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- the newspapers titel today. No consensus could be found - 70 countries refused to sign any new agreements - "The resistance of the people on the streets helped us to stay bestrong", one Asian delegate comments on TV.
The one of us that was missing, we have found now. He's all right. Some of us - Hagit, Michael, Sanjay, Sagi, Parvathi and Veerana - have to leave already. But one is still in jail. Finally we get some news of him. He seems to be okay.
This is not the case with most of those who have been released already. People get literally tortured in jail.
"They searched our bodies", one woman tells in front of the jail. "When we asked for femal officers, they laughed at us, said, this was not our right, and touched us everywhere, and tough."
"We were together in the cell, and when they started to try pulling out some of us, we locked our arms, so they couldn't do it", another woman continues. "So they stepped on us. They were walking upon us! "
"We started to sing Amazing Grace to stay strong," she continues. This is typical. "I was crying and singing while their tried to hurt me as much as they could", says a guy under tears. And he's not the only one who is crying while their speak about their experiences inside the jail.
People have to stay without blanket, without toilet, without bed, without food in cells on concrete floor. It takes three days until they see a lawyer, nearly a day until they are allowed to do a phone call to inform somebody. But the resistance of the people inside is tremendous.
We all learned in our legal briefings not to give our names or to say anything - this is a constitutional right in the U.S. We even made role plays what this would be like, and that the cops might mistreat us in that case. But nobody expected what is happening now to lots of people who don't give their names: Handcuffed as they are, they get teargased, directly in their eyes. Then they get a bag upon their head, so they can't try to wipe the liquid off their eyes.
Still 80 % do not give their names. And many of them refuse to leave the jail. It's a random system which decides who can go and who not. Obviously they want to reduce numbers to be able to do the paper work with some of them. That's why people refuse to leave unless they cannot leave as a whole group.
People are gathering at the jail now - this means, downtown is going back to normal life. The city is crowded with people finally doing their shopping. Buses and in some shops even coffee are free today, in order to attract people back to town.
"We have to show what Seattle is really like", they say on the radio, and what they mean is a big shopping place. If there were not these little disturbances like the beggar, who put a piece of carton next to his hat today, saying "Thanks to the police for 75 years of service! Thanks for abusing and mistreating people in jail since 75 years." And only 50 feet ahead there are these two guys in front of a GAP store singing "It's the season for boycott/ fallalalalalalala/ any thoughts of shopping here you should abandon/ fallalalalalalala....." Walking down the streets in the middle of all shoppers, they wrote this song sponteanously. "We just could not stand it", they say. "We had to do somehing."
for lots of articles, foto, audio and video look at http://www.indymedia.org
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