Committee Against Political Repression

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Comment by Joe Balkis on May 31, 2013 at 4:40

Reminder: Please make 3 calls for compassionate release for imprisoned activist Lynne Stewart today. Also, read below for the CSFR statement on the repression of the Associated Press

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1. National Call-in Day for Lynne Stewart - TODAY 2. CSFR statement on Associated Press

Comment by Joe Balkis on May 31, 2013 at 4:39

1. National Call-in Day for Lynne Stewart - TODAY

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression calls for the Compassionate Release of Lynne Stewart Now!

National Call-in Day to Obama, Holder and Samuels Thursday, May 30 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM (Eastern)
Three Calls for Compassion for Lynn Stewart

-- US Bureau of Prisons Director    Charles E. Samuels: 202-307-3198-ext. 3 -- US Attorney General Eric Holder: 202-514-2001 -- President Obama: 202-456-1111 Sample text “Dear Director Samuels,         My name is ___________and I am calling from [city and state], to ask you to approve the immediate compassionate release of Attorney Lynne Stewart. Ms. Stewart has dedicated her life to the peace and justice movements in our county. Lynne Stewart is beloved by people and leaders from coast to coast. Lynne Stewart deserves to live her final days at home surrounded by friends and family who love her. Please grant this act of kindness and give this freedom fighter the dignity and respect she deserves. The wars must stop and the political repression must end.”

Comment by Joe Balkis on May 31, 2013 at 4:39

Background information:

Emergency Alert: Lynne Stewart In Grave Danger Just last week the warden of Carswell FCI agreed to forward the compassionate release petition to the DOJ. The time to increase the heat is now. Lynne cannot wait any longer!
Stewart writes:  Dear Friends and Supporters:      One month ago I made a request for compassionate release, which was honored by the warden at Carswell Federal Medical Center.  Today the papers are still on a desk in Washington, D.C. even though the terminal cancer that I have contracted requires expeditious action.      Although I requested immediate action by the Bureau of Prisons, I find it necessary to again request immediate action from you, my friends, comrades, and supporters to call the three numbers listed above on Thursday, May 30 and request action on my behalf.      This could result in my being able to access medical treatment at Sloan Kettering so that I can face the rest of my life with dignity surrounded by those I love and who love me. Please do this. Yours truly, Lynne Stewart FMS CARSWELL-53504-054

Comment by Joe Balkis on May 31, 2013 at 4:32

2. CSFR statement on Associated Press

Justice Department Tramples on First Amendment Rights of Associated Press and Anti-war Activists

On Monday, May 13th, the Associated Press (AP) announced that the US Justice Department secretly obtained two months worth of reporters’ and editors’ phone records. The AP says its privacy was violated in an effort by the US government to investigate an exclusive AP report on May 7, 2012. The AP reported that the CIA stopped a plot by an Al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen.
The Committee to Stop FBI Repression (stopfbi.net) demands an end to the Justice Department overreach and fishing expeditions that violate First Amendment freedoms. We have personal experience with this type of privacy and First Amendment violations.
AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt protested the extensive privacy intrusion into the AP in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, May 13, 2013:
“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.  We regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.”

Comment by Joe Balkis on May 31, 2013 at 4:32

Anti-war activists are also outraged. This attack on the media is one more way
the government tries to stifle protests against US wars and occupations, by
keeping the knowledge of these acts from the public in the first
place.

The Obama administration is not only trying to scare the media,
but also to intimidate people of conscience from being whistle-blowers about the
role the U.S. plays in massacres and rights violations overseas. The US
government wants to hide its acts of war and dirty tricks from the American
public. They want to hide U.S. drone strikes; massacres in Afghanistan, and CIA
missions in countries the U.S. has determined are “hostile” to US corporate
interests. US wars, covert interventions, and deadly drone attacks are unpopular
around the world and here at home. The US government is battling isolation on a
global scale.

