Zionists Out of the Peace Movement

On April 25, 2008, the Committee to Defend Catherine Wilkerson issued an "action alert" asking "supporters of free speech, Palestinian human rights, and Dr. Wilkerson to write to both Muzzlewatch and CODZ to ask them to alert their readers to the Zionist attack on Dr. Wilkerson and the campaign to have her rehired, including our online petition." Yesterday, they started a new petition campaign on the same subject. Here's the text:

To the Leaders of Muzzlewatch and the Committee for the Open Discussion of Zionism:

Both Muzzlewatch and the Committee for the Open Discussion of Zionism (CODZ) are efforts of national, if not international, scope ostensibly aimed at exposing and countering Zionist efforts to squelch criticism of Israel and Zionism. Muzzlewatch is a project of the Oakland, CA-based Jewish Voice for Peace and New York City-based CODZ was founded by Joel Kovel, Howard Zinn, and others in response to a Zionist-inspired attempt to stop US distribution of Kovel's book, Overcoming Zionism.

Yet, as of early May 2008, nearly three months after Catherine Wilkerson, MD, was fired for criticizing Israel and Zionism and for resisting a political gag clause in a proposed employment contract neither Muzzlewatch nor CODZ has had a word to say about it. This despite repeated requests and the fact that her criminal trial and acquittal on trumped-up charges stemming from a protest at an earlier Zionist event were covered in both the mainstream and alternative media. The dispute over Dr. Wilkerson's subsequent firing was also covered in the mainstream media and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan has now weighed-in, comparing the gag clause to McCarthy-era tactics and linking it to the "controversial speech of ... Catherine Wilkerson, about Israel and Palestine."

We, the undersigned supporters of free speech, Palestinian human rights, and Dr. Wilkerson urge the leaders of Muzzlewatch and CODZ to alert their readers and supporters to the Zionist attack on Dr. Wilkerson and to the campaign to have her rehired.

Notes: You can write to Muzzlewatch at board@jewishvoiceforpeace.org and write to CODZ at info@codz.org. The Committee to Defend Catherine Wilkerson will not share your e-mail address without your explicit permission. You do NOT have to make a donation to sign this petition and you cannot donate to the defense committee through this web site. To make a donation to the defense committee or to get more information, please go to defendwilkerson.org . If you sign the petition, you will be given the option of joining the Committee to Defend Catherine Wilkerson's e-mail announcement group. You can also add yourself to that list by sending an e-mail message to: DefendWilkerson-Announce-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Labels: Catherine Wilkerson, free speech, Zionism

On Sunday, February 10, 2008, Dr. Catherine Wilkerson was told not to come to work at the Packard Community Clinic anymore. She was not given any opportunity to discuss her departure with her patients. Dr. Wilkerson was fired for political activities outside of work on her personal time and for wanting to negotiate concerning contract terms that would have arbitrarily restricted those political activities. Today, Dr. Wilkerson is working with community members to try to convince the clinic's Governing Board to reinstate her and to stop the political targeting of her by Dr. Ray Rion and Kim Kratz. You are invited to attend a community gathering to meet and talk with Dr. Wilkerson and her supporters about her firing and what we can do about it. As Dr. Wilkerson likes to say, "An injury to one is an injury to all." For more information, call (734) 761-9901, go to defendwilkerson.org, or send e-mail to cwilkersonmd@sbcglobal.net

Labels: Catherine Wilkerson, resistance

2/12/08 Update: Support Grows for Physician Fired for Supporting Human Rights for Palestinians

On Saturday, February 9, the Committee to Defend Catherine Wilkerson (CDCW) issued an urgent action alert regarding the firing of Dr. Wilkerson by the Packard Community Clinic (PCC) of Ann Arbor, Michigan, for her support of human rights for Palestinians. We can report that many people have stepped up to show their solidarity and seek justice for Dr. Wilkerson. In retribution for this, on Sunday, February 10, Dr. Wilkerson was abruptly notified by the PCC management that all of her appointments with patients in the coming week would be reassigned to someone else and she was not to come into the office during business hours.

On the brighter side, in less than three days, the number of signatures on our online petition has gone from zero to more than 150 and in the wake of Dr. Wilkerson's firing two other members of the PCC clinical staff have resigned. Also, several people have informed us that they will be withholding donations to the PCC in protest over Dr. Wilkerson's firing. This includes one regular donor who makes an annual contribution of $5000 to the PCC. While neither Dr. Wilkerson nor the CDCW have encouraged the staff resignations or a funding boycott of the PCC we understand and appreciate these acts of solidarity. It is our earnest hope that the PCC Governing Board will act soon to overturn the decision of management to fire Dr. Wilkerson so everyone can go back to work practicing medicine and so donors can once again contribute to the PCC in good conscience.

If you have not already signed the online petition and written to the PCC Governing Board then please do so today (see more info below). Letters and faxes to the Governing Board are especially important. Also, if you personally know any of the PCC Governing Board or Advisory Board members listed below then please consider making a phone call to them to urge them to offer reinstatement to Dr Wilkerson and the two other clinical staff members who have resigned.

