OUTRAGE IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

Okay, this is hard to believe unless you understand the daily crap faced by Roma throughout  parts of Europe including the Czech Republic.


Seems there was this camp, run by the Czechs, where hundreds of Roma, mainly kids (see above), died of disease, hunger, and abuse during the Nazi era.  The place was named Lety.


Okay, you got that?


Well, last week during a speech marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the camp (which some, including the current President of the Republic like to call a transit camp instead of a concentration camp), PM Petr Necas made a speech.  He said, “We are in a place where innocent people died of typhus, dysentery and hunger and exhaustion.”


Got that?


He also said, according to Czech Position.com, "...the Czech state has no money to buy a pig farm built over the site."


A pig farm.


Czech Position also points out:

Back in 2005, the Czech Republic was singled out in a European Parliament resolution for failing to remove the pig farm at the site and create “a graceful memorial” to honor victims of the Romani Holocaust. But each government has either called for the issue to be studied further or said there was a lack of funds to do so.

Bullshit!


Several Romani associations and others called for a boycott of the commemorative ceremony.    A statement by the groups published in Romea.cz  read:

On Monday, 9 July, near the former site of the Romani concentration camp at Lety, a commemoration organized by the Lidice Memorial will take place. The main speech at the ceremony will be given by Czech Prime Minister Petr Nečas.

This gathering is taking place not quite two months after the bereaved and survivors of the Lety concentration camp organized their own commemoration. That gathering was attended by many Romani people, by the direct relatives of victims of the camp, by a large number of ambassadors of foreign states, by church clergy, and by members of the Jewish community. Czech Government Human Rights Commissioner Monika Šimůnková attended on behalf of the Czech Government. Only one senator and one MP attended on behalf of Parliament.

At the gathering organized by those related to the victims of Lety, it is customary for speakers to make realistic assessments sharply criticizing the current state of affairs regarding how the so-called "Romani issue" is being addressed in this country. The occasion has been used to discuss the segregation of Romani children into the "special schools", the forced sterilization of Romani women, anti-Romani marches, the racist rhetoric of politicians seated in Parliament, and the misappropriation of funding intended to assist Romani people. This all usually takes place in the presence of foreign ambassadors, outside the walls of the industrial pig farm that now stands on the site of the former concentration camp.

The Government evidently does not like the commemorations organized by Romani people themselves and has therefore "transferred" the cultural monument at Lety to the management of the Lidice Memorial. That organization takes care of the sites where Czechs were murdered during the war and the memorials to them in the villages of Lidice and Ležáky. We are of the opinion that despite its declared efforts, the Lidice Memorial does not have enough experience, sensitivity or understanding to organize a Romani commemoration ceremony. The bereaved and the survivors do not want the former concentration camp site at Lety to be administered by the Lidice Memorial, for reasons which are already known. We don't want a ceremony in the style of the one held at Lidice, with military music. There is no need to organize a "competing", governmental commemoration of the catastrophe at Lety.

If Prime Minister Petr Nečas wants to honor the memory of the victims of the concentration camp at Lety, he should do it by instructing the Government to acquire and dismantle the pig farm that now covers the places where Romani children perished. He can also end the segregation of Romani children into the "special schools". He can redress the property confiscated from Romani people in the Czech lands during Nazism. He can redress the victims of the sterilization program. As Prime Minister, he can take a stand against the racist rhetoric used by his fellow party members and coalition partners. There is a great deal he can do to aid Romani people. Should the Prime Minister come forward with measures such as these, which will improve the situation of the Romani minority in the Czech Republic, then Romani people will sincerely welcome him to join them at Lety on 13 May.

The following is from The Sun Daily.

Nazi camp-turned-pig farm outrages Czech Roma

 A visit by the Czech prime minister this week to a Roma Holocaust site turned into a pig farm in the 1970s has rekindled outrage among Czech Roma at the state's failure to shut it down, despite European outcry.

Between 1940-43, Nazi Germany and its Czech collaborators imprisoned close to 1,300 Czech Roma at the Lety camp, about 70 kilometres (45 miles) south of the capital Prague.

Alongside European Jews, the continent's smaller Roma minority was also a target of Nazi genocide during World War II.

Some 327 Roma, including 241 children, died at the camp staffed by an ethnic Czech commander and guards, while more than 500 were sent to Nazi Germany's infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in occupied southern Poland.

