Briefly crossed the border into the south thats a violation of the armistice agreement that halted the korean war and those will his headlines here on aljazeera im back with update for you in about twenty five minutes time the stream is coming next stay with us. I have every ok and youre in the stream today is the trumpet ministration trying to turn protesting into a crime some civil rights activist thinks so and they are fighting to stop it. The child of six people accused of felony rioting during u. S. President Donald Trumps inauguration is on the way in washington d. C. The case could determine whether the government continues pursuing charges against the roughly two hundred people it says also participated in protests organized by disrupt jay twenty as an anti capitalist and anti fascist group but civil rights activists say the case could have some bigger implications ones that threaten the First Amendment to the u. S. Constitution which guarantees the right to free speech here to talk about this in our studio we have Scott Michelman hes a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties union and the a. C. L. U. Is representing several of the defendants in the case also in the studio is with largish shes one of the twenty defendants whose trial is scheduled for next year joining via skype from baltimore maryland bernard woods hes this Senior Reporter for the Real News Network he covered the g twenty protests and has been covering the trial as well its good to have a hear everybody welcome. Ive been on one of your websites here document Shows Washington d. C. Police through more than seventy quinn ate at inauguration protesters trying to get a sense of what it was like on january twentieth when you were following along the protests can you describe what you saw what happened you know so i would never actually with a group who was being arrested right as they were being draw right now right as they were being. Controversy or. Used by police that cordons people off in mass anyone who was in that area i held up my press pass and and fortunately the officer who was about to hit me with her stick moved past me but a lot of other people werent so lucky i was able to get out of that group and a huge number of weapons were deployed after they were already arrested so that was freedom of information act documents that i got from the Police Department that showed seventy grenades but you can see in videos and you could see on the ground there that they were just hurling these indiscriminately at people in the picture you show its blowing up on a mans head wearing a red hat they claim that everyone involved in this protest was conspiring by wearing black and yet they were deploying weapons at people regardless of what they were wearing and for many hours after those people had had been arrested and so it was a situation that that really took part in two different waves when they first cordoned off the black bloc the group of people who were moving sort of in mass in a march and then people who came to protest again against the detention of the massed attention of two hundred thirty five people that day for hours out in the cold at a corner surrounded by police let me show our audience what it was like a patience perspective he says but he can sort of have a look at them listen. Ok. Listen if you are that guy what can you tell us because he was swept up in that Police Action managing the crowd. And are. Stage now what what can you tell us about that day i mean ironically since i was there. Speaking about my political feelings i actually cant talk much about what happened that day prior to my arrest because of the way or legal system works and you know the anything you say can and will be used against iraq so what can you tell us yeah i can tell you that i went to d. C. I had was living in baltimore at the time and in order to protest i was really concerned about you know the ministration and. You know its a time honored thing to go and protest and i have protested for things i care about in the past and its its a thing that we do in america. And i went there to do that and got swept up in this and are for i knew it. Here i am scott whats going on. Whats going on here is a massive overreaction on the part of Law Enforcement really from start to finish from the january twentieth arrests and pepper spraying itself where the police reacted to a few acts of vandalism with a massive round up of mostly Peaceful Protesters regardless of whether folks were individually breaking the law to the subsequent prosecutions of more than two hundred people for socalled rioting even though again the government did not have evidence does not we believe the evidence against most of these people as far as we know what theyre using mostly is this theory of guilt by association this idea that if you are on the street that day you may have been dressed like somebody who was breaking a window you may have had the same views as that person therefore you must have engaged in a conspiracy to riot and now youre facing sixty years in jail thats crazy obviously but that the government the government the prosecution in this case has admitted that in court that theyre proceeding without evidence that most defendants physically participated in any form of violence. But what you can say that well we dont see that same standard applied in other cases so in charlottesville where they are right the nazis in the fascist gathered and we have evidence from this court a social media law that they were conspiring and they were planning and they were joking about running people over and then we saw how their hair run over by one of the members of then guard america we dont see that same kind of thing and its almost unthinkable to imagine that they would bring charges against everyone wearing khaki pants and a polo shirt and i believe that the one reason that i wasnt arrested that day