Governing Board
James Frenza, President, Retired Executive
Ray Rion, MD, Medical Director
Kimberly Kratz, MSW, MPH, Executive Director
Duane Newland, Treasurer, Retired Hospital Executive
Fran Lyman, Secretary, Retired Educator
Jerry Walden, MD, Retired Physician/ Founder
Sharon Moore, Retired UAW Official
Jeffrey Sanfield, MD, Physician
Mary Hunter, Nurse
James F. Peggs, MD, Physician
Tom Rieke, Marketing Business Owner
J Paul Dixon, Insurance Executive
Robert Laverty, Retired Hospital Executive
Kim D. Walsh, Alzheimers Association Program Director
Sarah Williams, Lawyer
Bettye Mcdonald, Retired Educator

Advisory Board
Gina Amalfitano, MD
Laverne Jackson Barker
Bonnie Billups, Jr.
Letitia Byrd
Cassie Cammann, MSW
Angelos Constantinides, DO
Molly Dobson
James Dolan
Eugene V. Douvan
Thomas Fleming
Gregory Fox
Carl E. Gingles, DDS
Vicky I. Henry
Rev. Judy Jahnke
Natalie Kellogg
Manfred Marcus, MD
John Martin
Elizabeth Michael
Rev. Kenneth Phifer
James Saalberg
Clifford Sheldon
Alma Walls

Contact the PCC Governing Board

Please contact the Governing Board as soon as possible. A written letter is considered one of the most effective forms of advocacy. You can mail one to the address in the sample letter below and/or send a fax to the Governing Board at (734) 971-8545. You may also leave a phone message at (734) 971-1073 or send an e-mail to info@packardclinic.org. Second, please sign our online petition, which you can find at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/keepwilkerson/ .

Sample Letter to the Packard Community Clinic Governing Board

Your Address
Your City, State, Zip

Today's Date

Board of Directors
Packard Community Clinic
3174 Packard Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48108

Dear Members of the Governing Board of the Packard Community Clinic:

I am writing to urge you to stop the termination proceedings against Dr. Catherine Wilkerson, MD and, further, to stop the harassment of Dr. Wilkerson by Packard Community Clinic (PCC) Medical Director Ray Rion and Executive Director Kimberly Kratz. It was known when she was hired that Dr. Wilkerson was politically active. Her profile on the clinic web site notes: "she is particularly interested in social and economic determinants of health, gender issues in medicine, and medical ethics. She has been an activist involved in a number of issues related to public health, including the health effects of war and nuclear weapons, and universal health care." The only thing that has changed is that she is now--after successfully fending off a malicious criminal prosecution--being targeted for, on her own time and in her own name only, criticizing racism in the local Jewish community in its support for the apartheid state of Israel. Dr. Wilkerson is the senior and most experienced physician at the PCC and beloved by many of her patients. No good purpose can be served by depriving them of the compassionate care provided by this conscientious physician simply because she has nonviolently exercised her First Amendment rights to speak out against all forms of racism. Please keep Dr. Wilkerson on the staff of the PCC and stop the political harassment of her by PCC management.

Sincerely,

Your Signature

Your Name

Labels: Catherine Wilkerson, Zionism

Please take action today to help Dr. Catherine Wilkerson fight the Zionist onslaught in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Below is an urgent action alert from the defendwilkerson.org web site. I know Dr. Wilkerson and she is a fine person who deserves our full support.

Labels: Beth Israel, Catherine Wilkerson, free speech, Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends, Zionism

Yesterday, in a snub to University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman and Washtenaw County Prosecutor Brian Mackie, Catherine Wilkerson, MD, was acquitted by a jury of both counts of the charges against her. See the web site of the Committee to Defend Catherine Wilkerson and "Jackboot State Stubs Its Toe in Ann Arbor: Wilkerson Acquitted" by Alexander Cockburn for more information.

Labels: Catherine Wilkerson, civil liberties, police repression, Raymond Tanter, University of Michigan

Jo Collins Mathis' article--"Local doctor's trial opens"--in Wednesday's edition of the Ann Arbor News is more than marginally better than the reports of her colleagues, Dave Gershman and Tom Gantert. For one thing, she gets the charges right: "attempting to impede police and emergency medical technicians." Still, there are problems with her reporting.

For instance, as she notes, the defense also gave their opening statement on Tuesday. So why does Mathis open her article with the prosecution argument? If she had wanted to hew closer to the line of 'journalistic objectivity' then she might have opened with a more neutral paragraph.

It's too bad also that she didn't report on the expert witness testimony of Dr. Bryan Bledsoe, DO, FACEP, EMT-P. Bledsoe is no Leftist "hippie", he is a co-chair of the Curriculum and Education Board for the United States Special Operations Command at MacDill AFB, FL, and an expert in emergency medicine who started out as an EMT, only later going to college and medical school. In his testimony, he completely supported Dr. Wilkerson's actions on 11/30/06 and criticized the use of ammonia but readers of the Ann Arbor News will probably never learn that.

