He says. She says. Jesse Rosenfeld was writing for The Guardian newspaper when G20 security beat him up and arrested him. Amy Goodman on what it means to have a real independent media.
Jesse Rosenfeld was writing for The Guardian when G20 security beat him up and arrested him. rabble radio spoke to him a few hours after he was released from detention.
Amy Goodman is the host of the radio/tv/podcast Democracy Now! Friday night, at the Council of Canadians event Shout Out For Global Justice, she spoke about what it means to have an independent media, and why it is important.
Interview with Jesse Rosenfeld, transcribed:
Meagan Perry: You were reporting for the Guardian newspaper when you were detained, what was your assignment with them?
Jesse Rosenfeld: Well I’d been working for Comment Is Free on a three part series on the G8 and G20 focused on the flashpoints of empire and contesting democracy. And looking at comparing the self created legitimacy that the G8 and G20 have based on their own political and economic power. Compared with the alternative to their economic vision and the global economic plan of the 20 wealthiest nations with the alternatives that were coming from the streets and the kind of coalitions coming from the streets. I’d already gotten out a piece about indigenous sovereignty that went online on Friday about the demonstration and the context of contesting sovereignty. I was working on the piece about contesting the global economy when I was arrested, penned in at the demonstration in front of the Novotel Hotel on the Esplanade just south of Front Street.
MP: Before all of that happened what was your impression of that crowd?
JR: It was really interesting, it was possibly one of the most interesting political moments I’ve seen here in Toronto and I grew up in Toronto and left when I was 18. What was so interesting about that demonstration is that it wasn’t the long developed, theoretically thought out radicals that had organized the whole thing. It was actually people that had almost been instantly radicalized when the police threw them out of Queens Park – the one free speech zone. When police beat, arrested and pushed people all the way up to Bloor Street, they reorganized and almost 1,000 people decided: “Well if the state won’t give us any place to express ourselves than we’ll take it directly to the fence.” And they marched down to the fence. What was interesting was that you could tell the sort of organic nature of how people were thinking these things out in the street. The kind of discussions they were having about the G8/G20 and this highly unorganized march that was basically guided by the political determination to make sure these issues stay central.
MP: How were the police reacting at that point?
JR: Well, I mean the thing was the police had thrown everyone out of Queens Park and I guess they were completely surprised at what happened. We had gotten down to the fence in two different places where the police penned people in who were able to negotiate with the police and they let them out. Eventually they went on to the Novotel Hotel area where they were blocked in by riot police on both sides. When the riot police found out that they were not Novotel Hotel workers who were currently on strike, well many people were highly sympathetic to the Novotel workers strike, when they found out they weren’t actually workers from the hotel they immediately moved in and started making mass arrests. I was with the block of media and some of the alternative press said: “Okay how are we going to deal with the situation?” We were obviously covering what was going on, so we asked the police: “Are you going to be arresting the media too?” Their immediate response was yes, you are not supposed to be here, everyone will be arrested. Then they came back and said those who have the official summit media accreditation will be allowed. What is interesting is that I had applied for official summit media accreditation on June 11, I had given them my letter from the Guardian and it had been approved. Subsequently they said I wasn’t going to be given my lanyard until I cleared an RCMP background check, which just kept going on and on and on. It was because of that, because I only had a media pass from the alternative media centre that the police decided to arrest me. When I originally told them about my assignment with the Guardian, but I was also in the editorial collective in covering the story with the Alternative Media Centre they said: “Alright we will check your credentials and your accreditation so come over to the side.” Then and officer looked at my press pass and said that it wasn’t legitimate and you’re under arrest, after which I was immediately jumped and beaten to the ground. I was punched in the stomach, my arms were pulled back, and I was hit in the back when I went down. After I went down, cops piled on me — they were hitting me in the back of the ribs with their knees. They lifted up my leg and twisted my ankle as if they were trying to sprain it…my leg smacked against the curb on the way down, my face was pushed into the concrete. All of this interestingly happened after two police officers had identified that I was a ‘loudmouth’ that had been bothering them the day before. What had happened was, I was covering the front lines of different clash points at different demonstrations. Both at the queer demonstration against the G20 earlier in the week and at the demonstration on the Friday and I was on the front lines when some other reporters I worked with were hit in the face and had their microphones snatched. I was covering (the demonstrations) when they were directly targeting arrests at activists or anyone they could grab through what looked like racial profiling. They were first taking any kids of colour and people with indigenous backgrounds. I had been on the frontline documenting all of this, I had been out forcefully with a piece in the Guardian discussing RCMP and Toronto Police racism, so it was clear to me that this attack was political.
