New York police arrest journalist for 'hate crime' for filming anti-genocide protest

On Tuesday, the New York Police Department (NYPD) arrested video journalist Samuel Seligson on hate crime and property damage charges for allegedly recording an anti-genocide protest. Seligson is accused of filming activists as they painted anti-Zionist graffiti on June 12 at the homes of Brooklyn Museum director Anne Pasternak and three other members of the museum’s board of directors.

Taylor Pelton, a 28-year-old illustrator, was arrested on July 31 for participating in the same action.

Seligson’s attorney, Leena Widdi, told reporters that New York Police Department officers raided her client’s Brooklyn apartment twice in the week before he turned himself in. She called the police actions “egregious.”

In a statement to the InterceptWiddi added:

The State has not provided any conclusive evidence that he was actually there. And even if he was, it has not made any accusation that he was involved in any activity beyond his mere presence.

The anonymous activists painted inverted red triangles – purportedly a symbol of Palestinian resistance – on Pasternak’s residence and unfurled a banner reading: “Anne Pasternak, Brooklyn Museum, White Supremacist Zionist.” On the sidewalks in front of the homes of other board members, they painted slogans such as “Blood on your hands” as well as anarchist symbols.

In a statement sent to HyperallergicThe anonymous group of activists said:

The museum’s complicity in the Palestinian genocide is a dirty and inescapable reality, as is its violence against those who protest against it… Our action is a retaliation against the museum’s direct connections with networks that materially support the genocidal entity, as well as its collaboration with the fascist New York Police Department.

Hyperallergic noted in its coverage of the June 12 action that the group’s statement alleges that Brooklyn Museum board treasurer Neil Simpkins (whose residence was also targeted) “unsuccessfully pursued activists from his $37 million townhouse.”

The statement, according to HyperallergicHe added that Simpkins

He is a senior director at the investment firm Blackstone and points to the company’s alleged ties to weapons manufacturing, investments in the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and real estate ventures that have been accused of contributing to global gentrification.

The Anti-Ocide group’s desire for “retaliation,” in addition to general opposition to the museum’s board’s connection to “networks” supporting Israel, clearly refers to the brutal police attack on a protest organized at the Brooklyn Museum on May 31. During that event, the New York police entered the museum and violently attacked protesters, resulting in the arrest of 34 people.

May 31st protest at the Brooklyn Museum

Democracy Now! reported that

NYPD officers were again filmed using violent tactics to stop protesters. A Strategic Response Group (SRG) captain, identified as Christopher Carlson, was seen beating at least two women at the protest.

Inside the museum, “one of the leading activists of the group Within Our Lifetime, Nerdeen Kiswani, was violently attacked by New York police officers, who then arrested her when her hijab fell off.

Protest organizers, the Cultural Front for a Free Palestine, called the police action “an unprecedented show of force and violence, the likes of which has never been seen before in New York City’s long history of museum protests.”

The corporate media and Democratic Party establishment have put their propaganda machines into motion to smear the June 12 graffiti action against the various Brooklyn Museum board members as “anti-Semitic.” Brad Lander, New York City Comptroller and recently declared “progressive” Democratic candidate for mayor, tweeted: “The cowards who did this are way over the line of anti-Semitism, damaging the cause they claim to care about and making everyone less safe.”

Hyperallergic points out that “the The New York Times He initially misidentified all four leaders of the museum in question as Jews; only Pasternak is Jewish.”

In a statement to Hyperallergic Last week, Taylor Pelton’s attorney, Moira Meltzer-Cohen, expressed concern about “the general tendency to report anti-Semitic hate crimes in the context of expressions of grief and anger over Israel’s attacks on Palestine.”

Every time we see politically motivated tariff increases being implemented, we should reflect. … The claim that Jewish peoples, who are historically oppressed religious groups, are synonymous with the State of Israel, which is a global nuclear power, is neither historically accurate nor neutral. It serves to discourage criticism of the powerful by exploiting laws intended to protect the vulnerable.

In response to the reactionary and, frankly, absurd arrest of journalist Seligson on August 6, the Press Freedom Foundation noted on its Twitter account that

Police and prosecutors have come up with many convoluted theories to criminalize journalism, but @nypdnews charging a journalist with a hate crime for reporting the news has to be one of the most outrageous yet.

Widdi, Seligson’s attorney, said his client was

Seligson is accused of alleged conduct protected by the First Amendment and consistent with his work as an accredited member of the press. The complaint against Mr. Seligson alleges nothing more than conduct consistent with his role as a journalist.

Security guards close down museum against protesters on May 31 (Within Our Lifetime)

In a statement to the Website of the World Socialist NetworkPhotojournalist Alexa Blair Wilkinson, who has been covering anti-genocide protests in the New York area since October, commented:

For those of us on the ground, it is clear on a daily and weekly basis who is being targeted or persecuted and who is on the waiting list. The NYPD, beholden to the mayor and donors, has been caught time and again capitulating to money rather than serving the needs of its own citizens. Press freedom is essential to a thriving democracy and a healthy society, so it is no great surprise that when we see fascism on the rise, the independent and unprotected press is the first to be attacked.

Mr. Seligson was doing his job as an accredited member of the press. He was not participating in the alleged crimes, nor did he organize that action. If we begin to understand how and why the state targets citizens and members of the press, we begin to understand that all arrests are political, especially when political aspirations are at stake. Anne Pasternak earns over a million dollars as the director of the Museum, and I am sure that the Brooklyn Museum’s list of corporate sponsors will fit in very well with Mayor Adam’s campaign contributors.

The attack on Seligson is part of a systematic campaign of repression in defense of Israel’s monstrous crimes by New York City’s political and economic elite. This campaign includes the firing of educators from New York City public schools for expressing pro-Palestinian sympathies; the labeling of anti-genocide protests by high school students as “anti-Jewish”; the removal of pro-Palestinian parents from education committees for calling for a ceasefire; along with the brutalization of anti-genocide protesters by the New York Police Department. It was the Adams administration, no doubt in collaboration with the Biden White House, that ordered the raids on Columbia University, the New School, the City University of New York, and other universities, presiding over the arrests and victimization of students for exercising their right to free speech.

The case against Pelton and Seligson raises broader questions about the nature and social role of museums, which are repositories of thousands of years of human culture. Should they be mere playthings of billionaire investors, many of whom support imperialist crimes such as the Israeli genocide in Gaza, which has also seen the destruction of schools, museums, archives and libraries?

The arrest of a journalist accused of having committed a “hate crime” is part of a pattern of suppression of information and knowledge, which includes the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza on an unprecedented scale. From the point of view of the fascist Netanyahu regime, the imperialist powers and their political representatives, including the Democratic Party, the suppression of truth remains a central objective.

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