06/24/19 06/24/19 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now!

>> we want to say that we are protesting the fact that 1400 children are going to be brought to this military site. we are here because we do not want to have that happen. and as former children of prison camps, of concentration camps in america, we are saying no more, never again. amy: japanese-americans who survived living in u.s. internment camps during world war ii return to the site of one of those camps -- fort sill in oklahoma -- to protest the trump administration's plan to indefinitely detain 1400 immigrant and refugee children. we will air a special report from the oklahoma protest. but first, we speak to an attorney who helped expose how some 250 infants, children, and teenagers have been locked up for weeks without adequate food, water, and sanitation at a

border patrol station near el paso, texas. we will talk to her about children taking care of children. and then we go to ecuador to speak with the swedish computer programmer ola bini who was just released from jail after being held for two months without charge. >> we have proven my innocence for the first time and we will continue to prove my innocence. i want to thank the judges for showing what we been saying the whole time this process has been illegal and i was illegally detained. amy: ola bini was detained in ecuador on the same day his friend julian assange was arrested and forcibly removed from the ecuadorian embassy in london, removed to the belmarsh prison. ola bini will join us from ecuador. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman.

the trump administration is reportedly announcing a new wave of sanctions today. this comes days after president trump abruptly called off military strikes against iran. trump said he called off the attack after he was told it could kill 150 iranians. trump and members of his administration said they would be open to holding negotiations with iranian leadership but iran has said they will not negotiate as long as sanctions are still active. meanwhile, an iranian news outlet reported that the country's naval chief is warning it will shoot down more u.s. drones after the disputed downing of the spy drone last week that iran says entered its air space, while the u.s. claimed it was flying over international territory. in an interview with nbc's "meet the press," chuck todd asked trump whether he felt he was being pushed into military action by his advisers. pres. trump: i have two groups

of people. i have dove and hawks. i want both sides. amy: in immigration news, andgrations and customs announced it would start a mass round of of thousands of immigrants starting sunday after the name family out, saying it would take out families, targeting 10 cities. on saturday a midst national outcry, president trump backtracked on the plan saying he would delay the deportations by two exam put the onus on democrats to make changes to immigration policy if they want to avoid thousands of families from being deported. as the media reports claim the delay was prompted by a leak by acting department of homeland security secretary kevin mcaleenan or his staff, which could have compromised the plan. democratic lawmakers accused the trump administration of using the threat of mass deportations as a bargaining chip to push

its immigration agenda. texas congressmember joaquin castro said -- "the threat to knock and drag people away from their families and out of their communities shouldn't be a negotiation tactic for an american president." a number of cities said they would not cooperate with ice if they started to carry out mass removals. the los angeles police department tweeted it would not participate in any immigration enforcement activities and the newly elected mayor of chicago lori lightfoot announced she withdrew ice's access to the chicago's police immigration databases. in other immigration news, republican texas governor greg abbott announced friday he would deploy 1000 additional national guard troops to aid the federal government in what he calls the "crisis at the border." new accusations of sexual -- rape have been levied against donald trump.

famed advice columnist and former television host e. jean carroll accuses trump of raping her in the 1990's in a dressing room at bergdorf goodman. carroll writes that trump asked her to try on lingerie he was planning on buying as a gift before he entered a dressing room with her and forced himself on her, kissing, and then raping her. trump denied the accusation multiple times over the weekend and said he did not know or had ever met carroll, despite a photo which accompanied the book excerpt showing the two of them together at a party in the 1980's. at least 22 women have accused trump of assault or sexual misconduct. in a now infamous "access hollywood" recording released in 2016 before the election trump , boasts about his ability to sexually assault women. e. jean carroll, who is now 75, also accuses former cbs ceo les moonves of groping her in the elevator of a beverly hills hotel in the 1990's after an interview. moonves resigned last year while

facing multiple sexual assault and sexual harassment allegations. in turkey, president recep tayyip erdogan's ak party lost a reelection after residents of istanbul went to the polls for a second time and again voted in opposition candidate ekrem imamogluof the republican people's party as the new mayor. the election do-over was called after the akp first lost the crucial vote in march and alleged voting irregularities. the results bring to an end the 25-year rule by the ak party in erdogan's home city of istanbul. this is the new mayor ekrem imamoglu. >> this is a new beginning. i would like to say from here that as of tomorrow, i will treat 16 million people equally as mayor. amy: in ethiopia, prime minister abiy ahmed said that the army chief of staff and another top

