(Los Angeles) Human rights activists and US politicians strongly denounced the summary arrest of protesters on Friday, arrested in the streets of Portland and taken away by federal agents in unmarked vehicles.
Posted on 17 July 2020 to 19 h 47
France Media Agency
“What is happening in Portland right now should worry everyone in the United States,” said Jann Carson, head of the powerful civil rights organization ACLU in Oregon, a northern state. west of the country.
“Usually, when you see people in unmarked cars forcibly picking up someone on the street, it's called kidnapping,” he added.
According to local media, federal agents have been driving through downtown Portland and arresting protesters without giving them a reason for at least 13 July.
Mark Pettibone, 29 years old, told the Washington Post how he was arrested by men in khaki uniforms who emerged from a civilian van that had stopped near him: “It looked like a horror or science fiction film”.
The young man said he was taken to a federal court and released a little later without being told the reasons for his arrest and whether or not he was charged with a crime.
In a press release published on Friday, the customs and border protection agency (CBP), which reports to the United States Department of the Interior, said that its agents carried out the arrest after having had “Information” that Mark Pettibone appeared on a video where he was “suspected” of physically attacking federal agents or property.
“When the CBP agents approached the suspect, a large and violent crowd came towards them. For everyone's safety, the agents quickly transferred the suspect to a safer place for questioning, “said the agency, assuring them that they had identified themselves properly and were wearing their organization's badges .
Federal agents have been deployed to Portland to put an end to the demonstrations organized every night before the city's federal court to protest against police brutality and racism.
Oregon Democratic Governor Kate Brown criticized the government’s intervention in the city on Twitter.
“This political comedy by President Trump has nothing to do with public safety,” she wrote.