Impending visit from Netanyahu provokes rallies (The Tartan, Carnegie Mellon University newspaper)

 

Activists Call for More Debate on Iraq Agenda (The Tartan, Carnegie Mellon University newspaper)

 

Anti-war rally gathers on Soldiers’ ‘ Sailors’ lawn (Pitt News)

https://pittnews.com/article/39547/archives/anti-war-rally-gathers-on-soldiers-sailors-lawn/ 

By JESSICA WADDELL
SEPTEMBER 23, 2002

As talks of a possible attack on Iraq continue, an anti-war movement is in full swing right… As talks of a possible attack on Iraq continue, an anti-war movement is in full swing right here at Pitt.

The Thomas Merton Center held an anti-war rally on the lawn of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Saturday afternoon. Nearly 100 community leaders, activists, students and concerned citizens attended the event.

Sayed Saleh Waziruddin, board member of the Thomas Merton Center, led a small march from Carnegie Mellon University to the scene of the rally. The marchers carried signs and chanted, “What do we want? Peace. When do we want it? Now. Bush says regime change. We say he’s deranged.”

As the rally commenced, participants held signs, some made with care and some quickly written with marker on fliers. Some sayings were: “Each life is good,” and “I love America. I hate its actions.”

The Reverend Todd Davis, a participant in the rally, said, “I am here because I believe Bush is going to get the U.S. in great trouble. He is alienating the U.S. from all the nations of the world by acting unilaterally.”

Concerned citizen, poet, and Thomas Merton Center volunteer Cecilia Wheeler expressed her reasons for participating.

“We are united here to stop a war on Iraq. We don’t think there’s been enough evidence to start a war,” she said. “We want sanctions against Iraq down. There’s been too much suffering for the people in Iraq since ’91.”

The protest consisted of rallying speeches given by guest speakers, such as a medical expert, a journalist, a teen-age activist, professors and religious leaders. There was also satirical music, created by Anne Feeney and Chris Chandler, often met with random outbursts of supportive chanting.

Ginny Hildebrand and Waziruddin quieted the protesters and introduced the speakers. Throughout the speeches, the protesters would show support for a point and after each speech, the crowd would applaud.

Iskander Langalibalele spoke for Azania Heritage International and Unite ‘N Resist. He voiced his reasons for believing war in Iraq is wrong.

“We have a president not democratically elected,” he said. “Why [is the Bush administration] attacking human beings?”

Langalibalele had a charge for the group.

“We have to change the whole system and the whole society. We need to bring about a change,” he said. “Where is the courage? We need to build this into a mass movement.”

Brother Yusef Ali from the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh voiced his beliefs about the protest.

“Americans have to create a climate so that people can be able to think and express themselves without being considered unpatriotic,” he said.

He continued, speaking about compassion. His final words became a chant, “Let’s make war no more.”

As a change of pace, Feeney, playing the guitar, and Chandler, vocalist with a megaphone, performed a song that related the administration to a hypothetical carnival. The song, which evoked a great deal of laughter, had a harsh undertone and made points regarding the economy and hypocrisy.

The Reverend Renee Waun, from the East Suburban Unitarian Universalist Church, said that she called the President and insisted that concerned citizens do the same.

“I am downright embarrassed and ashamed at what our president is doing,” she said. “This is our last opportunity to show moral leadership to the world.”

She expressed her ultimate fears as to what might happen as a result of an attack on Iraq.

“It’s going to be the beginning of a really awful time in history, and we’re going to be blamed for it,” she said.

In summation, Waun articulated the decision America has to make.

“We have a choice,” she said, “to seize the high moral moment or to be lost in the despair of immoral mayhem.”

Molly Rush, host and founder of the Thomas Merton Center, rallied more support.

“There is a strong movement against war in Iraq,” she said. “We are going to need to depend on each other. I am thinking about civil disobedience again.”

The rally ended after about an hour. As the participants dispersed, they picked up fliers with the phone numbers and addresses for congressmen and the White House.

Professors for Peace and Justice question, debate politics (The Pitt News)

https://pittnews.com/article/39699/archives/professors-for-peace-and-justice-question-debate-politics/

Professors for Peace and Justice question, debate politics

By JESSICA WADDELLStaff Writer
SEPTEMBER 18, 2002

Pittsburgh Professors for Peace and Justice are making efforts to reform political… Pittsburgh Professors for Peace and Justice are making efforts to reform political consciousness.

