8:32 p.m. - 2004-09-09
Holy Shit Batman, Wake me from the Nightmare!
This is unreal yet 110% true. So all of you who say the Patriot Act is not a big deal, think again. Republicans out there, I am asking you to understand,,,I am not a Democrat or a Republican, yet I DO endorse our Freedom and yours too.. Just think about that when casting your vote
neO
No Patriot Act Victims?
Tell It To Summer Starr!
The RNC's "Little Guantanamo"
mauinews.com
9-9-4
A young girl visiting NYC during the time of the Republican National Convention, NOT a protester, gets thrown into a makeshift GITMO!
From: Erin Starr - Makawao, Maui, Hawai'i
LETTER BY ERIN STARR
My 21-year old daughter disappeared from NYC last Tuesday afternoon when walking with friends through a park where no protest was being held -- and was held prisoner -- without being charged -- by the NYPD for three days.
The first day and night she spent in an unsafe and inhumane facility at Pier 57 ("Little Guantanamo") provided by the Republican Party. Yes, it was managed by the Republican National Committe. It was leased by the RNC to hold political dissenters who disagreed with the Bush administration. The second two days, my daughter was in a city jail in Manhattan, where her treatment improved. She practices Buddhist precepts of compassion (she told the NYPD officers that she knew they must be tired and overworked also, and she did not resist arrest). She is a graduate student in Poli Sci at the University of Hawaii and is a MortarBoard honor society/service club member. The notorious Pier 57 (owned by the HudsonRiver Trust--a city/state consortium) was dubbed "Little Guantanamo" by reporters who also got caught up in police sweeps and who said it looked like the Guantanamo Bay prison built by the USA to hold the Al Qaeda terrorist political prisoners in Cuba. Pier 57 was leased by the RNC before their convention. They arranged for the NYPD to put up the chain link holding pens with razor wire on top in the old Pier 57 warehouse that had oil, gas and asbestos dust on the floor from a previous fire. My heart was in my throat when I got a call from one of my daughter's friends on Oahu who told me she had been arrested and taken to Little Guantanamo. I looked it up on the internet and fear crept into me.
I called my daughter's cell phone over and over ("it's mom, where ARE you, call me"). She didn't answer. Only hours before, she had been calling us with joy, telling us of the peaceful protests and beautiful march. But now, nothing. I had nightmarish visions of a fire sweeping over the combustible floor with hundreds -- nearly a thousand -- trapped in the chainlink pens, razor wire on the top of the pens making escape impossible. My husband called the NYPD to ask who had issued a Certificate of Occupancy or Fire Safety Inspection Certificate and who wasmanaging Pier 57. He was given the number for the Republican National Committee. Yes. My husband and I looked at each other in silent, cold horror. In America? The Republicans have set up a private detention camp for their political prisoners that can hold 1000 under inhumane and unsafe conditions!? My husband slowly dialed that number, got the RNC, and the Republican rep who answered the phone said, in answer to my husbands' inquiries about safety: "those protesters don't deserve a Holiday Inn, and they're all criminals anyway!"
....Say what?! My daughter, who doesn't smoke or drink or do drugs and is a practicing Buddhist Vegan? A criminal? Warning signs that reporters saw posted around Pier 57 said not to enterwithout protective clothing and mask. My exhausted daughter, with hundreds of others, tried to sleep that first night ...on the chemical-covered oily, cold cement floor of these pens, without food or water, without being read her rights, without being offered a chance to post bail, without seeing a judge although the National Lawyers Guild offered to represent them pro bono, without being charged or told why she was arrested and handcuffed and taken there, without being allowed to make a call to a lawyer or friend or parent or anyone -- all cell phones were confiscated as "terrorist weapons." Her purse was taken. She had nothing but the clothes on her back. Meanwhile...ordinary criminals arrested that same day in NYC for burglary, rape and heinous crimes were processed by the courts in less than 10 hours. My daughter, who had committed no crime, was incarcerated for three days incommunicado. People suffered chemical burns, bug bites, overcrowding and medical problems because their medicine was confiscated. A pregnant woman sat crying on the floor in the oil. It wasn't until my daughter was taken out of the Republican-managed "Little Guantanamo" and placed in a cell in a Manhattan city jail that a guard kindly brought her Vegan food and gave her a blanket to lay her grime-smeared body on at night in her crowded cell. I never thought I'd be grateful to get a call from a friend saying that my daughter was in a Manhattan city jail cell, but the knowledge that she was out of that> Little Guantanamo actually gave me relief. I called Hawaii's Republican Party Headquarters, and asked them to report it to Hawaii's Governor Linda Lingle, who was at the convention in NYC and could intervene for my daughter and other UH students incarcerated illegally by her party.
