No Patriot Act Victims? Tell It To Summer Starr! The RNC's Little G

[Guest guest]

> r

> No Patriot Act Victims?

> Tell It To Summer Starr!

> The RNC's " Little Guantanamo "

 

> mauinews.com

> 9-9-4

 

>

> A young girl visiting NYC during the time of the

> Republican National

> Convention, NOT a protester, gets thrown into a

> makeshift GITMO!

>

> Erin Starr - Makawao, Maui, Hawai'i

>

> LETTER BY ERIN STARR

>

> My 21-year old daughter disappeared from NYC last

> Tuesday afternoon when

> walking with friends through a park where no protest

> was being held --

> and was held prisoner -- without being charged -- by

> the NYPD for three

> days.

>

> The first day and night she spent in an unsafe and

> inhumane facility at

> Pier 57 ( " Little Guantanamo " ) provided by the

> Republican Party. Yes, it

> was managed by the Republican National Committe. It

> was leased by the

> RNC to hold political dissenters who disagreed with

> the Bush

> administration. The second two days, my daughter was

> in a city jail in

> Manhattan, where her treatment improved. She

> practices Buddhist precepts

> of compassion (she told the NYPD officers that she

> knew they must be

> tired and overworked also, and she did not resist

> arrest). She is a

> graduate student in Poli Sci at the University of

> Hawaii and is a

> MortarBoard honor society/service club member. The

> notorious Pier 57

> (owned by the HudsonRiver Trust--a city/state

> consortium) was dubbed

> " Little Guantanamo " by reporters who also got caught

> up in police sweeps

> and who said it looked like the Guantanamo Bay

> prison built by the USA

> to hold the Al Qaeda terrorist political prisoners

> in Cuba. Pier 57 was

> leased by the RNC before their convention. They

> arranged for the NYPD to

> put up the chain link holding pens with razor wire

> on top in the old

> Pier 57 warehouse that had oil, gas and asbestos

> dust on the floor from

> a previous fire. My heart was in my throat when I

> got a call from one of

> my daughter's friends on Oahu who told me she had

> been arrested and

> taken to Little Guantanamo. I looked it up on the

> internet and fear

> crept into me.

>

> I called my daughter's cell phone over and over

> ( " it's mom, where ARE

> you, call me " ). She didn't answer. Only hours

> before, she had been

> calling us with joy, telling us of the peaceful

> protests and beautiful

> march. But now, nothing. I had nightmarish visions

> of a fire sweeping

> over the combustible floor with hundreds -- nearly a

> thousand -- trapped

> in the chainlink pens, razor wire on the top of the

> pens making escape

> impossible. My husband called the NYPD to ask who

> had issued a

> Certificate of Occupancy or Fire Safety Inspection

> Certificate and who

> wasmanaging Pier 57. He was given the number for the

> Republican National

> Committee. Yes. My husband and I looked at each

> other in silent, cold

> horror. In America? The Republicans have set up a

> private detention camp

> for their political prisoners that can hold 1000

> under inhumane and

> unsafe conditions!? My husband slowly dialed that

> number, got the RNC,

> and the Republican rep who answered the phone said,

> in answer to my

> husbands' inquiries about safety: " those protesters

> don't deserve a

> Holiday Inn, and they're all criminals anyway! "

>

> ....Say what?! My daughter, who doesn't smoke or

> drink or do drugs and

> is a practicing Buddhist Vegan? A criminal? Warning

> signs that reporters

> saw posted around Pier 57 said not to enterwithout

> protective clothing

> and mask. My exhausted daughter, with hundreds of

> others, tried to sleep

> that first night ...on the chemical-covered oily,

> cold cement floor of

> these pens, without food or water, without being

> read her rights,

> without being offered a chance to post bail, without

> seeing a judge

> although the National Lawyers Guild offered to

> represent them pro bono,

> without being charged or told why she was arrested

> and handcuffed and

> taken there, without being allowed to make a call to

> a lawyer or friend

> or parent or anyone -- all cell phones were

> confiscated as " terrorist

> weapons. " Her purse was taken. She had nothing but

> the clothes on her

> back. Meanwhile...ordinary criminals arrested that

> same day in NYC for

> burglary, rape and heinous crimes were processed by

> the courts in less

> than 10 hours. My daughter, who had committed no

> crime, was incarcerated

> for three days incommunicado. People suffered

> chemical burns, bug bites,

> overcrowding and medical problems because their

> medicine was

> confiscated. A pregnant woman sat crying on the

> floor in the oil. It

> wasn't until my daughter was taken out of the

> Republican-managed " Little

> Guantanamo " and placed in a cell in a Manhattan city

> jail that a guard

> kindly brought her Vegan food and gave her a blanket

> to lay her

> grime-smeared body on at night in her crowded cell.