military official were killed saturday by the chief's body guard, in connection with a failed coup attempt against a regional government in the northern region of amhara. the governor of amhara was also killed earlier on saturday. internet access was cut off following the news and checkpoints were set up around the capital addis ababa. the prime minister says the attacks were not motivated by ethnic tensions, although few details are still known about the coup perpetrators. ahmed came to power last year and made history by signing a peace agreement with neighboring eritrea. ethnic conflict however continues to plague ethiopia, causing massive displacement. ahmed survived a grenade attack at a rally a year ago. hundreds of activists entered an occupied an open-pit coal mine in the western rhineland region of germany to protest europe's saturday dependency on fossil fuels amid the mounting climate crisis. the protest ended on sunday after police repeatedly ordered them to leave, citing

life-threatening danger. some of the protesters were pulled out by authorities. the group was part of a larger gathering of an estimated 6000 people who held several actions as part of the protest effort. another group camped out on rail tracks leading to a coal-fired power station, blocking trains from entering or leaving the area. this is kathrin henneberger, a member of the environmental justice group ende gelande, which coordinated the actions. >> more than 6000 climate activists from across europe were here in the rhineland this weekend. we are fighting for the immediate stop of coal production but we have to do a lot more. we demand a different economic system, one that is socially fair and respect our planet's limits. amy: member of the environmental justice group which coordinated the actions. you can see democracy now!'s reporting on the german coal mine resistance from our cop23 coverage at our website democracynow.org in new york city, police arrested 70 climate activists

from the group extinction rebellion saturday, as they called on "the new york times" to up their coverage of the climate crisis and start using terms like "climate emergency" instead of "climate change." activists stopped traffic in the busy midtown neighborhood, with some scaling "the new york times" building and the port authority bus terminal to unfurl banners. the new york chapter of extinction rebellion recently shared a climate media standards guide, which includes changes to language, banning ads from fossil fuel companies and linking weather-related stories to the climate crisis. independent senator and 2020 democratic candidate bernie is introducing legislation today that would cancel all $1.6 trillion of student loan debt in the united states, which affects around 45 million people. the measure would be paid for with a new tax on wall street. the bill will also make public universities and community colleges free, a key pillar of sanders' education platform. congress members ilhan omar and

pramila jayapal will introduce accompanying legislation in the house. in indiana, south bend mayor and 2020 presidential hopeful pete buttigieg is facing growing backlash from some of his constituents in the aftermath of the police shooting of eric logan, an african-american men killed by white police officer last week. buttigieg has left the campaign trail to return to his home town, where some residents called him out for neglecting his duties as mayor during a tense town hall on frustrated sunday. citizens confronted the mayor about his track record on race-related issues and demanded transparency in eric logan's case. >> the mayor rahm emanuel quit being the mayor because there is a cover-up. so i just want to make sure you are aware that we are looking for no cover up. we want transparency, full transparency. did not deserve to be

treated -- amy: people of color make up 40% of south bend's population and a -- mayor buttigieg acknowledged that efforts to diversify and increase accountability in the south bend police force had failed. he has called for a justice department investigation into the shooting. the police officer was wearing a body camera but it was not turned on. eddie africa, a member of the move 9, was released from a pennsylvania prison friday after spending 40 years behind bars. eddie africa was convicted, along with eight others, in the 1978 killing of police officer james ramp. the nine were arrested following a philadelphia police raid on the house of move, a radical, anti-police-brutality and largely african-american organization. his release follows that of janine phillips africa and janet holloway africa last month. husband and wife mike africa, sr. and debbie africa were both released last year. two members of the group remain behind bars.