The Republican rep woman who answered the phone told me "Linda knows, and you're blowing it all out of proportion." Say What!! That's MY daughter, not YOURS, sitting in that instant-conflagration-fire-trap at Pier 57! Well, thanks a BUNCH, Linda Lingle. The UH students mean that LITTLE to you??? The Republicans wanted to "teach those protesters a lesson." They wanted to terrorize my daughter. But the lesson that the hundreds and hundreds of prisoners were taught... was not the one that the Republican Party intended, I would wager. My daughter had gone to NYC to walk in the peaceful protest of 500,000 people the day before the Republican National Convention began. She was not engaged in protest at the time of her arrest. She had been walking with friends near a park. There was no protest in action when they were arrested along with tourists and city employees going to work. Anyone caught in the NYPD orange fence netting was told to sit on the ground, handcuffed, and pushed into large NYC busses. Our sweet daughter, born and brought up in a small rainforest in Hawaii, was placed in detention at Pier 57, the notorious "Little Guantanomo." I recall that when the Democrats held their convention to nominate Senator John Kerry as their candidate for President, there were only 6 people arrested, if I remember correctly. At the Republican National Convention to elect Bush as their candidate, there were thousands arrested. I suspect that Republicans might say this was a good thing. Being tough. This group-roundup tactic is called by the Republican party "preventative detention" (like the "pre-emptive war" in Iraq). It is used to terrorize those who might protest Bush's agenda when he is in town. America, wake up. Hitler told the German people that they would have to "give up a few of your rights ...temporarily...so that we can fight the enemy." That's what Ashcroft said, about the misnamed PATRIOT ACT. Wake up, America. The American flag that proudly waves by MY front gate and is on the back window of MY car...doesn't seem to be the same American flag that the Republican Party is waving.
-- Erin Starr, Makawao, Maui, Hawaii
Maui student caught up in mass arrests at convention
By MELISSA TANJI
Staff Writer
http://www.mauinews.com/story.aspx?id=1082
HONOLULU - A 21-year-old Olinda woman says she was unjustly arrested and held in inhumane conditions last week in New York City while she and other Hawaii students were involved in protests at the Republican National Convention.
Summer Starr, a graduate student in political science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, was among 1,821 people arrested during the convention last week.
According to reports, New York police allegedly corralled people who were walking down the street so they could not move, then arrested all of them, often without first ordering them to disperse and giving then a chance to do so.
The New York Civil Liberties Union is compiling stories from protesters who say they were arrested for no reason, detained for unnecessarily long periods or held in unsafe conditions. The group is also considering suing the city over police conduct.
"I went up to New York initially to protest the Republican National Convention. Actually at the time of the arrest, I wasn't physically engaged in protest," Starr said in a telephone call from Manoa on Monday.
She said a group of people were cornered by officers near Bryant Park in Manhattan and were arrested on Aug. 31. They has been at the New York Public Library protesting when police made them scatter toward Bryant Park, Starr said.
"They didn't inform us why we were being arrested," she said. "At least I didn't hear it."
Starr said the arrest "was not justified in anyway. We weren't violent. We were absolutely peaceful."
If police were under the impression that the protesters were doing something wrong, Starr said they should have been arrested at the site of the protest, should have been told what they were being arrested for and not "shuffled down the street."
Following her arrest, Starr said all of the people with her were placed in plastic cuffs and were bused to Pier 57, a large, dirty building with concrete floors. The holding area was a former bus terminal.
"It was absolutely inhumane and not a proper place to be holding people," Starr said.
One of the individuals being held was a girl dressed up in a black dress. Starr said the girl had been stepping out of her apartment to go out when she was swept up with a group and arrested.
Starr said about five others from Hawaii were among the people arrested.
In news reports last week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaking on his radio show, seemed to imply that the arrests of innocent people were inevitable.
"You can't arrest 1,800 people without having somebody in the middle who shouldn't have been arrested. That's what the courts are there to find out afterwards," he said.
Starr, who was born and raised in Olinda and attended Makawao School, Seabury Hall, the Maui Ocean Academy and Maui Community College, said she just thought about her home on Maui while in jail.
At home on Maui, Starr's mother, Erin, got a call from one of Summer's friends on Oahu that Summer was arrested and taken to Pier 57. Erin Starr said Pier 57 was nicknamed "Little Guantanamo," referring to the holding facilities set up at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where detainees from Afghanistan are being held without charges.
"I looked it up on the Internet and fear crept into me," said Erin Starr. "I called my daughter's cell phone over and over, saying 'It's mom, where are you? Call me.'"
Summer Starr's personal belongings were taken away from her when she was arrested.
She said that she and others were kept at Pier 57 for about a day.
"Every single one of us were covered in black grease," she said about being held at the former bus terminal.
Starr said did not eat because she is a vegetarian and the only food provided was a meat sandwich.
"I wasn't expecting to be treated like a queen, (but) I wasn't expecting to be treated like a political prisoner," she said.
On the day after the arrest, Starr said she was taken to a Manhattan jail where she and others were regularly moved from cell to cell. She said they were told they were going to be released soon and that the fingerprinting process was slow.
She said she was released around 10 p.m. on Thursday, about two days after she was arrested.
It was on that day that Judge John Cataldo of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan ordered the city to release more than 550 protesters who had been detained, in some cases, for as long as 60 hours.
Starr said as the New York detainees were being released, there was a person handing out tickets to those arrested. She said she was cited for disorderly conduct and has a summons to appear in a New York City court on Oct. 6.
She had asked that she not be required to return to New York for court proceedings because she lives in Hawaii, noting that some others arrested did not have to return. But she was told she would have to appear.
Erin Starr said the family has retained an attorney in New York who is trying to dismiss the summons.
Summer Starr said she was denied a lawyer during proceedings in New York, but "didn't want to make a big fuss." She said she was frightened by the treatment.
"I didn't want them to put me back in," she said.
"We were scared out of our minds to get arrested again," she said. "It was a horrible, horrible experience."
Back on Oahu on Monday, Starr was trying to get back to normalcy, working on a 10-page paper, and battling what seemed to be a cold.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services contributed to this report.
Melissa Tanji can be reached at [email protected].
nEo 55 Days
"I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it... "
"The lesser of two evils is still evil."