PPJ held an open forum on Sept. 13 in Posvar Hall to discuss the situation in Iraq and the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. Nearly 200 people, including professors, students, and local activists, attended the event.

PPJ was founded last year in response to the American treatment of Sept. 11, with the mission of researching events and sharing that research to further inform the public, according to members Mark Ginsburg and Clark Henderson. Its members include faculty from colleges in Pittsburgh, such as Pitt, Carnegie Mellon University and Carlow College, who meet to discuss issues pertaining to the war on terror.

According to Ginsburg and Henderson, recent meetings have been focused on the possible attack on Iraq. Ginsburg added that, typically, 15 to 20 faculty members attend the meetings and someone leads the topic of conversation, which requires that they share research.

Ken Boas and Kelly Happe led the first discussion, raising questions about the situation in the Middle East.

Boas and Happe addressed American favoritism of the Israelis and said they wondered if Americans could find sympathy for the oppressed Palestinians.

“To prevent catastrophe in the Middle East, isn’t it our responsibility to tell the stories that affirm the Palestinian people?” Boas asked.

To finalize the discussion, Boas said, “Why do we buy into the idea that war in the Middle East makes the world safer? Osama made his grievances to clear to the world: stop oppressing and destroying the Palestinians.”

In the second segment, speaker Carol Stabile discussed the media and patriotism and their effects in the war on terror, emphasizing the importance for the American public to seek education and alternative news sources.

In an interview, Stabile elaborated about the media, saying that “in the university, we have the responsibility to educate people about this; we have the knowledge. I have studied the media, and I have all this information. As researchers, we put together separate accounts.” She continued, saying, “Only one viewpoint is being offered and that’s the current administration’s. We must ask ourselves, why don’t we see alternative accounts?”

Stabile said she was impressed with the turnout of the forum and wondered if there were people all over the nation with the same concerns. She concluded, saying, “Things are changing as we speak.”

Following Stabile, Carrie Rentschler addressed the media’s handling of the anniversary. Rentschler re-emphasized the responsibility Americans have to be educated and outspoken.

After the debate, Rentschler spoke in regards to the way in which the anniversary of Sept. 11 was handled. “To focus on remembrance and mourning, didn’t provide space for dissent. People should talk about the war on terror.” She continued rather adamantly, “People within the White House have said that Sept. 11 is very important as an emotional basis for going to war with Iraq.”

Sayed Saleh Waziruddin, Muslim co-founder of the local activist group Zi and founder of the Free Getu Coalition, led the third segment. He spoke about the tension and life adjustments of American-Muslim population since Sept. 11.

Waziruddin felt that after Sept. 11, the calls for unity excluded the Muslim population, which he believed was suddenly seen as suspicious simply for looking different.

Waziruddin concluded with a charge for the group.

“There is hope since we are here today. Let’s spread the ideas,” he said.

President appointed to homeland security advisory council (The Tartan, Carnegie Mellon University newspaper)

 

Curiously, good sense prevails in smoking sneaker (Tony Norman column, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Curiously, good sense prevails in smoking sneaker

Tuesday, August 06, 2002

If someone had told me just a few short weeks ago that a Canadian citizen of Iranian descent could take a flight to Pittsburgh, set fire to his sneakers as the plane taxied to the gate and walk away with only a $300 fine for his trouble, I would've assumed that somebody was smoking crack in Attorney General John Ashcroft's America.

But that's exactly what happened at the tail end of a US Airways flight from Toronto on Saturday evening. A 17-year-old traveling with his father, but sitting apart from him, as teen-agers are wont to do during the awkward years, decided to burn the excess rubber from his sneakers with a lighter.

As we all know, burning dangling rubber particles from one's fresher-than-fresh Iversons ranks way up there with the elimination of acne as the main obsession of teen-age boys.

Recently, folks who fly for a living have been skittish about allowing burning shoe fetishes to take place, even in coach class. In December, Richard Reid, an exceptionally goofy British 28-year-old, gave the passengers and crew of a Paris-to-Miami flight quite a scare when he tried in vain to light a fuse leading to a bomb hidden in his sneakers.

