Report — Suppressing Protest: Human Rights Violations in the U.S. Response to Occupy Wall Street

The first report in our multi-clinic Protest and Assembly Rights Project series was released yesterday. The report — Suppressing Protest: Human Rights Violations in the U.S. Response to Occupy Wall Street — was lead authored by NYU’s Global Justice Clinic and Fordham’s Walter Leitner Human Rights Clinic. It documents violations of the rights of protesters, the press and others in NYC in connection with Occupy Wall Street: incidents of excessive police force, unjustified arrests, abuse of journalists, unlawful closure of sidewalks and parks to protesters, and pervasive surveillance of peaceful activists. The report calls for urgent action by NYC authorities, and if NYC authorities fail to respond in good faith, it calls for federal intervention by the DOJ, and the opening of an investigation into official misconduct.

Although this first report focuses on NYC, it also contains movement background, historical context and a substantial outline of the IHR legal framework on protest and assembly rights that applies to the Occupy movement nationwide. It is the culmination of eight months of research by seven U.S. law schools (NYU, Fordham, Harvard, Stanford, Charlotte, Rutgers-Newark, and Loyola-New Orleans). Additional case studies focusing on Boston, Oakland & San Francisco, and Charlotte are expected to be released later this year.

It’s been getting wide coverage in the NY and national media, but any help you can provide in spreading the word, especially to local Occupy and other movements, would be appreciated. Also, we’ve been receiving inquiries from protesters in other cities who want to connect with local researchers and attorneys interested in doing something similar. If you’d like us to facilitate a connection, or if there’s anything else we can do to help, please let us know. We’re open to and interested in exploring ways to expand this collaboration.

The report can be downloaded here.

Or it can be viewed below…

Best,
Deborah Popowski
(with Sarah Knuckey, Katy Glenn, Fernando Delgado, Clara Long, Jim Cavallaro and Stephan Sonnenberg)

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4closureFraud.org

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Suppressing Protest – Human Rights Violations in the U.S. Response to Occupy Wall Street