December 2003    

We print below a report on the third day of the trial of  Hostos Community College student leader, Miguel Malo, which continued on Wednesday, December 3.

Day Three of the Miguel Malo trial was devoted to selection of the jury. Opening arguments will be presented on Thursday, December 4, beginning at 9:30 a.m. This will be followed by the prosecution’s presentation of its “case” against the Hostos Community College student leader. On Wednesday, Judge Robert Torres tried to intimidate him into accepting the phony “deal” offered by the prosecution, saying that “conviction may affect his status in this country.” Miguel courageously refused. After consultation with his client, defense attorney Ron McGuire responded forcefully, “Mr. Malo asked me to inform the court that he is not guilty.”

Miguel was charged in the original complaint with holding up a sign protesting cuts of Spanish and bilingual programs. When that fell flat, the prosecution simply changed its charge sheet (which it has done four times already). The state is now trying to railroad Miguel to prison with a trainload of charges:  two counts of assault in the 3rd degree, two counts of 2nd degree assault, two counts of attempted 3rd degree assault, one count of resisting arrest, one count of disorderly conduct, and two counts of  2nd degree harassment. Miguel is facing up to a year in jail on these ten trumped-up charges, and as we reported earlier, Judge Torres announced at the beginning of the trial that his “standard operating procedure” was to impose the maximum sentence. 

The stakes are high in this frame-up trial, both for Miguel Malo and for all students, faculty and campus workers at the City University of New York (CUNY), as well as for immigrants and working people. Miguel’s arrest came at the high point of struggle at Hostos College against a concerted attempt to drive out thousands of immigrant students for whom English is not their native language. As early as May 1997, university authorities suddenly sprung a last-minute exam on 500 prospective graduates, including 100 at Hostos. This was a first step in the racist purge that included virtually wiping out remedial ESL (English as a second language) programs two years later. This gutted the remnants of open admissions, which had been won by a militant campus occupation by black and Latino students in 1969.

The fight erupted again at Hostos in May 2001, when college president Dolores Fernández (a crony of the Herman Badillo, then head of the CUNY trustees) unilaterally tried to eliminate two key ESL and Spanish classes. More than a hundred angry students gathered to protest this attack. CUNY “peace officers” tried to stop the Hostos students from entering their own campus. Panicked campus officials even called in the NYPD, and a city cop pulled a gun on the president of the Hostos student senate, Oscar Paul. To cool things out, Fernández agreed to let students into an executive committee meeting in the auditorium to discuss the cuts, but then reneged. Yet student opposition was so strong that the administration was forced to back down and rescind the cuts. This is what “embarrassed” Fernández and led to the arrest of Miguel Malo and others in August.

The prosecution has systematically sought to exclude any reference to Miguel’s democratic rights to free speech and assembly, as if he suddenly attacked the campus “peace officers.” Miguel attacked nobody. Instead, he was assaulted by the cops while holding his protest placard, thrown to the ground and brutally manhandled. The defense has dramatic photographs of his back to prove it. We will see if the court allows this evidence to be presented. And his was only one of several arrests when the Hostos campus cops went on a rampage in August 2001.

The first arrest on August 15 was of Chris Gunderson, who tried to enter Hostos with his ID as a student of Hunter College. He was told he could not enter, and as he was leaving he was arrested when he asked for the badge number of the campus cop who barred him. Seeing Gunderson’s arrest, Hostos student leader Pedro Rivera quickly made a sign saying “Stop Arresting Our Students, Let Them Exercise the First Amendment of the Constitution.” For that, he also was arrested by the CUNY “peace officers,” while standing on the public sidewalk outside Hostos! When another Hostos student, Marcos Lora, protested Rivera’s arrest, he was arrested, too. Not only students were targeted in this repressive frenzy. The next day, August 16, City College professor Bill Crain was arrested for the “crime” of trying to enter Hostos College with his CUNY ID. 

So far, the judge has ruled that none of these essential facts will be permitted in the trial. Chris Gunderson was stricken as a witness. Pedro Rivera’s testimony was declared not relevant “at this time.” Testimony from Oscar Paul was declared “duplicative.” The videotape from August 16 was excluded. A subpoena to Hostos president Fernández was quashed. Testimony from the chairman of the campus chapter of the faculty union (PSC) about phone calls from Hostos officials threatening they would not take demonstrations “lying down” was ruled out. This is a graphic example of how bourgeois “justice” is rigged against the oppressed.

In the tradition of James P. Cannon, first head of the International Labor Defense in the 1920s and founder of American Trotskyism, the Internationalist Group calls on students, teachers, immigrants, minorities and working people to put no faith in the capitalist courts and all faith in the independent mobilization of the working class and its allies. We urge supporters of Miguel Malo to attend the trial, which is going on daily and continuing into next week.

Come out to demonstrate support for Miguel Malo on Friday, December 5, at 9 a.m. sharp, across the street from the Bronx Criminal Court, 215 East 161st Street in the Bronx, located one block east of Grand Concourse (take the 4 or D trains to the 161st Street stop). Then show your support by attending the trial in Jury Room 7.

Defend Miguel Malo! (November 2003) 
Click here to download flyer for December 5 demonstration (requires Acrobat Reader)