Aug. 31: Liberty Bash!

A31

Liberty Bash!
Aug. 31, 8:00pm
Brooklyn Lyceum
227 4th Ave & President St.

Protecting Protest ~ an A31* 1-year Anniversary Event and fundraiser for the Bill of Rights Defense Campaign (part of the New York Civil Liberties Union). The party will run from 8:00 pm to midnight on Aug 31st following the 6:00 pm Rally Against Mayor Bloomberg at City Hall Park.

There will also be a showing of Ryan Junell's video installation "See the Elephant!" filmed during the 2004 Republican National Convention.
Please contact Sabine@archerserve.com
or call 917-370-8268 this week if your organization, performance group or
self would like to participate.

* A31 is the date August 31, 2004 when people took to the city streets for a day of non-violent direct action to confront the Bush administration's unjust policies at home and abroad and to stand up against the Republican National Convention in NYC. On that day around 1200 people were unlawfully arrested in police dragnets across the city and detained in filthy holding pens at Pier 57 and at the Tombs for periods of well over 24 hours; the most ever arrested in one day in NYC history. Although a handful of people were directly performing acts of civil disobedience, most folks arrested were legally protesting or bystanders on the street. The NYPD and governing authorities denied our civil rights by acting as the Republican's private security force to criminalize free speech and remove protest from the NYC streets in an attempt to silence dissent before the night of Bush's nomination for President at Madison Square Garden.
Since A31, nearly all the A31 criminal arrests have been dismissed (results can be found at. A class action lawsuit has been filed and many more group and individual complaints are set to follow in Federal court. While the National media, NYPD and mayor's office have trivialized this event, we must not forget A31 and continue to take action to address and defend the accumulating encroachments on our civil liberties.

If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society.
--Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor, January 18, 2005