US police suppressing OWS free speech

an interview with Mark Mason, Occupy movement protester, to further discuss the issue.

Another city, another eviction order. What is going to happen? Do you think that this trend is going to continue? And if so, what’s the move for the Occupy movement itself?

Mason: Well, indeed we see a continuing series of actions by local police suppressing free speech. The Occupy Wall Street encampment at D.C., Occupy DC, they were kicked out just a couple of days ago over the weekend.

And here, where I participate here in the San Francisco Bay area, Occupy Oakland’s actually been kicked out three times out of their occupations.

I’d like to say that the tent occupations are a critical part of the free speech that is political speech. The tents themselves are actually visible political speech in a sense that a person holds up a sign that might say ‘tax the rich’.

What’s happening with the Occupy Wall Street movement, we’re not even inventing anything. It’s not even a new idea. We’re copying an idea from the 1930s, the Great Depression. There were tent encampments called ‘Hoovervilles’. And we’re basically copying that.

We’re going across the country with local police departments suppressing free speech and kicking us out.

With the suppression of free speech, do you think that more and more people are becoming aware of the situation, or does the average American believe, as a lot of the local governments have said when they were trying to stop the Occupy campers, that basically it was for their own safety or because it was an eye sore. How are you gauging the overall perspective of the regular average American on the ground?

Mason: First I’d like to say that the pretext regarding their assumption that they’re attempting to increase the safety in the region or something, I’ve been a part of Occupy Oakland, and there’s others I’ve spoken to across the country, and these are empty pretexts. There are no serious concerns regarding public safety here at those camps - these are pretexts.

I think what we can see is that we have peaceful protesters, people who are camping out chanting next to Wall Street and other financial districts. They do have signs on their tents. They are dissenters. They are expressing opinions that differ with current public policies by state and the Obama administration. So, this really is practicing free speech.

If I may say, the United Nations rapporteur on human rights in December issued a brief statement that he was investigating the fact that the US may be violating international human rights under the UN auspices. He’s looking at this concern.

He noted that the local ordinances should take a subordinate role to the protection of free speech. And this is someone I think we ought to at least give our ear to, to listen to these concerns.