birlatrimaya

[sproutdistro]

Please support the 59 people who are facing 61 years each in prison after being kettled at the protests against Trump's inauguration.

You can help by participating in a Thunderclap social media campaign (a coordinated posting of a social media message using your Tumblr, Twitter, and/or Facebook accounts), donating to the legal fund, reblogging this protest, or continuing to protest in the streets.

You can find out more about the case at DefendJ20Resistance.org

** PLEASE REBLOG TO HELP RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT THIS CASE **

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

#BREAKING: Jury has found all 6 #J20 defendants not guilty on all charges

Via Unicorn Riot

https://twitter.com/UR_Ninja/status/943890860772556801

[anarchistnewsdaily]

“In this touring presentation, you’ll hear an overview and critical analysis of the case this far, highlighting its role and significance in the changing landscape of political repression in the United States.”

[notsoterriblymisanthropic]

Another J20 defendant acquitted, jury still considering verdicts for three others accused of specific acts of property destruction.

[fuckyeahanarchistposters]

Now that the J20 trials have begun, it is up to us to support these folks.

For more info on the case check out:                                           

Nine Things to Know About the J20 Court Cases

Follow @defendj20 for consistent updates from court, and please share this fundraiser:

https://fundrazr.com/j20resistance

[radicalgraff]

“Defend J20! Protest is not a crime”

Solidarity mural for the many comrades facing various charges for participating in the anti-Trump inauguration protests.

Check out: “Seven Things You Can Do to Support the J20 Defendants.”

[defendcarbondale6-blog]

J20 101: Criminalizing Dissent

The J20 case is about repressing political opposition. 

The 200-plus people who were arrested in Washington D.C. on Inauguration Day were participating in an anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, anti-Trump march. 

Because the march happened in Washington D.C., the protesters are being prosecuted by the same people they were protesting against—the Trump administration—through the D.C. Superior Court with the U.S. Attorney’s Office as the prosecutor.

The estimated cost of security for the Inauguration was $200 million, and the government is now spending millions more to prosecute 200 people for an estimated $100,000 in damages; the government seems more interested in broadly silencing dissent and intimidating activists than regaining its losses.

Six defendants from Carbondale, IL, are scheduled for trial starting this summer.

Take a stand against government repression of political opposition and support those who were fighting against fascism and white supremacy on Inauguration Day by donating to the Carbondale Anti-Repression Fund: https://chuffed.org/project/support-the-carbondale-6. 

[nicoroxe]

(Analog Bloc)

Resisting State Repression
 by Analog Bloc - 11/23/2017

On January 20, 2017, tens of thousands of people converged in Washington, D.C. for the #DisruptJ20 protests to oppose the inauguration of fascist Donald Trump. A combination of blockades, marches, and festive demonstrations shattered the spectacle of a peaceful transition of power, and made it clear around the world that people do not recognize Trump’s authority. What could have been a day signaling resignation and defeat became a moment of defiance and resistance. 230 people were mass arrested during demonstrations. Arrestees were charged under the Federal Riot Statute. On April 27th, multiple additional felony charges were added. The 194 remaining defendants could now face up to 75 years in prison.

For more information please visit: defendj20resistance.org

#DEFENDJ20RESISTANCE #DROPJ20 #DEFENDJ20

[surmiseclothing]

Resistance is fertile! 🖋Wood cut and spray paint by @thestatuscrow #resistanceisfertile #lasercut #woodcut #lettering #resist #dropj20 #j20 #defendj20 #fdt

[leftpress]

All Out to #DropJ20: The Trial and the Path Ahead

It's Going Down | It's Going Down | November 1st 2017

The post All Out to #DropJ20: The Trial and the Path Ahead appeared first on It's Going Down.

Donate to J20 Defendants Here In this very important episode of the IGDcast, we talk with three people facing charges from #DisruptJ20 as well as someone from the Tilted Scales Collective. The charges, described by lawyers as “unprecedented,” that have been thrown at the almost 200 defendants, amount to life sentences, and are an attempt to […]

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[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Federal prosecutors targeting anti-Trump protesters are relying on video evidence from Project Veritas, a far-right group under fire this week for allegedly trying to dupe the Washington Post with a false story of sexual misconduct. 

The US attorney’s office submitted the footage in court on Tuesday as part of an ongoing trial against activists who protested Donald Trump’s inauguration and now face conspiracy and rioting charges that could lead to decades in prison.