and on saturday, japanese american activists and survivors of u.s. internment camps engaged in civil disobedience outside the fort sill army post in oklahoma where the trump administration plans to indefinitely detain 1400 immigrant and refugee children starting next month. fort sill was used as an internment camp for japanese americans in 1942. this is michael ishii, who helped organize saturday's protest. , to am here, a descendent support my elders who have come to bear witness and to raise their collective voices in opposition to mass detention. amy: and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. outrage is mounting over deplorable and dangerous conditions for migrant children being jailed in detention facilities along the u.s.-mexico

border following a shocking associated press report late last week revealing at least 250 infants, children, and teenagers have been locked up for nearly a month without adequate food, water, or sanitation at a border patrol station near el paso, texas. lawyers who visited the facility in clint, texas, described a scene of chaos and sickness, with children unable to shower or change into clean clothes for weeks on end. the children have been reportedly fed uncooked frozen food or rice and young children are being forced to care for infants and toddlers. one local lawyer said a sick two-year-old boy was being treated by three girls between the ages of 10 and 15 because no one else was helping him. attorney holly cooper said -- "in my 22 years of doing visits with children in detention i have never heard of this level

of inhumanity." this report came the same week the trump administration argued in federal court that the government is not required to provide toothbrushes, soap, or beds to children detained at the border. and as other reports found similarly squalid conditions at a number of immigration jails. lawyers who visited detained migrants at a processing center near mcallen, texas, reported migrants, including young mothers and children, were jailed in unsanitary conditions, sometimes being forced to sleep outside due to overcrowding. for more, we go to los angeles, where we're joined by warren binford, a lawyer who interviewed children detained at the clint, texas facility. , she is a law professor at willamette university and the director of its clinical-law program. welcome to democracy now! it is great to have you with us. can you describe why you went to clint and what you found there? describe your interviews with

the children. >> basically, we went there monthlyon an almost basis, we are learning that children are dying and border patrol facility's all along the border. we are trying to figure out what exactly is going on down there. we sent a team of attorneys, doctors, interpreters to meet with the children and find out about the conditions in which they are being cap will stop you were not originally lending to go to the clint order facility outside of el paso, texas of because it is an adult facility in the facility historically has had a relatively small occupancy , maximum of 104. however, we received reports last week that children appear to be moving to this facility. what we did was we added it to our list of visits. when we got there on monday morning, we were immediately given a roster showing there were over 350 children at this facility. when we scanned of the roster,

we were taken aback by the number of young children at the facility. there were over 100 young children who were being kept t here. we immediately asked the guards to start to bring us the youngest children and also the children who have been of the longest. we also saw there were about 1 -- half a dozen child mothers and their infants. we ask the guards to also bring us those children. when the children walked in, we cannot believe what we were saying. they were in, coughing, had runny noses. they were filthy dirty. they immediately started to describe the level of hunger they were experiencing. they told us they were being fed nothing but the same meals three times a day. they were not really meals. these are highly processed chemical foods. in the morning there given instant oatmeal, a packet of in a cookie. andlunch, and instant soup,

another packet of kool-aid. some of the children complained the burritos were often not thoroughly cooked. then they also at that point a given another cookie and a kool-aid. young children are being given these meals. the children on a routine basis said they were hungry. on top of that, the children described rooms in which there children.0, 1 hundred one boy said when he first arrived, there were over 300 children in a room. when we talked to the border patrol officers who were running this facility to the reported the facility had reset we undergone an expansion but we could not figure out where that expansion was. after that first day of interviewing, we drove around the facility and we saw a metal warehouse with no walls. we could not believe it could be the expansion. bordern we talk to the patrol officers the next day and started to talk to the children

about where they were being kept, we found out that one warehouse was allegedly what had given them an additional capacity of 500 additional children. then we started to talk about the children and asked them who is taking care of you? virtually no one is taking care of these children directly. they are locked up in these cells 24 hours a day. their open toilets and many, no soap, no way to wash their hands. they are being fed in these cells the processed foods i described earlier. sleepre being forced to on concrete because of a shortage of beds and mats. children described sleeping on concrete floors. sleeping on cement blocks. not just the older children, but we heard of infants, toddlers, preschoolers, school-aged children who are having to sleep on the floor. to make things worse, as we were trying to call in the youngest

children because we were especially concerned about the vulnerabilities of certain elements of the population, we found out there were a number of children that they could not bring to us because they were so sick. so we started to count the number of children were apparently were sick at the facility and had been quarantine. we estimated at least 15 children that we know about were in quarantine during the time we were there. when we finally got access to these children by telephone, we learned about the conditions in these quarantine facilities, which were horrendous. these very sick children with high fevers are being put on the floor on mats, largely unsupervised, locked up together for days at a time. they are being brought the same food that are being fed everybody else at the facility, despite the fact they are very sick. they also have someone who is coming there twice a day to check their fever and to give them any medications that are needed, but there's nobody

