Feature Archives

In an open letter to Amnesty International, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) states: "In May, PACBI called on singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen to heed the Palestinian call for a cultural boycott of Israel and avoid complicity with Israel’s violations of international law by cancelling his planned September concert in Israel, particularly in view of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza earlier this year. Sadly, Amnesty International USA has agreed to cooperate with Cohen in dealing with Israel on the basis of business as usual."

Raj Jayadev writes: "What would have happened to Dr. Gates if he were not an acclaimed scholar and author, friend to the President, and someone whose stardom could greatly embarrass a city and county justice system? What would have happened if Dr. Gates, were he not a noted scholar, was arrested in my city, San Jose, California, with the same fact pattern, even as described by the police report?"

Over six months have passed since the murder of Oscar Grant III and BART has yet to tell the truth about what happened on January 1st, nor has a single employee been held accountable. On July 16th, No Justice No BART boarded BART trains to inform thousands of people about what happened on the Fruitvale BART platform moments before Oscar Grant was murdered, and the lies told by Police Chief Gary Gee shortly thereafter.

"Copwatch 13" writes: Two Oakland police officers, Phong Tran and Scott Hewitt, shot and killed Parnell Smith on Wednesday, July 15th, near the corner of 16th Avenue and International Boulevard. Smith, who was unarmed when he was shot, was running away from Tran and Hewitt as they fired on him. On Thursday, when grilled about why police would shoot Smith if he was only running away, Oakland Police Spokesman Jeff Thomason initially said, "This was a gunfight...it was a gun battle that took place in the streets of Oakland." However, on Friday, Thomason acknowledged that his earlier statements were premature.

John Brown Childs, a UCSC professor emeritus, author, scholar and educator, joined the Teachers for Class War radio show on Free Radio Santa Cruz for an hour of discussion on July 13th. Topics range from Katrina to Obama, UCSC politics to his namesake John Brown, and the civil rights movement of the sixties to contemporary issues facing Santa Cruz.

Max Blumenthal writes: "On May 27, journalist Jesse Rosenfeld and I set out on the streets of Tel Aviv to probe the political opinions of young local residents. We started the day filming Jewish and Palestinian Israeli students protesting a proposed law that would criminalize public observance of the Nakba, or the mass expulsion and killing of Palestinians by Zionist militias in 1948. There, we interviewed Palestinian Israeli students about the rising climate of repression, then spoke to another group of students who gathered nearby to heckle their Arab classmates and demand their deportation."

Since early 2009, thousands of posts related to justice for Oscar Grant have been published to Indybay — video, audio, photos, first-hand accounts of court hearings, analyses, protest coverage, and more. In order to consolidate the history and latest developments in the movement for justice for Oscar Grant, this feature was created. It centralizes the multitude of related stories and has its own unique web address: www.indybay.org/oscargrant.