Guantanimo on the Hudson

News Update from Citizens for Legitimate Government
September 1, 2004
http://www.legitgov.org/
http://legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
"Guantanamo on the Hudson" (nrcnotwelcome.org) "At 15th Street on the West Side Highway, the City of New York has set up a temporary detention center on Pier 57 for people arrested during the RNC protests. The building was formerly a garage for buses, and the conditions are appalling: the large holding pens are made of chain link fence with razor wire on top; each pen has only two portable toilets and very few benches; most people have to sleep on the floor; arrestees have gone for many hours without access to food, water, phones, or lawyers. The building most likely has asbestos and there are large areas where oil from the buses that used to be housed there has spilled. There is some question about whether the building has an operable fire-suppression system. On top of that, people are being held an unusually long amount of time before they are moved through the process and released." --Join us in a picket line in front of Pier 57 Thursday morning to protest the appalling conditions there and show solidarity with arrestees.

.

That's what I'm hearing from our local Not In Our Name: (in an email, sorry, no link)

We have just learned that five NION supporters from Hawaii are being processed and released after being held in a detention center becoming known as Guantanamo on the Hudson. After being trapped in a police pen during a police sweep, and then arrested without being given any warning or opportunity to disperse, they have been held in appalling conditions.

The detention center is a former bus garage on Pier 57. The holding pens are made of chain link fence with razor wire on top. Each pen has only two portable toilets and few benches. Most people have to sleep on the floor. There are large areas where oil from the buses have been spilled. Arrestees have gone for many hours without access to food, water, phones or lawyers. There is a question about whether the building has an operable fire-suppression system.

When a Hawaii supporter called the NYPD to inquire about the adequacy of the fire-suppression system, she was given the official number of the RNC and was told that the Republican National Convention had control over the detention center. She then called the RNC. An official with the RNC informed her that he didn't know whether the building had such a system, and told her that the detention center wasn't the Hilton, and that those arrested were criminals anyway. This official attitude toward non-violent protesters attempting to exercise free speech is outrageous and yet another example of the very thing the protesters are speaking out against! And since when does a convention provide its own detention center?

:wtf:

"Wasn't the Hilton"? Hmmm... maybe it could be the "Hell's Kitchen Hilton", kinda like the "Hanoi Hilton". What a smug, arrogant bunch of turds. Seriously, words fail me.

And, how can the NYPD "outsource" detention to the RNC? That's like hiring the Fox to guard the henhouse! :grr: