Friday, October 28, 2016
Filmmaker
Facing 30 Years for Documenting Climate Action Stands Resolute, Determined
'Freedom of the press is guaranteed'
A screengrab from raw video
posted by Lindsey Grayzel shows climate activist Ken Ward the day they were
both arrested.
A
documentary filmmaker who could face more than 30 years in prison for merely
capturing images of a climate activist taking part in a direct action has
asserted her First Amendment rights, releasing on Friday a statement as well as
raw footage taken the day of her arrest.
Lindsey
Grayzel, along with cinematographer Carl Davis, was arrested and jailed on
October 11 in Burlington, Washington after filming environmentalist Ken Ward,
the subject of
her current documentary. Ward, who was also
arrested, was taking part in a #ShutItDown action to
protest fossil fuels and express solidarity with those resisting the Dakota Access
Pipeline.
"Freedom
of the press is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States
Constitution. The protections given to the press extend to documentary
filmmakers, who bring context to a story that is not possible under the
constraints of commercial news outlets," she said in a statement released
to news outlets.
"My
focus is long form documentary, and I've been working to craft a film about Ken
Ward's climate activism for over a year. It is a rare person who will
acknowledge the reality of climate change and react not with helplessness, but
instead with a determination to do everything in his power to stop or at least
slow down the destruction. My job now is to tell Ken's story to the public, and
I look forward to finishing this film."
The
statement also lists the charges Grayzel faces:
- Burglary,
2nd Degree (Class B Felony): ten years imprisonment,
a fine of $20,000, or both.
- Criminal
Sabotage, (Class B Felony): ten years imprisonment, a fine of $20,000, or
both.
- Assemblage
of Saboteurs (Class B Felony): ten years imprisonment, a fine of $5,000,
or both.
- Criminal
Trespass, 2nd Degree (Misdemeanor): ninety days imprisonment, a fine of
$1,000, or both.
- Total
maximum punishment: 30 years + 90 days imprisonment, a fine of $46,000 or
both.
She
posted the raw footage captured the day of her arrest to her Vimeo page, which
you can see below: https://vimeo.com/lindseygrayzel.
Grayzel's
arrest came the same day as that of documentary
filmmaker and journalist Deia Schlosberg, who was also filmming a #ShutItDown
action. She faces up to 45
years in prison after being arrested in Walhalla, North Dakota,
for reporting on the ongoing Indigenous protests against fossil fuel infrastructure.
Theirs
were among other "concerning" arrests of filmmakers and journalists
in the past month, wrote Sabrina
King, policy director at the ACLU of Wyoming.
"There's
little question that the severity of these charges are meant to send a chill
down the spine of any journalist who dares cover the protests in ways the
authorities and fossil fuel industry don't like," she wrote.
"Our
country needs dissent. And our country needs its journalists to highlight that
dissent and bring to light the injustices perpetuated by unjust laws.
Government suppression and intimidation of the climate movement must end
now," she concluded.
In its
2016 World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders ranks the U.S. 41 out of 179
countries.
This work
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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