by Brian Con­can­non Jr.

Fr. Ger­ard Jean-Juste, a Catholic priest from Haiti, just does not know when to shut up. In the 1970’s he saw his peo­ple starved and per­se­cuted while Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duva­lier lived in opu­lence, so he orga­nized for change. The Duva­lier regime responded as dic­ta­tor­ships do, and kicked him out of the coun­try. When he reached Miami, Fr. Gerry saw that the safety he found there did not extend to immi­grants locked up in deten­tion cen­ters or sent back to face tor­ture or worse in Haiti and coun­tries like it. So he orga­nized there for change. He founded Florida’s Hait­ian Refugee Cen­ter to bring the strug­gle for jus­tice to the U.S. courts, and coor­di­nated demon­stra­tions to bring the strug­gle to the streets.

The United States responded as democ­ra­cies should: it let Fr. Gerry do his work, as long as he did not break the law. He did not win all the bat­tles here that he should have– our laws and our courts are not per­fect. But he was at least able to crit­i­cize and mobi­lize with­out fear of per­se­cu­tion, and some­times even win.

Bill Quigley, a Catholic law pro­fes­sor from New Orleans, can­not stop help­ing peo­ple orga­niz­ing for change. He has been a lead­ing advo­cate for the vic­tims of Kat­rina since he weath­ered the storm in a New Orleans hos­pi­tal where his wife Deb­bie, a nurse, works, try­ing to help. The hos­pi­tal patients did not need a lawyer then, but the fam­i­lies still with­out homes and the kids still with­out good schools need one now, so Bill is busy. In 30 years of pub­lic inter­est lawyer­ing, Bill has stood up for a whole spec­trum of peo­ple fight­ing for social jus­tice, includ­ing peace pro­tes­tors, death-row inmates and advo­cates for fair edu­ca­tion, health­care and housing.

Fr. Gerry brought the lessons he learned in the U.S. about non-violent orga­niz­ing for social change back to Haiti. In early 2004, when the bru­tal, uncon­sti­tu­tional and U.S.-supported interim regime took over from Haiti’s elected gov­ern­ment, Fr. Jean-Juste became the most promi­nent and respected polit­i­cal dis­si­dent. He denounced the killing of polit­i­cal oppo­nents, the polit­i­cal arrests, the loot­ing of pub­lic cof­fers and the tax breaks lav­ished on the wealthy while the poor starved. Peo­ple lis­tened, so the regime responded as dic­ta­tor­ships do, and arrested Fr. Gerry on trumped up charges, jail­ing him for over seven months. The author­i­ties accused him of many things over the next two years– three mur­ders, trea­son, gun pos­ses­sion, plot­ting against the state and crim­i­nal con­spir­acy, all with­out a shred of evi­dence or a sin­gle witness.

There was one charge — made by the police at one of Fr. Gerry’s arrests, but never in court — that might have stuck: dis­turb­ing pub­lic order. Where pub­lic order meant poor kids dying of hunger and young men mas­sa­cred for liv­ing in a politically-active neigh­bor­hood, Fr. Gerry dis­turbed the order. He fed hun­dreds of chil­dren at his church to show that it could be done. He used his pul­pit, the radio waves and the streets to denounce the repres­sion, and remind peo­ple that there was a bet­ter way.

When Pro­fes­sor Quigley found out about Fr. Gerry’s first arrest, he could not help but go down to Haiti to help. Bill appeared in court along­side Fr. Gerry’s Hait­ian lawyer, Mario Joseph, and stood at Fr. Gerry’s side dur­ing par­tic­u­larly dan­ger­ous times. Bill was roughed up once try­ing to shield Fr. Gerry from a crowd before his sec­ond arrest, which he recounted in a July 2005 Com­mon Dreams arti­cle. But the police and the courts always treated him with respect, always allowed him to do his job.

The Amer­i­can professor’s pres­ence in court and at the police sta­tion was a potent reminder of how a gov­ern­ment should respond to its crit­ics. The police, pros­e­cu­tors, judges, lawyers and even the defen­dant saw Bill as rep­re­sent­ing a jus­tice sys­tem that rejected pun­ish­ing peo­ple for their polit­i­cal opin­ions, tol­er­ated dis­sent as long as it was expressed legally, and respected the right of lawyers to assist their clients.

