Dozens of people have been arrested in New York, as the Occupy Wall Street movement grows throughout the US.Anti-corporate protests are ending their fifth week now, with police adopting an increasingly harsh approach to the demonstrators.
More than 30 protesters, including Princeton professor and veteran civil rights activist Cornel West, have been arrested during a demonstration by the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York.
“About 32 activists were arrested for demonstrating peacefully,” RT’s Lucy Kafanov reported from New York, “and several religious leaders were also taken away.”
Also among those arrested was Carl Dix, a national spokesman for the Revolutionary Communist Party, as well as several local religious leaders, including several members of the ministry.
According to an AFP report, a New York Police Department spokesman said the protesters had been arrested because they were “blocking the entrance” of the local police precinct in New York’s Harlem neighborhood.
New York police widely use the practice known as stop-and-frisk, in which officers randomly stop people on the street and sometimes frisk them to determine whether they are carrying arms.
This practice has been criticized by civil rights groups. Several hundred people were demonstrating in Harlem over the controversial police practice. Opponents say the stop-and-frisk policy unfairly targets black and Latino New Yorkers.
The number of protesters continues to grow, Lucy Kafanov reported. She says it seems “the officials do not feel like they can control the movement.”