The FBI and the Justice Department are increasingly using
“terrorism” as the justification for putting the First Amendment through the
shredder. On September 24, 2010, the FBI raided and subpoenaed Midwest anti-war
and international solidarity activists, revealing that these activists were
being investigated for “material support for terrorism” because of their work to
end U.S. aid to Israel and Colombia. 23 activists were subpoenaed to appear
before a secretive grand jury in Chicago. The Anti-War 23 all refused to testify
or to cooperate with the investigation because it was a violation of their
constitutionally protected right to organize and free
speech.

Ironically, only four days prior to the September 24th raids,
the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. declared that the FBI had
systematically and wrongly spied on political activists.

On April 2,
2013, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund reported that government documents
obtained through their FOIA records requests reveal that the Department of
Homeland Security conducts daily monitoring of peaceful, lawful protests as a
matter of policy. The heavily redacted documents show that Homeland Security’s
“Threat Management Division” directed Regional Intelligence Analysts to provide
a “Daily Intelligence Briefing” that includes a category of reporting on
“Peaceful Activist Demonstrations” along with “Domestic Terrorist Activity.” 
The Department of Homeland Security is functioning as a secret political police
force against people participating in lawful, peaceful free speech
activity.

Every time the U.S. government violates the First Amendment in
order to promote war and aggression, it damages our rights here at home and
jeopardizes people’s lives abroad.

Comment by Joe Balkis on May 31, 2013 at 4:28

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression calls on its supporters to call President Obama to say:   Stop the crackdown on journalists & whistle-blowers!   Stop the attacks on the anti-war movement!   Stop the erosion of our civil liberties! Stopfbi.net

follow on Twitter Copyright © 2013 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights reserved. Thanks for your ongoing interest in the fight against FBI repression of anti-war and international solidarity activists! Our mailing address is: Committee to Stop FBI Repression PO Box 14183 Minneapolis, MN 55414

Comment by Joe Balkis on May 26, 2013 at 16:23

4. CSFR Visits US Congress, Demands End to Investigation

Four activists visited the US Congress on behalf of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression (CSFR) during the week of April 15, 2013. The delegation consisted of two members of Chicago's Coalition to Protect People's Rights and two friends of the Bay Area chapter of CSFR. The activists visited Congresspersons from Illinois, Michigan, and California, asking the legislators who already supported the Midwest 23, and others, to sign on to the letter below. The new letter demands that Acting U.S. Attorney of the Northern District of Illinois Gary Shapiro and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder end their investigation of the 23, and publicly exonerate them all. Scores of notable supporters signed the letter already and we are asking others to now: Signatories to Holder and Shapiro Letter.
This investigation is over two and a half years old, and the lead Assistant U.S. Attorney on the case, Barry Jonas, told one of the 23 at a speaking event shut down by CAPR that the statute of limitations is 8 years, an arrogant promise to continue harassing activists and making their lives difficult. CSFR is asking all our friends and supporters across the country to take this letter to your legislators and ask them to sign on as well. It is time to end the investigation.

Comment by Joe Balkis on May 26, 2013 at 16:23

From: The Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183, Minneapolis, MN
55414
612-379-3585 www.StopFBI.net

To:      Eric Holder,
Attorney General United States of America
Gary Shapiro, Acting U.S. Attorney Northern District of Illinois
Cc:       Robert Mueller, Director, Federal
Bureau of Investigation

September 20th, 2012

Dear Sirs,
We,
the undersigned, are a group of elected officials, educators, and labor,
community and religious activists. Each, in our own way, has been involved for
many years in the fight for human rights and equality for people of the United
States and throughout the world.

We write to you to request that your
continuing criminal investigation, now going on for over two years, into the
First Amendment protected activities of anti-war and international solidarity
activists be terminated and that your office make a formal announcement of this
determination.

As you are aware, the FBI raided the homes of nine
activists in September of 2010, and their personal property was seized,
including thousands of books, pamphlets, photographs and other materials, all
protected by the First Amendment. The search warrants authorizing these raids
falsely alleged that the families targeted were involved in providing material
support for terrorism.

