The New York Five
Ivo Skoric
ivo at reporters.net
Mon Jul 15 05:56:38 CEST 2002
In former Yugoslavia we had momster processes like the Belgrade
6 or Ljubljana 4. Now in post-Yugoslav world we have citizens of
various former Yugoslav origins arrested together under the Patriot
Act: The New York 5.
Five people - including a B92 journalist on a tourist visa, a woman
performance artist from Belgrade, that used to come for counseling
to Raccoon, a straight edge kid who is here with dad and awaits a
green card, a U.S. citizen originally from Sarajevo, and a Croat
citizen with a pending asylum case, were arrested on
Tuesday/Wednesday night at 1 am in Brooklyn (on the shore of
East River with a view of Statue of Liberty) when three of them
jumped over a fence to shoot some video footage (two of them are
Hunter College film students). They jumped over the closed gate
(on which, however, was a sign "open for public" - NYPD said that
assumed when the gate was open...). NYPD made a heroic arrest,
seeing their car, brightly lit in the middle of the street, engine
running, without any pretense that they should be hiding and
offering no resistance. They busted them under The Patriot Act.
B92 journalist was 65 hours in detention with no bed, healthy meal,
shower or privacy. FBI aked them whether they fly airplanes, are
they Muslim, compared the sound of their names to the list of
Arabic names. The two most timid of them (B92 journalist and his
friend who awaits a green card through his father) who did not
jump, are so nervous and paranoid now, that I referred them for
counceling to Raccoon's counselor. Finally the FBI dropped the
charges of terrorism and now NYPD is just charging them with
criminal tresspassing, and three of them have a trial on 22nd in
Brooklyn. But two of those three DID not jump over the gate, and
the third is a U.S. citizen, originally from Sarajevo. The women and
the fifth guy - apparently a Croat citizen who is here in deportation
proccedings with asylum case pending for the past 8 years, works
as a bartender and studies film on Hunter - they are currently in
Newark immigration prison awaiting deportation. Women's visa was
expired (and as I remember, she was renewing tourist visa over and
over again). Apparently they are all a part of the network of people
who patronize Raccoon Space. So, we would like to help them.
They need a lawyer, fast. Their trial is on July 22 in Brooklyn
Criminal Court.
ivo
---------------------------------------------------------
Ivo Skoric
19 Baxter Street
Rutland VT 05701
802.775.7257
ivo at balkansnet.org
balkansnet.org
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