In 1972-76, Communists ruling the former Czechoslovakia thought nothing of building a pig farm on the site, subsequently taken over by a private company after regime's collapse in 1989.

Tensions between Czech Roma and authorities have flared over the sensitive issue for well over a decade, with the deeply marginalised Czech minority insisting the state purchase the farm, tear it down and build a fitting memorial.

The European Parliament also urged Prague to remove it in 2005 and again in 2008, but local Roma insist Czech politicians are loathe to tackle the issue due to deep social prejudices across the republic against their community.

"The (Roma) minority ranks permanently among those perceived as the worst and most problematic, which is reflected in attitudes of the politicians," Roma journalist Jarmila Balazova told AFP on Wednesday.

Bitter Roma boycotted memorial ceremonies at the site Monday with right-wing Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas.

"Our primary goal is to see the pig farm removed from the place where our people died because of their race," said Cenek Ruzicka, head of an action committee on the Roma Holocaust.

"You won't find an absurd thing like that anywhere in the world. People don't build pig farms in such places," he fumed, while pointing to a string of empty promises made by successive Czech governments to settle the issue.

Late Czech president Vaclav Havel unveiled a Roma memorial in Lety in 1995, but Czech leaders have since tiptoed around the site until Necas's recent visit, making him the first leader to go there in 17 years.

While Necas slammed what happened to Roma at Lety as genocide, he insisted there was no cash to buy the pig farm.

According to Ruzicka, 300-500 million koruna (12-20 million euros, US$14.5-24 million) would be enough to purchase and tear it down or to build another elsewhere, but the associated political risk would be high.

"Of course politicians know any government seeking to remove it (the farm), will fail in the next elections. The sum is unacceptable for the public," Ruzicka said, insisting no action was taken on a Roma proposal that a long-term government fund be created to save-up for a buyout.

Jiri Leskovec, head of the Agpi company that runs the pig farm, alleges it was built on a green field immediately adjacent to the former concentration camp which was razed at the end of the war.

Historians, however, contend the two sites overlap.

Now with 13,000 pigs and a staff of 12, the farm was originally built at the camp site during the 1970s by a communist state-run company that was privatised as Agpi after the 1989 transition to democracy and capitalism.

"We're terribly sorry we have to remind people of this obvious truth, and of the historic context -- that our people died there under supervision from Czech guards," Ruzicka said.

Of the 9,500 Czech Roma registered before World War II, fewer than 600 returned home after the Holocaust.

An EU country of 10.5 million, the Czech Republic's Roma community is currently estimated to number between 250,000 and 300,000.

Of the roughly one million Roma who lived in Europe prior to WWII, historians believe the Nazis exterminated over half.

Today, it is estimated that over eight million Roma live in Europe. – AFP

WHO IS RA'IF BADAWI AND WHY ARE SAUDI ARABIA'S THEOCRATS SO AFRAID OF HIM

THIS IS WHAT AN INSULTED GRAND MUFTI LOOKS LIKE

America's close pal Saudi Arabia is demonstrating again that it has no tolerance for anyone who might offer a wee bit of dissent against either its religious authorities or the Royal family.  


Remind me again why we like these guys?  Oh yeah, they have all that oil and ... what else is there really.  


You do have to give the family Saud credit, they know how to manipulate everyone and anyone with the best of them.  I guess the best demonstration of that was the way all those Saudis religious nuts flew those planes into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the ground and the USA declared war on Iraq and blamed Iran.  That's a neat trick.


Oh, remember when the USA about the same time suddenly discovered a concern for the way the Taliban treated women and fundamentalist religious theocracies in general.  Well, no one treats women much worse then Saudi Arabia and no country is more of a theocracy then Saudi Arabia.


Still there isn't an American President, living or dead, who has ever shown any concern about much of anything going on in the desert Kingdom...as long as the black gold flows...


I guess I shouldn't be holding my breath for the American government to speak up on behalf of press freedom, internet freedom, or dissent from religious  oppression now.  Surely not  because "our" ally has jailed a Saudi national by the name of Ra'if Badawi who just happens to run a website that ran a post that asked, as Court documents show, "...is God unjust?",  and made a sarcastic remarks about the Saudi religious police and a senior scholar, and ran another post that asked, "why is Saudi's Grand Mufti blind?"


