...but less lite than before. This item is quite shocking, once again, calling to mind another place and time:
"My 21-year old daughter disappeared from NYC last Tuesday afternoon [September 7] 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 Committee. 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....
"The notorious Pier 57 (owned by the Hudson River 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. ...
"My husband called the NYPD to ask who had issued a Certificate of Occupancy or Fire Safety Inspection Certificate and who was managing Pier 57. He was given the number for the Republican National Committee....
"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 husband's 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 enter without 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."
I wonder whether Steve Bainbridge will notice?
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