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Tag: protests

  • ‘This Felt Like a Kidnapping Because It Was’: Family of Mahmoud Khalil Releases Arrest Video

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    Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

    The family of Mahmoud Khalil released a video of his March 8, 2025 arrest by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents in New York City. 
    (Photo: screen grab/Family of Mahmoud Khalil)

    Khalil’s wife said that “officers in plain clothes—who refused to show us a warrant, speak with our attorney, or even tell us their names—forced my husband into an unmarked car and took him away from me.”

    The family of Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States now at risk of deportation because he helped lead pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University last spring, on Friday released a video of his recent arrest by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents in New York City, which has sparked legal battles and protests.

    “You’re watching the most terrifying moment of my life,” Khalil’s wife, Noor, said in a statement about the two-minute video. “This felt like a kidnapping because it was: Officers in plain clothes—who refused to show us a warrant, speak with our attorney, or even tell us their names—forced my husband into an unmarked car and took him away from me.”

    “Everyone should be alarmed and urgently calling for the freedom of Mahmoud and all other students under attack for their advocacy for Palestinian human rights.”

    “They threatened to take me too, even though we were calm and fully cooperating. For the next 38 hours after this video, neither I or our lawyers knew where Mahmoud was being held. Now, he’s over 1,000 miles from home, still being wrongfully detained by U.S. immigration,” said Noor, whose husband is detained at a facility in Jena, Louisiana.

    Noor, who is eight months pregnant, noted that “Mahmoud has repeatedly warned of growing threats from Columbia University and the U.S. government unjustly targeting students who want to see an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Now, the Trump administration and DHS are targeting him, and other students too.”

    “Mahmoud is clearly the first of many to be illegally repressed for their speech in support of Palestinian rights,” she added. “Everyone should be alarmed and urgently calling for the freedom of Mahmoud and all other students under attack for their advocacy for Palestinian human rights.”

    Khalil, who finished his graduate studies at Columbia in December, is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent. He was living in the United States with a green card until his arrest on Saturday. In response to a filing by his legal team—which includes Amy Greer from Dratel & Lewis, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project—a judge has temporarily blocked his deportation.

    The ACLU and its New York arm have joined Khalil’s legal team, and his attorneys filed an amended petition and complaint on Thursday. NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman said that with the new “filing, we are making it crystal clear that no president can arrest, detain, or deport anyone for disagreeing with the government. The Trump administration has selectively targeted Mr. Khalil, a student, husband, and father-to-be who has not been accused of a single crime, to send a message of just how far they will go to crack down on dissent.”

    “But we at the NYCLU and ACLU won’t stand for it—under the Constitution, the Trump administration has no basis to continue this cruel weaponization of Mr. Khalil’s life,” Lieberman added. “The court must release Mr. Khalil immediately and let him go home to his family in New York, where he belongs. Ideas are not illegal, and dissent is not grounds for deportation.”

    Samah Sisay of CCR reiterated those messages as the arrest video circulated on Friday, saying that “Mr. Khalil was taken by plainclothes DHS agents in front of his pregnant wife without any legal justification. Mr. Khalil must be freed because the government cannot use these coercive tactics to unlawfully suppress his First Amendment protected speech in support of Palestinian rights.”

    Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.

  • ‘This Is the Fascist Playbook’: Arrest of Mahmoud Khalil Shows Depths of Trump Threat

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    Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    Mahmoud Khalil was pictured speaking to the press during a briefing organized by pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University on June 1, 2024. (Photo: Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    “Arresting and threatening to deport students because of their participation in political protest is the kind of action one ordinarily associates with the world’s most repressive regimes.”

    Civil rights organizations, legal experts, and lawmakers were among the chorus voicing alarm Sunday and into Monday over the dire implications of the Trump administration’s brazen arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian rights organizer who helped lead Columbia University student protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza.

    “The Trump administration’s outrageous detention of Mahmoud is designed to instill terror in students speaking out for Palestinian freedom and immigrant communities,” said Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which has helped organize nationwide demonstrations against Israel’s catastrophic war on the Palestinian enclave.

    “This is the fascist playbook,” the group added. “We all must fiercely reject it, and universities must start protecting its students.”

    Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident with a green card, was arrested on Saturday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who stormed his university-owned apartment in Manhattan. Khalil’s attorney told The Associated Press that the ICE agents also threatened to arrest his pregnant wife, an American citizen.

