Staten in de VS waar de republikeinen het voor het zeggen hebben, voeren met grote snelheid nieuwe wetgeving in, waarmee protesteren tot het verleden moet gaan behoren. Zo deinst men er niet voor terug om mensen die protesteren op een snelweg, vogelvrij te verklaren voor de politie en voor de automobilisten op die weg……
De VS begint akelige gelijkenissen te vertonen met nazi-Duitsland, nu nog concentratiekampen voor ‘illegalen’, moslims en andersdenkenden en klaar zijn het psychopathische beest Trump en de top van het bedrijfsleven (dat godbetert mag regeren in Washington….)…..
Lees het volgende artikel van Sarah Cronin (onder dat artikel kan u klikken voor een ‘Dutch’ vertaling):
As
Trump Takes Power, Politicians Around the US Move to Make Protesting
Illegal
By
Sarah Cronin
January
22, 2017 “Information
Clearing House”
– “Antimedia”– Indiana
passed a bill on
Wednesday that authorizes police officers to shut down highway
protesting “by any means necessary.” S.B.
285, as it is known, obliges a public official to dispatch all
available officers within 15 minutes of discovering any assembly of
10 or more people who are obstructing vehicle traffic.
The
bill then authorizes the responding officers to clear roads “by any
means necessary.”
Critics
are calling
it the “Block Traffic and You Die” bill, an apt name for
a bill that has co-opted the phrase “any means necessary,” used
famously in speech delivered
by Malcolm X during the Civil Rights movement, turning it into a
threat against government dissent (with no apparent awareness of the
irony).
S.B.
285 is among a collection of increasingly hostile ‘anti-obstruction’
laws that have been quietly submitted in states around the nation
over the past few months. A report by The
Intercept published Wednesday
tracked five such anti-protest laws introduced by Republican
lawmakers in different states, four of which are currently pending.
One
of the most disturbing among them is House
Bill N. 1203, a bill introduced earlier this month by North
Dakota lawmaker Keith Kempenich in
response to the Dakota Access Pipeline Protests (DAPL). The bill
would exempt motorists who hit demonstrators with their cars from any
liability in cases where the victims were “obstructing
vehicular traffic on a public road, street, or highway.”
This twisted take on protest criminalization comes short of condoning
manslaughter as a viable means of crowd control.
Also
this month, Minnesota State Representative Kathy Lohmer led the
effort on submitting H.F.
322, a bill that would re-classify obstructing highway traffic
from a misdemeanor to a “gross misdemeanor” and would authorize
government units to sue protesters for “public
safety response costs related to unlawful assemblies.”
The
proposed legislation is strikingly reminiscent of Washington State
Senator Eric Ericksen’s proposal to punish protesters as ‘economic
terrorists,’ which Anti-Media first reported
on in November.
All
of the proposed laws share a common trait in that they were all
adopted in response to a major protest event in that state. H.F. 322
was submitted shortly after a judge
dismissed the riot charges against protesters who took to
the St. Paul Interstate last July in a demonstration against the
police shooting of Philando
Castille. Ericksen’s “economic terrorism” bill announcement
came just days after anti-frackingprotesters blocked
railroad tracks in Olympia, Washington. DAPL protests inspired both
the Indiana and North Dakota bills.
These
retroactive responses on behalf of Republican state lawmakers are
also seen as preemptive strikes against the threat of increased
protests during the Trump presidency.
As
ACLU staff attorney Lee Rowland expressed in an
interview with The
Intercept,
these so-called ‘obstruction bills’ are but thinly disguised
efforts to squash any government dissent.
“A
law that would allow the state to charge a protester $10,000 for
stepping in the wrong place, or encourage a driver to get away with
manslaughter because the victim was protesting, is about one thing:
chilling protest,” Rowland
said.
Growing
tension between government officials and protesters is expected to
come to a culmination on Inauguration Day in D.C., where there will
already be many barriers in place to limit demonstrations.
First
and foremost is the Federal Grounds and Buildings Improvement Act of
2011, known as H.R
347.
H.R.-347
is a revision of a 1971 federal trespassing law that made it a crime
to “willfully and knowingly” remain in an area under Secret
Security protection. H.R. 347 removes the word “willingly,” a
legal technicality that effectively lowers the bar on the mental
state required to be found guilty under the law.
As
explained by the American
Civil Liberties Union:
“Under
the original language of the law, you had to act ‘willfully and
knowingly’ when committing the crime. In short, you had to know
your conduct was illegal. Under H.R. 347, you will simply need to act
‘knowingly,’ which here would mean that you know you’re in a
restricted area, but not necessarily that you’re committing a
crime.”
Under
current federal law, protesting in proximity to an elected official
under the protection of the Secret Service, which includes President
Trump, is a crime punishable by fine and up to ten years in jail.
Protesting
during Trump’s inauguration comes with additional complications as
the National Park Service reserves
a large portion of the inaugural parade route along
Pennsylvania Ave and in Freedom Plaza for ticket sales under the
exclusive discretion of Trump’s Presidential
Inaugural Committee (PIC). This means the PIC can refuse to
allow protesters along the route.
An
activist group called Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (Answer) has
been engaged in a legal
battle with the National Park Service since 2005, arguing
the privatization of the Inauguration is an attempt to “sanitize”
the streets of dissent.
While
the National Park Service has been controversially setting aside
tickets for the PIC since
1980, the issue garnered more attention this year when it was
discovered that the sidewalk in front of the Trump International
Hotel, a significant site for protesters, would be a part of PIC’s
ticket-only area.
Adding
another level of bureaucracy, the Washington
Post reported the
hotel and plaza in front are actually under the control of Trump’s
real estate agency, meaning protesters would have to literally ‘ask
permission’ to remain in the space.
As
the week comes to an end, it becomes apparent that dissent is being
criminalized not only nationwide but on multiple fronts. Increased
regulations are appearing that limit the public spaces that can be
lawfully occupied in protest. Meanwhile, legislation is also being
introduced to increase the negative consequences for newly unlawful
protests. Should more states follow suit with Indiana, demonstrators
will soon find themselves paradoxically protesting for their right to
protest at all.
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Zie ook: ‘VS bedrijfsregering erger dan een bananenrepubliek, met dank aan Obama‘
Voor meer berichten n.a.v. het voorgaande, klik op één van de labels, die u onder dit bericht terug kan vinden, dit geldt niet voor de labels: Cronin en Washington State.
