Wall Street protests: NY police arrest religious leaders

More than 30 protesters, including Princeton professor and veteran civil rights activist Cornel West, and a clergyman of the Riverside Church have been arrested during a demonstration by the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York.

“About 32 activists were arrested for demonstrating peacefully,” RT’s Lucy Kafanov reports from New York, “and several religious leaders were also taken away.”According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, 33 were arrested, including Reverend Stephen Phelps, an Interim Senior Minister of Riverside Church. Also among those arrested was Carl Dix, a national spokesman for the Revolutionary Communist Party, as well as several other local religious leaders, including several members of the ministry.According to an AFP report, a New York Police Department spokesman said the protesters had been arrested because they were "blocking the entrance" of the local police precinct in New York's Harlem neighborhood. New York police widely use the practice known as stop-and-frisk, in which officers randomly stop people on the street and sometimes frisk them to determine whether they are carrying arms.This practice has been criticized by civil rights groups. Several hundred people were demonstrating in Harlem over the controversial police practice. Opponents say the stop-and-frisk policy unfairly targets black and Latino New Yorkers.The number of protesters continues to grow, Lucy Kafanov reported. She says it seems “the officials do not feel like they can control the movement.”