Government targeting of anti-war movement continues

This is a 12/21 press release from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression (www.stopfbi.net).   

 

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald Expands Witch Hunt --

FBI delivers subpoenas to four more anti-war, solidarity activists

 

The FBI came unannounced to knock on doors at two apartments in Chicago this morning.  FBI agent Robert Parker, under orders from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's office, delivered a subpoena to Maureen Murphy. Murphy, like several other individuals served subpoenas, is an organizer with the Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago.

This continues the repression unleashed by Fitzgerald on the anti-war movement since September 24th, when fourteen subpoenas were delivered to anti-war, labor, and solidarity activists in coordinated raids involving more than 70 federal agents.  Armed FBI agents raided homes, taking computers, phones, passports, documents, notebooks, and even children's artwork. A total of 23 subpoenas have been served to activists around the country.

Maureen Murphy said, "Along with several others, I am being summoned to appear before the Grand Jury on Tuesday, January 25th, in the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago. We are being targeted for the work we do to end U.S. funding of the Israeli occupation, ending the war in Afghanistan and ending the occupation of Iraq. What is at stake for all of us is our right to dissent and organize to change harmful US foreign policy." Ms. Murphy is also the Managing Editor of the widely-read website, The Electronic Intifada.

In addition, three women in Minneapolis - Tracy Molm, Anh Pham, and Sara Martin - are threatened with reactivated subpoenas by Fitzgerald's office and new Grand Jury dates.  Tom Burke of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression explained, "It is likely the three individuals, like all the others so far, will continue to refuse to take part in Fitzgerald's witch hunt.  Fitzgerald can then call for putting them in jail as long as he wants."

For more information:  www.stopfbi.net

Defend Wikileaks!

I'm surprised some communists, such as the Progressive Labor Party, are attacking Wikileaks when the establishment is trying to silence its release of damaging information about world imperialism, by forcing Wikileaks off the Internet, attacking its funding, attacking Julian Assange in the judicial system and media and threatening to assassinate him, and changing laws to reduce free speech in the USA.  Wikileaks has the right enemies, and to attack Wikileaks is to assist the criminals in the US and allied governments.  The government alleges Wikileaks has blood on its hands, but it is no allegation that the Bush and Obama administrations are covered with real blood from their actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Palestine, and elsewhere, and the actions of their proxies in Haiti, Georgia, Honduras, etc.  If the US government attacks free speech over this incident, the problem is leaders like Obama and Senator Lieberman, not Wikileaks. 

 

As an article on Global Research ( www.globalresearch.ca/index.phpcontext=va&aid=22389 ) shows, Wikileaks is a liberal organization originally focused on the same "oppressive regimes" targeted by the US, its allies, and the dominant media (with which Wikileaks is allied), though Wikileaks does not overlook leaks from the NATO countries.  I doubt Julian Assange is actually a US operative, but Wikileaks could be used by the government to leak documents that aid imperialism, and the government and the New York Times used the documents against Iran.  But the documents still reveal information embarassing to the imperialists (see Fairness and Accuracy in Journalism's article at www.fair.org/index.php?page=4215 ), and progressive people should critically use this information in the struggle to stop imperialism, whether it was leaked with good intentions or not. 

 

Upcoming demonstrations around the world are listed at:

 

wlcentral.org/events-protests

 

and

 

http://www.worldcantwait.net

 

The only protest I have heard of in or near North Carolina is this:

 

Monday, December 20 · 4:00pm - 5:30pm
Corner of Friendly and Eugene St., Greensboro

Defend whistleblowers and truth tellers...prosecute war criminals! Hands off Julian Assange!

The highest officials in the Bush administration committed war crimes by leading the US into war on false pretenses, ordering torture, using chemical weapons against civilian populations, and indiscriminately targeting civilians. These crimes have continued under Obama.

Over the past several months, Wikileaks has revealed the true extent ...and the depth of these crimes, and the complicity of the Obama administration in covering them up, and maintaining policies under which these crimes continue. Wikileaks has published nothing but the truth about the actions of your government!

Join the rising global protest in calling for the US government to back off Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange, and renew the call for prosecution of war criminals!

Sponsored by The World Can't Wait - NC Chapter and North Carolina Labor Against the War

Communist Voice on The Peoples Channel

Chronicles of October - 1917 has been showing since November, but the series overall now has a name and a Soviet program on the WWII liberation of what is now Belarus airs this month (Mondays, 4-4:30pm), starting this afternoon.  This film uses archival footage, both Soviet and German, and unlike World War II in HD Colour, a European series currently airing on UNC TV, this obviously doesn't minimize the decisive role of the USSR in defeating the fascist powers, blame the USSR for the start of WWII in Europe and the Cold War, or attempt to equate fascist Germany and the USSR.  A documentary on the Russian/Soviet writer and playwright Maxim Gorky will air in January, but it had to be cut slightly to fit the time slot.