    As of Monday morning, Khalil—an Algerian citizen of Palestinian origin—was being held in an ICE facility in Louisiana, and the Trump administration is moving to revoke his green card.

    While the State Department CAN revoke *visas* with very little legal process involved, stripping someone of a green card is done by DHS (not the State Department) and requires filing formal charges alleging a violation of immigration law and a removal hearing in front of an immigration judge.

    — Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) 2025-03-09T23:05:27.133Z

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, said Sunday that Khalil’s arrest was carried out “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting antisemitism.”

    But JVP and other advocacy groups warned that the administration’s purported crackdown on antisemitism is a pretext for a dangerous assault on civil liberties, including those of Palestinian rights advocates.

    “We are not fooled by the Trump administration’s claims that this blatantly unconstitutional and authoritarian attack is somehow in the name of Jewish safety,” said JVP. “Deporting anti-war students who are trying to end genocide and silencing political speech endangers all of us. We will not be divided.”

    “The unlawful detention of Mr. Khalil reeks of McCarthyism. It’s clear that the Trump administration is selectively punishing Mr. Khalil for expressing views that aren’t MAGA-approved.”

    Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in a statement that “arresting and threatening to deport students because of their participation in political protest is the kind of action one ordinarily associates with the world’s most repressive regimes.”

    “It’s genuinely shocking that this appears to be what’s going on right here,” Jaffer added. “Universities must recognize that these actions pose an existential threat to academic life itself. They must make clear, through action, that they will not sit on the sidelines as the Trump administration terrorizes students and faculty alike and runs roughshod over individual rights and the rule of law.”

    Khalil’s arrest came days after Trump threatened to imprison students engaged in what he described as “illegal protests.” AP reported that “Khalil’s arrest is the first publicly known deportation effort under Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined protests against the war in Gaza that swept college campuses last spring.”

    Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement Sunday that “the Trump administration’s detention of Mahmoud Khalil—a green card holder studying in this country legally—is targeted, retaliatory, and an extreme attack on his First Amendment rights.”

    “The unlawful detention of Mr. Khalil reeks of McCarthyism. It’s clear that the Trump administration is selectively punishing Mr. Khalil for expressing views that aren’t MAGA-approved—which is a frightening escalation of Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestine speech, and an aggressive abuse of immigration law,” Lieberman added. “Ripping a student from their home, challenging their immigration status, and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint will chill student speech and advocacy across campus. Political speech should never be a basis of punishment, or lead to deportation.”

    Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.

  • ‘No One Voted for This’: #TeslaTakedown Actions Pick Up Steam

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    Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

    People participate in a “TeslaTakedown” protest against Elon Musk outside of a Tesla dealership in Irvine, California, March 1, 2025. (Photo: Frederic J. Brown / AFP)

    “We need an alternative to watching things unravel from our couches,” said one of the organizers behind the protests.

    Protests at Tesla showrooms and dealerships that are united by the slogan #TakedownTesla are picking up steam—with over 65 actions planned around the country and in Europe through the end of this week, and dozens scheduled for Saturday alone.

    Tesla, billionaire Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company, has become a site of resistance in the growing movement against the GOP megadonor’s central role in the second Trump administration.

    Since Trump’s inauguration, Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency have helped oversee punishing cuts to the federal workforce, infiltrated government agencies, and gained access to computer systems with sensitive personal information.

    Because Musk is unelected, the protest movement urges people to make their voices heard as consumers—by selling their vehicles, getting rid of their stock in Tesla, and showing up to protest.

    Already, protests have taken place in Devon, Pennsylvania; Berkley, California; Tucson, Arizona; Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. Signs at protests include messages likes “Musk is the Fraud” and “Tesla Funds Fascists,” in part a reference to Musk’s apparent Nazi salute during a post-inauguration celebration.

    “No One Voted for This,” assert the organizing materials provided on the #TeslaTakedown website.

    Actor and director Alex Winter, one of the core organizers behind the protests and the creator of the movement’s website, said that #TakedownTesla started on Bluesky between friends and activists and grew, according to Business Insider. It grew after Winter created the website to help centralize the effort.

    “There have now been protests outside of Tesla locations in over 100 cities, and the movement is picking up speed and going global,” wrote Winter in a piece for Rolling Stone that was published on February 21.

