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Update on Moscow Marijuana Rally Free Speech Violations

Following is an update from Moscow on the police brutalization and free speech violation committed by authorities against marijuana march participants. (Click here to read the first update received this weekend.) - Dave Dear sisters and brothers! Thank you for your assistance and attention to Russian problems with human rights. Below there is new information about events with cruel breaking up of Marijuana march in Moscow: All cannabis activists were unlawfully sentenced by Moscow district court! As I earlier informed all arrested cannabis activists were delivered at The Presnentsky administrative district court of Moscow City. Not only participants of Marijuana march were accused but also other people who were sympathized them. The Judge has worked during the whole night without the rest. She has hypocritically convicted demonstrators according to The Russian Administrative law for the propaganda of drugs (...and bla-bla-bla). No one of councels for the defence was allow in the process. Finally some of activists were sentenced for 15 days of arrest. Other ones were nominated money fine. On juridical commentary all accusations are unlawfully. There are not simply disproportionate sentences, but sentences absolutely fixed by lawlessness. Here is that Ivan Ninenko who is the protector of activists has told: I just returned from the court versus delayed on the March for Legalize MJ and people who sympathized them near police department named "ARBAT". They all were accused according articles 19.3 (non-obedience to legal requirements of employees to militias), 6.13 (propaganda of narcotics) and 20.2 (overset of undertaking of meeting, demonstration and picketing). The judge listened the case during the whole night from 9 P.M. to 9 A.M. Total: Three girls - a fine on 4500 rubles. Sergey Konstantinov - 15 days of arrest and the fine on 3500 rubles. To every another 6 lads (list later) - 10 day of arrest and the fine on 3500 rubles. Now I'm going to sleep because I'm very tired. Such unlawfulness that I never saw! Brothers and sisters, friends, this is never mind what kind of the march is this and as you are to take to it. More so, some guys were delayed not on the march, but beside a police department "Arbat". BUT it is IMPORTANT to spread this information over the World into the name of God and for liberties of people and human right. Please, put this letter and other links on your LJ blogs, the forum conferences, or WebPages. All people must hear ABOUT THESE UNDOUBTEDLY ILLEGAL actions of Moscow militias. We all hope that they will carry responsibility for this! You may organize: 1. The action of solidarity beside Russian embassies, consulates and representations with requirements to free cannabis activists. Moreover it is very important on Action to raise a voice not for the hemp, but against cops bestialities. In the insulator there are people without defence councels. 2. To call Phones and faxes of Russia embassies. See below Richard Lake advice: In the United States there is a Russian Consulate in Washington, D.C., New York, Houston, Seattle and San Francisco. Please see for address and phone numbers: http://www.russianembassy.org/consulat/contact.htm The location and contact information for Russian embassy and consulate offices worldwide may be accessed from this page: http://www.russianembassy.net/ 3. To call Phones and faxes of Russia in Moscow straight: +7 495 684-42-36 - an insulator, where keeping imprisoned people now. Presently the most important, so that defence councels can come to the delayed activists in the insulator. Also they need Public prosecutor (or attorneys), because there are repressions. Sergey Konstantinov who was sentenced for 15 days arrest is keeping hunger strike. + 7 495 2009305; 2008510; 2008924; Fax: 9732041. This numbers are telephones of Head service of investigation of Moscow, Petrovka street, 38. It is necessary to call them and talk about cops bestialities in police department and that sentenced activists are requiring defence councels, which do not allow. You may surf on Marijuana march organizers Website http://www.legaliz.info/ You can read last reporting on http://community.livejournal.com/legal_team/ ; http://blancanevies.livejournal.com/432177.html; http://sportloto80.livejournal.com/92719.html; http://gazeta.ru/2007/05/05/oa_238380.shtml Unfortunately only in Russian. But there are many photos. You also can write to me [email protected] or call in my mobile telephone 8 916 980 8590, or meet in ICQ # 291099002 as well as to protector Ivan Ninenko [email protected]; mob: 8-926-568-4583; icq 299200108 God bless you and bless us all, Eugene Kazachenko

Free Marc Emery!! Canada's Prince of Pot Has Begun His Journey Into America's Gulag