really caring for these children in the quarantine areas despite their severe illness. many of the children who have died in these for so facilities in recent months died from influenza, which is very rare in a developed country like the united states. but as you can see these are not conditions you would expect to see in the united states. amy: so do you believe some children can die you there? >> absolutely. after the second day of interviewing, we had a high level, very urgent meeting in my hotel room and said, what are we going to do about this? somebody is going to die. we called up the attorneys in charge of this case, described what we were seeing, and then asked them what they wanted us to do about it. overor the first time in 20 years of doing these visits, they told us to go ahead and go to the media so we could get these children out of the facility as quickly as possible. amy: can you talk about the lies

and the combs? >> limitary but this incident because this is especially concerning. this visit was really originally scheduled for just three days. what ended up happening was when i was there on wednesday, we started to hear from several children that there was an incident that happened in one of thecells. what the story was there was a lice outbreak in one of the cells. six of the children were found to have lies. those six children were given life shampoo and then the other children were given two lice pass and told them to those around them brush their hair with the lies comes to make sure they did not have lice or if they did that they were being pulled out by the combs. sharing lice combs, we all know is something you never do with allies at the station but this is what happened. the story gets worse because one of the little kids lost thecomb and the guards hit the roof of

stuff they yelled at the children and paraded them. they made the children cry and took out all of the children's bedding. they took out the mats. told him it was punishment for losing the comb and they're going to have to sleep on the concrete that night. we could not believe the guards really were going to do what they had threatened to the children that they would do. we arranged to come back the next day, specifically to interview those children and find out if they have been made to sleep on the floor last night or if it was just an empty threat meant to scare the children. in fact, we heard from multiple children they were forced to sleep on the floor that night in the cold cell on the cold concrete. amy: the ap is reporting one-year-olds, two-year-olds, three or else, doesn't more under 12, 15 have the flu, 19 more have been quarantine. and reports of the 10-year-old taking care of the two-year-old, handed the two-year-old by a guard along with two other kids

under 15, that they're supposed to take care of a sick two-year-old? >> yes. we saw multiple children -- not teens,e tweens and the we sell school-aged children seven and eight-year-olds were trended taker of the toddlers and their preschoolers. there was one especially concerning little girl who had not showered or had her hair shampooed in so long, that literally be here on the back of her head was matted. as a mom, i can assure you they're going to have to cut off all of her hair. when i saw the matting on her hair, oh so deeply concerned i medially went to the guards and said you need to give this little girl a bath, shampoo her hair, put conditioner in their and detailer. you have to get this matting out of her hair or her whole head will have to be shaven. i came back the next day and

asked if she even given a bath and her hair shampooed and i was assured she had been. i called her and asked to see her. she looked just as dirty. her hair was just as matted the day before. i called him one of the girls who had been helping to take care for and said, tell me what is happening because i was told the guards she had a bath. she obviously hasn't. that little girl, i would say probably 13 or 14 years old, she told me there was a seven or eight-year-old girl who was taking care of this little four-year-old girl the day before and was unable to persuade her to take a shower, so they marked this dirty little four-year-old girl as having been given a shower when in fact she had not been showered at all because they left it up to a seven or eight year old to do this massive job of trying to girl'ser this little hair. amy: professor, where are these

children coming from? why are they separated from their parents? where are there parents? >> as we started to interview the children, we asked if they had their parents telephone numbers. most of the children have parents in the united states that interviewed, and they had their parents never either memorize or written on a bracelet around their arms or tucked into a piece of paper in their jacket. we asked they would like to speak to their parents or if they had spoken to their parents . many of these children had not spoken to their parents. many who had come had only spoken of them wants. what we did was we got the parents on the phone and started to find out what had happened. many of these children are coming from central america, particularly the northern thengle, and they came to united states with relatives. this might be a parent, but it

might be the entire family. we had one little girl separated from her mother, father, and younger siblings. we had many children who had been separated from older siblings who are young adult. we're children separated from aunts and uncles and cousins. asy are being reclassified unaccompanied children, even though they came across with relatives and have parents in the united states. over 50% of these children last year were placed with their parents in the united states. another 20 percent were placed with other family members in the united states. an additional 15% were placed with other adult who were authorized by the parents to take care of them. a very small percentage, about 12% of the children that we meet with in these facilities who actually need to be in government custody. every other child can be put on an airplane to their parents or their parents are willing to come and get them. we repeatedly talked to the parents who said, tell me where

