Protest and Serve – YES! Journal Options Journalism

Since Sept. 5, 2023, 61 individuals in Atlanta have been charged with racketeering for protesting in reference to the Cease Cop Metropolis motion. Legal professional Normal Chris Carr of Georgia is utilizing the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to develop a mannequin for prosecutor places of work across the nation to repress organizing in opposition to police violence. Georgia has expanded its home terrorism legislation to extend the variety of offenses that individuals could be held for, whereas on the similar time eliminating public bail funds that bail poor individuals and activists out of jail. The intention is to criminalize actions and chill dissent, significantly uprisings centered round stopping police violence. 

The RICO indictment itself states that the “felony exercise” didn’t start once we began organizing in opposition to Cop Metropolis within the spring of 2021, however as a substitute a full yr earlier than, on Could 25, 2020, when a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd. For the State, a “felony enterprise” was born when individuals poured into the streets demanding justice, abolition, defunding, and options to police interactions with the general public. Whereas lots of individuals have been impressed—through the top of the COVID-19 pandemic—to protest the continued police murders of Black individuals, the state of Georgia as a substitute decided this collective train of free speech a felony act.

The State’s degree of assault on the Cease Cop Metropolis motion establishes a deliberate and scary development. In Atlanta, we have now witnessed, along with the racketeering expenses, the killing of Manuel Terán, aka Tortuguita, with nobody held accountable; 42 individuals charged with home terrorism; and the arrest of the leaders of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. These actions are designed not solely to criminalize the motion however to redirect its efforts towards defending arrested comrades whereas destroying the infrastructure that helps motion work. 

Throughout the nation, more and more draconian legal guidelines have been handed to create intensive civil and felony penalties for protest. Oklahoma and Iowa have enacted legal guidelines giving drivers immunity for hitting protesters. Indiana and Minnesota now bar individuals convicted of illegal meeting from having a state job or receiving unemployment insurance coverage, housing help, or pupil loans. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a brand new legislation in April 2021 that he bragged was “the strongest anti-looting, anti-rioting, pro-law-enforcement piece of laws within the nation.” In different phrases: anti-protest, anti–First Modification, and pro-criminalization. 

Water protectors in Minnesota, who’ve organized in opposition to the development of a brand new pipeline, have additionally had their organizing criminalized. Between December 2020 and September 2021, greater than 1,000 demonstrators have been charged with protest-related crimes. A lot of these expenses have been later dismissed, however the State isn’t at all times after a conviction—draining motion power and assets by lawsuits suffices. 

Land defenders within the Black Hills have been charged with felonies for standing in opposition to the continued occupation and disfigurement of their land. Protesters in opposition to the Israeli genocide have now turn into a specific goal of legislation enforcement, in addition to a wider media and authorities narrative that tasks them as antisemitic versus anti-genocide. In Atlanta’s Cop Metropolis combat, open data requests uncovered a public-private job drive—one which included all ranges of municipal, county, and state police; Homeland Safety; and the Atlanta Police Basis—strategizing on the right way to carry home terrorism expenses in opposition to Cop Metropolis organizers. 

The protest panorama at this time is harking back to that within the Nineteen Sixties and ’70s, when police, prosecutors, and courts acted in alignment to crack down on radical activists and civil rights protesters. These similar forces are uniting at this time in opposition to direct motion led by leftist organizers, much like when federal and state authorities teamed as much as conduct surveillance and focused operations on protest actions in years previous. This concentrating on by State actors led not solely to the tried criminalization of organizers but additionally to the killing of activists like Chicago Black Panther Celebration chief Fred Hampton in 1969. If you’re difficult the State on how assets are spent or how communities are policed, the State goes to reply with all of the instruments it has to defeat you. 

We should not hand over the combat. We should create constructions and help programs to show and overcome the abuse of energy. A mass protection construction is essential—this consists of authorized observers, bail funds, and motion legal professionals to help organizers who’re focused by the State. 

Moreover, we want media groups that help the motion narrative on essential battles. Creating areas for organizations and particular person activists to satisfy, plan methods and targets, and construct collective help is likewise key. In Atlanta, a few of these instruments are being attacked as a result of they’re so efficient in supporting organizers to get again into the streets and proceed the combat. Energy must be within the arms of the individuals—and for that to occur, the individuals have to be organized to fight state repression.