Over the course of the next several months,
twenty-three teachers, students and supporters of justice for the people of
Palestine and Colombia, including the nine whose homes were raided, were
subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury impaneled in the Northern
District of Illinois. Each of the people subpoenaed refused to testify,
asserting their constitutional rights and stating that they believed that the
government was using the grand jury to chill the exercise of their political
right to question U.S. foreign policy.

Two years have passed, ample time
for the government to fully investigate any allegations of criminal conduct by
any of the people targeted, yet the investigation and chilling effect on
political freedom continues. The people subpoenaed suffer under a cloud of
unresolved government accusations and fear of criminal charges, which unjustly
impairs their right to be politically active and criticize government
policy.

It’s well past time for this investigation to end. Several
months ago, your office announced that Goldman Sachs would not be indicted as a
result of your investigation into their conduct, and last month you also
announced that no one would be indicted for the torture of captured Afghan
militants. It would behoove you, under any standard of fairness, to now announce
the end of your investigation of the people whose homes were raided two years
ago and who were subpoenaed to your grand jury.

Comment by Joe Balkis on May 26, 2013 at 16:21

3. Free the Cuban Five!

A solidarity statement by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression www.StopFBI.net Many of the U.S. government’s recent campaigns of repression, including the September 2010 FBI raids, grand jury subpoenas, and ongoing investigation of anti-war and international solidarity activists known as the Anti-War 23, have been pursued under the guise of investigating “material support of terrorism.” The bankruptcy of this rationale is revealed when we look to another ongoing case of political repression by the U.S. government – this time attacking individuals who were actively working to prevent terrorist attacks – the Cuban 5. The FBI targeted these five men because they were monitoring terrorist groups that the U.S. government supports. They were working to defend the country of Cuba from terrorist attacks. Since the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Cuba has been the target of more terrorist attacks than any other country in the world. 3,478 Cuban citizens have been killed in these attacks and 2,099 have been injured. The overwhelming majority of the attacks originated in southern Florida. The attacks were launched by groups who have been sheltered and in some cases financed by the U.S. government. Gerardo Hernandez, Ramón Labañino, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and René Gonzalez, now collectively known as the Cuban Five, were working to monitor the groups who have led and threatened these terrorist attacks. Their work to prevent further acts of terror from being unleashed on the Cuban people led to their arrest by FBI agents in Miami in September 1998. The U.S. government has kept the Cuban Five imprisoned since September 12, 1998, convicted of “conspiracy to commit espionage.” There is no evidence, nor is there even an accusation, that these men engaged in any actual acts of espionage. They did nothing wrong – they only worked to defend Cuban sovereignty and defend the Cuban people from attacks. Their case has garnered international attention, including from a United Nations working group, which found that the imprisonment of the Five was a case of arbitrary detention and is in violation of Article 14 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Liberties. The real reason for the imprisonment of the Cuban Five has nothing to do with espionage, just as the more recent acts of repression against international solidarity activists have nothing to do with combating terrorism. These are acts of political repression, plain and simple. Whether for defending Cuban sovereignty and the Cuban people, or for supporting people resisting U.S. wars and occupations in other parts of the world, the Cuban Five and the Anti-War 23 were all targeted for their opposition to the foreign policy aims of the U.S. government. The Committee to Stop FBI Repression stands in solidarity with the Cuban Five and condemns the ongoing repression against these heroes of the Cuban people. We call for the immediate release of the four of the Cuban Five who remain imprisoned. * Defending the Cuban people is not a crime! Take action for the Cuban 5!

Comment by Joe Balkis on May 26, 2013 at 16:20

 

Join the week of action for the Cuban 5 in Washington D.C. May 30 - June 5, 2013.

There will be rally in front of the White House on Saturday, June 1st at 1:00 p.m.

Info on the week of actions here: http://www.thecuban5.org/wordpress/2013/01/04/save-the-dates-5-days... * One of the five, René Gonzalez, was released from prison on October 7, 2011 but was forced to stay in Southern Florida on probation. He finally won the freedom to return home to Cuba earlier this month.

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