Bill’s pres­ence had a tan­gi­ble impact. It helped give one judge the courage to release Fr. Gerry pro­vi­sion­ally (the judge was forced off the bench the next month; Fr. Gerry was re-arrested eight months later). It helped bol­ster Attor­ney Joseph, who man­aged to obtain another pro­vi­sional release, which is still in effect, in Jan­u­ary 2006.

But despite Bill’s efforts, Fr. Gerry’s legal strug­gle con­tin­ued, even after the restora­tion of democ­racy to Haiti in 2006. The lat­est chap­ter was an appeals court hear­ing on Novem­ber 26, to decide Fr. Gerry’s chal­lenge to his indict­ment. Bill had planned to go to Port-au-Prince for the hear­ing, but a few days before, he can­celled. He was needed even more in New Orleans, to rep­re­sent pub­lic hous­ing ten­ants in their strug­gle against the Bush Administration’s plan to destroy 4,500 units of desperately-needed hous­ing (see HUD Sends New Orleans Bull­doz­ers and $400,000 Apart­ments for the Hol­i­days, Decem­ber 3).

In Haiti, Fr. Gerry’s hear­ing went fairly well. The judges allowed him and his lawyers ample time to make their case, and appeared to be under no inap­pro­pri­ate pres­sure. Hun­dreds of Fr. Gerry’s sup­port­ers packed the court­room for the hear­ing or protested out­side, but there were no inci­dents, and no one was arrested (see My Rosary Is My Only Weapon, Fr. Jean-Juste Goes To Court, Again, San Fran­cisco Bayview, Decem­ber 5, 2007). The court has not yet issued its deci­sion, but the fact that a politically-charged hear­ing was held fairly and peace­fully was a wel­come sign of Haiti’s increas­ing democratization.

In New Orleans, Bill’s work went less well. He was bru­tally arrested by a New Orleans deputy sher­iff. The arrest was caught on video, which shows Bill qui­etly stand­ing by as his clients explain why they should be allowed to enter a pub­lic New Orleans City Coun­cil meet­ing. Sud­denly a deputy grabs Bill from behind, slams him against the wall and roughly hand­cuffs him. The charge: dis­turb­ing the peace. The fact that the lawyer whose protests had been tol­er­ated by Haiti’s dic­ta­tor­ship was bru­tally arrested for stand­ing out­side a hear­ing room in Louisiana is an unwel­come sign of America’s decreas­ing democratization.

After the arrest, Bill tried to deflect atten­tion from his expe­ri­ence to the per­se­cu­tion of his clients. He noted that “we live in a sys­tem where if you cheer or chant in a city coun­cil, you get arrested. But you can demol­ish 4,500 people’s apart­ments, and every­body is sup­posed to go along with that. That’s not going to hap­pen.” He added that “there’s going to be a lot more dis­turb­ing the peace before this is all over, I am afraid.”

Although the video footage of Bill’s arrest is dis­turb­ing, the mea­ger press cov­er­age of it is even more so. If a nationally-known pro­fes­sor hav­ing his head slammed against a wall on film for peace­fully help­ing the vic­tims of the most noto­ri­ous nat­ural dis­as­ter of our times ask their City Coun­cil for help defend­ing their homes against a dis­cred­ited Bush Admin­is­tra­tion does not gen­er­ate out­rage, what will?

The attack on Bill was clearly designed to intim­i­date New Orleans’ polit­i­cal dis­si­dents. The attack itself, and the lack of an out­cry about it, will encour­age more attacks. Even more peo­ple will hes­i­tate before stand­ing up to the Bush Admin­is­tra­tion and its local allies.

But the attack will not stop the New Orleans ten­ants, or their lawyer. Today, Inter­na­tional Human Rights Day, they went before the city’s His­toric Con­ser­va­tion Dis­trict Review Com­mit­tee, bring­ing over 100 pro­tes­tors to the meet­ing. They won one: the Com­mit­tee agreed to stop the demo­li­tion of one of the three devel­op­ments. The ten­ants will keep fight­ing the other demo­li­tions, and they will keep exer­cis­ing their Con­sti­tu­tional rights to speak, to cheer and to chant, to dis­turb a peace that tol­er­ates the destruc­tion of pub­lic hous­ing dur­ing a hous­ing cri­sis. Let’s hope that New Orleans can treat its dis­si­dents and their defend­ers at least as well as Haiti now would.

Human rights lawyer Brian Con­can­non Jr. directs the Insti­tute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti, www.HaitiJustice.org.