Yale Plans to Drop Charge Against Journalist

Yale University officials said they don't plan to pursue a criminal trespassing case against a Brazilian journalist arrested on the New Haven campus last week.

Claudia Trevisan, a U.S.-based reporter for O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper in Brazil, said in a blog posting on Saturday, titled "How I was handcuffed and arrested at Yale Law School," that she was arrested while trying to interview Brazil's Supreme Court president, Joaquim Barbosa.

Barbosa appeared on Thursday at a Yale Law School seminar that was closed to the public.

In an interview with the New Haven Independent, Trevisan said dealing with authorities in North Korea and China did not compare with how she was treated at Yale.

“I had problems with the police” (in China), Trevisan told the Independent on Sunday. “But never remotely like what happened to me at Yale.”

She said in a blog posting that she was handcuffed, put in a cruiser for an hour, and put in a cell, where she remained for three and a half hours before she was allowed to make a phone call.

She told the Independent that she did not immediately identify herself as a reporter when she went to interview Barbosa and that was a mistake, but not something to be arrested for.

"As far as I know, being a journalist is not a crime under American law," she wrote in an online column.

Yale officials said they told Trevisan before the seminar that it was private and she wasn't permitted on Yale property.

The university said in a statement obtained by the New Haven Independent news website and Britain's Guardian newspaper that the arrest of Trevisan on Thursday was justified, but Yale plans to drop the case.

"The police followed normal procedures and Ms. Trevisan was not mistreated in any way. Although the arrest for trespass was justified, the University does not plan to pursue the charge with the local prosecutor," a statement Yale provided O Estado de Sao Paulo states.

Trevisan's newspaper has sent a letter to Yale in protest of the arrest, according to the Guardian.
 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
Contact Us