i need to send the money to bring my daughter to me, to bring my son to me. they are able to take care of their children and want to take care of their children. dealing thing standing between these children and their parents as the u.s. government. i have described. the horrendous conditions the government is keeping these children. amy: what is the trump administration telling you? >> the trump administration is telling us they are overwhelmed, there is too much chaos, too many people coming across the border. frankly, there is chaos but it is the chaos that has been created by this in administration. we're nowhere near the highest level of apprehensions that have been taken by the border patrol over the last several decades. the numbers we are seeing come in are not the highest numbers that we have seen. when they say that, it is simply not true. we are seeing a higher number, hire level of children and young families, across the border.

young mothers and their babies coming across the border or young children coming across the border and an older unaccompanied children. we have facilities to take care of them. as i mentioned earlier, most of these children have family in the u.s. who can care for them. the administration currently has 12,000 beds where they can take care of these children. three quarters of those beds are in licensed facilities so we have some assurance these children can be relatively well cared for in these facilities compared to what they are experiencing and border patrol. we currently have approximately 2000 empty beds in those facilities. and children only need to be in those facilities for a few days, no more than 20 days. so if the administration would manage the resources it has, it can move these children in and out of border patrol facilities urs, andter of ho holding of days in the

facilities. it would cost the taxpayers no money to care for these children. keep in mind these facilities set up for these kids is costing the american taxpayer $775 a day, which is an outrageous amount of money. amy: per kid. >> yes, which is an outrageous amount of money when these children have family in the u.s. that want to take care of them and are ready to take care of them. all we have to do is let the parents and her family's have these children back. amy: is the trump administration breaking the law? for example, the flores agreement? >> absolutely. this is why we went to the media. they are breaking the law as per the conditions of detention and to the number of hours they can bordere children in patrol facilities. they're breaking the law as far as how long these children are andg kept in orr facilities taking the children away from

their families. there also breaking the law by transporting them on texas state highways without the appropriate ,hild seats and infant carriers these booster seats that are required by law. everywhere i look, this a administration is breaking the law. the border patrol employs that we talked to say they don't understand why the american people are not outraged by the mismanagement they are experiencing. amy: warren binford, they get for being with us law professor , at willamette university and the director of its clinical-law program. of the experts asked to serve on one the monitoring team for the flores case. when we come back, elderly japanese-americans who were interned during world war ii go back to one of those camps in oklahoma, with a call concentration camps, incarceration camps, because the trump administration plans to put hundreds of migrant children there. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, i'm amy goodman. as we turn to it a dramatic scene that unfolded saturday when five japanese american u.s.s, survivors of the internment camps, engaged in civil disobedience outside the fort sill army post in oklahoma, where the trump administration plans to indefinitely detain 1400 immigrant and refugee children starting next month. fort sill was an internment camp for 700 japanese american men in 1942. it was one of more than 70 sites where the u.s. government incarcerated about 120,000

japanese and japanese-americans during world war ii, including one of 14 u.s. army bases. president obama first used fort sill in 2014 to detain migrant children seeking asylum from violence in central america. last december, jakelin caal, a seven-year-old guatemalan girl, became one of six children to die in border patrol custody in less than a year after she was held in a customs and border patrol facility near the site of another former u.s. internment camp in lordsburg, new mexico. democracy now! was there at fort sill in oklahoma on saturday when the japanese-american elders incarcerated in these camps risked arrest to protest, along with descendants of survivors. >> i am a former child and incarceree. this is a photograph of me when i was in prison. us were ago, 120,000 of

removed from our homes and forcefully incarcerated in prison camps across the country. today to protest the repetition of history. we were in american concentration camps. we were held under indefinite detention. we were without due process of the law. we were charged without any evidence of being a threat to national security. assimilable in an race. that we would be a threat to the economy. we hear these exact words today regarding innocent people seeking asylum in this country. 1942 when america