Mathis reports, "Jeffrey Green, student building manager of the Michigan League, confirmed the prosecution's assertion that Wilkerson was inciting the crowd ..." It's too bad that Mathis chose not to quote Green. What he said was that Dr. Wilkerson incited the crowd "to remember and to record." But, alas, neither of these is illegal or as sexy as leaving readers with the false impression that the witness testified that Dr. Wilkerson was trying to incite a riot.

The News continues to soft-sell Tanter. It would be fair enough if they just left him out altogether but they continue to portray him as a fairly benign figure: "The protesters had come to the Michigan League to oppose Raymond Tanter, a professor emeritus at U-M who served on the senior staff of the National Security Council during the Reagan administration."

According to his own book, Rogue Regimes, Tanter came to the Reagan campaign via Kenneth Wollack and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and was present at the hatching of the illegal arms deal that became the Iran-Contra conspiracy, which he did not object to or report. In October, 2002, Tanter told the Michigan Daily that the coming US invasion of Iraq would be " 'an antidote' and that there would be no backlash. 'Arab people won't go crazy, Muslim people won't go crazy. They'll roll over ... ' " Vanity Fair reported that in a speech at the National Press Club in late 2005: "Tanter went as far as to suggest that the U.S. consider using tactical nuclear weapons against Iran." During his 2006 UM presentation, Tanter advocated reversing the State Department's designation of Mujahedeen-e Khalq as a "foreign terrorist organization" so that they could receive funding to expand their terror campaign in Iran and bring about a "civil war."

If it is relevant that the patient whose care Dr. Wilkerson was overseeing "regularly protests on behalf of the Palestinian cause" then why aren't the reasons people came out to protest Tanter relevant? No would one would have protested if he just been ex-professor who had served in the Reagan administration. It is his consistent advocacy for war and violence by the US and in the service of a foreign country--Israel--that provoked the protest.

Labels: Catherine Wilkerson, civil liberties, police repression, Raymond Tanter, University of Michigan

The Ann Arbor News and the Michigan Daily both covered the Wilkerson trial today. Below find excerpts from the article in italics with my (PM) remarks interspersed.

Jury to decide: Did doctor act properly or interfere at protest?
Police ordered physician to step away from scene
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
BY TOM GANTERT
The Ann Arbor News

Opening arguments were to begin this morning in the case against a local physician who faces two misdemeanor criminal charges accusing her of interfering with police and paramedics at the scene of a protest.

PM: Actually, she is accused of attempting to interfere. This is no fine point but it is, apparently, too subtle for Ann Arbor News reporters who have botched it twice, now. The crime actually interfering with police is a felony and it is telling that the prosecution did not charge Dr. Wilkerson with actually doing what they say she attempted to do.

The man showed up to protest a guest lecturer, who discussed relations between the United States and Iran.

PM: Yeah, and Colin Powell was just discussing relations between the United States and Iraq when he gave his now infamous speech at the UN on February 5, 2003. In fact, the "guest lecturer," Ray Tanter, openly argued for, among other things, the US to help foment civil war in Iran.

The protester, Blaine Coleman, appeared to have fainted and was being treated by paramedics when Wilkerson, who was also involved in the protest, tried to intervene.

PM: Yesterday, Dave Gershman said he "appeared to fall unconscious." Tomorrow, expect Gantert to tell us "Coleman seemed a little drowsy." According to UM Officer West's report, West and UM Sgt. Connors "took him to the ground." I saw Coleman then and he was still conscious with two hefty cops on him as he lay face-down on the floor. He said "I can't breathe" and then lost consciousness.

Gantert, it should be noted, is not an uninterested observer. On December 12, 2006, on the front page of the local news section of the Ann Arbor News Gantert wrote an article, "Palestinian advocate's behavior at meetings spinning out of control," in which he called Coleman "a buffoon" and a "hate-monger" who "needs to be shut down." Truth be told, Gantert is so biased against Coleman that he shouldn't be covering any story related to him.

Wilkerson also has said the charges are politically motivated and only came after she filed a police brutality complaint - allegations denied by the county prosecutor's office.

PM: According to a letter from AAPD Lieutenant Mark St. Amour dated January 17, 2007, Dr. Wilkerson filed her complaint (#07-008) on January 16, 2007. According to the criminal complaint filed by the prosecutor the warrant was authorized against Dr. Wilkerson on January 23, 2007. These are public records but, apparently, the reporters at the Ann Arbor News are too lazy or complacent to walk the one block from their office to the police station or the two blocks to the county courthouse to do the research on their own.

As bad as the Ann Arbor News' coverage has been it almost looks as though it was written by fair-minded critical thinkers when compared to "Trial starts for woman charged after '06 talk" by Julie Rowe of the Michigan Daily. This is no mean feat. Rowe writes:

A trial is set to begin today for an Ann Arbor doctor charged with impeding police and emergency medical technicians after an incident last year in which protesters were arrested after disrupting a lecture in the Michigan League.

