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Deborah Dupre
Deborah Dupre is a longtime human rights journalist
Rights abuse at Clinton's Rights talk: Police targeted violence of Christian Vet
Vets for Peace T-shirt Sales Could Boom
In what will surely be recorded as a historical moment of US government brutal human rights hypocrisy and possibly a sales boost for Vets For Peace t-shirt sales, at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speech at George Washington University Tuesday, condemning human rights violations by governments that arrest protestors and prevent free expression, police assaulted 71-year-old Ray McGovern and jailed him for standing peacefully as he listened to her. McGovern was wearing a Vet for Peace t-shirt.
This latest demonstration of US crackdown on dissent has resulted in the nation's top human rights leaders condemning Tuesday's U.S. police brutality.
"Hillary Clinton talks of freedom without pause while watching Ray McGovern be beat up by guards/goons. Freedom is one of those things only appropriate for the 'others,' not Americans. A real class act," stated Stephen Soldz of Psychologists for Social Responsibility and Director, Center for Research, Evaluation, and Program Development Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis.
Wednesday, Partnership for Civil Justice (PCJ) released a statement about the assault on McGovern and asked that it be posted on Facebook.
According to PCJ, McGovern "was assaulted grabbed from the audience in plain view of her by police and an unidentified official in plain clothes, brutalized and left bleeding in jail."
Clinton never paused speaking according to PCJ.
"When Secretary Clinton began her speech, Mr. McGovern remained standing silently in the audience and turned his back. Mr. McGovern, a veteran Army officer who also worked as a C.I.A. analyst for 27 years, was wearing a Veterans for Peace t-shirt.
"Blind-sided by security officers who pounced upon him, Mr. McGovern remarked, as he was hauled out the door, "So this is America?" Mr. McGovern is covered with bruises, lacerations and contusions inflicted in the assault.
"Mr. McGovern is being represented by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF). "It is the ultimate definition of lip service that Secretary of State Clinton would be trumpeting the U.S. government's supposed concerns for free speech rights and this man would be simultaneously brutalized and arrested for engaging in a peaceful act of dissent at her speech," stated attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the PCJF.
Mr. McGovern works for Tell the Word publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
Mike Ferner, a Vietnam-era veteran, told Democracy Now! that he was arrested at the Jesse Brown V.A. Medical Center in Chicago for wearing a Veterans for Peace T-Shirt
Vets for Peace t-shirts are available at: https://www.vfpstore.org/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=7
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