Bush is now criminalizing free speech when a protester directs criticism at an individual public official. The NY doctor Wang, who heckled Bush and Chinese President is charged with the crime of “harassing, intimidating and threatening a foreign official for yelling at Hu that his ‘days are numbered'” – a crime for which there is a 6-month imprisonment potential. The government argues that “because Wang’s tirade was personally directed at Hu, it wasn’t protected speech.”
The facts are that Wang was admitted into the ceremony by using a temporary press pass from a Falun Gong newspaper. Wang wanted Bush to be informed of the extent of human rights violations in China. China bans Falun Gong, a spiritual movement, whose leaders claim that Hu’s government has first persecuted its followers and then harvested their organs. Wang shouted at Hu to stop oppressing the outlawed Chinese Falun Gong movement. At the ceremony, Wang shouted in Chinese: “Stop oppressing the Falun Gong” and “Your time is running out” to Hu. Wang also shouted in English to Bush: “President Bush, stop him from killing.”
It is also curious that the US government would choose to claim that free speech rights are not protected when the facts of the case should be protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This Declaration states that human rights guaranteed to all persons include “freedom of thought, conscience and religion.” This Declaration was adopted by the UN in 1948 after the Holocaust atrocities to outline human rights guaranteed to all people. It is interesting that the drafters of this Declaration included both the US and China. While the Declaration is not part of international law and is not legally binding, it constitutes a “statement of objectives to be followed by governments.” It is customary to follow the Declaration as it “constitutes an obligation for the members of the international community.”
While this federal crime is based on “threatening” a foreign official, the federal government’s theory is setting the stage for the next case that is filed against a protester who publicly criticizes an American public official. The government’s theory is that when a protester and/or journalist makes public remarks that disrupt an event where a public official is speaking, the protester’s remarks are not protected speech when the remarks are “personally directed” at the public official. After Wang was arrested for exercising free speech, a CNN producer was ejected at the next Hu event at Yale University for the crime of shouting a question to Hu, something reporters customarily do in America. The Secret Service removed the CNN producer from the Bush/Hu event for violating one of Bush’s rules unknown to the press that ban asking questions of Bush or his foreign heads of state unless first permission is granted by the “Decider.”
Perhaps the federal government is seeing if it can be successful with a similar theory used by a state in criminalizing free speech in a case in Ohio where a citizen faces 109 years in prison for criticizing a judge on accusations of corruption. The criminal trial of judicial whistleblower Elsebeth Baumgartner on charges of intimidation, retaliation, falsification and possession of a criminal tool (laptop computer) is scheduled for May 10, 2006. A retired judge says that Baumgartner intimidated him by sending emails asking the judge to “properly perform his judicial duties, criticizing his past actions and rulings and accusing him of case-fixing” and for postings on her own blog. Ms. Baumgartner was previously disbarred from practicing law in Ohio based on charges that she had criticized several public officials with “false accusations.” While there are very few newspaper articles about the facts upon which the criminal charges are based, the disbarment proceedings indicate that Baumgartner has a history of making “numerous public accusations alleging that school officials, police, prosecutors, judges and private citizens were guilty of corruption, conspiracy, theft, falsification and other criminal acts and misconduct for which she produced no credible evidence.” While there are various grounds upon which such conduct is ripe for disbarment based upon ethical rules of conduct, the question is whether such conduct should also be a criminal act. If statements alleged against public officials are false, then there is the civil remedy of libel. But to file criminal charges for publicly criticizing a public official in emails or on a blog is twisting the the First Amendment in a fashion that our “Decider” must find appealing in his unilateral world of directives and rules that he remain free of public criticism.
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