    “We need an alternative to watching things unravel from our couches, that inspires hope and shows that we still have the capacity to oppose those who want to tear the fabric of our society apart and extract their own benefit from the wreckage,” he continued.

    https://twitter.com/GeneralStrikeU/status/1896656055591202967?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1896656055591202967%7Ctwgr%5E2c19756182eba8a550ebd34ac06413392d8f0c05%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fteslatakedown-elon-musk

    Tesla’s stock experienced a bump after Trump’s election, but the company’s share price has plummeted more than 40% from it’s post-election peak in December, wiping out those gains. The tumbling of its stock meant that February was Tesla’s second-worst month on record, only eclipsed by the 37% loss the stock experienced in December 2022, according to Yahoo Finance.

    In Europe, where Musk has promoted far-right political parties, Tesla sales have slumped.

    On Monday, one observer shared a visual of Tesla’s stock declining and wrote “Turns out pissing off a good deal of the global population isn’t good for business,” along with #TeslaTakedown.

    Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.

  • Over 80 US cities to hold protests on Trump’s inauguration day

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    Original article by peoples dispatch republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    Activists in Houston, Texas designing signs for Inauguration Day protests. Photo: Vivek Venkatraman

    Demonstrators mobilizing in over 40 US states to launch movement pledging to oppose “ultra-right, billionaire agenda”

    Demonstrations have been called in more than 80 US cities, in over 40 states, on the day of incoming President Donald Trump’s inauguration. These cities include Washington DC, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Charlotte, Montgomery, Chicago, Houston, and New Orleans. 

    These demonstrations, intended to mark the start of a movement against Trump’s “ultra-right, billionaire agenda”, have been endorsed by a variety of working class and grassroots organizations. These include the Party for Socialism and Liberation, United Auto Workers Local 4811, the Palestinian Youth Movement, United Educators of San Francisco, Black Men Build, the Democratic Socialists of America, the People’s Forum, the Palestinian Youth Movement, the ANSWER Coalition, the US Palestinian Community Network, UNITE HERE Local 2, Artists Against Apartheid, CODEPINK, the Los Angeles Tenants Union, and Dream Defenders.

    Conveners of the demonstrations have spoken to the variety of Trump’s promised attacks on working people. “Trump is planning to wage war on immigrant families through a brutal mass deportation campaign,” said Claudia De La Cruz, who ran on a socialist platform in her campaign for president against both Harris and Trump, on the ticket of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. “We will stand up and say NO to these attacks. Trump is a billionaire, was elected with the help of other billionaires, and runs the government on behalf of the billionaire class. All working people, no matter where you were born, should stand together in solidarity against the billionaire class that wants to rob and exploit us all.”

    Brian Becker, the national director of the ANSWER Coalition, does not believe Trump’s promises to “put American Workers first.” According to Becker, Trump “ran a con game during the election.”

    “His real agenda is to destroy worker’s rights, deport millions of immigrant families,” Becker said. Trump plans to “pave the way for a complete corporate takeover by ending regulations to protect the environment, firing thousands of public sector workers, and transferring ever-larger parts of the national treasury to the military industrial complex.”

    Manolo De Los Santos, Executive Director of The People’s Forum, said, “The Trump victory in the 2024 election represents the complete failure of the Democratic Party to stop the rise of the ultra-right.” 

    “We can defeat the Trump program not by following the Democratic Party establishment, but by building a massive movement against the ruling class and the political system that gives everything to billionaires while impoverishing an ever larger section of the population.”

    Original article by peoples dispatch republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

  • First Palestine protests of 2025 take place across Britain

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/first-palestine-protests-of-2025-take-place-across-britain

    Protesters march in Huddersfield Photo: Neil Terry Photography

    THE first Palestine protests of 2025 took place across Britain at the weekend.

    In Wales, campaigners staged a day of healthcare protests including outside Maelor Hospital in Wrexham.

    The protest was against “the total destruction of key hospitals and healthcare facilities in Gaza and the wholesale slaughter of Palestinian doctors, nurses and paramedics by the Israeli military.”

    A freedom march was also staged through the town of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire on Saturday, organised by Huddersfield Freedom For Palestine.

    And hundreds marched through the streets of Manchester on Saturday in a weekly protest organised by Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine (GMFP), which brings together a dozen support groups in the region.

    …

    Palestine Solidarity Campaign said: “Israel is escalating its attack on Palestinian healthcare system — attacking hospitals and imprisoning hundreds of healthcare workers.

    “Join us to demand our government takes action to save Gaza’s healthcare workers.”

    The next national demonstration for Palestine takes place in London on January 20.

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/first-palestine-protests-of-2025-take-place-across-britain

    Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
    Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
    UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
    UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE