We would like to thank everyone who attended our forum on the crimes of the US Attorney's office on Thursday 3/24, and to apologize to everyone who tried to enter but was refused by security at Northeastern. Many people who were part of Chuck Turner's community--who have known him, organized with him, and shared his history of struggle for decades--were denied entry not only to the lecture hall, but to the building. Many waited for hours in the cold to say goodbye to him before he left for prison on the following day.
As people may know by now, the administration at Northeastern sent a message to student sponsors of the forum, one day before it was scheduled to take place, informing them of special harsh "security" conditions for the event: sponsors would be forced to pay police at overtime pay; the room would be capped at 130 and no overflow space provided. As we have already stated, we considered these discriminatory conditions to be illegitimate and objected to them. With more time, we would have organized people to fight the policy or would have chosen another venue.
As it was, the student organizers were negotiating up to the very last minute to ensure that the forum take place against threats from the administration to close it down. Since Chuck Turner had chosen to use his last night of freedom to speak at the forum, everyone felt that our primary responsibility was to make sure that the event take place.
We chose Northeastern as a venue for several reasons. We hoped to reach different audiences that we think are necessary for moving forward a struggle to fight the criminal abuse of power by prosecutors and FBI agents working under the Department of Justice in Massachusetts. These include
- Communities that have been targeted for severe repression and abuse
- People with legal skills who are willing to use them in defense of basic rights and on behalf of communities denied those rights
- Civic, religious and political leaders willing to speak out against injustice on this issue
- Independent journalists willing to tell the story that the mainstream media has censored
We thought that Northeastern would be a good venue for bringing together some members of these different groups in the effort to launch a serious campaign. Law student activists were involved in the event as organizers, but also an important audience we hoped to reach. We also wanted to put the US Attorney on notice, with TV cameras rolling at a forum and venue that would be hard to ignore, that we are organizing a campaign to fight their criminal abuse of power.
The denial of access to so many good people who tried to attend the forum and show their support for Councilor Turner was unacceptable. We will be holding future events and organizing meetings in places that are accessible to the community. We hope that people who are outraged at Chuck Turner's imprisonment will get involved in this campaign.
You can write to Chuck Turner at:
Hazelwood Penitentiary
P.O. Box 2000
Bruceton Mills, West Virginia 26525
Full audio of the forum can be downloaded by clicking here.
Chuck Turner's speech alone can be downloaded here.
