A rendition of an early jury. ‘borrowed’ from the Puget Sound Anarchist site.

Okay, last night on Sex and Politics, I spoke about the case of the Seattle 3–Matt Duran, Katherine ‘Kteeo’ Olejnik, and Leah Plante. They were all imprisoned in a federal lockup for refusing to testify to a grand jury–Matt and Kteeo are still in lockup. The Puget Sound Anarchist Website has been following the case, including the fact that the grand jury is subpoena-ing other activists in the Pacific Northwest.

I need to correct some of the things I said last night. All three were offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony. But immunity in a grand jury proceeding means that the witness cannot invoke fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination.  And as Leah wrote about her arrest, “…we suspected that this was not really about broken windows”. These three were subpoena’ed to provide open-ended testimony to a grand jury that was created two months before the May Day events in Seattle that were the ostensible reason for their detention. Puget Sound Anarchists site has created a zine in support of the arrestees (and/or in opposition to the Grand Jury). You can download a pdf of it here.

New York snob that I am, I have to admit that Seattle was the vanguard of protest against the new world order. It was the anti-WTO proteststhere 13 years ago that changed the terms of debate, and I suspect the Pacific Northwest has a vibrant activist community that has roots in those protests.

Please keep watching this case. Bad things are afoot here.