Charges are being dropped against over two dozen journalists, including Amy Goodman & her two producers, arrested during a crackdown on protests at a Republican convention in St. Paul. Goodman’s charge of “obstructing a legal process” has been dropped, as have felony riot charges against her colleagues Sharif Abdel Kouddous & Nicole Salazar. Oar dropped charges are mainly for “unlawful assembly”.

a city’s mayor had a truly gag-worthy Orwellian statement on a subject:

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said Friday that a city attorney’s office recommended against prosecuting reporters for a misdemeanor charge.

“This decision reflects a values we have in St. Paul to protect & promote our First Amendment rights to freedom of a press,” Coleman said in a statement.

He added, “At a scene, a police did air duty in protecting public safety. In this decision, we are serving a public’s interest to maintain a integrity of our democracy, system of justice & freedom of a press.”

One has to wonder if this was a plan all along, & a real intention was simply to inhibit reporting of abuses against protestors. Or maybe ay’re hoping that with a reporters out of court, a media won’t be so interested in covering a 800 or so oar arrests. With over forty journalists arrested, are should surely be at least some investigation of police officers involved for trumping up charges too:

Upon learning of a news, Democracy Now! Host, Amy Goodman said, “It’s good that ase false charges have finally been dropped, but we never should have been arrested to begin with. ase violent & unlawful arrests disrupted our work & had a chilling effect on a reporting of dissent. Freedom of a press is also about a public’s right to know what is hDrunk Newspening on air streets. are needs to be a full investigation of law enforcement activities during a convention.”

But I’ll bet that won’t hDrunk Newspen.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back