Marc Emery is no longer a free man. Canada's Prince of Pot was taken into custody today. He turned himself in at the BC Supreme Court in Vancouver, and is now jailed in Vancouver awaiting imminent extradition to the US, where he is set to plead guilty to one count of marijuana distribution for selling pot seeds over the Internet. Emery is expected to be sentenced to five years in federal prison in the US for his seed sales. He sold millions of seeds in the decade prior to his 2005 arrest and became a leading hemispheric advocate for marijuana legalization, using the profits from his seed sales to fund reformers across the continent. He also called out then drug czar John Walters for lying about marijuana and interfering in Canadian domestic politics, leading then DEA head Karen Tandy to issue this press release lauding his arrest as a blow to the legalization movement:
Today's DEA arrest of Marc Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine, and the founder of a marijuana legalization group -- is a signficant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement. His marijuana trade and propagandist marijuana magazine have generated nearly $5 million a year in profits that bolstered his trafficking efforts, but those have gone up in smoke today. Emery and his organization had been designated as one of the Attorney General's most wanted international drug trafficking organizational targets -- one of only 46 in the world and the only one from Canada. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery's illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canda. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on.
Can you say politically motivated? I knew you could. One American attorney familiar with his case told me this weekend that Emery could have fought the prosecution and sought to have shown that it was unlawfully politically motivated, but that Emery and his Canadian legal team didn't want to take that risk. That's understandable, given that Emery was looking at decades or even life in prison if he lost. Now, America's legions of unknown marijuana martyrs are being joined by one very big name. Let's hope that Emery's unjust imprisonment turns a spotlight on the hideousness of a US federal legal system that turns a blind eye to torture but cages a man for selling pot seeds. The Vancouver Sun's Ian Mulgrew sums it up nicely in an op-ed piece entitled Marc Emery's Sentence Reeks of Injustice and Mocks Our Sovreignty:
After two decades as Canada's Prince of Pot, Marc Emery will surrender himself today in B.C. Supreme Court and become the country's first Marijuana Martyr. Emery will begin serving what could be as long as five years behind bars as Uncle Sam's prisoner for a crime that in Canada would have earned him at most a month in the local hoosegow. It is a legal tragedy that in my opinion marks the capitulation of our sovereignty and underscores the hypocrisy around cannabis. Emery hasn't even visited America but he was arrested in July 2005 at the request of a Republican administration that abhorred his politics. He is being handed over to a foreign government for an activity we are loath to prosecute because we don't think selling seeds is a major problem. There are at least a score of seed-sellers downtown and many, many more such retail outlets across the country. In the days ahead, once the federal justice minister signs the extradition papers, Emery will be frog-marched south to Seattle where his plea bargain will be rubber-stamped and he will be sent to a U.S. penitentiary. For comparison, consider that the B.C. Court of Appeal last year said a one-month jail sentence plus probation was appropriate punishment for drug and money-laundering offences of this ilk. The last time Emery was convicted in Canada of selling pot seeds, back in 1998, he was given a $2,000 fine.
There's more at the link above, but you get the gist. Mulgrew, of course, is right on the money. The Canadian government has shamefully failed to protect one of its citizens from the crazed drug war machine south of the border, and the US government is shamelessly imprisoning yet another non-violent pot person--this time mainly to shut him up. We should demand that Marc Emery and all other marijuana prisoners be immediately released. Short of that, we should, as Emery requests, demand that he be allowed to serve his time at home in a Canadian prison.

South Dakota Judge Sentences Marijuana Reform Activist to Shut Up

South Dakota's most well-known marijuana legalization advocate, Bob Newland, was sentenced yesterday to a year in the Pennington County Jail with all but 45 days suspended for felony marijuana possession--a little less than four ounces. Once he does his time, he'll be on probation for a year. Newland can, I suppose, consider himself fortunate. According to the South Dakota Department of Corrections, there are currently six people imprisoned for possession of less than half a pound and seven for more than half but less than one pound, as well as 14 doing time for distribution of less than an ounce and another 25 doing time for distribution of less than a pound. But in another respect, Newland is not so lucky. He has basically been stripped of his First Amendment right to advocate for marijuana legalization while he is on probation. As the Associated Press reported:
A longtime South Dakota supporter of legalized marijuana has been sentenced to serve 45 days in jail for possessing the illegal drug. Authorities say Bob Newland of Hermosa was found with four bags of marijuana, a scale and $385 in cash when he was stopped for speeding in March. He pleaded guilty in May to a possession charge under a plea agreement in which prosecutors agreed to drop a more serious charge of possession with intent to distribute. Newland will be on probation for the rest of the year following his jail term. During his probation, he is barred from publicly advocating the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Newland, understandably, is not inclined to challenge the probation condition. There's something about staring at the walls of a jail cell that does that to a guy. But that doesn't mean others shouldn't raise a stink about this arguably unconstititional sentence. I'll be looking into this and will have a Chronicle story about it on Friday.
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