turned their back on us while we were disappearing from our homes, our schools, our farms, and our jobs. out.e here today to speak to protest the unjust incarceration of innocent people seeking refuge in this country. we stand with them and we are saying stop repeating history. >> i am from concord, california. i spent the first 4.5 years in a concentration camp. i was born in topaz, utah. and i'm here to protest against the incarceration of the immigrant children here at fort sill. 7, 1941, iner seattle, washington, i was celebrating my fourth birthday when the fbi interrupted my

birthday party and removed my father to lordsburg, new mexico, the doj camp and subsequently santa fe, new mexico. my mother and i were incarcerated at a fairground called camp harmony and later in idaho. >> you cannot protest on fort sill. coming uper protest to go across the street to the highway and that needs to happen right now. let's go now. today. my name is -- >> can we say a couple more statements? >> no, you may not. i will say this a last time, you cannot protest on fort sill. you need to move across the street now. >> going to make a statement -- >> apparently, you did not hear what i said. you need to move right now.

move. >> what will happen? >> i'm not going to arrest you, but you need to move now. >> then we're not going to move. >> yes, you're going to move. >> if you're not going to arrest us, then we are not going to move. ati spent 3.5 years opposed in arizona a concentration camp during world war ii. to thee to bear witness travesty of the american justice system and that the family separation policy, which is ruining the lives of these children. i am very incensed about the government policy of separating parents. we the people have to stand up and protest this. executive is tom,

director of a nonprofit in seattle. one of the things we do is we are the story keepers for the community, especially what happened during world war ii. i came to honor the story of a man who shot and killed your. nine years ago i interviewed his son in hawaii. with 11me how this man children and businesses in kona was taken for no crime and brought here. and the trauma of being here, the stress, he ended up essentially, as his son said, snapped and he started climbing the fence in broad daylight saying "i want to go home." as the others said, don't shoot, a guard came up and shot him in the back of his head and killed him. in his honor i'm here to remember the man. >> my name is paul.

i have from seattle, washington. this is me in 1943 as a four-year-old -- >> it is english. get out. >> i had to have this -- >> look, look. i understand your issues, ok? you cannot protest on fort sill. >> all of our elders who are incarceration survivors have stated publicly that they are willing to be arrested in defense of the children -- >> can you please describe what is happening now? >> they are wanting us -- there wanting to remove us. we have been removed to many times. if that is what it comes to -- >> what don't you people understand? >> we will stay here -- >> what don't you understand? >> we understand the history of this country and we are not going to let it happen again. what were you saying? >> that we want to make a stand.

we want to say we are protesting the fact that 1400 children are going to be brought to this military site. we are here because we do not want to have that happen. and his former children of prison camps and of concentration camps in america, we are saying no more, never again. amy: that was the scene at fort sill army post in oklahoma saturday, where japanese american survivors of u.s. internment camps, which they called concentration camps, risked arrest to protest the detention of migrant children there at fort sill starting next month. in a few minutes, we'll be joined by one of the organizers. first, i want to turn to some of the oklahoma residents who joined in the protest in solidarity at a nearby park. some drew attention to how fort sill was also used to incarcerate native americans and housed a boarding school for native children separated from their families. early in its history, it served

as a prisoner of war camp for about 300 members of the chiricahua apache tribe who were forcibly relocated from the southwest in 1894, including the apache leader geronimo. we begin with reverend sheri dickerson of black lives matter oklahoma addressing the crowd. >> i have served in the military and i did so proudly, but i want to tell you if you are from -- former military or veteran brothers and sisters, that if you are holding an american flag today or if you're holding in oklahoma flag, it should be upside down because we are in distress. >> i'm with dream action oklahoma, which is an immigration advocacy organization here in oklahoma. the united states began with a declaration that the people who have lived here arm or solicit

savages, marking their bodies is only something to be exterminated removed and thus they tried and they did. that is the reality of the land in which we live. thatort sill, you can see in action throughout time. with geronimo being held, now being used as the very idea of enemy combatant. as it was mentioned, that that is what they called osama bin laden when they killed him. >> i am glad to be here. i guess you could say i am a descendent of a fort sill indian school atrocity. established at fort

sill. becausestablished there , as the people were saying earlier, they were snatched from their homes to try and do something for them because they always looked at us and looked down on us that we were stupid, that we could do nothing, that we did not know nothing. but you know what? that was a lie. from lawton macarthur. indianot say fort sill school. i graduated from lawton macarthur on the east side of town. and what that was, an individual was kind of like giving this lie, smoothing it over, and after i had graduated, i found out that we were again he pegs for the government -- guinea

