Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
George Alleyne, Nelson King,
Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean Life, D 10 ECEMBER 18-24, 2020
By Débora Leão & Suraj
K. Sazawal
São Paulo/ Washington
DC, Dec 15 2020 (IPS) – Few
images better illustrate the
recent decline in civil liberties
in the United States
than that of peaceful protesters
near the White House
being violently dispersed so
Donald Trump could stage a
photo-op.
Moments before the
president emerged from his
bunker on June 1 to hold
a bible outside a boardedup
church, federal officers
indiscriminately fired tear
gas at people who had gathered
in Lafayette Park to protest
about the police killing
of George Floyd. This was
far from an isolated incident:
nationwide protests against
systemic racism and police
brutality have been met with
widespread police violence.
Since May, the CIVICUS
Monitor, an online platform
that tracks fundamental
freedoms across 196 countries,
documented dozens of
incidents where law enforcement
officers, dressed in
riot gear and armed with
military grade-equipment,
responded to Black Lives
Matter protests with excessive
force. These include
officers driving vehicles at
crowds of protesters and firing
tear gas canisters and
other projectiles at unarmed
people, leaving at least 20
people partially blinded.
Throughout the year, journalists
and health workers,
clearly marked as such while
covering the protests, have
been harassed and assaulted.
In one incident caught on
live TV, a news reporter and
camera operator from Louisville,
Kentucky were shot
by police with pepper balls
while covering protests over
the police killing of Breona
Taylor.
This sustained repression
of protests and an increased
crackdown on fundamental
freedoms led to the USA’s
civic space rating being
downgraded from ‘narrowed’
to ‘obstructed’ in our new
report, People Power Under
Attack 2020.
This disproportionate
response by law enforcement
officers to protesters goes
beyond what is acceptable
practice when policing protests,
even during an emergency.
Under international
law, people have a right to
assemble freely. Any restrictions
to this right must be
proportionate and necessary
to address an emergency or
reestablish public order.
The systematic use of
excessive force and tactics
such as kettling and mass
arrests to enforce curfews
raise troubling questions
about the role of law enforcement
agencies in responding
to mass protests. The use of
such tactics is contradictory
to the alleged goal of maintaining
public safety and
health as they escalated tensions
and prevented people
from dispersing in a peaceful
manner.
Even more concerning,
they relocated protesters
from open, outdoor spaces
to police stations and other
indoor facilities that often
lack adequate space to allow
for distancing, placing people
at heightened risk for
exposure to COVID-19.
While recent brutality
against protests for racial
justice is concerning, the
decline in basic freedoms in
the USA began before this
crackdown. The repression
seen in 2020 was preceded
by a wave of legislation
limiting people’s rights to
protest.
In recent years, several
states enacted restrictive
laws which, for example,
criminalise protests near socalled
critical infrastructure
like oil pipelines, or limit
demonstrations on school
and university campuses.
Increased penalties for trespassing
and property damage
are designed to intimidate
and punish climate justice
activists and organisations
that speak out against
fossil fuels.
In the wake of Black Lives
Matter protests, some of
the ‘anti-protest’ bills introduced
this year seem particularly
cruel, for instance,
by proposing to make people
convicted of minor federal
offences during protests
ineligible for pandemic-related
unemployment benefits.
Growing disregard for
protest rights underscores
wider intolerance for dissent.
In parallel with restrictions
on the freedom of
peaceful assembly, the USA
also saw an increase in
attacks against the media,
even before Black Lives Matter
demonstrations erupted.
Over the past three years,
the CIVICUS Monitor has
documented the frequent
harassment of journalists
by the authorities and civilians
while covering political
rallies or when conducting
interviews.
Correspondents critical of
the Trump administration or
reporting on the humanitarian
crisis in the USA/Mexico
border region sometimes
faced retaliation; documents
obtained by ‘NBC 7 Investigates’
in 2019 showed the
US government created a
database of journalists who
covered the migrant caravan
and activists who were part
of it, in some cases placing
alerts on their passports.
By Caribbean Life
Moments after becoming the
first New Yorker to receive the
FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine
in front of a national audience just
before 9:30 a.m. Monday morning,
Queens health care worker
Sandra Lindsay said she felt good
— and hopeful for the future.
The vaccine, described by Governor
Andrew Cuomo as “the
weapon that will end the war”
against COVID-19, is finally making
the rounds through the health
care and nursing home communities.
The rest of us should be
able to get it in a few months, and
the end of this nightmare pandemic
will not be far behind.
But doubt over the vaccine,
and the science involved, remains
among too many Americans —
and Lindsey used her opportunity
to speak to the city, state
and country to deliver a simple
yet powerful message in her postvaccination
remarks.
“I believe in science. As a
nurse, my practice is guided by
science and so I trust that,” Lindsay
said. “What I don’t trust is
that, if I contract COVID, I don’t
know how it would impact me
or those who I come in contact
with, so I encourage everyone to
take the vaccine.”
For months during this pandemic,
Lindsey — as an intensive
care nurse at Northwell Health
— experienced the horrors of
COVID-19 firsthand, with patient
after patient arriving in the ward,
desperate for breath and life.
All the while, she and her colleagues
provide the best care they
could, with the best knowledge
available — while putting themselves
at the risk of COVID-19
infection themselves. They’ve
seen recoveries; they’ve seen tragic
losses.
Yet they persist and keep fighting
the fight few of us would dare
to encounter — their actions not
unlike a cop running toward an
armed gunman, or a firefighter
racing toward a burning building.
We owe it to the health care
professionals on the front lines,
as much as we owe it to ourselves
and the people we care about, to
do as Lindsay said: to “believe in
science” and get the COVID-19
vaccine when it’s finally available.
We cannot listen to the
untruths of anti-vaxxers. We cannot
fear the unknown regarding
possible side effects of the vaccine,
none of which have been
proven serious or long-lasting to
this point.
Let’s put an end to the massive
death and pain of COVID-19. Let’s
protect ourselves, our loved ones,
our health care heroes.
Let’s believe in science.
OP-EDS
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USA downgraded as civil liberties
deteriorate across the Americas
Believe in science,
take the vaccine
Nurse Sandra Lindsay is inoculated
with the COVID-19
vaccine by Dr. Michelle
Chester from Northwell
Health at Long Island Jewish
Medical Center in New Hyde
Park, New York, U.S., Dec. 14,
2020. Mark Lennihan/Pool via
REUTERS
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