Feature Archives

On September 21st, J.R. Valrey stood for trial in Oakland on felony arson charges, after he was arrested while reporting on the Oscar Grant Rebellion on January 7, 2009. Valrey is a producer at KPFA radio, associate editor and multimedia director of the San Francisco Bay View newspaper, and runs the Block Report Radio website. His trial was postponed until late October. Supporters are asked to show they stand with J.R. by attending upcoming court dates.

Informativo Pacifica, a half hour national and international newscast produced in Spanish by volunteers at Pacifica's KPFK radio station in Los Angeles, has been cut and rescheduled without warning. Instead of broadcasting Monday through Friday at 5:30am, the show was rescheduled to 9:00pm and only four days a week, Monday through Thursday.

Boston Woodard, a frequent contributor to Indybay, is in solitary confinement because of an article he wrote, which displeased the staff and warden at Solano State Prison. Boston's article, "Rogue Prison Staff: Breaking all the Rules," published on Indybay in April, describes in detail the threats and intimidation taking place at Solano - the filing of false disciplinary charges, mail tampering, verbal threats, etc.

In Greece, a period of widespread state repression and brutality has followed the rebellion of December 2008. During and after the rebellion, the extreme right wing political party LAOS (Popular Orthodox Party Alert) and the Greek state investigated the IMCs of Athens and Patras, Greece, on the grounds that they were used as centers for the "coordination of rebellion." Indymedia participants say that rebellions are not conducted via the Internet, and that Indymedia contributed vital counter-information to state- and corporate-controlled media.

Since early 2009, thousands of posts related to justice for Oscar Grant have been published to Indybay — video, audio, photos, first-hand accounts of court hearings, analyses, protest coverage, and more. In order to consolidate the history and latest developments in the movement for justice for Oscar Grant, this feature was created. It centralizes the multitude of related stories and has its own unique web address: www.indybay.org/oscargrant.

On June 21st, the Israeli State Prosecutor ordered police to start an investigation of Indymedia Israel. At the heart of the investigation is an article posted to the website with a picture of a soldier who, according to witnesses, murdered protest organizer Abu Rahma on April 17th. The posting with the heading “murderer“ asks for the name and any other relevant information of that soldier so that he can face murder charges.

Public service announcement by the SF Bay Area IMC collective: While anonymous posting may seem anonymous, it is easy for the federal government to monitor web traffic even when it is said to be secure by web browsers. Posting from public computers is one way to remain anonymous, but many of those facilities can be monitored and themselves face serious risks if threats or illegal posts are traced back to them.