On Monday, October 5th, community groups including the Virginia Highland Church, BLOCS (Building Locally to Organize for Community Safety), ATAC (Atlantans Together Against Crime), as well as representatives from the Atlanta Police Department held a forum to discuss the police department's recent raid on the Atlanta Eagle, a prominent gay nightclub.

Expectations of a genuinely open and forthcoming discussion were lowered at the very beginning when police refused to discuss the incident at all, preferring instead to have a dialogue around more general issues of policy and tolerance in the police department.

Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality set the tone of the discussion early by placing the Atlanta Eagle raid in the context of 70 years of police harassment and targetting of GLBT social venues. He pointed out that police vice units have been used throughout the past century as a way to persecute GLBT gatherings. "We want to feel like equal citizens, not targets in our own communities."

Forum attendees were especially interested in the role of the Red Dog Unit, a special police unit which is trained as a SWAT team and uses especially aggressive tactics. Police representatives said the Red Dogs were formed in the 1990s as a response to increased gang activity, and are currently used mostly to deal with so-called "open air drug markets". Despite repeated criticism of the decision to send a SWAT force to the Eagle, police representatives were unapologetic, saying that the Red Dogs are specially trained for this type of operation and are very well disciplined. One attendee asked "Who is policing the Red Dogs?"

Image:

Stop Foreclosures
End Homelessness

Sept. 20-21
Noon - Morning
City Hall
68 Mitchell St. SW

Poor people are under attack in Atlanta. With foreclosures out of control and homelessness on the rise, the city government has responded with a campaign of harassment towards the homeless and service providers.

The Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless is the most recent victim of a deliberate effort by the city to disrupt emergency services for the homeless. On June 22 the city turned off the water at the Task Force’s Peachtree Pine shelter for homeless men, leaving 575 people with no access to showers, sinks or toilets.

Don't let these injustices go unchallenged! Join us as we camp out in front of City Hall to demand justice for poor people and support the Task Force in their lawsuit against the city on Sept. 21st.

Program includes community discussion, food, and music.

Image:

Today, June 30, 2009, Israeli Occupation Forces attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries, including Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (see below for a complete list of passengers). The passengers and crew are being forcibly dragged toward Israel. Israel’s navy arrest

"This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip,” said Cynthia McKinney, a former U.S. Congresswoman and presidential candidate. “President Obama just told Israel to let in humanitarian and reconstruction supplies, and that’s exactly what we tried to do. We’re asking the international community to demand our release so we can resume our journey.” According to an International Committee of the Red Cross report released yesterday, the Palestinians living in Gaza are “trapped in despair.”

Thousands of Gazans whose homes were destroyed earlier during Israel’s December/January massacre are still without shelter despite pledges of almost $4.5 billion in aid, because Israel refuses to allow cement and other building material into the Gaza Strip. The report also notes that hospitals are struggling to meet the needs of their patients due to Israel’s disruption of medical supplies.

“The aid we were carrying is a symbol of hope for the people of Gaza, hope that the sea route would open for them, and they would be able to transport their own materials to begin to reconstruct the schools, hospitals and thousands of homes destroyed during the onslaught of “Cast Lead”. Our mission is a gesture to the people of Gaza that we stand by them and that they are not alone” said fellow passenger Mairead Maguire, winner of a Noble Peace Prize for her work in Northern Ireland.

Image:

 An Issuance by Food Not Bombs Atlanta in solidarity with the Taskforce for the Homeless during a time of great struggle:

Debi Starnes, the owner of Sugar Magnolia Bed and Breakfast, benefits from private corporate sponsorships[1] in her role as the privately funded homeless advisor to the mayor.  Her actions have done more to criminalize Atlanta's homeless than it has to help them by lobbying for the passage of “quality of life” legislation and by the creation of a new system that does not account for the 700-800 residents of the Task Force for the Homeless.  She has compared human beings to stray cats and pigeons, instituted a program wherein police officers pose as tourists and arrest people who ask for change, and set up 'homeless meters' to encourage people not to share their spare change.