A total of 12 protesters charged in connection with the Nov. 9 Occupy Cal protests have been issued orders to stay away from UC property.
The final four were arraigned Wednesday, joining nine other Occupy Cal protesters who have been charged in regards to the Nov. 9 protests. All have been arraigned at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland over the last week, all pled not guilty, and all but one — UC Berkeley associate professor of English Celeste Langan — were also issued the stay-away orders.
The four arraigned Wednesday were charged with various counts, such as resisting arrest and obstruction of a public place.
Ricardo Gomez, Zakary Habash, Ramon Quintero and Joshua Anderson were issued the stay-away orders by Judge Paul Seeman, although Anderson and Habash were in absentia for personal matters and were represented by their attorney.
Seeman said the orders bar the defendants from setting foot on UC property, except to fulfill class duties or university business. Gomez was granted an exception to the order which allows him to continue to live in his apartment, which is technically on UC campus property.
Quintero’s attorney Sarah Belletto said Quintero poses no risk to public safety and that the stay-away orders were too extensive.
BAMN attorney Ronald Cruz, who represents Anderson and Habash, said that because UC Berkeley is the “home of free speech,” the prosecution of the protesters will act as a national precedent. He said the recently announced resignation of UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau is an admission that Birgeneau’s “policy of repressing students defending public education” is a failure.
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Good. UC Berkeley campus needs to be cleared of these punks. The Occupy movement is shortsighted and naive.
& you are entititled to your opinion but there is a much bigger issue going on here.
The “bigger issue” is that the hard-core lefty advocates deliberately blur the distinction between freedom of speech and physical confrontation. Ultimately they don’t give a damn about free speech, and are merely trying to promote their tired old class war against anyone and anything they view as representative of the “system”. The punishment they received was more than fair – they certainly wouldn’t have had the benefit of going in front of a judge and arguing their case if this had happened somewhere like Iran or Syria.