Like the article says, this is an important victory.     It is a
rejection of a series of police actions in US cities that have repressed
freedom of assembly and free speech.     Of course, the US police, just
like police around the world, never consider themselves to be bound by
the law.

They will do what the dominant portions of the legislative branch and
military want them to do, not what the judiclal branch rules they should
do by law.     Still, this is an important victory.     The court did
not back up the blatant illegality of the arrests.

Tony Abdo
__________________________________
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.