Human Rights Body Criticizes U.S. for NYPD's Policing of Occupy Wall Street

Rendered in plain language: By arresting shoving, obstructing, and kettling journalists, the NYPD broke international human rights law.



And if you've ever wondered why members of a free press should require licensure from the police to do their job, the international human rights observers agree with you:

With respect to journalists' access to assembly locations and to other restrictive measures imposed on them by the police, such as arrests, it should be noted that the authorities should not distinguish between accredited journalists and those without credentials, including citizen journalists, by limiting the ability of the latter to carry out their reporting work.

The report also criticizes the NYPD's (and other police departments') use of kettling, the practice of herding and detaining large groups of people without actually arresting them, and suggests that New York and other cities probably could have found better ways to manage Occupy's public encampments than rolling them up in secretive commando-style operations conducted in the dead of night while doing everything they could to prevent journalists from covering their actions.