Police arrest 99-percenters in North Carolina

The police in the US city of Raleigh in North Carolina have arrested seven 99-percenters, charging them with trespassing on a foreclosed home.

The activists said they had gathered at the home on Monday to protest predatory lending practices by Wall Street banks. They were joined at the scene by the family, which had lost its home to the act of foreclosure.

Police officials said the detainees were charged with second-degree trespassing by refusing to leave the home as had been demanded by the new owner.

The 99-percenters said they had entered the home to help the original homeowner retrieve her belongings and felt the police had acted heavy-handedly by calling in a SWAT team.

The protesters use the slogan, “We are the 99 percent” to distinguish themselves from the one percent Americans, who are in possession of the greatest portion of the nation’s wealth.

Monday’s protest had been called by the Occupy Raleigh movement.

The movement owes its inspiration to the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) campaign, which began on September 17 in New York City, with the protesters saying they intended to literally take over the country’s financial center until their demands are met.

The OWS took shape against the backdrop of high unemployment, home foreclosures, and the 2008 corporate bailouts as a protest movement against corporate greed and corporations’ excessive influence on the country’s political system.