Keeping an eye on protesters International authorities are sharing
information -- not all of it accurate -- about anti-globalization activists.
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By Sarah Ferguson
Sept. 29, 2000 | On Sept. 17, 23-year-old Kay Morrison of Seattle was
standing on the platform at the Bad Schandau train station in Germany
waiting for the train to Prague. She planned to join some 12,000
demonstrators who sought to disrupt the 55th annual meeting of the IMF and
World Bank in Prague. Morrison says she was approached by Czech border
police, who scanned her passport with a handheld computer. She was taken by
train to another station, where police searched her belongings and informed
her she was on the list of "persona non grata" -- not welcome in Prague
this week "or in the future."
She made another failed attempt to enter the country. After further
inquiries, the Czech police announced on national television that Morrison
had committed a misdemeanor on a previous trip to the Czech Republic; she
had been fined for smoking a cigarette in the main train station. (It later
turned out that the "receipt" the police gave her was false and that they
overcharged her for the offense.) Though Czech authorities did not say so,
Morrison believes she was put on the list because of her arrest in Seattle
at last November's mass protests of the World Trade Organization.
Morrison is one of 300 activists barred from the Czech Republic in advance
of the so-called "S26" demonstrations. Another American, Lee Sestar of
Chicago, was told by customs officials at the Prague airport last Sunday
that he was also on the unwelcome list because he was arrested at the
Seattle protests. Sestar, who insists he was swept up with a group of
peaceful protesters, was eventually convicted of failure to disperse, a
misdemeanor offense. Charges against Morrison in Seattle were dropped. But
both were "persona non grata" in Prague last week.
Czech authorities have been praised for successfully containing violent
demonstrators who tossed Molotov cocktails and bricks at police and
delegates during the IMF/World Bank summit. But authorities' efforts to
prevent demonstrations by keeping demonstrators out of the country reflect
an approach to dealing with the global protest movement that does not bode
well for civil liberties.
Over the past month, Czech authorities have sought to bar hundreds from the
country. An American and three Dutch cooks with the vegetarian collective
Rampelpaln were kept out of the country, and a trainload of 1,000 Italian
anarchists affiliated with the militant Zapatista-support group Ya Basta!
was surrounded by riot police and held at the border until four group
members targeted by police agreed to get off.
Czech police, acting in concert with American and European police
officials, have tried to prevent known activists from entering the country.
Their most controversial means of doing so involves a list of activists
allegedly provided to Czech authorities by the FBI.
On Monday, a spokesperson for the FBI told Salon that he "had not heard" of
any FBI lists of activists or persons arrested in the U.S. being turned
over to Czech police. "I have no information on that matter, nor can I
confirm or deny published reports," FBI Special Agent Steven Berry said.
Reports of the list emerged after Czech officials discussed information
they had about unwelcome foreign activists with the press. Czech Republic
Chief of Police Jiri Kolar told Agence France Presse on September 15 that
authorities possessed lists of "undesirable individuals" who are "suspected
of abusing their stay to threaten state security, public order, or
undermine other protected interests." Czech Interior Minister Stanislov
Gross added that many are "under investigation for crimes committed during
violence in the United States," most notably during the anti-WTO
demonstrations in Seattle and the IMF/World Bank protests in Washington
last April.
According to the British newspaper the Guardian, Scotland Yard also
provided photographs and information on the alleged "ringleaders" of the
May Day demo in London this year, when numerous bank and store windows were
smashed and monuments desecrated.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Prague said Tuesday that
"inexperienced" public affairs officers with the Czech police had
mistakenly sourced the lists to the FBI. "There is no blacklist or
watchlist that the FBI gave to Czech police concerning American activists,"
U.S. press attaché Victoria Middleton told Salon. "Whatever lists [the
Czech police] have came from publicly available documents," she said.
Middleton acknowledged that FBI officials, as well as local and state
police from Seattle and other U.S. cities, "shared information with Czech
police officials" about the role of activists in previous mass
demonstrations, as did police from other European countries. But Middleton
added, "I have been assured by law enforcement officials at the highest
level that this information is in the public domain."
Full story at:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/09/29/surveillance/index.html
Louis Proyect
The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org