PM: See above re: the charges.

Protesters chanted "Hands off Iran" and "Tanter is a pig". Tanter said he abandoned his planned remarks in response to the interruptions and instead answered questions from audience members and protesters.

PM: I passed the protesters on the way into the room where I arrived ten minutes before Tanter began his program. At no time, did I hear anyone chant or say "Hands off Iran" and "Tanter is a pig". The latter is not even plausible for a chant outside that I may have missed although the former is. In any case, Rowe reports this as fact, it is not. Tanter departed from his planned PowerPoint presentation because neither he nor his hosts could get his computer to work.

The protesters were accusing Tanter of being a supporter of unjustified military action in Iran and the Middle East.

PM: Tanter stands condemned by his own words and any impartial person who undertakes to read a representative sample of them will see that he has long been an advocate of war and civil war in the Middle East.

Wilkerson is charged with two misdemeanors charges for attempting to assault, obstruct or resist a police officer and an emergency medical technician.

PM: Kudos for getting it right here.

According to the Diane Brown, Department of Public Safety spokeswoman, several warnings were issued to the protesters that their interruptions violated the University's policies for protest during a speech.

PM: The interruptions did not violate the policy but the police crackdown clearly did. As a local attorney related to me, the truth is that most cops and administrators probably disliked Lee Bollinger's free speech policy from the beginning. They clearly violated it last year.

"No matter how controversial a speaker is, that speaker needs to be able to speak. That's the whole point of freedom of speech," Brown said. "You can't just say 'I don't like what they've got to say.' They must be able to hold their event."

PM: Tanter was never prevented from making his presentation, except, perhaps, by technical problems. So, he winged it.

After American Movement for Israel Chair Josh Berman and other organizers issued three warnings to protesters, DPS officers attempted to remove one of the female protesters. Coleman attempted to prevent the officers from removing her. Both responded to DPS attempts to remove them by going limp.

PM: Again, Rowe simply parrots the University's and AMI's version of events. Speaking as a witness and one who did not protest that night: They did not go limp. They were both taken to the floor by police.

Brown told The Michigan Daily after the incident that this is a tactic used frequently by protesters.

PM: Brown also said only a doctor at the scene could determine if Coleman was actually unconscious and, unfortunately for partisans of the official story there happened to be a physician right there and then who has said he was unconscious. Now, in true Orwellian fashion they are trying to change the truth by turning that doctor into a criminal--a thought criminal inasmuch as she is not charged with actually doing anything, just attempting.

Though Brown would not specifically name Coleman, she disputed the claim that the man lying on the ground was badly hurt.

"One of the people who claimed he was hurt during this whole thing was supposedly laying on the ground receiving medical attention," she said. "But periodically his eye would open up."

PM: There was only one man on the floor that night and Brown wasn't there. The University Hospital emergency room report says he suffered a brain contusion and that's why the prosecution has fought like hell to exclude as evidence the medical records from that night but don't expect to read about that in News or the Daily (or Arbor Update, either).

After paramedics arrived, police removed Coleman's handcuffs and attempted to revive him. One tactic they tried was the use of ammonia inhalants.

PM: If he wasn't unconscious or badly hurt then why did he need to be revived?

In the article, Wilkerson said that she then told the paramedic: "What you're doing is punitive and has no efficacy."

PM: Actually, here is what Wilkerson said:

When the patient didn't respond to a sternal rub, one of the paramedics popped an ammonia inhalant and thrust it beneath the patient's nostrils. If you're interested in what's wrong with that, google Dr. Bryan Bledsoe, foremost authority on paramedicine, and read his article condemning this dangerous practice. That it's "just bad medicine" is sufficient to make the paramedic's actions unacceptable, but what happened next made my blood curdle. He popped a second inhalant and a third, then cupped his hands over the patient's nostrils to heighten the noxious effect. "You don't like that, do you?" he said.

At that point I issued a direct medical order for him to stop, but he ignored me. "What you're doing is punitive," I said, "and has no efficacy." Then as the patient retched, rather than rolling him onto his side to avoid the chance of his choking on his own vomit, a firefighter held his feet down and yelled, "don't spit." In thirty years of doctoring, I have never witnessed such egregious maltreatment of a patient. Again I spoke up, "this is punitive." I hoped to shame the paramedical into stopping his unethical behavior.

Labels: Catherine Wilkerson, civil liberties, police repression, Raymond Tanter, University of Michigan

Note: This post responds to an earlier version of the blog post by Dave Gershman. That article has been removed and this post now links to the "updated" article.

The Ann Arbor News has published online an article about the trial of Catherine Wilkerson, MD, which starts today, by Dave Gershman entitled "Trial to start for doctor arrested [sic] at protest police". Below find excerpts from the article in italics with my (PM) remarks interspersed.

