Occupy Asheville Needs Our Support

Nov 7th, 2011
UPDATE: In our haste to post, we originally identified this as Asheville, Georgia. Our apologies.

Over the last few days, while most of our attention has been given to the Occupations in New York or Oakland or Chicago, some very repressive tactics have been employed by law enforcement against the small Occupy Asheville movement in Asheville, North Carolina.

It appears that police officers began targeting participants last week. Via Mountain Xpress:

"The Asheville Police Department arrested four Occupy Asheville participants on Nov. 5. for alleged actions on Nov. 2.

According to warrants from the Buncombe County Magistrate's Office,Natalie Nicolay, Lisa Landis, Joseph Bacanskas and Terry Whittey all face charges of resisting public officers, impeding traffic, unlawful assembly. Whittey faces an additional charge of wearing a mask in public. The warrants were issued Nov. 4. The four were arrested this afternoon, and released on a written promise to appear."

The police appear to have waited to serve these warrants until the convening of the Occupation's General Assembly.


Later that evening, a member of Occupy Asheville's legal team named Jen Foster was detained after attempting to get information about the arrests from a judge. She was given five days in jail for "contempt of court."



A posting at Indy Bay alleges they were targeted as retaliation for thier participation in a recent march to show solidarity with Oakland:

"Though the APD did little to stop the march, they did bring out dozens of officers, including the forensics team and undercover officers to video and photograph Asheville residents expressing their First Amendment rights. The APD has done this sort of unconstitutional surveillance for years at all types of protests. However this time is different. Starting Saturday Nov 5 the APD began grabbing Occupy Asheville participants off the streets that they claim they identified from police footage of the march. So far 7 have been arrested, and the police say there are many more arrests on the way. They are being charged with resisting public officers, impeding traffic, unlawful assembly. One person has an additional charge of wearing a mask in public."

Yesterday, ACLU board member Clare Hanrahan was arrested while serving as a legal observer.



We all need to give our support and lend our voices to the smaller Occupations. They are as much a part of the movement as we are.