Hands off Samidoun! Stop the attacks on the movement for Palestine!

Freedom Road Socialist organization strongly condemns the attacks by the U.S. Treasury Department and Canadian authorities on Samidoun: Palestinian Political Prisoner Network. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) claims that Samidoun is a “sham charity,” an allegation that is designed to criminalize solidarity with Palestine. We urge everyone who is progressive or concerned about civil liberties to stand with Samidoun against political repression.

The U.S government has devised a host of laws that treat movements for national liberation, be they in Palestine or the Philippines or points in between, as “terrorism.” As a result, almost every group that is fighting to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine is on the U.S. State Department’s list of designated terrorist organizations. And it gets worse. Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, folks can face long prison terms for “material support of terrorism.” It’s a legal framework that tries to make solidarity a crime. These laws should be scrapped.

These repressive laws that trample on the rights of free speech and association lead to an upside-down world where freedom fighters are labeled as terrorists, and the real terrorists sit in judgment. Consider this: the U.S. and Israel are responsible for at least 44,000 dead in Gaza, many of them little kids. We are seeing the worst kind of war crimes daily. Think of the U.S. bombs falling on hospitals and the 10,000 Palestinians in torture camps paid for with U.S. tax dollars. And then the practitioners of genocide reach for the heights of hypocrisy, saying those who resist these outrages are engaging in terrorism.

In 2010, the U.S. Justice Department launched an attack on anti-war and international solidarity activists—along with members of Freedom Road Socialist Organization—attacks that included FBI raids and grand jury subpoenas. The mass campaign that followed successfully beat back most of these attacks on our democratic rights. Speaking out against attacks on our movement is equally necessary today.

In the current political environment, where there are many moves underway by government and university administrations to repress pro-Palestine activism, it is important to remember that there is never a good reason to talk to the FBI or someone from a Joint Terrorism Task Force. No good will come of it. Ever.

We are going to continue to organize for Palestine. We stand with those facing political repression. And we are moving forward. We will not rest until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea!

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