10 October 2024
This is a statement on behalf of Behind Enemy Lines, the anti-imperialist organization that organized the 8/20 protest, and a group of DNC arrestees, a number of whom have court this morning.
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We’re here on October 10th, a year after the historic jailbreak from the Gaza prison by the Palestinian resistance, and the subsequent US-Israel genocide unleashed against the people of Palestine. Those US-made bombs have slaughtered well over 100,000 Palestinians, and the genocide has shown no sign for stopping, expanding to the West Bank, to Yemen, and to Lebanon where over 2,000 people have been killed in the last month alone.
In August, Brandon Johnson and the City of Chicago rolled out the red carpet for the people responsible for this genocide, some of the most monstrous criminals on the planet today: Genocide Joe and Killer Kamala, the people who have rubber stamped every check, who have co-signed every bomb, the people who have joined Israel at every step of this genocide with full knowledge of the families extinguished, the prisoners tortured and sexually assaulted, the churches, mosques, schools and hospitals leveled. In defense of this DNC, what we call the Death and Nakba Coronation, Brandon Johnson and his henchman CPD superintendent Larry Snelling occupied the Near West Side of Chicago with thousands of the CPD’s killer cops, in a massive show of force and intimidation.
Johnson and Snelling succeeded in taming some of the protesters, by tangling permits and promises of porta-potties. Not everyone. Not us.
On August 20th, we rallied in front of the Israeli consulate to demonstrate our support for the people of Palestine, and tried to march to confront the war-makers in the citadel of the United Center. Instead, Snelling and Johnson made clear that they stand with genocide over the people of Chicago and staged a police riot. Protesters were beaten with batons, thrown against concrete planters, and brutally arrested. After being arrested, they were held for hours in dark vans, and then again for hours in unhygienic jail cells.
Now the city of Chicago wants to subject us, alongside the other people it unjustly arrested during the DNC, to death by a thousand cuts: months of byzantine bureaucratic court hearings, dragged out over months. Just last week the city’s lawyer claimed that they need an additional two months to review hundreds of hours of police body camera footage. It was reported yesterday that the city has paid out more than $100 Million in police misconduct lawsuits over the last five years. How much money does it cost to prosecute us? When the schools are in desperate need of funds and the CTA is barely functional, why is it a priority of Brandon Johnson to pursue dozens of prosecutions of people who stood up to genocide? How much does it cost for the law department to review hundreds of hours of footage and drag us to court every other month? Ten’s of thousands of dollars? More?
However much the city throws at us, we won’t back down. Whatever indignities and injustices we faced and are facing are nothing compared to what people in Gaza are going through. On August 20th, we demonstrated that people in this country will not go along with the genocide program, no matter what party carries it out. We’ll continue to live up to that obligation, by getting the backs of the people who dare to resist, by refusing to take any deals, and by continuing to expose everyone who collaborates with the US-Israel genocide, from Genocide Joe to Brandon Johnson.
Drop all the charges against DNC protesters!
It’s right to rebel against genocide!