Whew, I'd lock up a dangerous radical like that the guy, too.  After all, as the Saudi theocrats point out that website of Ra'if's, "harms the public order and violates Islamic values"."


How did he do that again?  Ahram OnLine has the answer:

"He did that by setting up a website that harms the public order and violates Islamic values, including insulting the divine being and attacking some religious icons such as the Grand Mufti," a document from the Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution showed.

Did I mention that the Saudi's also say Badawi disobeyed his father.


Human Rights Watch reports that if Badawi is convicted of these horrible offenses he faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to three million riyals ($800,000).


By the way, the website, Badawi operates is named, "Free Saudi Liberals."


The Ma'an News Agency meanwhile reports:

On Sunday Saudi newspaper al-Watan reported that Saudi Arabia is studying new regulations to criminalize insulting Islam and will include posts on social media where violators will face "severe punishments".

The potential regulations come five months after a Saudi blogger and columnist, Hamza Kashgari, 23, was arrested for tweeting comments deemed as insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

Last year, Saudi King Abdullah, who has promoted religious dialogue and visited Pope Benedict in 2007, said he would forbid criticism of senior members of the Sunni Muslim clergy.

A media law issued in April 2011 after Arab Spring uprisings broke out stated that publications offending top figures or seen to jeopardize stability risk being closed or fined.

Funny how the real Empire works some days, isn't it?


The following is from The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.

Saudi Arabia: Free Editor Held Under Cybercrime Law

(Beirut) – Saudi authorities should drop charges and release the editor of the Free Saudi Liberalswebsite for violating his right to freedom of expression on matters of religion and religious figures. Prosecutors have charged Ra’if Badawi under the 2007 Anti-Cybercrime law, alleging that his website “infringes on religious values” by providing a platform for open debate of views on religion and religious figures.

The prosecution’s evidence includes five website postings by Badawi and anonymous website members critical of Saudi religious authorities and two postings regarding theological questions, the charge sheet says. If convicted, Badawi faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to three million Saudi Riyals (US$800,000).

“The Saudi government is fighting a losing battle if it thinks it can stifle the exchange of ideas on religion by jailing those who express their views,” said Christoph Wilcke, senior Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government has no business policing Saudis’ religious views.”

Saudi security forces stopped Badawi and arrested him on June 17, 2012, as he was driving in Jeddah, his wife and a close associate told Human Rights Watch. On the website, Badawi and others had declared May 7 a day for Saudi liberals, hoping to garner interest in open discussion about the differences between popular religion and politicized religion, said Su’ad al-Shammari, secretary general of the website.

Badawi had been living away from his home for months to avoid a run-in with the police, although he did not believe he was formally wanted for arrest, Badawi told Human Rights Watch in March.

On March 18, Shaikh Abd al-Rahman al-Barrak, a well-known conservative cleric, issued a religious ruling declaring Badawi an “unbeliever … and apostate who must be tried and sentenced according to what his words require.” Al-Barrak listed five pieces of what he described as evidence, such as Badawi’s alleged “claim that Muslims, Jews, Christians, and atheists are all equal,” and Badawi’s alleged “exposure of the inconveniences of the month of Ramadan.” Al-Barrak also dismissed the possibility of an open discussion of such matters, saying that even if these were not Badawi’s own opinions but an “account of the words of others, this is not allowed unless accompanied by a repudiation” of such words.

Saudi authorities have long harassed Badawi with politically motivated prosecutions for his debate of religious views, Human Rights Watch said. In March 2008, prosecutors arrested and detained Badawi for questioning, also for setting up his website, but released him after one day. Badawi left the country after being formally charged in May 2008. He returned when prosecutors apparently decided not to pursue his case, he told Human Rights Watch. Nevertheless, as a result of the charges, the government in 2009 barred Badawi from foreign travel and froze his business interests, depriving him of a source of income, he told Human Rights Watch.

Badawi had told Human Rights Watch that since al-Barrak’s March religious ruling, he feared for his life and for the lives of his family. His father and a brother have publicly distanced themselves from him and declared him an unbeliever. The charge sheet names his father as having initiated the legal action against Badawi, also including a charge of “filial disobedience,” although no instances of such disobedience are included in the charge sheet. A person close to Badawi told Human Rights Watch that Badawi has not seen his father in years.

