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AUTHORED BY KEITH MCHENRY:
Crackdown Begins: Food Not Bombs House Among Saturday Raids Ahead of
RNC. Food Not Bombs volunteer arrested in Denver and Berkeley office
raided on Wednesday.
As the all volunteer movement Food Not Bombs prepares to respond to
Hurricane Gustav the police and FBI raid several Food Not Bombs houses
in Minneapolis and a office in Berkeley where police seized 13
computers.
Zachary Patrick Grey, a University of Massachusetts student from
Marion, Mass., was arrested at 1:40 p.m. Monday after a foot chase,
according to a Denver County Court complaint. According to CBS 3 of
Springfield, Mass., Grey belongs to a group called Pioneer Valley Food
Not Bombs. The alleged feces was glass jar of coffee with soy milk.
Several of those who were arrested are being represented by Bruce
Nestor, the President of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers'
Guild. Nestor said that last night's raid involved a meeting of a group
calling itself the "RNC Welcoming Committee", and that this morning's
raids appeared to target members of "Food Not Bombs," which he
described as an anti-war, anti-authoritarian protest group. There was
not a single act of violence or illegality that has taken place, Nestor
said. Instead, the raids were purely anticipatory in nature, and
clearly designed to frighten people contemplating taking part in any
unauthorized protests. Nestor indicated that only 2 or 3 of the 50
individuals who were handcuffed this morning at the 2 houses were
actually arrested and charged with a crime, and the crime they were
charged with is "conspiracy to commit riot." Four of those under arrest
include Monica Bicking, Eryn Trimmer, Garrett Fitzgerald,Nathanael
Secor. Emails asking the public to call St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman
651-266-8510 and Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak (612) 673-2100 have been
sent out to call for their freedom. Efforts to get have the 13
computers returned in Berkeley are also underway. The authorities have
claimed activists have been planning to use urine and feces at both
conventions.
Food Not Bombs provides free vegetarian meals every week in hundreds of
cities all over the world. Food Not Bombs volunteers provided free
meals to the rescue workers at the World Trade Center after 9/11, to
the protesters at the Orange Revolution in Kiev, Ukraine and fed
survivors in nearly 20 communities in the gulf region of the United
States in the months after Katrina. From Iceland to Chile, Nigeria, New
Zealand, Israel and beyond thousands of Food Not Bombs volunteers will
be sharing vegetarian meals, working for peace, planting gardens,
fixing up bikes for poor children and responding to hurricanes and
earthquakes. Please forward this to your local media and community
groups.
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Food Not Bombs organizes food relief effort for the survivors of
Hurricane Gustav. We fed the survivors of Katrina now we will help the
survivors of Gustav.