> I never thought I'd

> be grateful to get a call from a friend saying that

> my daughter was in a

> Manhattan city jail cell, but the knowledge that she

> was out of that>

> Little Guantanamo actually gave me relief. I called

> Hawaii's Republican

> Party Headquarters, and asked them to report it to

> Hawaii's Governor

> Linda Lingle, who was at the convention in NYC and

> could intervene for

> my daughter and other UH students incarcerated

> illegally by her

> party.

>

> The Republican rep woman who answered the phone told

> me " Linda knows,

> and you're blowing it all out of proportion. " Say

> What!! That's MY

> daughter, not YOURS, sitting in that

> instant-conflagration-fire-trap at

> Pier 57! Well, thanks a BUNCH, Linda Lingle. The UH

> students mean that

> LITTLE to you??? The Republicans wanted to " teach

> those protesters a

> lesson. " They wanted to terrorize my daughter. But

> the lesson that the

> hundreds and hundreds of prisoners were taught...

> was not the one that

> the Republican Party intended, I would wager. My

> daughter had gone to

> NYC to walk in the peaceful protest of 500,000

> people the day before the

> Republican National Convention began. She was not

> engaged in protest at

> the time of her arrest. She had been walking with

> friends near a park.

> There was no protest in action when they were

> arrested along with

> tourists and city employees going to work. Anyone

> caught in the NYPD

> orange fence netting was told to sit on the ground,

> handcuffed, and

> pushed into large NYC busses. Our sweet daughter,

> born and brought up in

> a small rainforest in Hawaii, was placed in

> detention at Pier 57, the

> notorious " Little Guantanomo. " I recall that when

> the Democrats held

> their convention to nominate Senator John Kerry as

> their candidate for

> President, there were only 6 people arrested, if I

> remember correctly.

> At the Republican National Convention to elect Bush

> as their candidate,

> there were thousands arrested. I suspect that

> Republicans might say this

> was a good thing. Being tough. This group-roundup

> tactic is called by

> the Republican party " preventative detention " (like

> the " pre-emptive

> war " in Iraq). It is used to terrorize those who

> might protest Bush's

> agenda when he is in town. America, wake up. Hitler

> told the German

> people that they would have to " give up a few of

> your rights

> ...temporarily...so that we can fight the enemy. "

> That's what Ashcroft

> said, about the misnamed PATRIOT ACT. Wake up,

> America. The American

> flag that proudly waves by MY front gate and is on

> the back window of MY

> car...doesn't seem to be the same American flag that

> the Republican

> Party is waving.

>

> -- Erin Starr, Makawao, Maui, Hawaii

>

>

> Maui student caught up in mass arrests at convention

>

> By MELISSA TANJI

> Staff Writer

>

> http://www.mauinews.com/story.aspx?id=1082

>

>

>

>

> HONOLULU - A 21-year-old Olinda woman says she was

> unjustly arrested and

> held in inhumane conditions last week in New York

> City while she and

> other Hawaii students were involved in protests at

> the Republican

> National Convention.

>

> Summer Starr, a graduate student in political

> science at the University

> of Hawaii at Manoa, was among 1,821 people arrested

> during the

> convention last week.

>

> According to reports, New York police allegedly

> corralled people who

> were walking down the street so they could not move,

> then arrested all

> of them, often without first ordering them to

> disperse and giving then a

> chance to do so.

>

> The New York Civil Liberties Union is compiling

> stories from protesters

> who say they were arrested for no reason, detained

> for unnecessarily

> long periods or held in unsafe conditions. The group

> is also considering

> suing the city over police conduct.

>

> " I went up to New York initially to protest the

> Republican National

> Convention. Actually at the time of the arrest, I

> wasn't physically

> engaged in protest, " Starr said in a telephone call

> from Manoa on

> Monday.

