Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Occupy Oakland

This morning, Dorian Lynskey posted this on Twitter:


It links to this video, which shows peaceful protesters of the Occupy movement in Oakland, California, being teargassed - seemingly for no obvious reason and certainly having no justification. The police say at one point during the video that the protesters have formed an "unlawful assembly" - so much for civil rights (including freedom of assembly) being upheld in the US.

The movement began in New York as Occupy Wall Street, but the slogan 'We are the 99%' seems to have caught the attention of activists and others around the world - over 900 cities worldwide, in fact.

Another video can be seen on the Guardian, in this article, which claims: "police used teargas and baton rounds to break up the camp".

This outrageously heavy-handed response from the police must be condemned quickly, and by everyone. Neither the 99%, nor even the 1%, deserve to be treated like this.

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