Reid was overpowered on that American Airlines flight by folks who weren't in a mood to have Neil Young write dirges about them if they could help it. Fortunately, Reid's ineptitude as a terrorist undermined him as quickly as the bravery of the passengers. He surely would've had his name inscribed in the annals of "Stupid Criminals International" if investigators hadn't uncovered evidence of Reid's connection to al-Qaida operatives in Europe.

For once, even the textile industry protectionists among us are grateful that materials used in Third World sweatshops where most sneakers are stitched together are of such high quality. Can you imagine Uptowns, Royal Elastics or Wallabees bursting into flame like our old canvas PF Flyers? Certainly not! There's way too much street cred at stake for that to happen.

When an attendant on Saturday night's US Airways flight followed the stench of burning rubber to Row 18, where the 17-year-old sat flicking his lighter, she was determined not to stand for any of his teen-age surliness.

The passenger was obviously burning his shoes and immediately copped to it. As a colleague with a son the same age so memorably put it yesterday, he might as well have.

"There are only two things boys their age are interested in," she quipped, "sex and fire."

Still, it's a sign of "progress" in John Ashcroft's America -- not to mention Pittsburgh -- that a 17-year-old Canadian with an Iranian surname wasn't automatically given an orange jumpsuit, shackled like Hannibal Lecter and booked on a connecting flight to fashionable Camp X-ray at Guantanamo Bay.

The FBI, the Allegheny County police and the U.S. Transportation Security Administration quickly determined that the 17-year-old was more a threat to his family's dignity than to national security and released him to his father's custody.

It was a rare return to perspective and sanity in the wake of Sept. 11. Let's face it, federal and local overreaction to real and imagined threats have become entrenched thanks to the mullahs overseeing Homeland Security.

A junior pyromaniac may have dodged the bullet this time, but our civil liberties are still threatened as various bureaucracies struggle to differentiate terrorist threats from oddities in human behavior.

Recently, I wrote about the plight of Getu Berhanu Tewolde, an Ethiopian immigrant arrested at the Downtown Greyhound bus station for allegedly making "terroristic threats" during a bus layover. Getu was held in the Allegheny County Jail's mental ward for six weeks without benefit of legal counsel or a psychiatric evaluation. He'll go on trial in the fall.

Former Art Institute of Pittsburgh student Salam El Zaatari was indicted by the government after carrying an X-Acto knife through airport security. He spent two months in solitary confinement at the Allegheny County Jail, which might as well erect a sign above its door that reads: "Abandon Hope All Ye Foreigners Who Enter Here."

Perhaps times are finally changing for awkward young men who don't conform to our bland preconceptions. Really, we don't have to release John Walker Lindh to his father's custody to be fair to everyone in John Ashcroft's America.

Is This Man a Terrorist? (Pittsburgh Pulp Magazine Cover Story)

Is This Man a Terrorist?

Beaten, drugged and jailed: the strange story of Getu Berhanu Tewolde

By Jonathan Barnes
Photos by Shawn Brackbill

"Freaks!" yelled some passersby in Ozzy Osbourne t-shirts, hanging out the windows of their car and gawking as they drove by in rush-hour traffic. Cars screeched and halted, spewing out fumes that simmered in the humidity. Pedestrians walked around and at times walked through the peaceful protest of about two dozen people, and at least one passerby seemed angry that the collection of clerics, labor leaders, African-Americans and other activists had the temerity to assemble.

A slight breeze didn't take the edge off the protest, and maybe it was the heat that made the authorities so antsy. The group had been assembling across the street from the Greyhound bus station for 10 minutes when Vista Hotel security guards approached them.

Asking the organizers what was going on, the guards were given polite responses and went on their way. That left the few dozen activists to their protest of what they feel was ugly treatment by the Pittsburgh Police of Getu Berhanu Tewolde on his arrival in Pittsburgh on February 1. While traveling from Washington, D.C. to Denver, Getu, an Ethiopian immigrant, was arrested at the Greyhound station downtown. He was charged with making terroristic threats, causing and risking a catastrophe and aggravated and simple assault. This all occurred as a result of an incident during a layover in Pittsburgh.