when i was in the area was that i happened it was raining and so i had just got this bright green raincoat and its insane that we have a legal system that. Would charge people simply based on what theyre wearing and even more than that even worse than that the Police Violence was directed against people who were not even wearing black so for instance one of our clients in the civil lawsuit and weve sued the police over their actions that day elizabeth is one of our clients another one due to ariel was wearing a green hat now many legal observers wear green hats in order to distinguish themselves from other people who may be there supporting whatever causes and he was pepper sprayed with his green hat on other people who were not even there protesting who might have been observing my didnt dress differently so the police were really out of control on that day so you know this sounds bizarre like i was going to bring the jacket i was wearing a green hat the police were either looking for me or not this sounds weird scott well well it sounds weird for me because it turns out they were looking for everybody right and so thats what happens when you have this this attitude that the police are going to go out and theyre going to clear the streets theyre going to shut it down theyre going to really crack down on everyone and the message that it sends is one of chilling and what i mean by that is that people now after this day when they think of protesting in the Nations Capital theyre going to think about this day theyre going to think about what happened there think about the pepper spray theyre going to think about the indiscriminate arrests and theyre going to think about the prosecutions that folks like elizabeth have endured and are enduring and then i think you know what if you all stay home today maybe i will raise my voice see ive looked at all of the video and im going to show it without audience as what i was wondering what was it that the Police Department were thinking as they were trying to manage this crowd and they said in a statement the men and women of the n. P. T. Protect the rights of the safety of thousands of First Amendment assemblies at a talk about Inauguration Day theres another group of individuals who chose to engage in criminal acts destroying property hurting projectiles injuring at least six offices is this a defense for what happened. Well i think the trouble with the statement there is that group they their idea is this was a whole big group of people and they were all moving together acting together they had to go after this whole group was was their mentality and the prosecutions mentality now as well when in fact its the polices job if someone breaks a window and that violates the law they need to figure out who did that guilt in our system is individual its not association and so what the police did when they decided they just to round up everyone on the street was unconstitutional and it violated the rights of the Peaceful Protesters who were there just to speak their mind speak out against a trumpet ministration we just play a little clip this is for. Us he was in the crowd that day he was trying to report his story. And then the Police Charge towards the crowd may seem just everybody across their way even in my review were a police where a protester if you were a journalist you were amazed taken down and arrested in the middle of all that my eyes my phrase my throat begin to burn tears start running down my eyes i mean me so i didnt see it coming. But somebody help me out of the toxic and i can recover after a while and then continue taking photos elizabeth it sounds like it was. It got a little out of hand more than a little how had any of im going to shoot this new this video and you can tell me what you think as you see it this is from democracy in crisis video sting and pepper spray these are some of the instruments the police were using for crowd control have a look. At the. Numbers. The ok. Ok thank you ok. The the the the. The whole the and the. Place when you see that what are you thinking as youre all right as a protest what does that do i am thinking about what its like to sit in a courtroom and listen to the police talk about how they reacted on that day. And its really striking when you watch the videos. That. The a lot of the chaos you see a lot of the things that feel like violence to the viewer are really being caused by the police the police really seem to have escalated the situation. And. You know its its really unfortunate because those are the people who are supposed to be. At a higher level of responsibility and we expect more from and to be clear all of that footage was after elizabeth had already been detained so the people who were were detained by the police all of that weaponry was was thrown after that had already happened and so this is this is something that theyre not talking about that there really was a police riot that day and that the police really were out of control and i believe that they were inspired to act that way by the election of donald trump who said he was going to be tough phone protesters who said he was going to be tough on crime and in his famous speech to Police Officers in long island where he said they should be rough with prisoners he said on my first day i said you could use military equipment and stuff and its unclear if thats what hes referring to is this first day he can be a little fast and loose with facts but i believe that is what he is referring to then that he was authorizing them to use this kind of or at least encouraging them to use this kind of weaponry that day. Scott alexander read russs him on twitter the john twenty case is the biggest show child of the century thats no justice no peace perhaps a little bit of hyperbole here but in terms of your rights to saying what you want to say even if its unappealing to whatever ministration is this