20 May 2012

Anti-NATO Activists Charged With "Providing Material Support for Terrorism"

Well this is a deeply screwed up story, even for someone who reads about police wrongdoing and unjust anti-activist measures all the time. Some anti-NATO protesters in Chicago have been arrested and charged with “possession of incendiary or explosive device, conspiracy to commit terrorism & providing material support for terrorism," in apparent retaliation for being involved with a recent video that shed light on Chicago police intimidation practices.

NATO-security

Firedoglake's Kevin Gosztola wrote a post late last night about how a group of activists were detained, with some of them released on Friday night:

Two of the nine activists arrested in a preemptive raid of an apartment in Bridgeport on the south side of Chicago were finally released Friday night. They joined four activists that were released earlier. Three activists remained in jail without charge.

The activists had been held without charge for close to thirty-six hours and had been disappeared by Chicago police on Wednesday night. They were moved from the Organized Crime Division to Kedzie-Homan in District 4 of Chicago.

Gosztola writes about how the activists, who had been part of a "Fuck the Police" march earlier in the week, were shackled, taunted, called "junkies," and threatened with felony conspiracy charges after the home they were staying in was ransacked by police wielding guns. One activist said the cops "destroyed everything" in the apartment.

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