Stop the Witchhunt—No. 2

—Anatomy of a Witchhunt—

Drop the Charges! Fighting Racism Is Not A Crime!

 

The government of Ann Arbor has launched the largest scale political witchhunt in the history of the city. Its target is the entire active antiracist movement.

The city government has spent three months and tens of thousands of dollars pulling the witchhunt together.

Twenty-one people have been arrested so far, including one juvenile. The police are still looking for 17 unnamed, charged "suspects".

Ten of the 21 people arrested so far, including Ann Arbor youth, are charged with felonies that carry a possible 10-year prison sentence.

The men and women who are being dragged into court are among the hundreds of people who opposed the KKK on May 9th. They are black, Asian and white, male and female; they include long time Ann Arbor residents and U of M students, range in age from 15 to 64 and come from all walks of life.

They are people who share the conviction of a nearly unanimous majority of citizens of Ann Arbor who do not want the KKK rallying, recruiting, burning churches or murdering people in this community and who oppose the government spending fortunes in tax dollars to facilitate the growth of violent racist organizations.

Despite government bankrolling on May 9th, the KKK rally was shut down halfway through. This important victory was secured largely through the effort and coordination of NWROC and ARA.

The charges against 9 of the defendants facing the possibility of 10 years in prison stem from police allegations of something most 13-year-old boys have done—namely, throwing rocks at windows. On the basis of this allegation, police arrested one 17-year-old Ann Arbor youth bursting into his grandparents’ house with a drawn gun. On the basis of this allegation a foreign student (also 17) is threatened with deportation.

One defendant is charged with the 10-year-felony "Inciting to Riot" for allegations that consist of speech alone! Sixty feet away the Ku Klux Klan was urging mass murder of minorities in transparent, coded language—under the protection of an army of police!

Ten of the 12 misdemeanor charges stem from allegations of pulling on the rent-a-fence.

There are three allegations of assaultive crime: two against "Peace Keepers" and one on a police officer. The police reports indicate that there are no injuries of any seriousness whatsoever associated with these charges.

The bulk of the charges center on allegations of the destruction of city property—yet the police themselves have valued the damaged property at less than 1/27th (!!) of the tax money that the city government shelled out to stage the racists’ rally in the first place—now, over 100 years of prison time is threatened!

A handful of broken windows is no cause.

The motive is political.

The police insist that they are "handling this just like any other charges"—but the facts speak louder.

The "riot" charge has not been brought in Michigan for over 25 years! Fourteen people who are accused of misdemeanors alone have had their photos shown repeatedly on cable access TV—America’s Most Wanted style. This is probably the first time in the history of television that people’s faces have been shown on TV in connection with misdemeanor allegations.

Now, three months after the KKK’s vile, bigoted event, the same government that said "cost is no issue" when it came to presenting itself as the defender of the civil liberties and free speech for the KKK is sparing no expense to suppress the civil liberties and free speech of antiracists. The same government that has not spent a dime challenging the KKK’s "right" to rally at the city hall under the protection of an army of police is now gearing up to spend tens of thousands of dollars witchhunting the opponents of the KKK and Nazis.

In the name of this witchhunt, the government has gotten a school employee to inform against a student, a reverend, two social workers and four "Peace Team" members to serve as police-informants for this political wrecking effort against the antiracist movement.

Elected City Council member Elizabeth Daley is behind the effort to frame U of M NWROC leader Jessica Curtin on a 10-year felony charge. The same city attorney, Abigail Elias, who has opposed offering any legal challenge to the KKK has volunteered herself as a witness against black activist and NWROC leader Shanta Driver.

This is madness—it amounts to the Ann Arbor city government making a covenant with the KKK.

The charges provide cover for a McCarthyite witchhunt. This witchhunt is an attempt to cripple or destroy the only two active antiracist and antifascist organizations in the Midwest: NWROC and ARA.

The witchhunt has focused on known leaders of both groups and includes many individuals who are not part of either organization. It is a political witchhunt against the left in the interest of the far right.

The only real "crime" of these "suspects" is opposing the government-bankrolled attempt by the Ku Klux Klan to set up their hateful operation here in southeast Michigan.

 

Defend Civil Liberties!

In a June 16th meeting with representatives of the NWROC legal team, city attorney Abigail Elias and county prosecutor Brian Mackie indicated that their determination to pursue charges was conditional. If NWROC and ARA would renounce our convictions and toe the government’s line in regard to the KKK, then the threatened witchhunt would be called off. They want the next KKK rally in Ann Arbor to face no opposition.

The Republican Ann Arbor city government and Democratic prosecutor Brian Mackie have decided on a course of political witchhunt against the antiracist movement. Going through with this policy will mean a series of long, costly, bitter political show trials directed against the antiracist movement and the left—a terrible throwback to days of government attempts to suppress Black Power and antiwar activists of the 1960’s—with the eyes of the nation watching.

The KKK/Nazis are now and have always been organizations whose central purpose is genocidal, racist violence. The Ann Arbor city government knows about the murderous brutality of these groups and yet they have now spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and put in enormous effort making it easier for these racist killers to build an operation in this area.

We must not allow the city government to set the precedent of silencing their political opponents through threats of persecution. We urge all those who care about maintaining civil liberties to demand an end to the political witchhunt.
 

-August 1998

 

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Ann Arbor Antiracist Defense Campaign
National Women’s Rights Organizing Coalition

PO Box 1092 Penobscot Station, Detroit, MI. 48231  (313) 730-3577

www.umich.edu/~nwroc * nwroc@umich.edu