what is potentially at risk everything is cases salute and i think its its not hyperbole to say that this is one of the trials of the greatest constitutional magnitude weve seen certainly in many years when it comes to the right to protest the right peacefully to protest and whether police are going to get away with this sort of mass round up that we saw here and essentially intimidate people into silence i mean ive heard from many people tell me theyre not as active in protest theyre not as likely to go theyre not as likely to want to stick out and theyre scared because of what happened to them that day people are traumatized by this because when the police were there as as you heard the journalist say they were they were indiscriminate and so just being there put folks at risk and thats a dangerous thing if the First Amendment is going to survive in this country. Shots important. Its important to note too that there are two journalists who are still facing charges in this case and i dont want to put journalist above everyone elses First Amendment rights but both of them arun khan to and of the Santa Fe Reporter i spoke to his editor recently and she said she makes him wear a tie and a jacket now when he goes out to protest a may not send him to a protest while hes facing these charges and alexei wood told me last week that it took him until may before he would go and cover another protest and that was his and then he finally just said he was he was not going to be silenced and that he was going to do it but its these peoples livelihood that theyre then more reluctant to be engaged in and again it was just hit or miss if you were reporter whether you were arrested and detained or not and we were all pepper spray. You know that they deployed over one hundred canisters of pepper spray that day i found out also through freedom of information act and it was all through the air and so forth you got. Yes i will and i did i went out to protest against the travel ban restrictions. Right after this happened but the problem is that i am worried basically when i go to protest and i am thinking in the back of my head is this going to be a problem is there going to be some kind of misunderstanding and i dont want to draw attention to myself i dont hold as sassy of a sign as i might otherwise remember until it has been time to time down the signage from what so what i mean i cant think of one that i have in my head but yeah i mean i yeah i mean youre laughing here but thats your life is changed quite dramatically and these cases are really turning on sask for own intents and purposes a lot of the stuff thats being litigated is did this person say this thing did they mean it this way did they wear this very fine distinctions that make it really hard to know what you can do and what you can and thats and thats in such striking contrast to things so important about that point is its its such i can contrast to what the Supreme Court has said about the First Amendment the freedom of speech and in america the Supreme Court has said that the First Amendment needs breathing space to survive that means if you if you channel the First Amendment within very narrow boundaries and outside of that speakers are are very quickly stopped or kettles or pepper sprayed or prosecuted then what youre doing is youre going to make people scared even to go up to that line youre going to make them shut down youre going to make them tone down their messages and the the whole premise of the First Amendment in this country is that your message can be whatever it want it you want it to be and it has to be whatever you want it to be if were going to be a free place where people can express themselves people can speak truth to power dissent from from troubling actions of the government and really make change im looking. And this is from the a. C. L. U. Site at the number of states that have tried to introduce laws that would actually tell what you can do as a protest either way you can put a task what you can where when youre protesting what is this telling you scott even if the laws dont go through theyre not past what are we looking at in the United States right now i think i think it goes back to the point about what trump has. Facilitated what hes encouraged the type of attitude that he is trying to instill in this country is one thats very contrary to our tradition of the rule of law of Constitutional Values donald trump is made clear he doesnt respect the First Amendment he doesnt care about it he thinks people who disagree with him should be silenced or should be sued he has stated a willingness to suppress media organizations he has his white house has cut off access to journalists who disagree with him and thats just on the First Amendment i mean i could go on the fourth this is equal protection you showed you in the amendments and so but its important to recognize that this is a dramatic departure from the type of culture that that i think in this country weve been trying to build not always with with perfect success but but trying to build over the centuries where you have a rule of law where everyone gets treated fairly where people can speak their mind and the trend has been as president obama used to say that the arc of the universe is long but bends toward justice it it has been going in the right direction. Weve seen such steps backward in the last year under president and before that under the influence of candidate trump against our first and values and thats a very scary thing let me tell you a little comment from chip this is cheap gets his policy and lets see if they count so. I have a listen to what he had to say. Its presenter oral arguments on monday and what struck me the most was that the prosecution came straight out and said that they have no evidence linking any of the six defendants which included journalists into medics to any Property Damage and that their