Sunday, September 10, 2023

"U.S. Open protester who glued his feet to the stadium floor say NYPD tried to discredit his message by sticking him in the psych ward"

From the New York Daily News, September 8:
The protester who glued his feet to the floor of Arthur Ashe Stadium told the Daily News Friday that police tried to humiliate him and discredit his environmental message by taking him to the psych ward after he was ejected for disturbing U.S. Open semi-finals Thursday night.

Shayok Mukhopadhyay knew the whole world would be watching Coco Gauff and Karolina Muchova’s match when he stuck his feet to the floor in front of his seat with glue he bought from the hardware store.

The artist and documentary maker, who staged the act of civil disobedience with fellow members of activist nonprofit Extinction Rebellion, spent several hours at East Elmhurst Hospital after the NYPD took him into custody, where he said medics asked him about the group and how members communicate with each other.

“I’ve been arrested before, but I’ve never had this experience,” Mukhopadhyay said. “They were asking obvious leading questions like, ‘Do you think the world is going to end?’ This typical stereotype of the crazy, apocalyptic cult kind of thing.”

Mukhopadhyay, 50, of White Plains, moved to New York 25 years ago from his native Kolkata, India.
He said his hometown, formerly known as Calcutta, an eastern region bordering Bangladesh, faces grave risks from climate change, motivating his art about rapidly rising temperatures and ecological threats to humanity.

“India is something I constantly think about because I grew up there, and I’m keenly aware of how low the level of resource consumption and energy consumption is there,” Mukhopadhyay said. “The Gangetic Delta, the mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, where the Ganges river empties into the Bay of Bengal, these are extremely vulnerable areas to climate change … They’re going to pay the price for this huge amount of resource and energy consumption in the global north. That injustice really, really horrifies me.”

Police eventually took Mukhopadhyay to the 111th Pct. stationhouse in Bayside, where he spent several hours before leaving with a ticket.

“This was completely a mechanism to intimidate and humiliate and to paint a distorted picture of me,” he said. “Who’s the crazy person here? It’s Biden who’s the crazy person here, who, in 2023, is approving new oil and gas projects when international energy agencies founded by Henry Kissinger – no tree hugger – have said there should be no new fossil fuel infrastructure.”....

I just hope that if I ever have to be habeas corpused out of a psych ward that my attorney is willing to jump right in:
...Mukhopadhyay’s civil rights attorney, Ron Kuby, said the charge against his client – criminally trespassing in a dwelling – was the least bizarre aspect of his case.

“When somebody who accepts the international scientific consensus that climate change is putting the planet in peril is deemed by the cops to be a delusional psychotic, it’s disturbing,” Kuby said. “Given the fact that they involuntarily held him at a psychiatric institution because he agrees with climate science, probably dismissing the charges at this point seems like a fair balance.”...

Here I have to take a stand. I am firmly against psych wards for political protests,

The humane approach is the one taken by Volkswagen:

....The VW people seem to take this stuff in stride. There was the time last year when a group calling themselves Scientist Rebellion glued themselves to the floor in the Autostadt, the museum and showroom across from the big factory in Wolfsburg:
Thursday, October 20, 2022 

From one of the protesters:

He goes on to clarify that their support people can get out, they just can't get back in.

And then there are the security people, making their rounds with bright flashlights, making it difficult to nap.  
Just a clarification: people in support can get out of the building but then they couldn't get back in. We can't order our food, we must use the one provided by Wolkswagen. Lights off. Random unannounced checks by security guards with bright torches. Police just came in.3/
As one commenter observed, not the smartest scientists, what with the lack of foresight on toiletting, much less planning for a longer stay: menu options, sleep masks etc. 

VW also knows how to put on an annual general meeting:

Why Did No One Inform Me There Was Cake At The Volkswagen Annual Meeting?

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