Members of Badawi’s wife’s family also began agitating against him, Badawi told Human Rights Watch, leading his wife and three children to leave the country. Badawi had learned that his wife’s relatives were filing suit in a Jeddah court to have him forcibly divorced from his wife as an apostate, and thus not allowed to marry a Muslim woman under Islamic law. His wife and children remain abroad.

International human rights law protects the right to freedom of expression. International standards only allow content-based restrictions in extremely narrow circumstances, such as cases of slander or libel against private individuals or speech that threatens national security. Restrictions must be clearly defined, specific, necessary, and proportionate to the threat to the interest protected.

The mere fact that forms of expression are considered to be insulting to a public figure is not sufficient to justify the imposition of penalties, the UN Human Rights Committee said in its 2011 General Comment No. 34 regarding permissible limits on freedom of expression. Regarding restrictions for the protection of public morals, the committee in its 1993 General Comment No. 22 on freedom of religion observed “that the concept of morals derives from many social, philosophical and religious traditions; consequently, limitations… for the purpose of protecting morals must be based on principles not deriving exclusively from a single tradition.”

“Instead of protecting the lives and freedoms of Saudi citizens, Saudi authorities allow the abuse of their legal system to persecute those with critical views,” Wilcke said.

THE COP RAID IN SEATTLE IS NO BIG SHOCK

THEY ARE COPS AFTER ALL 

Almost a week ago Seattle police and SWAT raided a home of several members of Seattle Occupy and persons also involved with the Kasama Project.  The cops beat down doors in the middle of the night, dragged residents from their beds, trashed the place, confiscated anything they deemed anarchist materials.  Four persons were arrested and later released.


MPN reported:

"...activist Phillip Neel was in the apartment at the time of the raid, and he said police pointed guns at the back of activists while searching the apartment. He also claimed their hands were bound by zip ties after they were awoken by the sound of officers, who he said used a flashbang grenade in the stairwell and broke down the door.

Activists were not able to see the warrant until the raid was complete — a move Neel said left those in the apartment confused throughout the event. Those within the apartment at the time of the incident are known Occupy organizers.

Neel said items taken included a black hooded sweatshirt, a scarf, a notebook, a flyer for a book signing related to anarchism in the Occupy movement and literature previously handed out at Occupy protests.

The police said the raids were meant to gather information on what they deemed a May Day riots which left some banks and other buildings damaged.  The cops are seeking seven "suspected" anarchists as a result.

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression condemned the raid:

…In the United States today the forces of repression and reaction, ranging from the FBI to local police forces are trying to intimidate those who are standing up for peace, justice, equality and liberation. The examples are many, including the repression directed at Arabs and Muslims, the coordinated attacks on the occupy movement, and FBI raids on anti war and international solidarity activists.

We condemn this act of political repression and send our solidarity to all those who were targeted in this raid.

Last Tuesday supporters marched in support.  They were back out in larger numbers on Friday night.


What surprises me more than anything else in some ways is that there may actually be people, activists even, who are themselves surprised by such a raid.  This is what the cops do.  They have done it to every movement of the people since someone thought up the idea of police.  


Our duty is to resist such police tactics, however we can, and to plow on with our work.  Our duty is also not to make the work of police repression more easy by doing such nonsense as posting the type of idiotic, militant sounding, rhetorical posturing all over places like Face Book.  That sort of stuff is just juvenile and stupid.  When the police say "anything you say can, and will be used against you," they absolutely mean it.


We always advise people not to talk to cops, not to rap with the Feds.  The truth is when you post nonsense, calls for violence against individuals, or against the police, or against some facet of the State, or against some representative of Capital, you are speaking to and cooperating with the police.  Stop it!


What follows below is first a report on Friday night's march against the police raid from Puget Sound Anarchist.org.  After that is a statement about the raid from the Black Orchid Collective.

Can't Raid This Rage! 7/13 Solidarity Demo Report-Back

Sun, 07/15/2012 - 1:24pm — Anonymous

On Friday, July 13, about 120 people came together for the second demonstration in solidarity with Decolonize/Occupy Seattle organizers whose home was raided by police early in the morning of July 10 as part of SPD's May Day investigation and campaign of repression against radical and anarchist activity in the city.

.

The demonstration began downtown at Westlake Plaza (site of the first D/OS camp) before traveling up to Capitol Hill to meet a second group at Seattle Central Community College (the second site of the camp). On the way up the hill, the march passed several cops guarding the Nike Town that was spectacularly attacked on May Day.

