Arrested Students Recollect Protests

Several Harvard students who were jailed in Miami two weeks ago at protests against the Fair Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) met with fellow activists and observers yesterday to discuss their experiences at the rallies and to allege that their civil rights were violated by the local police.

“When people go through an experience like this, they need to spill it all out,” Institute of Politics (IOP) fellow Tom Hayden—who accompanied the eight undergraduates to the protests—told an audience of about 20. “They need to spill things out before they can sort them out.”

Many of the students who traveled to Miami were participants in Hayden’s study group, and the goal for the trip was to study the rally and conduct surveys of protesters.

The students who went to Miami had a wide range of opinions on the FTAA, said Anne G. Beckett ’04, one of the students who traveled to Miami.

Hayden described yesterday’s program, held at the IOP and titled “Witness to Miami,” as a study group in itself.

Beckett and Madeleine S. Elfenbein ’04, two of the four students who were arrested, narrated their experiences with a focus on the demographics of the protesters and police reactions to the events.

“People from labor activists to water-worshippers gathered to oppose this agreement,” Elfenbein said.

Beckett and Elfenbein said they believed that the police reacted with unnecessary aggression to the protesters’ actions. Contrary to what they identified as the media’s stereotype of the protests, they said that only the fringe groups among the activists were confrontational toward police.

“The most confrontational thing I saw protesters do was gather cardboard boxes and burn them. I didn’t see anyone throw anything,” Beckett said.

“Instead of racial profiling, you had people being profiled for their political ideas,” said Toussaint G. Losier ’04, who traveled to Miami with the group but avoided arrest.

After their arrest, Beckett and Elfenbein, along with Jordan A.A. Bar Am ’04 and Rachel S. Bloomekatz ’04, were kept in a paddy wagon for six hours. Once at the jail, they said they felt that the police continued to violate their rights.

“I never got a phone call until after my hearing. I never had my rights read,” said Elfenbein, who added that she, Beckett and Bar Am were not given their prescription medication.

“I’ve never felt so much at anyone’s mercy,” Elfenbein said.

Miami police were trained for 10 months in preparation for the protests, according to Hayden.

All four of the arrested students are still facing charges. Hayden said that they may be offered the choice to expunge the charges from their records if they waive their right to sue the Miami police.

For Director of the IOP Daniel R. Glickman, the arrests of the four students in Miami have raised questions about field trip funding.

Glickman said that the IOP will continue funding field trips, but will develop a written procedure by next semester. The procedure will help to ensure the health and safety of students on field trips, he said.

“It can change people’s lives to be able to see the interface between people and politics,” he said. “Politics doesn’t happen exclusively in Cambridge, Mass.”

—Joshua D. Gottlieb contributed to the reporting of this story.