement or getting very little sleep in its bright,
noisy and uncomfortable confines.

But it was clear that the dehumanizing and intimidating
treatment we received was not having its desired effect.
People's spirits were high and the solidarity among us was
palpable. Anger was the dominant emotion among almost all of
us, anger at the violation of our rights and the treatment
we were given.

I look forward to participation in the certain lawsuit
against the city of New York and, I hope, the National
Republican Party. These police state actions cannot be
allowed to pass without a strong, public response.