Islam Times - NYPD says 10 protesters arrested in New York

Islam Times - At least 10 Occupy Wall Street protesters have been arrested during a large demonstration near the New York Stock Exchange in the US.

New York Police Department said the charges included disorderly conduct, unreasonable noise, resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration.

The detentions came after five protesters were arrested earlier after sleeping on the nearby sidewalk overnight.

Prominent civil rights attorney Norman Siegel said he was reviewing footage of the arrests and may assemble a legal team to fight the charges.

The Wall Street sleep-outs began last Monday, several days after a similar protest was staged near Union Square.

Occupy organizers say the protests were protected by a 2000 ruling by a federal judge, who wrote the First Amendment allows sleeping in public as a form of political expression.

The 99-percenters have begun spending nights on the sidewalks of Wall Street near the New York Stock Exchange and in front of banks after being kicked out of their original encampment at city's Zuccotti Park late last year.

The US has been grappling with an ongoing economic crisis, which is America's worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The exacerbating economic conditions, corruption and poverty as well as social and economic inequality have sparked the Occupy movements in major cities across the US since September 2011.