Gathered downtown around the corner of 11th and Liberty on Thursday, June 13 during the dinner rush hour, activists from nine organizations and three churches toted signs reading "Free Getu," and chanting the same. By turns, they stood at a makeshift podium on the sidewalk to hammer the message of the grave wrong done to Getu.

"There's an old saying in labor -- that an injury to one is an injury to all," said John Lambiase, president of district six of the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America. "Getu is different from the authorities, he is not different from the people. People of integrity do not beat people, do not drug people and abuse power."

As the speakers took their turns at the podium, the obvious theme of freedom of speech and the less obvious notions of freedom of space and movement emerged.

During what should have been a brief stop in Pittsburgh on February 1, Getu brushed against a Greyhound employee, Angela Street, while returning to his seat at the end of the stop. Street yelled accusations at him and the driver told Getu to get off the bus, according to Getu. Once he was inside the bus station, someone ordered Getu to sit. He refused to sit and tried to calm the crowd that was gathering around him. A police officer was called and asked Getu to sit, but because he didn't identify himself as an officer and Getu didn't see any badge, he refused. The policeman attacked and beat him, according to Getu, "disarming" Getu of the pen he was holding in his palm.

This story has been told several times, but in the beginning many just saw quick clips of Getu on television and no doubt many thought he must be guilty. He was yelling crazy, terrorist-sounding stuff on a Greyhound bus, reportedly things like "I'm Jesus" and "the Lord of Lords asked me [to choose] life or death" and "Americans are going to die." He'd had the crap kicked out of him by the police. He was a foreigner, and an African at that. If we got a dozen more like him, some people certainly thought, it'd be a good start.

But such knee-jerk reactions to this gray situation, where it seems there's plenty of blame to spread around, might be potentially as destructive as accepting carte blanche Getu's version of events.

At the busy corner last week, the rumble of traffic and windy conditions intermittently drowned out the unamplified voices of the speakers, and at times it seemed they were preaching to themselves, as protesters sometimes do.

Amnesty International Pittsburgh's Pamela Jordan strode to the podium and declared Getu had been denied due process and subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. "The conditions of Getu's confinement were egregious," she said. "Given only two hours a week to leave his cell. The [forced] medication, in combination with his solitary confinement" constitute cruel and unusual punishment, she said.

While many go to jail because of drugs, Getu was detained partly through the aid of mind-altering substances. Local authorities intentionally hopped him up on goofy pills, he said.

After his beating, Getu was placed on Disciplinary Housing Status at the Allegheny County Jail. He was tucked into the Mental Health pod under 24-hour solitary confinement and given eight pills a day without a behavioral clinic examination. He was allowed only two hours per week to leave his cell and shower and couldn't meet with a public defender because he was in solitary confinement, according to the Free Getu Coalition's web site, www.freegetu.org.

The incident that led to Getu's arrest might have been avoided if a few jingoistic idiots hadn't felt threatened by this 5-foot-2-inch, 125-pound stranger, others in the rally said. Mary Zimmerle, an organizer of the gathering and a member of the Zi activist organization, called Getu's arrest "an example of unrestrained hysteria. When we treat people who are different as the other, we dehumanize them. This leads to horrible consequences."

Just after she spoke the words, a third carload of hecklers passed by. This group was wearing dirty workmen's clothes, and they sounded like they'd been drinking. "You suck!" they yelled, flipping the protesters the bird.

Pittsburgh NAACP president Tim Stevens wasn't swayed by the catcalls. "Part of patriotism is a commitment to make our nation better than it is," he said. "It is trouble when someone comes to our city and their first experience is handcuffs. That is a sad commentary."

As if to underscore the point, a couple of Pittsburgh Police officers rolled up in a car and started asking questions. "Everybody has a right to assemble, as long as people can pass by on the street," one of the officers said, and the two left.

Stevens picked up where he'd stopped without missing a beat, jumping back into his solo riffs with a jazzman's flair. "Obviously we have to be about protecting our nation. But we also have to protect what we are as a nation. We don't have to be intimidated because a couple people sat on the cement."

