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Former Black Panthers considered terrorists under Patriot Act
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Former Black Panthers considered terrorists under Patriot Act
{Group seeks end to torture of American citizens}
By Valencia Mohammed
AFRO Staff Writer
Undaunted by what they call "unconstitutional" methods used under the guise of the Patriot Act, three former members of the Black Panther Party are touring the country to bring awareness to their recent interrogation by anti-terror law enforcement officials.
Former Panthers John Bowman, Hank Jones and Ray Boudreaux held a forum on Dec. 8 at the Washington, D.C., office of TransAfrica Forum, a think tank for issues affecting Africa. They have in common the suffering they endured in 1971 while being interrogated about a police shooting in San Francisco.
They were indicted by a grand jury, but the court rendered a decision that said the methods used to obtain information were unlawful, freeing all three Panthers.
Thirty-four years later, Bowman, Jones, Boudreaux and other Black Panthers again faced their interrogators from the 1970s, who are now serving as agents with the Anti-Terrorism Task Force, a special Department of Homeland Security division formed to apprehend suspected terrorists.
"I was quite surprised when I opened the door to see the same two detectives involved in beating me [34 years earlier] standing there. It brought back memories that I will never forget," said Bowman. "This is very difficult for me to discuss in public."
Bowman was an organizer with the Panthers, founded in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in Oakland, Calif. The Black Panther Party grew to at least 5,000 members, with chapters in more than half the country. Considered militant by the FBI, the Panthers were the target of a coordinated surveillance and infiltration campaign.
In 1973, according to Bowman, he was stripped naked by interrogators and beaten with blunt objects, wrapped with blankets soaked in boiling hot water, shocked with electric probes in his "anus and other private parts," punched, kicked and slammed into walls. The process lasted until interrogators received murder confessions.
"These stories are not available in the public domain. These stories are hidden in the framework of the American justice system. We want to put this in the forefront of the public dialogue and let people hear the truth about what is happening," said actor and human rights activist Danny Glover, who stressed the importance of exposing the Bush administration tactic of arresting and interrogating law-abiding citizens by labeling them "terrorists."
"We must talk about the current attempt to reopen these cases against those members of the Black Panther Party who were tortured more than 30 years ago," said Glover, who also serves as chairman of the board for TransAfrica Forum.
The detectives who questioned Bowman, Frank McCoy and Edward Erdelatz, are retired members of the San Francisco Police Department who are now special agents with the Anti-Terrorism Task Force.
"Once upon a time, they called me a terrorist too," said Boudreaux. "To expedite something in the system, they put a 'terror' tag on it and it gets done. Terror means money. These people [government] have a budget and they are working it."
Bowman said when he watched the World Trade Center towers come down in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, he knew the government might approach him as a suspect, especially after he heard the language being used to describe the investigation.
"This is a broad general investigation going on under the current COINTELPRO (counterintelligence program of the FBI] grown up into the USA Patriot Act, an extension of what was going on back then -- the same violations of our human and constitutional rights, totally unjust [and] done in secret and quietly," said Jones.
"We've chosen not to be quiet about this. They are destroying democracy with this Patriot Act. It's not just confined to us. It's other activist organizations as well."
Jones pointed out that under former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, all civil rights organizations were facing major surveillance. Hoover considered the Black Panther Party to be the "greatest threat of national security to the nation."
TransAfrica President Bill Fletcher Jr. expressed concern about the erosion of civil rights.
"It is ironic that instead of having a press conference in which apologies are being offered to the individuals who were tortured and the many other victims of COINTELPRO, instead we are to call attention to the prosecution of people who were freedom fighters and continue to be," said Fletcher.
A coalition of well-known intellectuals has joined TransAfrica's efforts to enlighten the public about covert activities authorized by the Patriot Act.
"We condemn the persecution transpiring against these individuals. We wish to bring it to light when the word 'terrorism' is in the air," said Ron Daniels, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
"The antiwar movement and the civil rights movement had effectively checked the national security state in relationship to surveillance. Many of the forces, particularly on the extreme right, had been bristling and eager for an opportunity to impose new measures. The Patriot Act had already been on the drawing board. The terrorist attacks provided an opportunity for them to impose them."
Daniels added that "before former Attorney General [John] Ashcroft left, he issued a broad-ranging edict that all the cases that involved any incident where a police officer had been killed and the case had been closed, be re-opened. ... And if these men and women can be indicted or harassed, it sends a chilling effect."
Professor Charles Ogletree, founder and executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School, said the community should protect the rights of these individuals with their lives.
"These gentlemen -- Ray Boudreaux, Hank Jones and others -- have been victims of the most vicious forms of American terrorism and torture," said Ogletree. "It takes a village to protect its elders. We tell them today, through our presence here and through our commitment, that we will provide a protective blanket over them. They will not come in this village and take these elders, except over our dead bodies."
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