[anarchistnewsdaily]

“A legal filing submitted today by the US Attorney’s Office (USAO) indicate that the federal government has drastically reduced the scope of the prosecution of people mass arrested during Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration on January 20 , 2017 (J20). The government will no longer bring charges against 129 of the almost 200 people previously indicted based on their presence at an ‘anti-capitalist and anti-fascist’ march that was violently herded into a police trap. 59 people still have trial dates scattered throughout this year and face charges carrying up to 60 years in prison.“

[notsoterriblymisanthropic]

Call-in Campaign to #DROPJ20: May 10th-11th

We’re asking you to keep the following people busy listening to our demands all day long on May 10th and 11th:

Jennifer Kerkhoff – Lead Prosectuor on the case, Deputy Chief of the Felony Major Crimes Trial Section (202) 252-7380

Lisa Greene – The Deputy Chief of the Superior Court Division, Kerkhoff’s direct supervisor (202) 252-7485

Richard Tischner – The Chief of the Superior Court Division, Kerkhoff’s direct supervisor (202) 252-7274

US Attorney for DC Jessie Liu – The person in charge of the US Attorney’s office, a Trump appointee (202) 252-7566

Rizwan Qureshi - Assistant J20 prosecutor (general line - use directory/operator) (202) 252-7679

John Gidez – The Chief of the Felony Major Crimes Trial Section, Kerkhoff’s colleague (202) 252-6752

John Borchert - Assistant J20 prosecutor (esp. Dreamhost and Facebook warrants) (202) 252-7679

Here’s a sample script to get you started!

Hello. My name is __________. (first name is fine)

I am calling about the inauguration day protesters still facing trumped up criminal charges. Your office needs to drop these remaining charges. There is no good reason your office should be pursuing these charges when six people have already been found NOT GUILTY on all counts in the first trial.  Again, your office should drop the remaining charges.

Over the last year these prosecutions have pushed all limits:

Intimidation to coerce plea deals by making inflated charges.

Shielding law enforcement from public accountability by issuing gag orders.

Disrupting people’s lives by making overblown charges and using those to justify intrusive, extensive investigations meant to build those cases.

This overall strategy to intimidate activists, disrupt social movements and silence dissent by weaponizing the use of trumped up charges is not going unnoticed. Your office has the power to end the repression and intimidation. Drop the charges now.

[fuckyeahanarchistposters]

The J20 Case: What You Need to Know

On January 20, 2017 (J20), President Donald Trump was inaugurated with all of the typical fanfare and political opposition that we have come to expect on Inauguration Day. In a stark contrast to previous years and even other contemporary protests, the Trump administration has chosen to aggressively pursue and prosecute over 200 people for these protests,, signaling a new era of political repression.

MASS ARRESTS

Designated a National Special Security Event, as presidential inaugurations have been since the turn of the century, the state response to political protest that day was under the command of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and overseen by the FBI and US Secret Service. It was estimated that as much as $200 million was spent on security, including the purchase of massive amounts of weaponry and ammunition.

That morning, among many other political actions opposing the new adminstration taking place in DC, hundreds of protesters gathered in Logan Circle for an anti-capitalist and anti-fascist march. Within a half hour, a few windows of corporate storefronts were broken and, instead of making individualized arrests, police moved in to “kettle” – indiscriminately surround and detain – anyone in the streets at the time.

Those trapped in the MPD kettle included protesters, journalists, medics, and bystanders. MPD arrested 234 people, charging them all with felony riot. A later, superseding indictment from the US Attorney’s Office charged the more than 200 defendants with eight felonies each, including rioting, incitement to riot, conspiracy to riot, four counts of destruction of property, and assault on a police officer. These charges are levied against all of the defendants, even though, as Natasha Lennard wrote in an April 2017 article for Esquire, “[N]o one—neither the police nor the government—suggests that that most or even many of the arrestees directly engaged in property destruction or violence.”

If convicted, each J20 defendant faces more than 70 years in federal prison. Notably, neo-Nazi James Alex Fields Jr. who killed antifa activist Heather Heyer in August in Charlottesville is facing less prison time than each J20 defendant.

At no time in the past 20 years have so many people been charged with this many felonies. This represents a troubling departure from historic prosecutions where property damage or “black bloc” activity is involved. The state is using extremely harsh legal measures to signal a new level of intolerance to protest and may represent a new norm for political repression in the US.

