[GPCA Updates] NEWS ADVISORY: Greens condemn arrests at largest urbanfarm in U.S.

[Jim Stauffer]

                  News Advisory
           THE GREEN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA
               http://www.cagreens.org


URGENT NEWS ADVISORY
Tuesday, June 13, 2006


	      
Greens condemn mass arrests, bulldozers
at nation's largest urban farm; Demand city
officials intervene to help community farmers

LOS ANGELES – Greens here condemned "in the strongest possible terms" the
mass arrests Tuesday – including that of actress Daryl Hannah – and the use
of bulldozers at what is the nation's largest urban community farm.

The downtown 14 acre plot in South Central Los Angeles has sustained and
supplemented the household budgets of 360 mostly Latino families by
providing healthy fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants since 1994.

Supporters confirmed that the land's developer moved to violently evict the
farmers and supporters Tuesday even though they had met his asking price,
$16 million, for the parcel. 

According to Greens on site, hundreds of police officers and sheriff's
deputies marched into the nation's urban farm early Tuesday morning,
evicting and arresting dozens of farm supporters and bulldozing part of the
community farm. They removed Daryl Hannah and John Quigley from trees they
were sitting in after bulldozers cleared a path through the vegetables to
the trees.

"The Green Party of Los Angeles condemns in strongest possible terms
today's police action against the South Central Farm and South Central
Farmers. It was entirely unnecessary because the community has arranged for
the $16 million that the property owner requested. It has taken 14 years to
organically build this community and ecological treasure in the heart of
greater Los Angeles. No one has the right to destroy such a treasure," said
Michael Feinstein of the Green Party of Los Angeles.

Donna Warren, the Green Party candidate for Lt. Governor and a native of
South Central, said "these arrests were unwarranted and the public
officials involved should be scrutinized as to their involvement in this
entire affair." She appeals to the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors to
"call off" the deputies, and asked the Los Angeles City Council to intervene.

And, Linda Piera-Avila, a Green Party activist on the scene, added: "It's a
sad day when people are criminalized for growing their own food."