After police removed one of the protesters, Blaine Coleman, and escorted him outside the room for repeatedly disrupting the lecture, Coleman complained he couldn't breathe and appeared to fall unconscious.

PM: Coleman was not "escorted outside the room," he was outside the room when police attacked to eject/arrest an Iranian woman, who was exercising her First Amendment rights under the University of Michigan's guidelines for "Freedom of Speech and Artistic Expression." He came to the woman's assistance in the room and later in the hallway. It was in the hallway that UM police Officer West and Sgt. Connors "took him to the ground," as West's report indicates. I saw Coleman and he was still conscious then but thereafter had two hefty cops on him as he lay face-down on the floor. He said "I can't breathe" just before he lost consciousness.

A police report in the case said Wilkerson was "verbally abusive" to the police and paramedics who treated Coleman. The report stated she ... tried to push past a police officer to talk to Coleman and the paramedics. She also tried to incite a crowd, the police report stated.

PM: I didn't know verbally abusing police was a crime. In any case, there was no "verbal abuse" except telling them what to do so that they would not kill or seriously injure an unconscious man and no profanity or anything that a reasonable person would consider verbal abuse is alleged in the reports.

How does one try to "push past a police officer"? If she pushed him but failed to get past him then that would not be an attempted assault on the police officer but would be an actual assault. But Wilkerson is not charged with doing anything except attempting to assault, resist, or obstruct. These charges are almost Orwellian--"Well, you didn't actually obstruct or resist but ya tried."

As for inciting the crowd, the report of Ann Arbor Officer Kevin Warner is the only one that makes any such reference and it does not use the word "incite." The report claims, "she proceeded to elicit assistance from people in the crowd to assist her stepping forward to question the methods being utilized by medical personnel." I know "incite" is a more exciting verb but it is not supported by the police record.

The reports also make clear that supervisors from both the UM and Ann Arbor Police departments cleared Wilkerson for release after she had been forcibly detained but never handcuffed or required to produce identification. Warner's report says, "... it was determined by Sgt. CONNORS that an arrest of subject one would not be required reference this incident."

Wilkerson ... said she identified herself as a doctor ...

PM: Two, maybe three, of the police reports say the same thing and they also show that she was allowed by police to examine the man and interacted professionally with emergency medical technicans. That ended when the Huron Valley Ambulance supervisor decided to use ammonia on the unconscious man in a dangerous, inefficacious, punitive, and unprofessional manner. Dr. Wilkerson spoke out against this and shortly thereafter was attacked by Officer Warner.

She has said the charges were in retaliation for a complaint she filed with the Ann Arbor Police Department alleging police brutality.

PM: She has said that she was not charged until after she filed her brutality complaint and this is completely accurate. She informally and publicly complained about police actions towards the injured man and other protesters weeks before she filed her formal complaint. The charges were authorized against her by Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Susan Junck (Junck is mentioned in three earlier posts on this blog in connection with the Avny case) on January 23, 2007, seven days after she filed her formal complaint. The retaliation was, apparently, driven by all of her First Amendment-protected free speech.

Police investigated her complaint but found no wrongdoing.

PM: Now, there's a surprise: A cop finding a cop innocent of wrongdoing against unarmed civilians. That almost never happens, right? Maybe, it's way past time for a civilian-run police review board with real authority in Ann Arbor.

Tanter ... was invited by a U-M student group and gave a talk called "Stalled international diplomacy and problematic U.S. military options for Iran."

PM: Tanter was invited by the American Movement for Israel. He is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Iran-Contra scandal (see his book Rogue Regimes) and has reportedly advocated a nuclear first strike against Iran. On the night he was at U-M he advocated funding for the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, which is designated by the US State Dept. as a "foreign terrorist organization." He also supported the illegal and unconstitutional US invasion of Iraq in 2003 which he predicted would be a cake walk.

Update and correction: Dave Gershman's story on the trial--"Jury must decide intent"--appeared on p. A3 of Monday's Ann Arbor News. The story is slightly different from the version that appeared earlier on the newspaper's blog. Contrary to what I wrote above at about 3 AM yesterday morning, Officer Warner's report does say: "... it was apparent to Reporting officer that subject number one was attempting to insight [sic] other parties who were present in the crowd."

See also: "A Pandemic of Police Brutality" by Paul Craig Roberts

Last revised: 11/27/2007

Labels: Catherine Wilkerson, civil liberties, police repression, Raymond Tanter, University of Michigan

The press release below comes from the Committee to Defend Catherine Wilkerson. Click here for earlier posts mentioning this story.

Trial Begins Monday for Ann Arbor Doctor Who Criticized Police, EMT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 22, 2007
Contact: Aimee Smith, (734) 761-9901

ANN ARBOR, MI – The trial of Ann Arbor physician Catherine Wilkerson is scheduled to begin on Monday, November 26, 2007, at 1 PM in the courtroom of 15th District Court Judge Elizabeth Pollard-Hines. The trial is scheduled to continue on the 27th, 28th and 30th at 8:30 AM every day. Dr. Wilkerson is charged with two counts of allegedly attempting to "assault/resist/obstruct" police and ambulance personnel. If convicted on either count, Dr. Wilkerson faces up to a year in jail, fines, and being compelled to submit a DNA sample.