Getu's trial was postponed until March 15 because he had to be cleared by the behavior clinic due to the felony charge. After getting pressure from the Free Getu Coalition and the ACLU, Getu received an exam and a lawyer visited within the week of his preliminary hearing. He passed the exam, moving his case forward and leading to his release on bail.

The "simple assault" charge was dropped at the March 15 preliminary hearing. The "causing and risking a catastrophe" charge was dropped as well, but a second "terroristic threat" charge was added before Getu's formal arraignment on May 20. A pre-trial conference was scheduled before deadline, on Wednesday, June 19, during which Judge John Zatolla was to set a trial date.

In the meantime, Getu is sorting out his feelings.

Meeting Getu gives you a sense of who was wronged. The soft-spoken man bears little resemblance to the images of him captured on the local "breaking news" television segments, his face puffy and his eye blackened from the beating. He said last week that he was amazed by the support of so many Pittsburghers. On the one hand, he said in soft, sometimes halting English, Pittsburgh has some aggressive people by which he clearly means the officers who arrested him. On the other, he added, "I didn't expect that Pittsburgh had such kind people" as his supporters.

He attributed the ordeal to the fact that he looks different from many Americans. "On the bus when the woman swore at me, it was because I looked different," he said. "I even said sorry."

Why charge Getu with making terroristic threats? Contacted after the demonstration, Allegheny County district attorney's office spokesman Mike Manko would not speculate on what led police to charge Getu, deferring questions to Zone 2 commander Bill Valenta. "It was a police investigation, you'd have to ask them," Manko said.

Getu's supporters have asked the district attorney to drop the rest of the charges against him, but Manko was guarded on the question. "I'm not going to discuss whatever strategy we have before a case goes to trial," he said.

And though the tide of media opinion has turned in favor of Getu, Pittsburgh Police officials tell a far different story of the incident that led to Getu's arrest.

"In essence, Mr. Tewolde was in a bus station and there was an incident between him and another person on the bus," said Zone 2 commander Bill Valenta. "At some point in time, Mr. Tewolde said everybody on the bus is going to die. The police officer arrived in full uniform and Mr. Tewolde proceeded to attack him with a pen. It was the behavior of Mr. Tewolde that dictated his response. He chose to act in an aggressive manner and attacked our officer."

The incident led police to evacuate the bus station building, to search the building for bombs and to call in the FBI's local counter-terrorism team, Valenta said. "We probably had the involvement of 50 to 60 personnel hours, all because of this guy becoming upset on the bus."

Valenta said he is bothered by the media attention that has depicted Getu as an innocent. He also takes umbrage at the suggestion that he would allow his officers to brutalize anyone. "We have written statements by 10 people who witnessed [Getu] going off. I oversee 120 police officers and ensure that they follow the law the right way. I'm very comfortable with what we did, from start to finish."

Given the fact that the Pittsburgh Police Department is under a federal consent decree instituted in 1997 due to police misconduct, it's easy to see why African-Americans in Pittsburgh might be wary of what police say. Many citizens aren't aware that the consent decree is in place, though it is meant to help them, and others don't believe it will work. Despite widespread resentment of the decree among police officers, and rampant mistrust of police officers among African-Americans, city officials are negotiating an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice that would end the consent decree this summer, though there is a backlog of cases that the city's Office of Municipal Investigations has not dealt with.

The office was created from the former Office of Professional Standards and was physically moved out of police headquarters to facilitate the filing of complaints. But given that the consent decree was forced upon the city due to a long history of local police abuses that resulted in the deaths of Johnny Gammage, Maneia Bey and others, many people have little patience for OMI's backlog of cases. To the injured party, justice delayed always seems to be justice denied.

Even if what Pittsburgh Police officials say about Getu's case is true, the fact that he was detained for several weeks and drugged in a prison mental health facility should be cause for alarm, even among those officers who say Getu was treated fairly. It seems axiomatic that people, native or non-native, shouldn't get lost, Josef K.-like, in a trial put off forever by inscrutable bureaucrats.

Comments:

 

Although this article is very thorough and discusses some of the history of Pittsburgh's police brutality problems, one important detail was left out: Getu was cleared by the FBI, but arrested anyway because of the “totality of the circumstances”, according to Commander Valenta (Fox 53 10 O'clock News broadcast on February 1).