Free-Trade Protesters Eye Suits Over Treatment

[La_Serpiente]

Free-Trade Protesters Eye Suits Over Treatment

On the afternoon of Nov. 21, South Miami native Laurel Ripple participated in what by all accounts was a peaceful vigil by 300 people outside the Miami-Dade pretrial detention center on Northwest 13th Street.

The vigil was in support of more than 100 people arrested the previous day while protesting against the Free Trade Area of the Americas conference. After about three hours, the police ordered the crowd to disperse.

"We were walking away, not disrupting traffic, when a string of riot cops stepped out with a bullhorn and told us we had three minutes to disperse," said Ripple, 21, a Hampshire College student in Massachusetts doing volunteer work with the Sierra Club. Then police surrounded her and about 60 other people, and ordered them to the ground.

Ripple, a veteran of other anti-globalization demonstrations, said she sat down and covered her face with her arms. But, she said, an officer pulled her arms away and pepper-sprayed her in the eyes, picked her up, slammed her back down, dragged her, pulled her by the hair and placed her under arrest. She screamed in pain. During the incident, her previously sprained ankle was reinjured.

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Free-Trade Protesters Eye Suits Over Treatment

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

1. It seems that protesting corporations is the worst crime you can commit

Look what happened to Oprah when she said she wouldn't eat hamburgers because of mad cow disase - they sued her. Copy a CD without authorization and the Corporate Music Industry will sue you for millions even if you're a 13 year old girl. Peacefully protest Nafta and corporations exporting jobs and sweatshops - and get slammed to the ground and dragged around by robocops while they spray mace in your eyes.

This is America? :wtf:

[pippin]

2. So When Are Americans Going to Wake up

to the fact we're rapidly becoming a fascist police state? Police presence everywhere, fingerprinting, surveillance, and no due process. Welcome to Amerika.

[Iverson]

3. This is an issue where we need a second party.

The misnomer "free trade" is the usage by the mainstream media and both major parties, and their support for economic globalization is firm. In fairness, I add that the major parties permit polite dissent by their members and even let anti-globalization individuals vote for pro-globalization candidates.