The charges stem from an incident on the campus of the University of Michigan (UM), Ann Arbor, on November 30, 2006, where Dr. Wilkerson gave directions to police and Huron Valley Ambulance personnel concerning the care and well-being of a man rendered unconscious by police. Police reports show that Dr. Wilkerson was allowed by police to examine the unconscious man. But when an ambulance supervisor used ammonia on the man in a dangerous, inefficacious, and punitive manner she spoke out not once but twice and, for her efforts, was told to leave by police. As she was complying, she was attacked and then detained by a police officer. Senior police officers on the scene determined there were no grounds for arresting her and Wilkerson was released without having been handcuffed or required to produce identification.

However, nearly two months after the incident and just seven days after she filed a police brutality complaint, she was charged by Washtenaw County Prosecutor Brian Mackie's office, at the apparent request of the UM police, with two attempted felonies. On November 20, 2007, just three business days before trial is scheduled to begin and nearly a year after the incident Prosecutor Mackie's office filed a motion to add two new counts to the charges Dr. Wilkerson is facing. In a written response filed with the court, Wilkerson's attorneys, Hugh "Buck" Davis and Wilson P. Tanner, said, "This motion is suggestive of bad faith and 'piling on' for political reasons."

The Committee to Defend Catherine Wilkerson argues that no good purpose can be served by prosecuting a medical doctor for merely doing her duty and nonviolently exercising her First Amendment rights. On Tuesday, November 20, 2007, members of the Committee to Defend Catherine Wilkerson hand-delivered petitions to Washtenaw County Prosecutor Brian Mackie and UM President Mary Sue Coleman bearing the names of more than 3,500 people who want them to stop this politically-driven prosecution and drop the charges now

The Committee to Defend Catherine Wilkerson's web site is defendwilkerson.org The Committee's work is supported by the National Lawyers Guild, Detroit & Michigan Chapter; Council on American Islamic Relations, Michigan Chapter; Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality; Huron Valley Greens; Green Party of Michigan; Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice; Gray Panthers of Huron Valley; Bolivarian Youth (Miami); and, the Broward (FL) AntiWar Coalition.

Labels: Catherine Wilkerson, civil liberties, police repression, Raymond Tanter, University of Michigan

In a previous post, I mentioned the "trumped up charges against Catherine Wilkerson, MD." Her defense committee now has a petition online and I encourage everyone to sign it and spread the word to friends and allies, especially to folks who live in Washtenaw County, MI. To go to the petition, click here.

Labels: anti-Zionism, Catherine Wilkerson, police repression, Raymond Tanter

In December of last year, I wrote "Beth Israel Attackers Identified; One Charged". The post was about Eli Avny and Abraham Seligman, who, in separate incidents, assaulted people protesting at the Beth Israel Congregation. As I wrote then, "After a thorough and professional investigation, the Ann Arbor Police Department (AAPD) recommended that Avny be charged with Assault with a Dangerous Weapon but Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Susan Junck of the Washtenaw County Prosecutor's office refused to authorize the charge." Incidentally, court records* show an Eli Avny was previously charged in Ann Arbor with some non-traffic infraction.

As another aside, Susan Junck is the same person who did authorize the totally bogus, trumped up charges against Catherine Wilkerson, MD. You can visit the web site of her defense committee at defendwilkerson.org. I also wrote about the incident that led to her being charged in the following posts:

• Police Brutalize Nonviolent Protesters at University of Michigan
(video link here)
• UM Police Brutality Update
• Another Article on Police Repression at UM; Prof. Babayan Replies
• Campus Watch Targets Kathryn Babayan
• Scenes from a Cop Riot

But back to Abraham Seligman. Here is an excerpt from what I originally wrote:

Less than a month after the Avny incident, another assault was committed against a member of Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends (JWPF). At right is the scanned image (click to enlarge) of the criminal complaint against Abraham Seligman of South Euclid , OH, for assault and battery. Seligman was in town to attend a bat mitzvah. Seligman had just returned from Israel--where they know how to take care of protesters--and, according to the "Incident Report Narrative," Seligman told police, "he could not believe people were allowed to stand around and behave as 'these folks are.' "

When the officers failed to behave like Israeli storm troopers Seligman, apparently, decided to take matters into his own hands and walked across the street to assault, in full view of police, a JWPF member who was videotaping him (I've seen the videotape of this incident and I hope to get it uploaded to the internet soon). Contrary to the claims of Helen Aminoff in her letter to the Ann Arbor News (11/16/2006), Seligman was not "entering a house of worship" when he committed his assault and battery against a nonviolent protester.

The video camera was present to deter BIC members and guests from cursing, assaulting, and spitting on JWPF protesters. Two witnesses told police that, before striking him, Seligman told his victim that he "was lucky the police are here because if they were not ..." According to the police report, officers heard Seligman tell his victim that "his mother is a mother of Hitler." Another witness said that before the incident Seligman told her "she needed to get her coffin ready ..."