>

> She said a group of people were cornered by officers

> near Bryant Park in

> Manhattan and were arrested on Aug. 31. They has

> been at the New York

> Public Library protesting when police made them

> scatter toward Bryant

> Park, Starr said.

>

> " They didn't inform us why we were being arrested, "

> she said. " At least

> I didn't hear it. "

>

> Starr said the arrest " was not justified in anyway.

> We weren't violent.

> We were absolutely peaceful. "

>

> If police were under the impression that the

> protesters were doing

> something wrong, Starr said they should have been

> arrested at the site

> of the protest, should have been told what they were

> being arrested for

> and not " shuffled down the street. "

>

> Following her arrest, Starr said all of the people

> with her were placed

> in plastic cuffs and were bused to Pier 57, a large,

> dirty building with

> concrete floors. The holding area was a former bus

> terminal.

>

> " It was absolutely inhumane and not a proper place

> to be holding

> people, " Starr said.

>

> One of the individuals being held was a girl dressed

> up in a black

> dress. Starr said the girl had been stepping out of

> her apartment to go

> out when she was swept up with a group and arrested.

>

>

> Starr said about five others from Hawaii were among

> the people arrested.

>

> In news reports last week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg

> speaking on his radio

> show, seemed to imply that the arrests of innocent

> people were

> inevitable.

>

> " You can't arrest 1,800 people without having

> somebody in the middle who

> shouldn't have been arrested. That's what the courts

> are there to find

> out afterwards, " he said.

>

> Starr, who was born and raised in Olinda and

> attended Makawao School,

> Seabury Hall, the Maui Ocean Academy and Maui

> Community College, said

> she just thought about her home on Maui while in

> jail.

>

> At home on Maui, Starr's mother, Erin, got a call

> from one of Summer's

> friends on Oahu that Summer was arrested and taken

> to Pier 57. Erin

> Starr said Pier 57 was nicknamed " Little

> Guantanamo, " referring to the

> holding facilities set up at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba,

> where detainees

> from Afghanistan are being held without charges.

>

> " I looked it up on the Internet and fear crept into

> me, " said Erin

> Starr. " I called my daughter's cell phone over and

> over, saying 'It's

> mom, where are you? Call me.' "

>

> Summer Starr's personal belongings were taken away

> from her when she was

> arrested.

>

> She said that she and others were kept at Pier 57

> for about a day.

>

> " Every single one of us were covered in black

> grease, " she said about

> being held at the former bus terminal.

>

> Starr said did not eat because she is a vegetarian

> and the only food

> provided was a meat sandwich.

>

> " I wasn't expecting to be treated like a queen,

> (but) I wasn't expecting

> to be treated like a political prisoner, " she said.

>

> On the day after the arrest, Starr said she was

> taken to a Manhattan

> jail where she and others were regularly moved from

> cell to cell. She

> said they were told they were going to be released

> soon and that the

> fingerprinting process was slow.

>

> She said she was released around 10 p.m. on

> Thursday, about two days

> after she was arrested.

>

> It was on that day that Judge John Cataldo of the

> State Supreme Court in

> Manhattan ordered the city to release more than 550

> protesters who had

> been detained, in some cases, for as long as 60

> hours.

>

> Starr said as the New York detainees were being

> released, there was a

> person handing out tickets to those arrested. She

> said she was cited for

> disorderly conduct and has a summons to appear in a

> New York City court

> on Oct. 6.

>

> She had asked that she not be required to return to

> New York for court

> proceedings because she lives in Hawaii, noting that

> some others

> arrested did not have to return. But she was told

> she would have to

> appear.

>

> Erin Starr said the family has retained an attorney

> in New York who is

> trying to dismiss the summons.

>

> Summer Starr said she was denied a lawyer during

> proceedings in New

> York, but " didn't want to make a big fuss. " She said

> she was frightened

> by the treatment.

>

> " I didn't want them to put me back in, " she said.

>

> " We were scared out of our minds to get arrested

> again, " she said. " It

> was a horrible, horrible experience. "

>

> Back on Oahu on Monday, Starr was trying to get back

> to normalcy,

> working on a 10-page paper, and battling what seemed

> to be a cold.

>

>

> Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services

> contributed to this report.

>

> Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji.

>