Iowa City, Iowa (AP) – The Iowa journalist faced a hearing Monday in which the case stemmed from his coverage of the protest against racial injustice, a case lawyers have made despite international condemnation from free press advocates who say she is just doing her job.
The case of Andrea Sahouri, a registered reporter for Des Moines, who was arrested while spraying pepper and reporting a clash between protesters and police, will highlight the aggressive response by Iowa officials against those who organized and attended the protests that erupted last summer. .
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Failure to disperse and official acts on Sahauri and her ex-boyfriend, misdemeanors that could lead to fines and imprisonment for up to 30 days. They face a two-day trial at Drake University in which U.S. Press Freedom Tracker says it could be the first since 2018 for a journalist working across the country.
Sahouri’s newspaper, the Iowa Freedom Information Council, and Amnesty International are among the press advocates who have called for Polk County to file charges, which they say abuse of power in violation of the First Amendment.
“This is a criminal offense. Reporting to the opposition as an executive member of the media is not a crime. It is a right that must be protected,” he told Amnesty International.
After appearing in Iowa Des Moines resisted Black Lives Matter May 31, 2020, police officers have been arrested in the Des Moines Register reporter endria sahaurini. (Photo courtesy of Katie Akin by AP)
But the office fees of Des Moines police and county attorney John Sarkon argue that Sahauri did not wear press credentials and was participating in the illegal assembly, saying journalists do not have a free pass to disregard the dispersal order. The only order identified in court documents was issued about 90 minutes before the arrest.
At a pre-trial hearing on Friday, prosecutor Bradley Kinkde argued that Sahauri’s employment as a journalist was “not related to his allegations.”
“This is a trial of mental misconduct,” he said.
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Sahori has recently been honored by the Iowa Newspaper Association as one of the best young journalists in the state, continuing to cover public safety while the allegations have dwindled.
Press Freedom Tracker says 126 journalists were arrested or detained during the 2020 unrest, most of whom were either not charged or charged, Press Freedom Tracker says fourteen still facing charges doing.
Observers have been surprised by the determination to prosecute Sahauri, who has noted that there is a backlog of serious crimes in Iowa courts due to the coronavirus epidemic. Critics say authorities are guilty of justifying the officer’s decision to use force unnecessarily against a well-known journalist to build trust with victims of crime and obscure communities.
Des Moines civil rights attorney Glenn Downey, who was not involved in Sahori’s case, said he would not admit that someone had a hand in the cookie jar that they had made a mistake. “This case is important because of the aspect of journalism, but it is also a symbol of how it treats all opponents.”
A press badge for Des Moines Register journalist Andrea Sahouri shows a photo of her jail booking while covering the Black Lives Matter protest against the May 31, 2020 arrest. (Photo courtesy AP by Andrea Sahouri)
Tensions between participants and police escalated when Sahauri, 25, was covering a protest of Black Lives Matter in Merle Hay Mall. Her then-boyfriend, Spencer Robnet, was with her for safety reasons.
Protesters smashed into a target store, smashed windows, blocked an intersection and threw water bottles and rocks at officers in riot gear.
Sahauri posted a live protest curtain on Twitter, saying officers fired rifles at the shoe store and fired tear gas to disperse the crowd.
Sahauri said she was running out of gas when she hit Robnet with a projectile and stopped for a moment to check on him before heading to the corner of the Verizon store. At the same time when officer Luke Wilson was contacted he put pepper spray on his face and prevented him from having a zip relationship, he says.
Sahauri repeatedly identified himself as a pressman, but was nevertheless taken to prison. That Report His arrest remains behind a police van.
Wills claims he was unaware Sahori was a reporter until he was detained and Robnett intervened, saying he worked for the register and tried to pull it off. Wilson says he failed to activate his body camera.
Judge Lawrence McClay on Friday ordered prosecutors to provide body camera training materials in Sahauri’s defense, which he said should be turned over in response to a previous court order.
The defense argues that Wilson could and should have obtained a video of the arrest after the fact but probably refused to do so in order not to be embarrassed. McLellan said he would rule later on whether to inform the juror of the evidence that had been destroyed.
Carol Hunter, executive editor of the Des Moines Register, said Sahauri’s lack of press credentials, which she put in her car, was a “red herring” because police learned she was a journalist and did not need a press badge to enjoy constitutional protections. Reporters should be free to protest and hold participants and police accountable, Hunter said.
“Freedom of the press is based on newsgathering,” he said. “It’s really an attack on the basic part of being able to bring news to these people.”
The newspaper provides funding for Sahori’s defense, led by former U.S. Attorney Nick Kleinfeld.
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Prosecutors may try to show the jurors text messages between Sahauri and opposition leader Maat Muhammad a week after his arrest. His lawyers say the texts are irrelevant and show the journalist’s regular fact-gathering with the source.
Fighting the allegations raised by the protesters, Muhammad said he did not know when Sahori was arrested, but the two have since formed a business relationship. He described her as “extremely diligent” in examining the information and gathering different perspectives.
He said, “We don’t enjoy working with him because we see him as a worker or on our side,” but because we consider him fair. “
