Journalist Held by ICE Speaks: ‘Without a Doubt’ I Was Targeted for My Work
‘I was doing my work and nothing more, like any other journalist does,’ Manuel Duran told The Daily Beast of his April arrest by local police and then ICE officials.
RACHEL FRAZIN
07.09.18 5:16 AM ET
What started out as a “just another day” in Memphis-based journalist Manuel Duran’s life ended in his arrest by local police and transfer to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The arrest, Duran claims, was retaliation for his reporting about local police actions.
Duran, 42, who is sometimes listed as Duran Ortega, was covering a Memphis protest in April when he was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and obstructing a highway or passageway. In a video taken of the incident, Duran appears to be wearing a press badge and was not the only journalist in the street.
After the charges were dropped, Duran was released from the Shelby County jail and ICE agents were there waiting to arrest him, the county sheriff’s spokesperson Earle Farrell said. A Memphis Police arrest report claimed that Duran’s refusal to get out of the road “caused a hazard.” It also mentioned that he did not have a U.S. identification.
Duran believes his arrest wasn’t over a simple hazard, but that he was targeted for his coverage of the Memphis Police Department in Memphis Noticias, the online publication he founded.
A year before Duran’s arrest, Memphis Noticias published a video interview with a woman whose friend was arrested by Memphis Police and transferred to ICE custody despite promises from Mayor Jim Strickland that the city’s government was not cooperating with ICE.
“There are three cases already confirmed in some manner in which people are guaranteeing that ‘yes, the Memphis police are involved with immigration where obviously there is this collaboration,’” Duran said in the Spanish-language video.
Duran received text messages from the Memphis Police Department demanding he take the video down, he said. The journalist refused, but offered to interview department officials and publish their side of the story, his fiancée Melisa Valdez explained to The Daily Beast.
Memphis Noticias had, of course, published other stories that were “embarrassing” for the police department, said Jeremy Jong, a Southern Poverty Law Center attorney who now represents Duran.
A court petition filed by the SPLC said that Duran, through Memphis Noticias, reported on police shootings, individual incidents of police misconduct, demonstrations calling for law-enforcement accountability, MPD collaboration with ICE, and local ICE enforcement actions and the resulting hardship on immigrant families.
Duran also mentioned he wrote about about a man whose body was found in a vehicle at the police impoundment lot.
The petition further argued that the “Detention of Mr. Duran Ortega is a direct result of Memphis law enforcement officers’ and ICE officers’ illegal and unconstitutional actions in targeting, arresting, detaining, and seeking to deport Mr. Duran Ortega. MPD unlawfully arrested Mr. Duran Ortega to silence and retaliate against him.”
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/journalist-held-by-ice-speaks-without-a-doubt-i-was-targeted-for-my-work?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning
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