Statement Against FBI and
Grand Jury Repression
http://www.zcommunications.org/statement-against-fbi-and-grand-jury-repression-by-angela-davis
On September 24 the FBI raided homes of 14 activists in movements in
solidarity with oppressed workers and peoples of Latin America and
Israel/Palestine. I consider these raids to be an assault on democracy. While
the immediate targets of the raids were activists in movements in solidarity
with trade unionists and others facing violence in Colombia and the Middle
East, their purpose is to disrupt the unity of progressive movements by sowing
suspicion, distrust, and an aura of guilt by association. I am not too young to
remember the dark days of McCarthyism in our country, and I know very well what
the effect of such government reprisals can be.
The FBI seized computers, cell phones, boxes of papers and personal possessions
from all 14. They served grand jury subpoenas on many of them. The FBI
announced they were investigating possible “material support” to terrorist
groups. But it appears that their real purpose is to disrupt the growing unity
of the majority of Americans who are critical of the wars and occupations being
carried out today in Iraq and Afghanistan, who oppose U. S. support for
violence against trade unionists in Colombia and against Palestinians by the
Israeli government in Israel, on the West Bank, and in Gaza. The only way the
FBI’s actions make any sense at all is to see them as an attempt to isolate and
intimidate any who would dissent from government policy or speak out against
injustice. These raids violate the spirit and the letter of the Bill of Rights.
They endanger the freedom of the entire U. S. population.
We learned bitter lessons from the FBI’s COINTELPRO repression in the 1960s, in
which African American leaders, including Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
Malcolm X, and leaders of the Black Panther Party such as Fred Hampton, were
targeted for assassination. Progressive movements were targeted for disruption.
I urge President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to
· Direct the FBI to return the
belongings seized.
· Dissolve the grand juries
threatening an inquisition against peace and solidarity activists and
movements.
· Cancel all subpoenas to
appear before the grand jury in Chicago.
I would like to work with my Congressman Barbara Lee to support initiatives in
Congress for the repeal of provisions of law that define solidarity with human
rights abroad as “material support” for terrorism. The rights of all Americans
must be preserved to peaceably assemble and petition their government to end
support for repressive and militarist governments abroad, and states that
commit war crimes and terrorist acts against their own or other people
struggling for basic human rights.
Angela Y. Davis is the author of many books, her most recent are: Abolition
Democracy, Are Prisons Obsolete? and a new critical edition of Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.
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