POLICE MISCONDUCT

In addition to these unusual and serious felony charges, the J20 event stands out as an egregious example of police misconduct. For example, when the police want to break up a political protest, law enforcement is typically required to make a “dispersal order” which allows folks to leave the area before being arrested. However, on J20, before any dispersal order was given, dozens of people were subjected to a violent attack when police indiscriminately deployed chemical and projectile weapons, including Stinger Grenades, which blast rubber pellets and chemical agents over a 50-foot radius. After the mass detention of the group, many were made to wait for hours without food, water, or toilets before being transported to the local jail.

The police misconduct on J20 was egregious enough that the Mayor’s Office of Police Complaints (OPC) issued a report that criticized the MPD for violating its own Standard Operating Procedures for Handling First Amendment Assemblies as well as misuse of chemical agents, failure to provide proper dispersal orders, and making questionable arrests. As a follow-up to this report, the OPC began an independent investigation in October into MPD misconduct on Inauguration Day. More than 10 years ago DC Police Chief Peter Newsham and the MPD were sued for conducting an unconstitutional mass arrest of political activists.

In March, after refusing to turn over communication and documentation related to the police response on J20, Newsham and the MPD were sued by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, claiming that police “are standing in willful disobedience of their lawful obligations to disclose information” even where such information disclosures is mandated by law.

Seeking to push back against widespread police misconduct, the DC chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in June against the District of Columbia, the MPD and Newsham himself, accusing the police of committing several human rights violations including the use of sexual assault against arrested protestors as a punitive measure.

INVASIVE INVESTIGATION TACTICS

The J20 cases are unprecedented not only for the number of people charged with felonies and for the quantity of felony charges levied against each defendant, but also for the extremely invasive investigation tactics of the prosecution.

In August, the Department of Justice issued a warrant seeking private information on as many as 1.3 million visitors to DisruptJ20.org, the website used as a clearinghouse of information in advance of the Inauguration Day protests. Judge Robert Morin ruled that the web-hosting company DreamHost did not have to comply with the government’s request for IP addresses and other private data, but the judge ruled that DreamHost must turn over website communications to prosecutors in an effort to search for incriminating evidence against organizers of the protests.

CURRENT STATUS OF THE DEFENDANTS

Most of the J20 defendants have chosen to work together collectively on their legal defense and have agreed to ‘points of unity’ which include not cooperating with the state or testifying against any of their co-defendants. Approximately twenty defendants have taken non-cooperating, no-jail plea bargains, but many have refused and the vast majority has decided to take their cases to trial.

One defendant—Dane Powell—who took a plea in April for rioting and assault on a police officer was sentenced in July to 36 months in prison but was required to serve only four months. Powell has remained resolute while incarcerated and is clear about his politics and the reasons why he was out on the streets that day.

Defendants and their supporters established the website DefendJ20Resistance.org to build public support and have also mounted political campaigns to drop the chargesand garner support for an independent police investigation.

In September, Judge Lynn Leibovitz, a former federal prosecutor, denied a motion to dismiss the charges against J20 defendants, paving the way for the first trials on November 15 and December 11, 2017, with additional trials to be held through the fall of 2018.

Also in September, the government dropped its demand that Facebook not tell its users about search warrants it issued for the accounts of three political organizers allegedly involved in planning for #DisruptJ20. The three organizers are fighting the warrants in court.

Update: On November 1, Judge Leibovitz issued an order reducing the ‘riot’ and ‘conspiracy to riot’ charges from felonies to misdemeanors. Each defendant is still charged with at least six felonies and two misdemeanors and faces as much as 60 years in prison.

MORE INFORMATION

The defendants’ support website: http://defendj20resistance.org/

Recent and notable media:

The Prosecution of Inauguration-Day Protesters Is a Threat to Dissent, Oct 20, 2017, The Nation https://www.thenation.com/article/the-prosecution-of-inauguration-day-protesters-is-a-threat-to-dissent/

How the Government Is Turning Protesters Into Felons, April 12, 2017, Esquire http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a54391/how-the-government-is-turning-protesters-into-felons/

Know Your Rights: We limit our resistance to fascism by relying on liberal conceptions of human rights, June 18, 2017, The New Inquiry https://thenewinquiry.com/know-your-rights/

The Whimper of Democracy, May 31, 2017, The Baffler https://thebaffler.com/the-poverty-of-theory/whimper-of-democracy-alvarez

Document Shows D.C. Police Threw More Than 70 Grenades at Inauguration Protesters, undated, The Real News http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=20169