entire theory is that probably for a minute first america march is a premeditated right and that anybody who participated in it can go to jail for decades on felony charges this is a blanket criminalization dissent given that theyre trying to drown what is a blanket commiseration of journalism and is deeply threatening to our First Amendment freedoms but at the impact the fallout from this is pretty shocking potentially when you covered this protest at the beginning did you have any sense that this was before how it would. Pact eventually it seemed like i mean im still surprised that theyre prosecuting it with the force that they are and that they have evidence from so many cell phones so its a case with more evidence than almost any case that that i can think of and i am surprised that theyve continued to go forward with it with the conspiracy charges so after the arrests that day they went and raided the home of someone that they believe had planned part of a protest and they took things like the nation magazine from his home and its going down. In these times magazine as evidence of a criminal conspiracy to plan a protest and thats where im really shocked ive seen in baltimore and other places police get hot headed and be outrageous on the ground and arrest people but that theyre carrying those charges out through court at great expense to the people of the district of columbia at this time i really am shocked by that scott with these fast complications that started this week is it possible that that however they might end up may mean that the hundred and so on the. Defendants might actually have to construct against and i mean these first couple so critical i think it is very important because what what well see what the prosecution is now seeing tested is their theory the skill by Association Theory this theory that entire protest is is a riot because of the actions of of a small group and if the jury doesnt buy it then theyre going to start to wonder should we prosecute the other one hundred ninety people and they should wonder because this is not the type of activity were used to seeing prosecuted in this country and it shouldnt be so im im hopeful that the jury will send a strong message to the prosecution and say you know this isnt how we do things here lets if you also want to. Own a saint. Against the police with the a. C. L. U. Is this the most trouble youve ever found yourself thing. It is quite literally although thats not saying much because at the point i got arrested i had not even had a parking ticket on my record for eight years and so. Yeah its a new world and. You feeling comfortable and confident terrified or you can pick another adjective i dont like it doesnt have to be a binary i i think i alternate between being a bit terrified and just being angry because it just seems so arbitrary and it its its so insane that sometimes just the disbelief overwhelms Everything Else a couple comments of people when watching this live on you tube robertson says protesting is part of the bedrock of our democracy which kind of speaks to what you thought you were able to do in january and then one more life from the cheap this is coming in from nicholas u. S. Citizens have the incredible right to protest in the streets they should all take advantage scott knowing what you know now what would you tell someone who wants to go out and protest in the states. I would i would tell them to to think hard but to go do it anyway because we need your voices we need your voices if for no other reason than to protest the criminalization of protests and so although the First Amendment is not supposed to be just for the courageous. That is sort of what its become here and people should be courageous people should be courageous in these times but people should also be aware of their surroundings. Be. Ready to flee Police Violence if necessary but but nonetheless speak out because this is a critical time in our democracy and we need people to raise their voice when they see their constitutional freedoms being eroded. Strategy in the last thirty seconds of the show how do you go about covering protests now. About the same as i did but i watch out a little bit more i saw a lot of that here in baltimore and id like to call out the my fellow journalists like in the White House Press corps theyre not talking about this at all and everyone is waiting for to do this big thing against the press and every once in the through the New York Times but people are recognizing this grave threat to the First Amendment with the prosecution of reporters so. Its queer how we have to bust such a big topic to talk about and in the next pot when we talk about what happens when a department of justice in the u. S. Wants to check out your facebook all social media accounts but be back on the next upside of the strain and so watching. The new era in television news. But i wouldnt say that its a toss to do things in secret that i miss we had actual victims who had survived torture detention and saying this was the cause of my arrest if you could. Just stay with what we did. I got this conviction that everyone has a deep reservoir of thomas but the two of you can give them the opportunity and a wonderful thing stopped to look at the actual distance theres at least twenty thousand for him to refugees who live here we badly need at this moment the ship until recent times did but i was residing. Is going to be the next president retaliation with the other guy. Actually fairly common sense of gas on us to believe it best if were going to be if youre getting anywhere theres good record that. He achieved something that never happened before. And. Setting the stage for a serious debate up front at this time on aljazeera. On a that ive been a staple in london with the top stories on aljazeera the man who will become the next president of zimbabwe says the country is witnessing a new stage