Feature Archives

On December 26th at about 2:30pm, the Dublin Police Department raided the Dublin Greene and the home of the owner, Cindy. The police took 2 pounds of herbal medicine in storage jars and edibles, hash, bud, merchandise (T-shirts), all the store and patient records, and about $7,000 cash from the store and staff. Patients were turned away by the police as the investigation was being conducted. No arrests were made.

The Dublin Police claimed that they were working from a tip that the Dublin Greene was conducting the "illegal sale of marijuana," and that the dispensary was not located in the correct zone. A staffmember explained that they were not selling, but were receiving donations and that they have not made a profit.

The Dublin Greene had been open since July of 2005- before the city of Dublin issued a moratorium on dispensaries on August 16th. This dispensary is known for being a clean, safe, cheerful, "mom and pop" shop that serves patients of the 580/680 corridor. The club has approximately 120 patients who are mostly residents of Dublin, Livermore, San Ramon and Danville. It has aimed to provide safe, quiet, local access for patients, and to fit into the neighborhood. The store has not turned a profit.

The Dublin Greene is asking that everbody who supports medical cannabis call, email, or fax the Dublin City Council and the Dublin Police and tell them, "We want the Dublin Greene Collective open today," and to return the patient records. The Dublin Greene will hold a rally and open house on December 29th, 2005 from 2-8pm at the Dublin Greene/Ducky's 6711B Sierra Court. There will likely be a protest at the Dublin City Council meeting, tentatively scheduled for January 3rd, at 7 PM.

Over 200 Oakland teachers and students rallied in front of the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) office after school on December 14th, in protest against union-busting and anti-student practices of State Administrator Randolph Ward. Photos and Report Many of the protesters were from the civil rights group Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, & Immigrant Rights And Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), a group that has been active for years to demand equal, quality education for OUSD and all schools.

The school board was meeting to discuss adding a new Charter School to West Oakland. Teachers and other union workers have said that opening charter schools is a political tactic that is used to weaken and break unions. Charter schools are not union shops which means they can hire and fire as they choose, isolating the workers without rights against the managment.

This protest was part of an ongoing struggle to remove Randolph Ward and to get a fair contract for the Oakland Education Association (OEA) teachers. Dr. Ward has kept the OUSD teachers union (OEA) without a contract for 18 months while all upper level administrators have gotten raises.

Read more stories about the OUSD on Indybay's Education and Student Activism Page

Twenty-five Christians arrived in Cuba on December 6th with plans to set out from Santiago the next day on a solemn fifty-mile march to the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Their goal is to defend human dignity by visiting with the hundreds of detainees who have been held for more than three years under horrific conditions by the U.S. government. The marchers plan to arrive outside the gates of the U.S. naval base and prison complex on Guantanámo Bay on December 10th, International Human Rights Day. They are requesting entry into the compound to visit and interview the detainees as a work of mercy in keeping with their faith. If they are refused, they will hold a fast in solidarity and a vigil to pray for the immediate abolition of torture by all nations. Solidarity vigils will be held in several locations by supporters who did not travel to Cuba. Reports

On Saturday, December 10th at 3:00pm, there was a vigil at downtown Berkeley BART in solidarity with the marchers in Cuba.
Read more | Photos

Witness Torture will have reports | War Resisters League West | Catholic Worker

December 3rd, 2005 was the first International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners. There were a number of events in the Bay Area and internationally during the week before and including that date. Filipino political prisoner Donato Continente suggested initiating an International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War as a way to challenge the globalization of repression. People in countries around the world including Palestine, the Philippines, Haiti, Brazil, Italy, Switzerland, England, India, and the U.S. marked December 3rd with rallies, marches, and other forms of resistance.

There are tens of thousands of political prisoners held in prisons and jails around the world. The governments that incarcerate and criminalize them hope that the world outside will never know their names or learn why they really are in prison. The United States has some of the longest-held political prisoners in the world – women and men who were part of the American Indian Movement (AIM), the Black Panther Party, MOVE, the Puerto Rican Independence movement and the white anti-imperialist movement, who were fighting for self-determination and social justice in the sixties and seventies. Many were targets of the FBI’s COINTELPRO program which used assassination, disinformation, and frame-ups to crush people’s liberation movements and social dissent. CAPS points out that the same system that has kept these people in prison for over three decades criminalizes and incarcerates over 2 million people in the United States today.

The “Political Convictions: Liberating Political Prisoners” film festival took place on Monday, November 28th and Tuesday, November 29th at the New College of California Cultural Center in San Francisco. The film festival was also held on Wednesday, November 30th and Thursday, December 1st at Laney Community College in Oakland. Films shown on the different evenings included "Behind the Walls," excerpts from "All Power to the People," "Women in Struggle," and more.

