Green Party Outraged at Police Violence Toward Campus Protests,
Treatment of Jill Stein, and Campaign Team
Green Party of the United States www.gp.org
For Immediate Release: April 30, 2024
For more information: Gregg Jocoy, Co-chair,
Media Committee, [email protected],
202-804-2758 Gloria Mattera, Co-chair, Media Committee, [email protected], 202-804-2758
-
After Her Arrest at Washington University, Jill Stein Slams
Police Repression… and the Two-Party System That Supports
It
On Saturday, April 27th, campus police physically
repressed and assaulted students and supporters during a peaceful
pro-Palestinian demonstration on the campus of Washington University
in St. Louis. Dr. Jill Stein, a candidate seeking
the 2024 Green Party presidential nomination, was among those
assaulted and arrested by police. The Green Party is outraged by the
violence perpetrated on students and others exercising their First
Amendment rights.
Gloria Mattera, co-chair of the
Media Committee of the Green Party, said, "The Green Party is appalled
at the level of brutality that campus administrators and local police
have employed in breaking up peaceful protests by students exercising
their First Amendment Rights to protest what they view as genocide by
Israel in Gaza. We see yet again that free speech rights are perfectly
okay in America, until someone advocates a position that runs afoul of
the agenda of the two parties of war and Wall Street. When that
happens, the state will respond with illegal violence and
unconstitutional repression, and candidates for rival parties will not
be spared."
Dr. Stein was in Missouri to collect signatures for
her name to be placed on the state's ballot in November. She visited
the campus to offer her support to the students and community when she
was invited to join the demonstration. A frightening and disturbing
video
shows Dr. Stein, 73, who had linked arms with other protesters, being
assaulted by the police, including one wielding a bicycle against her
as a weapon, before she was arrested. Dr. Stein, who has since been
released, said in an email to her followers, "We are okay and we are
undeterred."
"I was there to support the students and community
members who were holding a peaceful, really wonderful, gracious,
educational community gathering," Dr. Stein said in a video interview.
"The police basically attacked us and assaulted us as well as arrested
us... Zionism is something that needs to be debated and anti-Zionism
is not the same as anti-Semitism." She has called the crackdown on
protesters nationwide a violation of fundamental First Amendment
rights. She told
an interviewer for a radio station: “This is about freedom of speech,
and not just any old freedom of speech, but freedom of speech on a
very critical issue that needs debate and dialogue.”
Dr. Stein, who is Jewish, has called
for an independent investigation into Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu for his conduct during the six-month assault on Gaza and the
West Bank. "The war crimes being perpetrated by Netanyahu against
Palestinians... are in a league of their own and have reached
genocidal proportions." It has been widely rumored
that Prime Minister Netanyahu as well as others in his government may
soon be served with arrest warrants by the International Criminal
Court in the Hague.
On her campaign website, under the slogan of
"People Planet Peace," a statement
by Dr. Stein reads, "I'm running for president with the Green Party to
offer a choice for the people outside the failed two-party system.
We'll put a pro-worker, anti-war, climate action agenda front and
center in this election and on the ballot in November." Prof. Jeffrey
Sachs of Columbia University, Director of the Center for Sustainable
Development at Columbia and President of the UN Sustainable
Development Solutions Network, is among those who have endorsed
Jill Stein for President.
Said Margaret Elisabeth, co-chair
of the Green Party of the United States, "It's very convenient that
the American mainstream media have made the campus protests, as well
as unsupported allegations by bad faith actors of threats to Zionist
Jewish students, the big current story, which obscures the real story
of war crimes being committed in Gaza, including mass burials. We
would like someone in the media to explain to us how the "pain" of
Zionists who are having their worldview peacefully challenged by
people, including many Jews, who happen to disagree with them is in
any way commensurate with the agony and anguish suffered by the people
of Gaza and the West Bank during this ongoing genocide."
On its main website, the platform of the Green
Party of the United States, under the heading "The Palestinian-Israeli
Conflict" reads,
"The U.S. Greens recognize and reaffirm the right of
self-determination for both Palestinians and Israelis, and their right
to live in a single undivided secular and democratic state where all
residents have full and equal rights, and freedoms... We call on the
U.S. President and Congress to suspend all military and foreign aid,
including loans and grants, to Israel until Israel withdraws from the
Occupied Territories, dismantles the separation wall in the Occupied
West Bank including East Jerusalem, ends its siege of Gaza and
dismantles settler colonies and systemic apartheid toward its
non-Jewish citizens."
Green Party of the United States www.gp.org 202-804-2758 Newsroom
| Twitter: @GreenPartyUS
Green
Party Platform Green
New Deal Green
candidate database and campaign information Ballot
Access Facebook
page YouTube Green
Pages: The official publication of record of the
Green Party of the United States Green
Papers
~ end ~
Green Party US Media https://www.gp.org/
|