When he was arrested, Seligman was miffed, "Officer, I don't understand what you need my name for" and then told officers they hadn't just seen what they had just seen: "I didn't hit the guy ... I didn't do anything." This, friends, is the arrogance of power and privilege speaking. The Jewish state and its supporters have gotten away with murder--literally--for so long that they sometimes think they can act with impunity in this country, too. Unfortunately, the Avny case suggests they may have some reason for believing this.

At long last, I have finally found out what happened to old Abe. According to the court records,* Seligman was arraigned on January 8, 2007, and "stood mute." The prosecution, City Attorney Stephen Postema, was so disoriented by this stunning and novel legal manuever that he moved to dismiss the charges at the pre-trial hearing in March.

Now, I've worked in law enforcement at the federal and local levels and it is customary in such cases to, at the least, charge the defendant for court costs but the record shows that Abe Seligman walked away without ever paying the court anything for what he did. This just goes to show you that while crime may not pay, in Ann Arbor it probably won't cost you anything, either, if you're a Zionist assaulting anti-Zionists.

* If necessary, select "ANNARBOR" and then enter last name in the form on the following page.

See also:

• Assault at Beth Israel Congregation
• More Violence Against anti-Zionist Dissidents
• Beth Israel Attackers Identified; One Charged
• Eli Avny Update

Labels: Beth Israel, Catherine Wilkerson, Jewish violence, Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends, Zionism

Ann Arbor physician and a friend of this blogger, Dr. Catherine Wilkerson, has a new article out in CounterPunch entitled "Don't Come to Ann Arbor." The article is her eyewitness account of the violent repression of free speech at the University of Michigan last November. Elsewhere on this blog there is a video link and four posts on about those events (see links below). I've also taken the liberty of providing a couple of links related to Dr. Wilkerson's article.

It is clearly the case that the prosecution by Washtenaw County Prosecutor Brian Mackie's office of at least three of the anti-Zionist defendants--including Dr. Wilkerson--is purely politically-driven. Meanwhile, Mackie's office declined to bring charges against Beth Israel Congregation member Eli Avny despite the Ann Arbor Police Department's recommendation that Avny be charged with Assault with a Dangerous Weapon. Funny how that works.

See also:

• Police Brutalize Nonviolent Protesters at University of Michigan
(video link here)
• UM Police Brutality Update
• Another Article on Police Repression at UM; Prof. Babayan Replies
• Campus Watch Targets Kathryn Babayan
• International Relations Center's profile of Tanter featuring his opinion on the use of "the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator."
• "This procedure stinks: the hazards of ammonia inhalant use" by Dr. Bryan E. Bledsoe

Labels: Catherine Wilkerson, free speech, Raymond Tanter, University of Michigan, Zionism

On December 4th the Michigan Daily published an article on the protest and subsequent police repression and brutality that occurred last Thursday at the University of Michigan. Of course, author Kelly Fraser did not characterize the events that way and her article is only slightly better than the misleading and inaccurate article published earlier in the Ann Arbor News. Fraser contacted me by telephone while writing the article and I spoke at length with her about some of the issues discussed below.

According to the Daily article, "The protesters were chanting things like 'Hands off Iran' and 'Tanter is a pig,' Tanter said." This is untrue, at no point were protesters chanting "Tanter is a pig" or anything like that. Furthermore, all of the chanting occurred before Tanter began his presentation, which was long-delayed because the organizers could not get the computer for his Power Point presentation working. I specifically mentioned this to Fraser.

Fraser also reports, "Tanter said he was not advocating that the United States use military force against Iran ..." This is misleading, at best, Tanter is advocating that the US facilitate covert military operations against Iran, conducted by the Mujahedeen-e Khalq with the expectation, as he told Ha'aretz, that this will lead to "civil war" in Iran. I specifically mentioned the Mujahedeen-e Khalq and the Ha'aretz article to Fraser.

Fraser writes, "Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Diane Brown said Michigan League staff made the first call to DPS because protesters were blocking the building's entrances well before the event was scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m." When I arrived at the League the protesters were present outside but at no time in my presence did they block the entrance and stayed I there for several minutes talking to some of them.

To her credit, Fraser does note that "Heckling is accepted under the [University's Standard Practice Guide for Freedom of Speech and Artistic Expression], but the interruptions cannot block the speaker's communication with the crowd." As I told Fraser, the protesters did not violate the guidelines at any time.

The article also states:

Catherine Wikinson [sic], an Ann Arbor resident who said she came to support friends who were protesting, said Coleman was unconscious.

Brown said this could have been part of Coleman's strategy.

"Portraying unconsciousness is part of a protest strategy and up to a medical physician to decide," she said.

