Humboldt Revolution

I attended Katheryn Zimmerman’s pretrial readiness hearing today. The police have failed to deliver evidence through what is known as discovery and the judge, Wilson, has mysteriously failed to receive the motion. Video of the alleged incident in possession of law enforcement is likely to show the truth of the matter and is the requested item that is being illegally withheld by the CHP.  Kat Zimmerman, a young woman who is diminutive in physical stature, is alleged by the CHP to have brutalized a CHP officer, who is described as “huge”*, to the point where he has had to be hospitalized for a torn rotator cup tendon (?) in his shoulder and also requires many weeks of recuperation time. Judging by the CHP’s reluctance, possibly refusal, to submit any evidence to support their dubious claim it seems likely that the peace demonstrator’s version of things which is backed by ample evidence, though no video, of the attack on Ms. Zimmerman they allege was the actual situation.
Your support for a fair trial for this very young and morally driven woman is support for all who would like to see a peaceful democracy instituted in America including our right to speak out against atrocities of gigantic magnitude such the illegal, immoral and utterly brutal invasion and occupation of Iraq, a defensless country that posed no threat to us. It is also support for your own fair trial if you speak out and say something that the plutocrats don’t like.
This malicious litigation against peaceful demonstrators is, ironically, the best example of why we must take to the streets rather than making our case in the venues of the legal system and the corporate media.
While Ms. Zimmerman has been our primary focus in the November 2^nd. 2005 litigious attacks others were also charged with a variety of mostly petty charges such as still having a back wheel in the road when the light changed etc. Others who were not demonstrating were not cited even when still in the center of the intersection.
* as far as I know this officer has not yet shown his face in court on this matter, supposedly due to being far to battered by this small woman but I suspect it is embarrassment if not outright shame.

This concerns everyone involved in pro-democracy activities and everyone concerned with why terrorists are able to carry out terror attacks as easily as they did on September 11th, 2001

This press release was sent by a long-time environmental activist and an
attorney who began his conscious law career as part of the activists’
legal team in the successful Earth First! v FBI trial:

Earth First!
March 30, 2006

  ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISTS JAILED AS GRAND JURY INDICTMENTS INCREASE

San Francisco, CA-As attorneys argue in federal court in San Francisco on
March 30 to quash a grand jury investigating a protest in San Francisco,
activists point to current trends that use secret grand juries to carry
out broad, politically-motivated sweeps of environmental and other
activists around the country.

In January, 11 people were indicted by a grand jury in Oregon
investigating acts of sabotage linked to the underground Earth Liberation
Front (ELF).  Charges relate to alleged arsons at such targets as a ski
resort expansion into endangered lynx habitat and a facility for rounding
up wild horses for dog food.  There were no injuries, but the FBI claims
millions of dollars in damage to property and calls the actions terrorism.
Two Washington state activists were added to the indictment in February,
and one person was indicted in a related grand jury in San Diego for a
public speech. A grand jury in Colorado investigating crimes by
environmental activists just began issuing subpoenas. A status hearing
regarding the 13 indictments from the Oregon grand jury scheduled for
April 3 in Eugene was postponed yesterday. More indictments and subpoenas
are expected, say attorneys in the case.

“Apparently, according to the FBI, the threat is greater than that posed
by neo-Nazis, systemically brutal and racist police forces, or Al-Q’aida,”
said Ben Rosenfeld, a civil rights attorney from San Francisco. “The
government’s vendetta is a campaign in a broader witch hunt against
radical environmentalists and self-identified  ‘green anarchists’ — those
who merge ecology, animal rights, and anarchism in a vision of freedom and
sustainability for all living beings.”

The FBI announced last year that ELF was their # 1 priority for domestic
terrorism and held a press conference in Washington DC with U.S. Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales to announce the indictments, where they dodged
questions about Osama bin Laden but called the environmentalists
“eco-terrorists”. The FBI has help from groups like the American
Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative corporate lobby group.
A.L.E.C. has written model legislation stepping up the ante for acts of
property destruction committed against corporations.  Legislation has been
introduced in 9 states seeking to categorize property destruction,
trespass or arson as acts of domestic terrorism.

  Activists point to the fact that these politically motivated acts of
property destruction harmed no life, yet are being called terrorism even
as violent attacks by right wing zealots go unprosecuted. According to
the FBI’s own 2003 statistics, 7400 hate crimes motivated by race,
ethnic, religious or sexual orientation occurred that year.

Information on these ‘eco cases’, as they are called, can be found on the
Civil Liberties Defense Center website at http://www.cldc.org./
A press packet of current related articles and background information is
available through 510-548-3113.
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