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NY Times Editor Brings Attention to Wrongful Arrest of Civil Rights Activist in Arizona

Posted August 4, 2010 by Patrick Young, Esq.
Categories: Hate Watch

Lawrence Downes of the New York Times drew attention this week to the wrongful arrest of a Latino civil rights activist by Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Here is an excerpt:

Last Friday, Sheriff Arpaio’s deputies arrested Salvador Reza, a leader of immigrant-rights protests, for reasons that a prosecutor later could not explain. Video shows Mr. Reza standing quietly in a parking lot, a good distance from a protest across the street, when a cordon of armed officers surrounds, handcuffs and hauls him off. It was a scene from another decade or country.

Thomas Saenz, the president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, links Arizona’s struggle to the civil rights era. He calls the state’s politicians the new nullifiers, descendants of the southern segregationists who fought for Jim Crow with the debased theory that states had the power to invalidate federal law. It took federal action and protesters stirring the nation’s conscience to make the point: You cannot treat people this way.

Tags : arpaio

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