Chicago women who volunteered for W Bank humanitarian mission prosecuted under terror laws

[Hannah Bell]

About 100 people braved the frigid weather on December 7, 2010, to march and rally at the Dirksen Federal Bldg in downtown Chicago. We were there to protest the grand jury supoenas served on three young Chicago women and several antiwar and international solidarity activists in Minneapolis.



The supoenas use the phrase 'material aid to terrorists' to justify the earlier raids on 14 people on Sept. 24 (2010) and those facing them today. Any organization opposed to US allies is liable to be so designated by the US government with no objective criteria as to what constitutes 'terrorist organization'.

The Chicago women all volunteered for humanitarian work in the Israeli-occupied West Bank last summer. Now, under grand jury proceedures, if they refuse to name others with whom they worked, they can face indefinite imprisonment. Technically, they can be jailed for the life of the grand jury, which is normally 18 months. In reality, the government can continue to supoena them for succeeding grand juries, leaving such people open to being jailed without having been found guilty of anything other than refusing to bring others under such threats.



For many, President Obama's Justice Department's using the 'terrorist' label is today's ideology to intimidate current and potential opposition to US foreign policy and the deteriorating conditions of life here in the US.

Back in the 1940s and 1950s, 'anti-communism' was the bogeyman used to intimidate and marginalize the broad left here in the US, from the unions and student movement to peace and equality movements. Those years of repression are the template for this round of attacks. The demonstrators and speakers called on people and organizations to visibly oppose these grand jury assaults. The old union slogan, "An injury to one is an injury to all" seems all to applicable here.


For more information, go to www.stopfbi.net.



http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1818§ion=Article

[Turbineguy]

1. Another Hamas and company success story.

There are no innocent bystanders.

[Hannah Bell]

2. scary terrorists