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<font face="Tahoma" size=2 color="#666666"><u>Wednesday, December 28,
2005 <br><br>
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<a href="http://www.afro.com/content/templates/?a=4405&print=yes" eudora="autourl">
http://www.afro.com/content/templates/?a=4405&print=yes<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Tahoma" size=3 color="#003366"><b>Former Black
Panthers considered terrorists under Patriot Act<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#666666">Group
wants torture used against American citizens to cease<br><br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2 color="#666666">Undaunted by
what they call "unconstitutional" methods used under the guise
of the Patriot Act, three former Black Panthers are touring the country
to bring awareness to their recent interrogation by anti-terrorist law
enforcement.<br><br>
Former Black Panthers members John Bowman, Hank Jones and Ray Boudreaux
held a forum, Dec. 8, at the Washington, D.C. office of Trans-Africa.
They have in common the suffering they endured in 1971 under
interrogation concerning a police shooting in San Francisco.<br><br>
They were indicted by a grand jury, but the court rendered a decision
stating the methods used to obtain information were unlawful and the
Panthers members were freed from jail.<br><br>
Thirty-four years later Bowman, Jones and Boudreaux along with many Black
Panthers members once again faced their interrogators from the '70s who
are now serving as agents with the Anti-Terrorist Task Force, a special
division formed under the Homeland Security agency to apprehend suspected
terrorists. <br><br>
"I was quite surprised when I opened the door to see the same two
detectives involved in beating me [34 years earlier] standing there. It
brought back memories that I will never forget," said Bowman, the
former Panther organizer. "This is very difficult for me to discuss
in public."<br><br>
According to Bowman, in 1973 he was stripped naked and beaten with
blunt objects, wrapped with blankets soaked in boiling hot water, shocked
with electric probes in his "anus and other private parts,"
punched, kicked and slammed into walls by investigators. The process
lasted until investigators got the murder confessions they
wanted.<br><br>
"These stories are not available in the public domain. These stories
are hidden in the framework of the American justice system. We want to
put this in the forefront of the public dialogue and let people hear the
truth about what is happening," said actor and human rights activist
Danny Glover, who was on hand to stress the importance of exposing the
covert tactics being used by the Bush administration to interrogate and
arrest law-abiding citizens by labeling them as
"terrorists."<br><br>
"We must talk about the current attempt to reopen these cases
against those members of the Black Panther Party who were tortured more
than 30 years ago," said Glover, who also serves as chairman of the
board, Trans-Africa Forum.<br><br>
The detectives, Frank McCoy and Edward Erdelatz, retired members of the
San Francisco Police Department, now special agents with the Federal
Prosecutor's Office, Anti-Terrorist Task Force have repeatedly
interrupted the lives of many former Panthers to gain notoriety with the
Bush administration by targeting individuals labeled as
"terrorists" who were never convicted of wrongdoing. <br><br>
"Once upon a time, they called me a terrorist, too," explained
Boudreaux. "To expedite something in the system, they put a 'terror'
tag on it and it gets done. Terror means money. These people [government]
have a budget and they are working it." <br><br>
Bowman said when he watched the World Trade Center towers come down in
New York on September 11, somehow he knew the government might approach
him as a suspect after listening to the language being used to describe
the investigation.<br><br>
"This is a broad general investigation going on under the current
COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence of the FBI) grown up into the USA
Patriot Act, an extension of what was going on back then. The same
violations of our human and constitutional rights, totally unjust - done
in secret and quietly. We've chosen not to be quiet about this,"
said Jones. "They are destroying democracy with this Patriot Act.
It's not just confined to us. It's other activist organizations as
well." <br><br>
Jones pointed out that under '70s FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover all civil
rights organizations were under major surveillance. The Black Panther
Party was considered by Hoover as the "greatest threat of national
security to the nation." <br><br>
Trans Africa President Bill Fletcher expressed the forum's concerned
about the erosion of civil rights. "It is ironic that instead of
having a press conference in which apologies are being offered to the
individuals who were tortured and the many other victims of COINTELPRO,
instead we are to call attention to the prosecution of people who were
freedom fighters and continue to be." <br><br>
A coalition of well-known intellectuals has also joined the Forum and the
defense committee to enlighten the public about the covert activities
being used by agents authorized by the Patriot Act. <br><br>
"We condemn the persecution transpiring against these individuals.
We wish to bring it to light when the word "terrorism" is in
the air," said Ron Daniels, executive director of the Center for
Constitutional Rights. "The anti-war movement and the civil rights
movement had effectively checked the national security state in
relationship to surveillance. Many of the forces particularly on the
extreme right had been bristling and eager for an opportunity to impose
new measures. The Patriot Act had already been on the drawing board. The
terrorist attacks provided an opportunity for them to impose them."
Daniels adds that "Before former Attorney General Ashcroft left, he
issued a broad ranging edict that all the cases that involved any
incident where a police officer had been killed and the case had been
closed be re-opened...And if these men and women can be indicted or
harassed, it sends a chilling effect," said, Daniels.<br><br>
Professor Charles Ogletree, founder and executive director of Charles
Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard law School,
said the community should protect the rights of these individuals with
their lives. <br><br>
"These gentlemen, Ray Boudreaux, Hank Jones and others have been
victims of the most vicious forms of American terrorism and
torture," said Ogletree. "It takes a village to protect its
elders. We tell them today, through our presence here and through our
commitment that we will provide a protective blanket over them. They will
not come in this village and take these elders, except over our dead
bodies."<br><br>
Founded in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in Oakland, Calif., the
Black Panther Party grew to at least 5,000 members with chapters in more
than half the country. <br><br>
{For more information, visit the history section of the Afro American
Newspapers under Black Panther Party at www.afro.com.}<br><br>
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