Feature Archives

On August 12th Free Skool Santa Cruz offered a Know Your Rights workshop on the sidewalk in front of Bookshop Santa Cruz. The workshop was followed by a teach-in to end the sleeping ban in Santa Cruz at City Hall. The teach-in included songs, stories, food and a Guerilla Drive-In screening of Sir! No Sir!. On August 13th, about 15-20 protesters voted to return to City Hall with more support and possibly move their protest onto Pacific Avenue to raise its profile.

After weeks of pressure from President Bush, both the House and Senate approved the Protect America Act of 2007, which rewrites the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The new law sharply alters legal limits on the government's ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States, and moves the power to approve the international surveillance from a special intelligence court to the attorney general.

On July 16th in Oaxaca City, Oaxaca, a confrontation between the APPO (Popular Assembly of The Peoples of Oaxaca) and security forces of the State of Oaxaca as well as Federal Preventive Police has left at least one movement participant dead as a result of police violence, at least 62 detained, and an unknown number of people disappeared. According to an APPO press statement released the same day, the police launched “a broad offense” against the people of Oaxaca who were celebrating an alternative Guelaguetza.

In a small, still mostly segregated section of rural Louisiana, an all-white jury heard a series of white witnesses called by a white prosecutor testify in a courtroom overseen by a white judge in a trial of a fight at the local high school where a white student who had been making racial taunts was hit by black students. The fight was the culmination of a series of racial incidents starting when whites responded to black students sitting under the "white" tree at their school by hanging three nooses from the tree.

Act Against Torture descended on the route to San Francisco's Independence Day celebration on July 4th to encourage locals and visitors alike to celebrate July 4th by taking a stand for human rights: to shut the prison at Guantanamo, to restore habeas corpus rights, and to repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

A night of solidarity with the San Francisco 8 was held on Sunday, July 1st at the Women's Building in San Francisco. The event began at 6:30pm, and included a talk and Q&A session by activist and writer Derrick Jensen, and a case update from SF8 committee member and longtime activist Penny Schoner. The next court date for the San Francisco 8 will be on Monday, August 6th at 9am in the San Francisco Courthouse (850 Bryant St.). Judge Moscone's vacation is seen as a major delay in attempting to set an attainable bail for some of these men.

Copwatch held its first National Conference from July 13th-15th at Laney College in Oakland. The conference consisted of a "weekend of networking, workshops, film showings, and discussions in support of direct observation of police as part of a strategy for stopping police brutality." Saturday was a day of workshops, with a screening of "Free Ya Hood" and other Copwatch footage from around the country. The conference closed on Sunday morning with final presentations and discussion.