Hightower Lowdown

The 50,000 activists who took to the streets in Seattle to oppose the corporate usurpation of our democracy in the name of free trade and economic globalization have returned to their communities to keep on organizing and agitating.

But the battle in Seattle is not over. Seattle police arrested over 500 people during the week of anti-WTO demonstrations."Most were picked up in indiscriminate mass arrests, which also snared bystanders, shoppers, journalists, downtown workers —even a taxi driver. The vast majority of these cases were thrown out not because of the beneficence of the City of Seattle, but because the police work was so sloppy (i.e., flimsy evidence, confused information on arrest reports) that there was rarely anything to prosecute.

But the Seattle City Attorney's Office says it will continue to prosecute 51 of the misdemeanor cases related to the WTO protests. Most of the defendants are charged with "pedestrian interference" or "failure to disperse."

Seattle should quit while it's behind and drop all of these charges.

The Direct Action Network, a group organized in opposition to the WTO, is continuing to work with those arrested. DAN has been raising hell and raising money for the remaining defendants, some of whom have had to travel from out of state to appear at pre- trial hearings.