Copwatch, a group to observe and monitor police activities, is being formed by Santa Cruz citizens concerned about police misconduct and abuse of power in the Santa Cruz community. Following examples set by other Copwatch groups across the nation, members of Santa Cruz Copwatch concerned with the lack of police accountability will launch observation patrols and “Know-Your-Rights� trainings in order to increase the community’s oversight of police activities.

Copwatch chapters exist in at least 6 other cities, including the 10 year old Berkeley Copwatch, and the newly formed Copwatch in East Palo Alto. Copwatch patrollers take down badge numbers, provide written testimony, and in some cases videotape the interactions between police and citizens. The objective of Copwatch is to train the public in non-confrontational techniques with which they can increase their ability to observe police actions, and thus reduce police brutality and other civil rights violations. Santa Cruz Copwatch will be networking with other community groups and work towards amassing incident reports which will be presented to City Council encouraging increased regulation of the Police Department.

Citizen's Police Review Board Gets Dismantled from January, 2003

Santa Cruz Copwatch currently meets on Tuesdays, 7:00 PM, at the Infoshop (509A Broadway).

[ Santa Cruz Copwatch I Know Your Rights card in Spanish and English ]

The popular shirts with the "Santa Cruz" logo are imported by a local company, NHS Inc., from factories in Asia and Mexico. On April 9, a group of young people associated with the documentary film, Planet USA, returned hooded sweatshirts made in Burma to Pacific Wave and requested the store stop carrying shirts made in a brutal dictatorship, The group wants to meet with the president of NHS Inc. to discuss their current factory conditions but he is refusing.

Shoppers in Santa Cruz may recall an unusual sight downtown in front of The Gap at Christmas time. While a group of carolers sang satirical anti-corporate Christmas carols, large video images were projected high on the wall of the store, depicting sweatshop workers in Thailand and Cambodia. The ones sewing behind bars were refugees from Burma (now called Myanmar), making about 12 cents per hour. They have fled from even worse conditions in Burma, a country where 50 million people are suffering under a brutal military dictatorship.

Here in Santa Cruz, we have a company, NHS Inc., which has imported clothing from Burma, among other places, and distributes all over the U.S. The popular items among surfers and skaters here are the T-shirts and sweatshirts emblazoned with the familiar red and yellow “Santa Cruz� logo. You can walk into any of a number of hip shops in town and read these labels – “Made in Myanmar/Burma.�

PLANET USA: an upcoming documentary film

[ NBA Caught (Again) Selling Slave Labor Goods I child labour in Burma (Myanmar) I Behind the Label I Co-op America's Guide to Ending Sweatshops and Promoting Fair Trade I Sweatshop Watch I Global Exchange's Sweatshops Campaigns ]

The DA had been prosecuting 25 victims of the police assault which took place on April 7, 2003 in the Port of Oakland. A year later, the ordeal of these people finally ended in a strange twist.

A year ago on April 7th, police assaulted protesters, legal observers, longshoremen and newspeople with "less-lethal" munitions, injuring several dozen people, some permanently. The attack was the most violent police assault on the antiwar movement during the spring of 2003, and it was later mentioned in a report by the United Nations Human Rights Commission. So our city of Oakland is now on the same list as Indonesia, Guatemala and other human rights abusers.

The plan for our port protest on April 7, 2003 had been to peacefully picket the Oakland shipping terminals of two war profiteers, APL and SSA Marine. The goal was to shut them down for a shift by asking dockworkers not to cross our community picket line.

Traditionally, picketing a business is considered a socially acceptable and legal exercise of First Amendment rights. That's because the labor and civil rights movements have spent over a century winning and defending those rights. Now those rights are being called into question once more; had the case been successfully prosecuted, it would have set a precedent that might be used against unionized workers during strikes. After all, striking workers do "disrupt" businesses, and from the viewpoint of corporations, picket lines are a "nuisance."

Indybay coverage: [ Oakland 4/7/03 Compiled Stories I 5/12/03 Return to the Docks Protest I 4/26/03 Rally Against Police Brutality I 4/7/04 Remember the Shots! Return to the Docks! ]

The Najaf Emergency Peace Team, "Peace Between Peoples", includes two members of the Santa Cruz activist community. Meg Lumsdaine and Peter Lumsdaine are among the handful of determined volunteers who have placed themselves "nonviolently, symbolically and physically" between the U.S. armed forces massed nearby and the civilian population of the ancient holy city, Najaf.

As numerous people from nonprofit organizations working in Iraq evacuated the country during the past week, an independent emergency delegation of U.S. civilians was preparing to enter the conflict-torn nation, traveling to the tense stand-off around Najaf, where the U.S. military recently deployed almost 3,000 troops for a looming assault to crush Shiite rebels there.

[ Peace Between Peoples Update: Najaf 4-28-04 I Peter Lumsdaine on Democracy Now (4/27/04) I AP article (4/30/04) ]

[ Indybay's Iraq page I Al-MuaJaha I Occupation Watch I Electronic Iraq ]

The UCSC chapter of The Feminist Majority hosted the Santa Cruz March for Women's Lives on April 16 to support the national March for Women's Lives in Washington D.C on April 25, marking the largest collective pro-choice event in the past decade. Different organizations from all across the nation are participating in the March, including N.O.W. and The Feminist Majority.

The pro-choice march is meant to combat conservative legislation that has been milling through congress in the past few years and publicize important causes that are in dire need of attention. Such legislation includes the partial-birth-abortion law, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (UVVA), and The Cupid Project.

The Santa Cruz March for Women's Lives began with a rally at 2:00 p.m. at Porter Meadows where students gathered before marching through the theater arts center, by McHenry library, and on to the Quarry Amphitheater for speakers and musicians at the main event.

Photos and Audio: Your Body is a Battle and Trouble in Paradise

[ Women's Reproductive Rights Continue to Crumble I Indybay's Womyn page ]

Activists taking part in the Victoria's Dirty Little Secret campaign were denied entrance to the Capitola Mall on Saturday. The U.S. Supreme Court's Pruneyard Decision in 1980 guarantees the right to free speech in privately-owned public areas such as shopping malls.

Free Skool’s biggest quarter yet: 38 different classes taught by more than three dozen teachers offering a decentralized educational network outside the system (and still $20 thousand less than UCSC)

Our last film of the GDI summer series. It's getting chilly, so bring warm clothes, blankets, and mulled wine, hot apple cider, or tea to share with your neighbors.

On October 28 a statewide convention on state secession and running on the theme “Vermont Independence: An Impossible Dream or a Vision of the Future?� was held in the State House in Montpelier, VT. The last time a convention similar to this was held took place in North Carolina in 1861 when the state decided to secede from the US.

Deficiencies of Our Current Federal System, continued