After leaving Capitol Hill, the march then continued on towards the Central District, passing the heavily barricaded East Precinct police station, where a formation of cops in riot gear and on horses stood looking foolishly robotic in the lovely late afternoon sunshine.

After passing through Capitol Hill, the march headed for the historically black and rapidly gentrifying Central District. There they were met with considerable support from those who are all too familiar with police harassment.

In contrast to other recent marches in Seattle, which seemed to aim mostly for a spectacular effect, this demonstration focused specifically on the dissemination of information about the raid. Demonstrators distributed thousands of copies of at least four different flyers to curious passersby. People left leaflets on cars, gave them to those dining in restaurants, and briefly explained what was happening to people who emerged from their homes along the march route.

The march also passed by The Wildcat (the anarchist social center) and the corner of 24th and Cherry, the sight of the 3-month-old Food For Everyone communal barbeque and food distribution. Anti-police chants carried the day, and the general feeling was one of solidarity against state aggression. Meanwhile, several dozen bike cops trailed the march, along with at least one police van.

As the demo passed Horace Mann school on Cherry between 23rd Ave and MLK, two suspicious characters in black bloc were identified as undercover officers and ousted from the march. They left without much protest after being questioned about their reasons for attending the march. Though there had been a call for a bloc online in the comment section of the Puget Sound Anarchists website, most demonstrators had their faces uncovered. Thus, the two stuck out like sore thumbs, looking like they bought their costumes at Halloween Adventure. They had random splotches of red and pink paint on their clothes and strips of hot pink duct tape to distinguish them from others in the march. (FYI, having these sorts of easily identifiable markers is contrary to the point of dressing in black bloc but would easily distinguish an undercover in the midst of a black bloc.)

Later, two other suspected undercovers were approached by angry demonstrators. Eventually it was determined that because nothing but chanting and flyering was going on, and there was already a great number of cops tailing the march, it made more sense to ignore the suspected undercovers and continue on. One eventually left and the other (who had been quite angry at being bad-jacketed) stayed until the end.

The demo ended at the Douglass-Truth Library at Yesler and 23rd with a rally and a few speeches decrying repression and gentrification. [According to the above KIRO TV report, which also incorrectly states that the raid happened a month ago, the march continued downtown after this point--this author missed this part of the march if it happened.] Here, the main target of the police raid urged the demonstrators to continue “attacking” the system and identified the Food For Everyone project, the Wildcat anarchist space, and the Everything For Everyone Festival as “attacks.” This is indeed a good time to focus on spreading networks of complicity in the project of revolt so as to avoid becoming isolated and easy targets of repression.

This demonstration was useful in that it effectively spread news of the raid throughout Capitol Hill and the Central District. It also showed that some basic level of solidarity actually exists between a relatively large number of people. This is inspiring and reassuring.

The purpose of repression is to spread fear and distrust while discouraging disobedience to authority. The worst possible thing would be for the rebellious to bow our heads now. The police raid happened because the authorities are terrified of where our efforts could eventually lead: neighborhood autonomy, mutual support, and the total redundancy of all authority. They are not afraid of anarchist bombs and guns so much as they are horrified that thousands may discover what many already have: that they do not need or want capitalism and its courts, judges, jails, and police. This march and the support it received in the neighborhoods is proof that the worst fears of authority are slowly coming true.

=======================================================

Solidarity with our friends who were recently raided

Posted on July 15, 2012 by blackorchidcollective

We collaborated with our comrades in Decolonize/Occupy Seattle to produce this solidarity statement with those who were raided this past Tues morning. Below is an interview conducted by RT with one of the people who experienced the raid:

We are thankful to be part of a community of activists who are vigilant and get each others’ backs. The Seattle Police Department (SPD) has been continually attempting to repress our movement at every turn. In the past few weeks, they have harassed us without fail.  Unfortunately for them, their actions so far have only created more opportunities for us to build, bigger and stronger.  The 200 people strong march was enthusiastic and fun, and we flyered to many working class people of color along our route who were receptive to our message. We chanted, “Activist houses get raided, we don’t get intimidated!” amongst other things.

We have to be continually vigilant against the state’s attempts to divide, repress and silence us and we do not take any of this lightly. Below is the collaborative solidarity statement with our comrades. The PDF version can also be found on Tides of Flame website!

