Minutemen Attack Counter-Protestors in Fremont, One Arrest

FREMONT, CALIF.--“The cops and the Klan, hand-in-hand,” shouted counter-protestors as police arrested twenty-two year-old antiracist activist Stephany M. in a culmination of a long evening of white supremacist thuggery and police complicity Friday, July 14th.

Stephany’s crime? Taking one of the Minutemen supporter’s empty and broken five-dollar air horn after another protestor smacked it to the ground. Or, as the Fremont police saw it, “misdemeanor theft.”

After detaining Stephany and placing her in a squad car the cops debated whether or not she needed to be handcuffed. After some discussion one officer took her out of the police car, frisked her and then handcuffed her before returning her to the car in a display of public humiliation.

“I had witnessed this racist man abusively blowing his air horn into counter-protestor’s ears,” Stephany told Socialist Worker. “When I saw it thrown to the ground I picked it up and he started called out ‘theft’ and that he was placing me under citizen’s arrest.

“When the policeman reached me, he didn’t perform any kind of investigation or ask any questions. I stated that I didn’t want to be searched, but he went ahead and searched through my pockets without my consent. He grabbed my neck, saying ‘You’re in my world now.’

“Without reading my my rights or telling me what I was being charged with, the cops put me in the squad car that had just pulled up…eventually after being taken to jail they told me the charge was ‘petty theft’”

And yet the police didn’t lift a finger when a burly racist sporting an Iron Cross punched antiracist activist Brian Belknap in the nose. Nor did the police lift a finger to stop the Minutemen from tearing up pro-immigrant signs, pulling hair or blowing extremely loud air horns directly into counter-protestors’ ears.

Perhaps most outrageously, in a struggle with the white supremacists several activists were pushed into the street where a car ran over one woman’s foot and knocked another man to the ground. The police at first refused to take the report until the car’s driver actually called in the accident herself.

Hasan Diwan, the San Francisco resident knocked to the ground by the car, said his “first thought [was] to get away, not look at the driver or get revenge.”

A first-generation immigrant from England, Hasan came to the counter-protest because he opposes the “discriminatory, at worst racist” U.S. policy on immigration. “For political reasons we accept Cubans but not Mexicans. Why?”

“What’s the difference between Irish and English, Iranians and Mexicans? They all come and they’re all integrated into society,” Hasan continued. “Why can 3rd or 4th generation immigrants tell 1st generation immigrants not to come?”
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The East Bay Coalition for Border Security sponsored the sidewalk demonstration against immigration. The group’s founder Casey Fargo has made his anti-Semitic and xenophobic writings widely available, including on the white supremacist National Vanguard website.

“They say they aren’t racist, but they only target Mexicans and Latinos,” observed Jose, a counter-protestor from Fremont.

Fargo and his fellow racists whipped themselves into a frenzy when local activists contacted newspapers about Fargo’s connections to the organized white supremacist movement. Fearing that their peaceful, patriotic window dressings might get sullied if they had to publicly admit to their relationship with the National Vanguard, they have instead threatened to sue members of the International Socialist Organization into submission.

To his credit Fargo says he merely emailed articles to the National Vanguard, but they attributed his name to something he didn’t actually write…two years ago, without lifting a finger to supposedly rectify the situation until he was called on it last week.

Some 50 people attended the counter-protest against the East Bay Coalition’s motely assortment of 25 bigots. Indeed, the Minutemen’s sexist and homophobic comments, taken with their penchant for shoving around the smallest counter-protestors and their inability to spell “amnesty” correctly (not “amnasty”, whatever that is) made up a sort of caricature of what it means to be a racist conservative in America.

Yet despite their modest size and intellect, the establishment of an immigrant-bashing group in the Bay Area is profoundly troubling. Emboldened by the Republicans in Washington, D.C. to take their message to the streets these goons left un-confronted may in turn embolden others in the Fremont-area to express their intolerance towards our immigrant brothers and sisters.

One woman, Josephina Alvarez, captured this spirit best when she told Socialist Worker: “The police are always going to be on their side…but I’m not going to ignore this. I’m here to have my voice heard.”

The next counter-protest against the Minutemen’s racist hatred will be Friday, July 28th from 4:30—7:00pm at Mowry and Fremont Blvds. in Fremont. Organizers have vowed not to be intimidated by the vigilantes or their friends in blue. For more information, contact Michael at (415) 272-5049.

--John Green and Jennifer Wright for Socialist Worker

PARTIAL VIDEO OF THE ASSAULT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-07FCgHmZHo)