Update: Targets of FBI raids refuse to testify before grand jury; more activists harassed

MINNEAPOLIS – On Tuesday, October 5 the Uhuru Movement joined a demonstration held outside the FBI office in downtown Minneapolis to protest the recent raids on anti-war and solidarity activists in Minneapolis, Chicago and other cities.

This was the second demonstration in Minneapolis and one of many held in over 61 cities across the country since the September 24 raids.

Activists targeted in the raids, who also received subpoenas to appear before a grand jury in Chicago, announced at the demonstration that they had sent letters to the US attorney informing him of their intention not to testify.

Grand juries consist of people hand picked by a prosecutor. Those subpoenaed to testify are not allowed to be represented by a lawyer during the questioning and a judge is not present.

A committee that has formed to organize an ongoing response to the repression held a meeting on Thursday October 7 and announced that at least two additional people were harassed by a visit from the FBI that day.

With regards to the ramifications of refusing to testify, Jess Sundin, one of the targets of the raids, gave a legal report and said they anticipate subpoenas to be reissued or possibly indictments delivered.

The committee is raising funds for legal defense and is planning ongoing political actions including a demonstration on Tuesday, October 12 outside the Federal Building in Minneapolis and continued calls to US attorney general Eric Holder (call-in info below).

They also asked people to sign the petition posted on www.stopfbi.net.

The Uhuru Movement calls on all peace and freedom loving peoples to denounce these repressive tactics of the Obama regime, led by attorney general Eric Holder.

These attacks emanate from the same Federal Bureau of Investigation that was responsible for the assassination of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. The same FBI that is responsible for the imprisonment of Leonard Peltier and Sundiata Acoli, and the destruction of the Black Panther Party and the Black Revolution of the 1960s.

These recent attacks follow frame-ups by the FBI and other US government agencies, of Mumia Abu Jamal, and more recently of the Liberty City 7 in Miami, the San Francisco 8 activists, Lynne Stewart, the assassination earlier this year of Detroit black activist Imam Luqman and so many other acts of counterinsurgency to deny basic democratic rights to those who criticize parasitic capitalism.

And these attacks against basic freedom of speech and other democratic rights come just weeks after the political conviction of Uhuru Movement organizer Diop Olugbala who protested Barack Obama’s presidential campaign event in 2008 by raising the banner “What about the black community, Obama?” and who was arrested for leading protests against Philadelphia’s planned $1.1 billion war of intensified police repression against the African community there.

Stop the US government repression against all solidarity and anti-war activists!

Victory to African and oppressed peoples around the world!

Down with US imperialism!