Solidarity Statement to members of Decolonize/Occupy Seattle recently raided by the Seattle Police Department

Early Tuesday morning, the Seattle Police Department raided the home of our friends, community members, and key organizers in Decolonize/Occupy Seattle and the Red Spark Collective. They were faced with assault rifles to their heads, flash bang grenades and an armed SWAT team.

The Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) harassment of our community has been ongoing. Only two weeks ago during Pride weekend, they attacked our friends. Before that, they arrested members of the Decolonize/Occupy community for disrupting the mayor’s bogus meet and greet, a continual shielding of the SPD’s record of police brutality. The continual harassment by SPD is not surprising. It is their modus operandi. Their lousy attempts at renewing their image with the “SPD 20/20” further disgusts us.

The violent raid against our friends this week, in search of “anarchist materials” did not happen in a vacuum. These are times of mass social movements around the world. People are resisting in Seattle, across this country, and across the world. The powers that be fear these struggles will spread and they do their best to intimidate and stifle our dynamism. 

Global anti-capitalist forces face constant terrorism from police working for the global power elite. They will always find excuses to delegitimize us and to further prop themselves up as the bearer of public safety and welfare. Over the last few months, there have been several shootings in the city, in the Central District, the North end and South end. The police have used this as an excuse to militarize the streets, overcompensating through extreme policing and tactics, legitimizing their racial profiling and repression of people of color and poor folks in particular. This is the story you’ll never hear about Seattle’s militarized racist police force. We remember John T Williams and Oscar Grant and are in solidarity with anyone who has experience police/ military repression and state violence.

We do not forget for a moment that the trauma and fear our friends experienced this past week takes place often in im/migrant communities during ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids. As radicals we understand the complexities of the legal system in relation to how the state reacts to resistance. They scare us, intimidate us, arrest us, and dehumanize us, hoping that in the process that we, too, take out our anger on one another, so that our communities break down. We will not fall for that.

It is important for us to understand certain patterns in the police responses to the national Decolonize/Occupy movement. The police have justified their use of excessive force against many of us by claiming that we are all dangerous anarchists. In their book, anyone whose organizing is threatening to the status quo is depicted as “anarchists,” “black block,” and dangerous threats to public safety. They want to divide us into good protesters and bad protesters. The “good” protesters, in their eyes, do not inherently create an ideological threat to the exploitative foundations of the existing system with their organizing. The “bad protesters” however, do not follow their rules of engagement. We threaten the status quo. It is in the interest of the state to affirm the “good protesters,” so as to upkeep a pretense of free speech and democracy. Given that the facade of democracy is the excuse that the US military uses in its war efforts, it would be a shame if there was not a pretense at keeping it in the home country. Failing to understand the ideological reasons why the state props up “good protesters” over “bad protesters,” through the tactics of “anarchist baiting,” will cause us to debate endlessly about which tactic is more effective than others in changing the system. This not only causes us to attack one another, but is also a distraction. Being used by the state to delegitimize other political forces is not a sign of strength. It is a sign of being manipulated. Hopefully, the broader Decolonize/Occupy Seattle community is smarter than that and this is not a trap we will fall for. Even as we may disagree with one another’s politics and tactics, we will understand that an injury to one is an injury to all. We refuse to let our differences strengthen the legitimacy of police violence.

Generating fear and paranoia were the goals of the SPD on Tuesday, when the SWAT team broke the door with guns drawn, threw concussion grenades, and yanked people, including two female bodied people, out of their beds without allowing them to clothe themselves. Folks were held cuffed in a room while the police confiscated clothing and literature. The unnecessary trauma inflicted on these people through militarized police terrorism tactics was a result of the SPD’s goal to prevent further organizing. The organizing in this house involves building community gardens, holding community potlucks, organizing to shut down the juvenile prison (through healthy, supportive, healing alternatives), fighting gentrification, and hosting a completely free music, arts, and politics festival. The organizers in the house are resisting through creating and empowering. In opposition, the police are attempting to destroy through inflicting fear and trauma. Our community immediately mobilized to support the needs of our comrades as they dealt with the violence of the increasingly militarized Seattle Police. Our bonds and communities are only strengthening through this oppression.

We will continue to combat fear and trauma with love and resistance.