pigs for the government education wise, because they were still trying to think they're going to make us better or be like them, and it did not work. because we still have our language. have our dances. we still have our songs. we still are still here. -- that to talk about was my experience, but mainly i'm here today because of the children. the children are always near to my heart no matter who they are, no matter -- i have seen this. this was given to me and i said i was going to be here today not knowing i was going to be doing this. breaks for the atrocities that they are going through. and i see because i know what it

is like to be abused as a child. >> we want to thank nicole and the aclu because they have been are working ground partners here. >> i think when they were trying to decide where they would detained children, it is no accident they picked oklahoma. we lead the nation and rate of incarceration, people overall. we lead the nation in incarceration of black people them of the number of indigenous people in prisons in oklahoma has increased by 46% between 2008-2015. what they did not count on is community. they think by assaulting us on all fronts they can divide people. but i think today is a small oklahomahat people in care. that we are willing to fight. that we are willing to come together. protesting ins

solidarity with japanese-american elders who are survivors of u.s. internment camps, which they call concentration camps. special thanks to renee feltz and hany massoud for that report. for more on saturday's protest against the detention of migrant children at fort sill army base, plan for next month, we're joined by mike ishii, co-chair of tsuru for solidarity, who helped organized it. his mother was incarcerated at the so-called camp harmony holding center in puyallup, washington, and then in camp minidoka in idaho during world war ii. mike ishii, it is great to have you with us. the significance of these elders traveling from where they live in california and other places to oklahoma. what happened at fort sill? >> what happened was there was an activation and the unification of the outrage of a generation of children that were incarcerated in u.s. concentration camps. they found their voices and

their coming fort in the public. amy: and the fort sill security try to stop it from happening? this was a kind of civil disobedience they engaged in because you saw the security coming up and saying the had to leave. >> absolutely. we have a meeting beforehand and they all stepped forward and said, i'm willing to be arrested. this is important enough amy:. why is it so important do you? >> my family was incarcerated. i grew up in a family that had members murdered in a state of new york by people who were racist. amy: this was after world war ii. unclese-american great was murdered. >> it was during the war. my family was in a camp in idaho and they heard a report on the realized, oh,hey this is our family that had been murdered in upstate new york. is not an unusual

story. these are the stories of concentration camps and incarceration in the u.s. there is a historical pattern of detention and separation of families that we are seeing across the united states, affecting immigrant communities and communities of color. amy: in the debate over whether you can call them concentration camps? it is clearly the language that each of the elders used. >> absolutely. they lived this experience, so they can speak with moral authority. but these are people who they were routed -- rounded up based on their race. there was no due process. they were put behind barbed wire or detention centers. they were held there by armed guards, not unlike what we're or in in clint, texas, all of these other detention sites for children. amy: 1400 children are slated to be sent to fort sill, were some japanese-americans were sent during world war ii?

>> absolutely. amy: we will continue to follow this story and bring out the voices of those protesting. mike ishii is co-chair of tsuru for solidarity and helped organize saturday's protest against the detention of migrant children at fort sill army base, and we will post part two of our interview with mike ishii at democracynow.org. when we come back, we go to ecuador to speak with a swedish computer programmer ola bini, who was just released from jail after being held for two months without charge, detained in ecuador, the same day his friend julian assange was arrested and forcibly removed from the embassy. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, i'm amy goodman. we end today's show in quito, ecuador, where we are joined by ola bini, a swedish programmer and data privacy activist, who was recently freed after spendi more thanwo months ecuadorian jail without charge. ola bini is a friend of wikileaks editor julian assange. he was arrested in quito on april 11, the same day assange was forcibly taken by british authorities from the ecuadorian

embassy in london to the belmarsh prison, where he is incarcerated today. on thursday, ola bini briefly spoke to reporters after a judge ordered his release. >> we have proven my innocents for the first time and we will continue to prove my innocence. i want to thank the judges for showing what we have been saying the whole time this process has been in legal and that i was illegally detained. amy: ola bini has lived in ecuador for five years where he's worked at the quito-based center for digital autonomy. during that time, he also traveled to london to meet with julian assange in the ecuadorian embassy. this all comes as ecuador's right-wing president lenin moreno is facing a corruption probe after the leak of internal documents exposed he had secretly set up multiple offshore bank accounts. moreno has accused wikileaks of being involved in the leak. ola bini has been accused of hacking the ecuadorian government but no charges have been filed against him. he remains under investigation and has been barred from leaving ecuador. the united states has also expressed interest in bini's case.

