permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

Claude Genest:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: police raid organizers of alternative ag conference
Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 10:48:51 -0400
From: Leigh Hauter <lh@pressroom.com>
Reply-To: Biodynamic Food and Farming Discussion <bdnow@envirolink.org>
To: Biodynamic Food and Farming Discussion <bdnow@envirolink.org>

The St. Louis police on Friday broke into, raided, trashed and
arrested people at the offices of the St. Louis Green Party, Indy
Media Center and several other buildings used to house people coming
to town to attend the 7th International Gathering on Biodevastation
Genetic Engineering and to protest the corporate gathering of the
World Agricultural Forum.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: update on St. Louis police
Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 18:06:14 -0400
From: Leigh Hauter <lh@pressroom.com>
Reply-To: Biodynamic Food and Farming Discussion <bdnow@envirolink.org>
To: Biodynamic Food and Farming Discussion <bdnow@envirolink.org>

PLEASE FORWARD TO ALL LISTS

St. Louis Arrests Update

Saturday, May 17, 2003, 1 pm –

A great big thank you to the activist universe! Police and media were
swamped with calls yesterday leading to the release of all arrestees. We
just did an interview with NBC demanding a full investigation into police
harassment and violation of people’s constitutional rights. The St. Louis
Post-Dispatch ran the story on the front page, and police are
back-pedalling as fast as they can.

Yesterday’s “weapons” that police claim they found among the gear in
various households have become a keystone cops routine. The roofing nails
were for the new roof that the Greens and IndyMedia were using on their new
roof (imagine!); the “metal torches” were jugglers’ props; the Molotov
cocktail that police made a big media splash with has suddenly dropped out
of the picture as we produced independent witnesses who saw police planting
it in the building after everyone was already handcuffed in the police
wagons.

We are calling for fingerprint experts to determine whose fingerprints are
on the alleged Molotov cocktail, that seems to have disappeared. We are
certain that only the police officer's will be on it.

The City Attorney now says that the law under which the bicyclists had been
arrested while en route to the biodevastation gathering against genetic
engineering – operating a bicycle without a “bicycle license” – no longer
exists and says in today’s papers that “It’s just a misunderstanding.”

Meanwhile the puppets for Sunday’s parade are still being detained. All of
the bicycle troupe’s food, wallets, personal supplies are still being held.
A group of nuns are attempting to force the City to release all personal
supplies and artistic material. Free the puppets!

Other good news: 72-year-old Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser, who had lost
two rounds in court (and over $200,000) to Monsanto, announced to the
BiodDevastation gathering that he had just won the right to appeal to the
Canadian Supreme Court, which will hear his case shortly. Percy – a
non-biotech canola grower and seed developer – found that his crop had been
contaminated by drift from Monsanto’s genetically engineered plantations,
but the judge held that it did not matter HOW his crop got contaminated,
Monsanto’s patent rights take legal precedence. Now, finally, the Supreme
Court in Canada will rule on the private patenting of living organisms, and
we expect a big breakthrough.

The conference itself has been a tremendous success. This morning was a
powerful panel on the development of genetically engineered bio-weapons,
Anthrax, and the like. Scary, well-documented. For more on that issue,
check out sunshineproject.org.

More later. Thank you all for your calls, and support!

Mitchel Cohen
www.greenparty.org

--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech