Desiree Fairooz, dragged out of a Senate hearing for chuckling. (image: Ryan J. Reilly)
West Virginia state police arrested Dan Heyman, a veteran reporter with Public News Service, for repeatedly asking Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price whether being a target of domestic violence would be considered a “pre-existing condition,” allowing health insurance to be denied, under the new Republican healthcare bill (FAIR Action Alert, 5/10/17).
The charge: “willful disruption of governmental processes.”
Heyman is free on bond, awaiting trial. His arrest follows the conviction last week of Code Pink activist Desiree Fairooz for “unlawful conduct” because she laughed in a Senate conference room when Republican Sen. Richard Shelby said that then-nominee for Attorney General Jeff Sessions had an “extensive record of treating all Americans equally under the law.” She faces up to a year in jail (Vox, 5/8/17).
It’s not that Big Media haven’t nodded to these cases, but better than adding slogans about democracy dying in darkness and truth mattering more than ever would be vigorous, sustained, principled defense of the right to protest, including while wearing black. Which seems to be what’s holding together the government’s case for felony riot charges against some 214 people arrested en masse on Inauguration Day.
Esquire (4/12/17)
Natasha Lennard reports for Esquire (4/12/17) that even though DC police’s initial mass arrest swept up reporters and legal observers since released, they still maintain that each of the dozens of individuals still charged can be proven to have rioted and incited others to riot. But, Lennard reports, defenders are saying that the state’s evidence amounts to video coverage showing people at the beginning of the march, wearing black, and then at the end of the protest, now deemed a riot—proving they could have left but did not. People who broke no windows and set no fires face up to 10 years in prison and $25,000 in fines. There is civil litigation against the police department, but as frightened clients are encouraged to plead out, that effort is weakened.
Let’s add that Republican lawmakers in at least 18 states are promoting laws to increase severity of charges for nonviolent protest tactics, like blocking highways.
Journalists know the reasons to protest are coming fast and furious; they need to come out much stronger for the right to do so.
The thing is, these protesters aren’t opposing a disfavored gummint in Venezuela, so I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for the corpress to come to their defense.
Well done, Janine…RESIST we need to help Desiree and the protesters now….some scary shite…
Well, you know, if we go back to the reason for the reporter’s question——then Mr. Price really needs to answer the question:
“Is rape considered a pre-existing condition?” I think people woul;d like to know the answer to that. Shouldn’t Health and HUMAN Services lnow the answer?
Really, Mr. Price——this is not only a human question which needs to be answered, but a Freedom of the Press question too—–although, maybe Mr. Price hasn’t read the actual ACHA health bill—–or even worse, maybe he has and therefore he won’t discuss it?
This is a poblem, because if having a vagina becomes a pre-existing condition, for rape—– then what does having a penis mean? All penises within a 10 block area of a rape crime are automatically arrested with DNA extracted? This does not sound much like any kind of Human Service that most people would welcome. Actually, all humans are subject to the same pre-existing condition, and that, of course, is Death—– so what now Mr. Price,——–no one has health care because of that pre-existing condition.?
Democracy dies in darkness well truth dies with corporate/state journalism.
Hello Janine, many thanks to you and the editors at FAIR for covering this. Might be worth updating the story to reflect most of the protesters who were arrested on J20 in DC now face up to 75 years in prison, not 10.
Also, as far as I know, there have been felony indictments from protesting since J20 in New Orleans (15), Jacksonville (5), Standing Rock (6), and Philadelphia (3).