Group's protest leads to arrest

By Chhun Sun

While Thursday’s presidential debate was in progress, members of an activist group held an event to discussed their arrest at this year’s Republican National Convention in New York. The event was held in University Center Room 200.

In conjunction with the Campus Peace and Civil Liberties Coalition, Fresno’s RaNCor (Radical anti-NeoCon organized resistance) showed a documentary of its journey to New York leading to its arrest. Three of the nine members of RaNCor who went to the convention, including political science professor Michael Becker, were arrested. The arrest total, Becker said, was about 100 people.

“It was an outrage,” Becker said. “To show how indiscriminate the arrest was, innocent bystanders were arrested, like a journalist and even a father and son who were walking along the sidewalks.”

Becker, who was held in three different jail facilities for 34 hours, said the police didn’t read arrestees their rights or give access to an attorney to those who were arrested.

“After we were held all this time, all they charged us with was disorderly conduct,” Becker said. “It was like a traffic ticket.”

Becker said the protest came from a concern of the Bush Administration’s policy on the war in Iraq and after seeing “hundreds and hundreds” of Web sites dedicated to protesting at the RNC.

Frank Sanchez, who has participated in activities with RaNCor for two years, and Stephen Gamboa, director of the documentary, were also arrested.

“It was the biggest injustice that I’ve ever been in,” said Sanchez, who felt Republicans were using the RNC to gain sympathy from the Sept. 11 attacks. “It was horrible.”

Becker said he was told by police and protest organizers that “it was the biggest protest in the history of national conventions,” with 500,000 protesters.

“People should be concerned about the protection of their civil liberty,” Becker said.