People’s Artists Network

By Hiyasmin Saturay

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Background
On Wednesday some AROC folks and other Arab community members and allies attended a public hearing of the San Francisco Arts Commission. One of the agenda items was a motion on the new mural at 24th and Capp St in the Mission "to approve additional HOMEY design elements" for this mural.

The mural represents indigenous struggles of people of color worldwide as related to folks in the Mission and struggles in the Mission. Included on it is a representation of Palestinians breaking through the Apartheid wall to go with the themes of resistance and breaking down walls and fences. The Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Community Relations Council brought their members and staff out in full force, with a prepared 3 page letter against the mural project, stating it contained divisive and hostile themes. Their only complaint was against the portion on Palestinian resistance.

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   PAN artists did a dramatic interpretation of Nazim Hikmet’s "A Sad State of Freedom" last June 23, 2007 at the Oosterpark in Amsterdam. The event was organized by DeGemeenschaap (The Community). The street theater performance featured living images of torture, abductions, massacres and restriction of the right to travel.

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Guney’s video on the May 5 arrests was viewed by more than 80 people at the ACU a political cafe on Voorstraat in Utrecht last May 22. Folk singers Armand and David Rovics also performed at the event.

Arrested and Detained in The Netherlands
Jun Saturay
People’s Artists Network (PAN)
My 16-year old daughter, PAN artist Hiyasmin, and I joined a bicycle caravan against the G8 last May 5, 2007 (Freedom Day in the Netherlands). We wanted to give out some information materials about ABN AMRO’s role in the Rapu-rapu Island Mining Project in the Philippines. There were several policemen present when we started out, but the never told us that we were violating any law. The caravan went on its way with more than a hundred bikers. On the street, the police escorts told us to keep on one side of the street. And we followed their orders. Everything went fine until the special police came in their dark blue uniforms and dark colored vans. Some of the agents were not in uniform. They wore rubber gloves as they grabbed people.

It started out as a nice, fun bicycle ride on a warm, sunny day and ended up with the forced dispersal of the caravan. We were arrested along with a hundred other protesters…
Despite my protests, Hiyasmin and I were handcuffed and brought to the courthouse where we we were detained for 6 hours. We left our bicycles chained together on the pavement. I was able to give my key to PAN videoartist Guney who was able to elude arrest. He tried to claim the bicycles but the police still cut our locks and chains with a grinder. They also cut up my bicycle trailer. I also lost a bag of bicycle tools.

I asked that Hiyasmin and I be put in the same detention cell because she was a minor. But the police will not allow it. I asked to be allowed to call my wife so that she can come to the courthouse and look after Hiyasmin, but they would not allow it. I asked the policemen several times to be allowed to see and talk to my daughter… but they refused. I asked not to be photographed and treated like a criminal, but they took photographs and shoved me into a detention cell.
We came from the Philippines where a brutal regime rules by terrorizing people with the use of the police, the military, water cannons, truncheons, high-powered firearms, torture, summary executions, abductions, and death squads. The Philippine government was never been able to arrest or detain me. I barely escaped with my life by coming to the Netherlands.
But on Freedom Day in the Netherlands, my daughter and I were arrested, handcuffed, treated like criminals, and detained. Our personal properties were confiscated and damaged by the police.
I think the police, and whoever ordered the caravan to be dispersed, never really understood what Freedom Day was all about.

PAN members join up with the May 1 Demonstration in Rotterdam (The Netherlands).

Isn’t everyday an earth day?

Everyday is an earth day for us. Everyday is an occasion to celebrate our planet. We believe that the protection of the planet is strongly tied to the world’s peoples’ resistance against the evermore greedy, ruthless, oppressive, and exploitative corporations and their political regimes.

We want the world. We want a better world.

We say:

NO to corporate plunder of the world.
NO to all forms of oppression and exploitation.