CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Political Repression by Any Other Name is Still Repression

In recent weeks, the misnamed US Department of Justice has indicted twenty-three activists on serious charges related to their organizing against institutional complicity in the US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians and the kidnapping of US residents by militarized federal immigration enforcers.  The indictments are connected to two different cases, one in Michigan and the other in Minnesota.  From my vantage point, it seems fairly clear that the indictments are, among other things, designed to deflect the media and the public attention away from the crimes against humanity being perpetrated by the government and those institutions behind the prosecutions.  In fact, these indictments are purposefully political and part of a broader repression against US residents and organizations opposed to the ultra-right government of Donald Trump.

The Michigan indictments are of eight people involved with the movement at the University of Michigan demanding the university divest from all investments benefitting Israel, its illegal occupation of Palestine and the accompanying slaughter of thousands of Palestinians, especially in Gaza since October 2023.  Although the indictments were issued under the current administration, it is important to remember that the protests and the actions the eight defendants are charged with began during the Biden administration, whose relentless support for the Israeli genocide qualifies as a crime in and of itself.  According to the departmental press release, the charges are related to what John Gorgon, one of the US attorneys involved in the prosecution, characterized as “alleged threats and attempts to terrorize government officials, businesses, and the Jewish Federation,” which he characterized as “anti-American.”  The press release continues, arguing that graffiti reading “Fuck the IOF” and “MTU arms genocide” was an illegal attempt at coercion and a threat worthy of prosecution.  It’s important to remember that the graffiti and other property damage hurt absolutely no one and—in what seems too obvious to mention, but apparently isn’t—was precipitated by the very real........

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