Wednesday, September 22, 2010

G20 Summit Protest Lawsuit

According to this report, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit alleging that police violated the civil rights of protesters at the G20 meetings in Pittsburgh.  Such lawsuits are commonly filed after large-scale protest events.  In many cases, municipalities have paid substantial settlements.  From the story:

The ACLU announced the lawsuit, Armstrong v. City of Pittsburgh, at a plaza near the University of Pittsburgh campus where the protest was staged on Sept. 25, 2009.


"When people see video of peaceful demonstrations in places like Russia and Iran where the police all of a sudden declare the assembly to be unlawful and then come in and arrest everybody ... we recoil in horror and say, 'It's just free speech, it's just peaceful demonstrations. Thank goodness that can't and doesn't happen in this country,'" Walczak [ACLU legal director in Pennsylvania] said.

"Well, I'm sorry to advise you that in fact it does happen in this country and it did happen in the city of Pittsburgh."




 

1 comment:

  1. The problem with the ACLU suit is it only is focusing on one mass-arrest and limiting the people who can get involved in this case to a handful. There are many people who still need to find there voice. How dose one go about finding representation on a case like this and what would they look for in there when interviewing there council prospects??

    ReplyDelete