Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn) Condemns Police Attacks on Journalists

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. Posted September 2, 2008.

Amy Goodman: Democratic Congress member Keith Ellison of Minnesota has been back in the Twin Cities this week closely monitoring the treatment of protesters and journalists at the RNC. He joins me now here.

Welcome to Democracy Now!

Rep. Keith Ellison: Glad to be here, Amy.

Amy Goodman: And thanks for helping out last night. It's a very serious situation, of course. Hundreds of people remain in jail. This rule of thirty-six hours, can you explain how it works?

Rep. Keith Ellison: Well, first of all, the thirty-six hours doesn't count weekends. And so, if you get --

Amy Goodman: Or Labor Day, which was yesterday.

Rep. Keith Ellison: Or a holiday. So if you get arrested, say, on a Friday night, you could be getting out -- hopefully, if you can -- maybe Wednesday midday. So it really is something that can take quite a bit of your freedom away.

Amy Goodman: You're -- in addition to being a Congress member, you're a lawyer?

Rep. Keith Ellison: For about sixteen years, I practiced law right here in the courts of Minneapolis-St. Paul and all over Minnesota.

Amy Goodman: It was Minneapolis police, by the way, who arrested us, even though we're here in St. Paul. Why is that?

Rep. Keith Ellison: Well, because they brought in probably a number of jurisdictions to help their complement of officers who would try to do policing activity here for the RNC. So I wouldn't be surprised if they have other jurisdictions besides Minneapolis. Might have a number of suburban districts and maybe even some from further away than that.

Amy Goodman: And, of course, National Guard.

Rep. Keith Ellison: Yeah, no doubt about that. Secret Service.

Amy Goodman: And is there a fusion center here in the Twin Cities?

Rep. Keith Ellison: You mean, a coordinating center? Yeah, I'm quite certain there is. I can't give you details on that, because, quite frankly, I thought that it was going to be a relatively routine situation. But when you see some of the footage that I saw, it was anything but routine. It looked quite extraordinary, to tell you the truth.

And when you hear about journalists getting arrested, it's very disturbing. I mean, the news gatherers -- how can the people know, if they don't have news gatherers to gather the news and show them? But when those folks are being intimidated and even roughed up, it's pretty -- it actually is a threat to democracy and the First Amendment.

Amy Goodman: Right, we don't know if the Associated Press photographers have gotten out, if the Pepper spray videographers have gotten out. Even the New York Post guy, we don't know what happened to him at this moment. And, of course, there are many, many people who are on the streets who get rounded up just by virtue of being there. When they move in with such a fast pincer move from all corners and surround a block -- this was basically a parking lot -- there is nowhere to go.

Rep. Keith Ellison: Right. There's nowhere to go. And, of course, they know that, as well. It's not like they haven't mapped out the whole area and don't know exactly what forces are moving in which directions. They do know. And, of course, it's pretty clear that Nicole and Sharif were making their status as press widely known, and it was easy to hear it; you know, clearly on the tape, it was easy to hear. So that's pretty disturbing to me, and I'm actually pretty upset about it.

Amy Goodman: So you weighed in last night as they were in jail. You called the police commissioner.

Rep. Keith Ellison: I called and let them -- just provided the information. You know, this is who you have. This is the deal, stuff like that. So, you know, I just think it's important to make sure that when journalists are trying to do their work, that they are allowed to do it.

Amy Goodman: This is only the second day, and, in fact, the Republican convention was not in even full gear because of Hurricane Gustav yesterday, though the protests in the streets were. You've got a number more days. What is the plan for the city?

Rep. Keith Ellison: Well, you know, that's what I'm trying to find out right now. I mean, before, quite frankly, I was perfectly content to allow the police to do the work they were doing, and I'm just going to go do the work I do. But now, I do have a new -- an urgent curiosity to find out what the plan is. When are massive uses of force going to be deployed? What circumstances will trigger them? Have we looked -- have we recognized the fact that we can actually cause more trouble than what would otherwise happen, when we bring forth this massive use of force as we saw on the tape? And so, I'm concerned about it. I think overreaction is as bad as under-reaction, and what I saw on that tape was pretty disturbing.

Amy Goodman: Congress member Ellison, you are the first Muslim member of the US Congress. The issue of Islam in this country has come to the fore with Barack Obama being -- there's no other way to say it but "accused" of being Muslim.

Rep. Keith Ellison: That's right.

Amy Goodman: So every time he has to simply say, "I'm not Muslim," deny being Muslim, it makes it sound like there's something wrong with being Muslim.

Rep. Keith Ellison: Yeah, right. Well, by the way, Amy, let me just say Ramadan Mubarak, which means blessed Ramadan. It's the second day of Ramadan, so just thought we'd get that out of the way.

See more stories tagged with: constitution, afghanistan, rnc, keith ellison, first amendment, amy goodman, barack obama, freedom of the press

Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program, Democracy Now!

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Rights and Liberties! Sign up now »