There was a Day of Action on Friday, December 2nd at the Oakland Federal Building from 12pm to 2 pm. People hung banners over the 101 Freeway in San Francisco on Friday morning to remind commuters about the hundreds of political prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay for four years without charges. Photos A Day of Solidarity took place on Saturday, December 3rd at the First Unitarian Church in Oakland. This latter event included Kathleen Cleaver (former Black Panther) and Alicia Rodriguez (former Puerto Rican Political Prisoner.) Also on December 3rd, a video screening was held in Sacramento, at 5pm at SOL Collective - Arts & Cultural Center.

The week was sponsored by California Anarchist Prisoner Solidarity, the National Coalition to Free the Cuban Five, Club Knowledge - Laney College, and New College’s Activism and Social Change Program.

Read more about political prisoners and the International Day of Solidarity | California Anarchist Prisoner Solidarity | Bay Area Jericho Movement Statement

A labor event took place at the First Unitarian Church in Oakland on December 6th, as a way of observing International Human Rights Day. Beginning at 5:30pm, workers from East Bay organizing drives spoke about how their rights have been violated. At 6:45, there was a march to the Oakland City Council in support of Comcast workers. The council is considering an ordinance to protect workers' rights. Despite protections in U.S. labor law and the International Declaration of Human Rights, workers organizing on the job are routinely intimidated, harassed, and fired. More Bay Area events during the week of International Human Rights Day

Alameda Labor Council website | More info about International Human Rights Day and violations of workers' rights | IHRD Flyer | More events on December 10th

The National Youth and Student Peace Coalition initiated Not Your Solider Day, which was observed on November 17th around the country on college and high school campuses. It was a day taken to counter-recruit students and show them what really happens when you enlist in the military. The day also helps to show alternatives to going into the military and gives information on how to resist a draft.

A table for Not Your Soldier Day was held at the Hayward Campus of Cal State East Bay by Alliance for Social Justice, a socio-political activist organization on campus, from 12-2pm in front of the University Union. The table featured pamphlets, buttons, comic books, fliers, and a collage display. Many of the materials had been donated by the American Friends Service Committee and The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. The information provided was to help students make a more informed decision when considering enlisting in the U.S. military, to provide alternatives to enlistment, and to promote peace and justice work instead.

Two students stuck out in the minds of the table staff. One was a recent Iraq vet who said the Iraq war changed her life. She dropped her military career and is now pursuing school. She said she really came to believe that, “The only liberated Iraqi was a dead Iraqi.” The other student was crying as she came up to a protester as he laid on the ground. She explained that her husband was in Iraq and she found Gregg's act distasteful. The tablers explained to her that they were trying to make a statement and that although it was offensive to some, so was the Iraq war itself. Overall, the organizers felt that the event was a success, and they hope to do more anti-war and anti-military recruitment activities on the Cal State East Bay campus. Photos

On November 18th, Not in Our Name joined CODEPINK at the Oakland Militiary Recruiting Station for a fake bake sale and street theater to protest the war, military recruiting, and to support Army National Guard SPC Katherine Jashinski who is currently speaking out against the war. Photos | Video
Also on November 18th, Cindy Sheehan, Peter Camejo, Barbara Becnel and Todd Chretien spoke at an event called Turning the Tide Against the War in Iraq and at Home, at UC Berkeley. Photos

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Oakland's East Bay Animal Advocates (EBAA), and five poultry consumers filed suit challenging the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s policy of excluding chickens, turkeys, and other birds killed for human consumption from the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1958. The animal protection organizations, representing more than nine million members and constituents, assert that current poultry slaughter methods are cruel. "These birds ... are being slaughtered by methods that are not humane," said Paul Shapiro, spokesman for the Humane Society of the United States. "It's only because the USDA fails to define poultry as livestock even though any dictionary definition demonstrates that farmed birds ought to be." The groups filing suit estimate that 9 billion birds, or about 95 percent of domestic animals raised on farms, are unprotected during the slaughter process. U.S. industry practices include hanging live birds upside down in metal shackles, then moving them through an electrified water bath that paralyzes them while still conscious, and sometimes drowning conscious birds in tanks of scalding water. The lawsuit said recent reports of abuse in slaughter plants in West Virginia, Maryland and Alabama, where workers jumped on, kicked and slammed chickens against a wall, increased the need to protect poultry. In those cases, neither the workers nor the plants could be prosecuted because poultry are not covered under the federal law for human treatment of livestock.

Read More: 1 | 2 | 3

HSUS's Still a Jungle Out There | EBAA's California Turkey Industry

Recent Holiday-related News: 1 | 2 | 3
Indybay's 2004 Coverage of Thanksgiving