Gathering points for October 22 protests around the U.S.
October 22nd Coalition-New York extends our heartfelt condolences to all the families and victims of the WTC/Pentagon attacks. We share in the sorrow and pain of the people in this tragedy that took so many innocent lives from around the world. May those involved in the rescue be safe as they search for survivors.
During this time of grief we hope to provide consolation and community for each other, while at the same time try to understand why such a crime has been committed, and how we can prevent further atrocities against the people. The October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation has always denounced violence and murder aimed at innocent people. Since 1996 we have been demanding justice for people killed by the police around the United States and helped to build a strong and vibrant movement of resistance to the state-sanctioned killing, brutality and repression that comes down on the people in this country. And though we are filled with grief now, as we look around us we see the heightened repression and criminalization that is being aimed at the people, both in the U.S. and around the world, and we must resist this!
In the name of the war on terrorism, massive assaults against civil liberties are already underway. Racial profiling of Arabs and South Asians is rampant, and the attacks on immigrants from many different nations have reached new levels. We have seen in the last several years how the War on Drugs and the War on Crime has, in reality, been a war on the people, primarily Black and Latino youth. The Stolen Lives book documents over 2,000 people killed by the police in 10 years, and this is just the tip of the iceberg; the prison population has boomed to over 2 million people; in New York City alone over a period of 15 months 175,000 people were stopped and frisked; over 2,300 people are sitting on death row. Already Bush has won $40 billion for his programs, the right to change laws to suit his agenda and to criminalize many more people.
With the help of the media, law enforcement has taken the racial profiling that we have seen for years directed towards Black and Latino people to new levels with the many arrests of "suspicious people" and with the indefinite detainment of Muslim immigrants. And the state is promising us even more legislation upholding racial profiling. A climate of fear and hatred for Arab people and extending to all Muslims is being reinforced so that there are escalating racial attacks on Arabs, South Asians and Muslims from both the government and from civilians. We must stand firmly against these racist attacks as well as mobilize and resist the changes in laws that are promising unbridled attacks on the people whether they be national ID cards, indefinite detention of undocumented immigrants and even deportation of "suspicious" permanent residents, or new powers for state surveillance of any people and groups who dissent.
We hear a lot from the media about "justice," about Bush leading us towards this justice. But one thing we know for sure is that Bush and Guiliani have never stood for justice their history shows that they have never stood against the taking of innocent lives. Amadou Diallo, Malcolm Ferguson, Nicholas Heyward Jr., Timothy Thomas -- the list of those murdered in cold blood by cops who still walk the streets freely goes on and on. Bush's hands are covered in the blood of all those people on death row he killed as Governor of Texas, including Shaka Sankofa for whom there was irrefutable evidence of his innocence.
Today we must not let the state exploit our grief and other emotions to legitimize even more backward repressive measures against us. Several of the parents of people killed by the police have said that they will continue to fight for justice for these stolen lives, and will actively organize against even more lives being stolen whether here in the U.S. or in Afghanistan, or other countries the U.S. state decides to go to war with.
On October 22, the National Day of Protest, stand with these families united to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation.
To help plan for the day or for more information:
Phone: (212) 673-6008 or (888) NO BRUTALITY
Fax: (212) 477-8015
E-mail: Oct22ny@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.october22.org
[posted 9/28/01]
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