MP: When you were at Novotel and you were negotiating with the police, before they said that this isn’t legitimate and threw you to the ground. Did you have any sense that that was going to happen to you?
JR: I mean I could tell that they were a little put off and I suspected that they may try to arrest me. I wasn’t expecting to get beaten. To be honest I’m not surprised, this is what the Toronto Police do. This is what Canadian police forces do. They beat people when they think that they can get away with it. It is not a new story, it may be new that it is happening to someone who is an accredited international journalist and someone who is white, in their upper twenties and male, but it is a daily reality for indigenous people, people of colour, people living in ghettoized communities, queer communities. This is the daily reality for them when it comes to police violence without justification apart from the fact police want to subdue that element of society and what it might say.
MP: What did you experience in detention?
JR: It was kind of interesting. I’ve been working in the Middle East as a journalist for the last three years and I’ve never seen a jail like that in Canada. It did remind me a lot of, in many similar ways, of the way that Israelis’ detain Palestinians, or the way. Palestinian Authority jails work. What happened was, we were in handcuffs from 10:30 in the evening when I was arrested, until 5:00 in the morning. In an overcrowded cell with people, a porta-potty washroom, sparse access to water and never enough water when it was needed. Finally I was moved through into processing, I was moved into a 5 x 8 cell with five other people and I mean, you couldn’t even all lay down at the same time. There were no benches, no bathroom, it was just a cold concrete floor. The centre was just absolutely freezing and we weren’t given any blankets or anything. I was in there from about 11:30 until 5:30 a.m. I only got my phone call to my lawyer at about 3 p.m., although I had been demanding it the entire time.
MP: There were a number of Twitter reports of people not being able to call lawyers at all. Is that something you can verify?
JR: Yeah. I told them I was a journalist, they wouldn’t allow me to call my lawyer. I heard that my editor had tried to get through and made a call to the police, but obviously hadn’t been able to get through. I saw other independent media journalists that had been beaten badly, other people that I had worked with at the AMC throughout the week who had been arrested. I saw all sorts of different kinds of people that had all been taken down. I was witnessing these arrests, unprovoked, brutally violent arrests. People with blood gushing from their face all over their shirts even while being brought into jail, black eyes on both sides, scrapes all over their bodies, walking with limps. In my cell even, three people were denied access to medication for incredible periods of time. One guy had an asthma attack and I don’t think he got his ventilator for over 40 minutes. Another guy had anti-anxiety medication and it took him hours to get his pills. This other guy had both of his shoulders dislocated, he had a muscular issue, which had been exacerbated by his handcuffing, and the police took hours upon hours to give him his anti-inflammatory medication. He was just sitting there with dislocated shoulders.
MP: What are you hearing from people abroad? What kind of reaction are you hearing? I’m assuming you are talking with your editors in the U.K.?
JR: I haven’t had a direct line to my editors yet, I’ve just been out of jail for several hours now and I haven’t been able to get through. I intend to talk with them soon. But, from the community around me I have felt incredible support and there has been incredible organization outside. I really appreciate it. Especially the fact that people realize that it is not just me. This has been happening to people across the board, the only reason I’m getting attention is because I happen to be an accredited journalist. I am expressing the same opinion, or similar ideas to other media that is getting arrested and we are discussing the same ideas as the people in the streets are. These are all the ideas that the government and the police force are trying to sweep from the streets and not have this discussion in Canada.
MP: What are you hoping to see in Canada after this?
JR: It is very much what I am looking at in these pieces, the alternatives that come from the streets. I’m very much hoping that as global empires decide to restructure themselves from the G8/G20 in terms of negotiating an international enforced consensus both politically and economically and the alternatives from the streets really start to jettison not just an idea of specific grievances, but actually alternative systems that are coming out in both the organization and … of things starting to happen and I’ve been quite impressed by it.
MP: Well thanks for talking to us today.
JR: From what I hear we still have all the other people in jail that need to be defended. We need to get our people out.
MP: Absolutely. How long do you think that is going to take?
JR: Who knows? They’ve gone after the organizers all weekend. We have people being detained on warrants, we have all sorts of trumped up charges that we’re looking at. We’re looking at a government completely intent on breaking social movements in this country. It needs to be fought. It needs to be fought bitterly. It needs to be fought on all fronts.