the associated press reported earlier this month that the u.s. justice department has received permission from ecuardorian authorities to question him. ola bini joins us now from quito, ecuador. welcome back to democracy now! can you talk about your release and what -- i was going to say, what you're being charged with, but you have not been charged. why were you arrested? >> hello, amy. it is great to be here again and great to hear you. why was i rested. that is a very, very good question. we are still try to get an answer to this. through the whole process, 70 of the prison, and all day since we've been asking the prosecution to tell us what it is i have done and they still have not actually given us any single answer. getting released, getting a tribunal, getting a tribunal telling us that they accepted our habeas corpus that my detention and arrest was illegal

has been a very, very good victory for us, showing what we have been saying from the beginning that this process has simply not been regularly done. we are still waiting to understand what it is i'm supposed to have done. amy: you were arrested just after julian assange was taken forcibly out of the ecuadorian embassy in london. so i assume you had seen those images. is that right? >> yes, that is correct. i woke up on the early morning on thursday, april 11 and i received the news about what happened julian to. been a few hours later, i went to the airport because i had a previous plan trip to japan and was planning on leaving purely uncle with the dense, the same day. when a went to the gate, i was detained by people who said they were police officers but not providing any identification. amy: to you believe your arrest is connected to julian assange? idea this point, i have no

why it happened the same day. the prosecution is tried to introduce julian assange as a component of the case he is trying to make against me, but no connections have been made so far. we don't know. amy: did they take all of your electronic equipment? did they take your phone, your computer? >> yes. amy: what you understand has happened to it? equipmentok all of my i had with me when i was at the airport and later during the night, they actually took me to the outside of my apartment. they told me they had in order to enter my apartment, but they never show the order. they asked me if i was willing to help them come in and voluntarily helped him. i said i needed my lawyer to do that. they ignored that request and injured without my permission. all of myi know,

technical equipment in my apartment has been taken. they have also taken about 14 or 15 books that are primarily about computer science. this was presented during the first hearing. in terms of what has happened with it, we have had several hearings at the forensics lab here in quito were they have asked me to provide a passwords for my devices. i have refused because primarily they still have not told me what i have done. what i told the prosecutor is, once they tell me what i have done, when i have done it, where i have done it, i will consider helping them. but until then, we're not going to do that. the last hearing we had, the technical division said they don't know how to open my devices and they were going to ask for international help. that is the last official information that we have about this. amy: ola bini, there been reports that u.s. investigators have been granted permission by

ecuador to question you. associated press reports you are due to be question on june 27. can you explain what is the role of the united states in your arrest? >> so first of all, i received a request to interview me on tuesday this week. this was a request from the ecuadorian judiciary. when you receive that kind of request, you cannot deny it. does planning on presenting myself and going there with my lawyer and to of questions they were going to ask. however, we found out that the united states government has actually withdrawn the request. that now -- they are now not interested in asking me questions anymore, apparently. amy: i understand some of julian assange's were all of his agreement, the ecuadorian government perhaps had given it to the british government, from the ecuadorian embassy or he

lived for about seven years. do you know if your equipment has been handed to the united states? >> as far as i know, it is still here in quito. .hat is the only legal way as far as i know, it would not be legal for the prosecution to send it anywhere else. amy: are you a member of wikileaks? you clearly know julian assange. you visited him in the he wasy where living. >> he is a friend of mine. i have never worked with julian were wikileaks and i'm categorically not a member of wikileaks and never have been a member of wikileaks. amy: to nukes plan what the ecuadorian government has accused you of, the president, what he is accused you of, why he is so concerned about a document leak? this is a little

confusing because of course, the prosecution has not accused me of anything. i'm being investigated under what is called a -- this statute is basically just a category of a type of crime. and this crime is physically that i have in some way adversely impacted the integrity of computer systems. what that means is with computer systems, that i have impacted in any way, we have no idea. the president has gone on tv and saying breaking into computer systems, breaking into mobile phones, instilling documents. amy: we have to leave it there but will do part two of posted online