Continues from Here!
On Tuesday, April 25, in Rolling Meadows, IL, the Anti-Minutemen defendants
defeated the attempts of the state’s attorney’s office to put them in jail and
convict them on trumped-up charges stemming from a peaceful protest against the
Minutemen para-military vigilantes.
The Minutemen are the semi-official shocktroops of the viciously anti-immigrant agenda coming down from the top levels of government right now. Like the brownshirts in Nazi Germany, they act as the mostopenly rabid enforcers of a fascistic agenda, who both gain praise from people in their camp (including Congresspeople and Governors), while at the same time are sometimes distanced from important leaders (like the President), in tactical maneuvers of a very
strategic alliance. Distancing yourself is quite different than opposing the
Minutemen. Part of the goal here is to make draconian laws like the
Sensenbrenner Bill, or others that greatly expand the grounds for mandatory
detention and deportation, legalize indefinite detention, expand detention
capacity, and further militarize the border, look like the rational
“middle ground” between the vigilantes and those righteously calling
for amnesty.
On Oct 15th, 2005 the Minutemen held an “America First National Summit
Bootcamp” at Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights. A Confederate
flag, with its legacy of slavery, lynchings, and Jim Crow oppression, hung
prominently at the America First Summit. This conference brought together
national leaders of the anti-immigration vigilante movement, white supremacists, politicians (Congressman Tom Tancredo
was on the “invited” list) and ex-military personnel to strategize on
how to round up and hunt down undocumented immigrants on the borders and
throughout the country. At the request of the Minutemen, the police attacked
this protest, singled out five activists, and filed false charges of resisting
arrest and battery.
On Tuesday, the state’s attorney, after a conference in which he was pressured
by our lawyers and the judge, threw out thecharge of resisting arrest, and we
took a plea bargain on the charge of battery. We were given one year of court
supervision; have to complete 240 hours of community service by April 2007, and
if we are arrested for any reason within that year, we risk returning to
courtfor these charges.
With these charges, we faced the combined forces of the State’s Attorney, the
police, and the Minutemen, all of whom were working together to try and make us
spend time in jail for opposing this dangerous and well-connected hate group.
The intimidation was clear: The Assistant State’s Attorney gave subpoenas to media that had covered the
protest or that had written articles about us. He threatened to subpoena one of
our press volunteers, and harassed our supporting organizations. On the Friday
before the trial, a support rally at Arlington Heights City Hall was met with
an absurd geared-up police force triple their size and hounded by cameras at
every move. They wanted to make an example out of the Anti-minutemen defendants
and make everyone around the country afraid to oppose the Minutemen.
According to the State, the Minutemen can arm themselves, take the law into
their own hands to hunt down human beings like animals and whip up hatred of
people who are or look like immigrants, and that’s supposed to be “legitimate”.
But when people link arms to protest one of their meetings, they are met with
snipers on the roof, and the police attack the protesters and then force them
to take responsibility for “battery” on the cops. This is a profound
injustice, and even unjust within the rules of this system.
But it is also true and important that the Minutemen and the State did NOT get
what they wanted. We turned this case around on its head; we mobilized many
supporters to defend us and we brought the opposition to the Minutemen onto the
national stage. The news coverage we received finally brought the other side to
the repeatedly one-sided media coverage of the Minutemen. It even featured one
of our lawyers, Jed Stone, saying that the Minutemen are the “new Ku Klux
Klan.”
The state’s attorney first attempted to throw us a “deal” of 30 days
in jail, and then a “deal” requiring an apology under oath! We
refused to take these so-called “deals”, and stuck to our principles,
even though taking them would have meant getting the case over with quicker.
The plea bargain that we took on April 25 did involve a compromise, and it’s
not without potential problems. At the protest on October 15th, we were singled
out for arrest based on passionately speaking out against the Minutemen, and
now, under supervision, we are living under the threat of again being singled
out for attack by the police, and being forced to go back to court for these
original charges. And the Minutemen, who have photographed our supporters at
demonstrations and sent us threatening emails, are furious that we were not
jailed. The cofounder of the Illinois Minuteman Project called for us to be
jailed for ten years. Despite what happened in court, we refuse to compromise
on opposing this hate group, and we will need our supporters to be prepared to
defend us if we come under further attack.
We understand that we do not deserve these hours of forced and assigned community service, and we do not deserve the year of court supervision. But, we
did not deserve to have been arrested on the 15th either, and we did not
deserve being brought to court, either. We made a tactical decision to take
this deal, because we knew we faced a very difficult battle to defend ourselves
against these false charges. In particular, the charge of resisting arrest is
notoriously difficult to defend; it is often used by cops to attack protests,
because it is very easy to convict someone of this charge and then supervision
is not an option.
We have spent the last six months battling the Minutemen in the courts. The
battle for the rights of immigrants and against the Minutemen will be won by
taking to the streets and organizing with the people. Sometimes in the course
of this, people can be made to defend themselves for opposing injustice and
must fight in the courts. However, we definitely do not make the rules, in the
courtroom, everything is stacked against defendants, and innocent people get
convicted all the time. In a perfect world, we would not have had to take this
deal, but in a perfect world, we would never have needed to be at the protest
to begin with.
We give our deepest thanks to our friends, our supporters, and our lawyers Jim
Fennerty, John Curnyn, and Jed Stone. If it had not been for their many
efforts, hard work, and sacrifice, we would not have made it through and won
the victories we were able to achieve- including further laying the basis to get the Minutemen out of
our communities altogether.
Many people have been afraid to stand up against the Minutemen. And many people
also hold illusions that the Minutemen are “just a bunch of crazies”
or do not hold much power, hoping that if we ignore the Minutemen they will
just go away. But everything we have learned in these last 6 months shows us
that not only are the Minutemen a serious growing threat that must be exposed, confronted and stopped, but that the
struggle of the people can defeat this hate group. We hope that everyone takes
these lessons to heart.
We believe that people should be willing to take risks to fight for what is
right and in these times of extreme attacks on immigrants, what is needed is
courage. We always knew that we might be punished severely for standing up for
the right thing and for defending those who come under attack. We will continue
to risk our freedom and our safety for a better future but we will also continue to fight fiercely against
any effort to punish anyone for standing up for what’s right. Just because
people are willing to be unjustly punished for their actions in support of
justice, does not mean we accept that punishment or grant any moral ground to
those who would punish us.
The protest on October 15th is one we will always remember. Not just because it
started us on a long legal battle, but for something else. That day was one of
the most beautiful displays of unity amongst diverse groups of people from
different communities and different backgrounds. For us, this spirit of
solidarity did not end there. The Anti-Minutemen defendants- white, Latino,
Muslim- were a microcosm of that day. Only two of us knew each other from
before, but we worked together, bonded by our similar convictions, seeing
everyone’s fate as linked together. We see our broad mix of nationalities and
backgrounds as an incredible strength, and helped bring together many different communities of supporters. Together with our supporters we
prevented the State from jailing us and helped to reveal the true nature of the
Minutemen, their connections all the way up, and to the whole anti-immigrant
agenda, into the media and into public discourse.
It is this solidarity between different groups that is needed if we are to stop
the Minutemen and stop the attacks on immigrants. Together we fight for a
better future for immigrants and all people.
As the defendants prepare to march proudly with our sisters and brothers from
many different nations on May 1st, we will look at the people around us joined
in solidarity, and see the seeds of a much brighter future.
In struggle,
The Anti-Minutemen Defendants:
Kara “Penny” Norlander
Rehana Sabah Khan
Cynthia Linda Gomez
Eric Zenke
Click here for an article from the Daily Herald.