It just so happens that Catherine Wilkerson is a medical doctor, something Fraser knew but failed to report. I gave Fraser's phone number to Dr. Wilkerson and that is how she came to interview her. It is interesting that UM spinmeister Brown, presumably not a physician, feels qualified to assert that "Portraying unconsciousness is part of a protest strategy ..."

Finally, the Daily reports:

Tanter has e-mailed members of the University's Board of Regents about Prof. Kathryn Babayan's alleged involvement in the protest.

Babayan is an assistant professor of Iranian history and culture in the Department of Near Eastern Studies. Tanter said that while Babayan has a right to participate in the discussions, she also has an obligation as a faculty member to not assist groups that interfere with free speech.

Tanter suggested the regents and the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, which addresses faculty issues at the University, consider the issue of a faculty member's role in disruptive demonstrations during academic events.

Babayan did not return calls asking for comment yesterday.

This has all the hallmarks of academic intimidation on Tanter's part. First, there was no formal protest group for Professor Babayan to assist but I'll let her speak in her own words, below is her letter to the Daily and the News.

The following constitutes my response to the recent accounts given by the UM student organization The American Movement for Israel (AMI), Guest Speaker Professor Raymond Tanter, and Senior Information Officer Diane Brown, of the Office of the Associate Vice President for Facilities and Operations, as they were reported in the Ann Arbor News (Dec. 2nd, 2006) and the Michigan Daily (Dec. 4th, 2006).

The rights of the speaker Professor Tanter to lecture on Thursday, November 30th, were not abused as has been claimed by him, AMI, and others. Certainly the AMI's own video recording of the event has documented the facts: he gave his ten-minute threadbare speech on the "Islamic fascist ideology of Iran," and then took questions, and comments from audience members, though mockingly and condescendingly.

It was in fact the rights and personal security of dissenting audience members that were egregiously abused that evening. According to the university's policies on the freedom of speech and artistic expression, event organizers, guest speakers, and campus police cannot determine at will or arbitrarily what constitutes "undue interference" at university public events attended by diverse and, at times, contrary political opinions. According to the University of Michigan's standard guidelines (which I encourage all readers to learn at: www.spg.umich.edu), "protesters have rights, just as do speakers and artists. The standard of "undue interference" must not be invoked lightly, merely to avoid brief interruptions, or to remove distractions or embarrassment." But that was exactly what happened: the standard of "undue interference" was abused and wantonly invoked to lead to our removal from the event. AMI organizers "sicked" the campus police on the protesters in the audience and, by force of arrest, silenced our voices, which are institutionally protected within the university community "spectrum of opinion."

As if this weren't enough violation of university policies, what ensued was excessive and abusive use of force by campus police officers against the protesters. Targeting the most vocal, "foreign-looking," and obviously Middle Eastern protester, AMI Chair Josh Berman gave the word and signal to the campus officers to remove her. At that, one Officer [name redacted at author's request] lunged at her, grabbed her out of her seat next to mine, and tried to shove her out of the room. But because of the force behind the pull, she tripped, and fell onto the narrow aisle at my feet. Officer West threw his body onto her and thrust his knee into her shoulder, shouting "Get up! Get up!" though it was clear that, due to his weight and sheer force, she had been rendered unable to move or rise. When I and other audience members objected vocally to the officers' undue and excessive use of force, he and other campus police officers warned us that, if we did not desist from our objections, we too would be arrested. These threats and intimidations represent another flagrant example of campus authorities' suppression of the legitimate exercise of freedom of speech.

Campus police's violence against ordinary citizens was not isolated to this one incident. When a group of us pursued down the hallway the officers who had hauled away the female protester, we saw lying on the floor there, with a bloodied forehead, another protester. He had been removed from the event venue by officers, handcuffed, and kept on his back. Despite the protests by demonstrator and physician Dr. Willkinson [sic] for medically humane treatment of the unconscious man, Officer West ignored her and defiantly repeated, "They are not coming off."

The institutional parties who have acted badly in this affair are numerous. One is Diane Brown, whose statements in the two afore-mentioned newspapers support and protect the police's and AMI's decisions and behavior. In unquestioningly supporting the misactions and misdeeds of both the student organization and the campus police, and in concluding that "what happened" that evening justified their responses, and that, hence, these responses do not constitute abuse of power and negligence of obligations toward all participants, including protesters, Ms. Brown has failed her institutional responsibility and duties.

The one beacon of light in the midst of this dark intolerance was one young man who did the right thing: out of the crowd he appeared and held the hand of the female victim while she was being pinned down by Officer West and a female officer. This young man remained by the protester's side throughout her detainment by the police. He recognized that it behooved everyone to protect the rights of all participatants' [sic] to free expression, particularly when that expression is considered onerous. This young man rose as the sole conscientious citizen in that crowd and I salute him.

Kathryn Babayan
Associate Professor of Iranian History & Culture
Department of Near Eastern Studies

Thanks to M. for the letter from Professor Babayan.

Last revised: 12/09/2006

Labels: Catherine Wilkerson, free speech, police repression, Raymond Tanter, University of Michigan