Under cover of night Boston PD raided protest, arrested 50 and razed camp

Under cover of darkness, Boston and Massachusetts State Police raided Camp 2 of the OCCUPY BOSTON protest. A reported fifty activists were arrested, the police brutalized mostly elderly Veterans For Peace members trying to protect the campsite. Even as the paddy wagons were being filled, sanitation department garbage trucks were being filled with all the camp materials, tents, sleeping bags, signs and all. The pretext for the raid was that camping was in violation of city ordinances, the excuse being used on Wall Street and here in Colorado Springs. Constitutionally the enforcement of such laws are violating the protesters’ first amendment right to assemble, a right guaranteed night or day, sunny weather or inclement. The right to shelter is guaranteed by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Laws targeted at homelessness are being used exactly as opponents feared, to squelch political dissent. Notable about tonight’s raid, the Boston camp was an expansion camp relative to the original encampment, demonstrating that authorities will tolerate protest so long as it is nominal. They definitely do not want to see it growing.