By United Left Platform

The United Left Platform and its constituent organizations (Socialist Horizon, Tempest, Workers Voice, Solidarity, International Marxist Humanist Organization, Speak Out Socialists) stand in solidarity with workers, activists and organizers in Minneapolis and Michigan facing egregious state repression for protesting the ICE occupation of the Twin Cities and the genocide in Gaza.

Fifteen activists and organizers in Minnesota involved with the city-wide protests against the ICE occupation of Minneapolis and St. Paul–including the  murder of Alex Pretti and Renee Goode—are facing new federal indictments.  The charges are a massive escalation against the right to protest in the United States.   While no charges have been brought against the state murderers of Pretti and Goode, long-standing community activists face potential long-term prison sentences for standing with their community to defend it from state violence.

In Michigan, eight pro-Palestinian activists have been indicted, charged with conspiring to run a criminal intimidation campaign against University officials while protesting the genocide in Gaza. As reported by the Guardian newspaper, the indictment “appears to be among the more aggressive prosecutorial actions taken by the federal government against pro-Paletistinian activists”:

These indictments represent an attempt to shut down all opposition to the current U.S. state’s attacks on workers, students, immigrants and the oppressed. The ULP also underscores what has been written about the Minnesota case by the labor group Workers Resist:

These prosecutions must be viewed not simply as cases against fifteen individuals, but as an attack on the broader movement that emerged to defend immigrant communities and resist authoritarian policies.  If the government succeeds  in establishing that organizing, coordinating, and mobilizing communities in defense of their neighbors can be treated as criminal conduct, the implications will extend far beyond these defendants.  

The United Left Platform supports all efforts to defend the Minnesota Fifteen and the Michigan Eight.  The ULP and its member groups stand in a tradition of organized self-defense that has been used historically by the U.S. Left when the state seeks to repress dissent, silence opposition, and criminalize free speech and protest.  The ULP has actively supported the Committee to Defend Tom Alter, which has publicly defended Alter, a tenured University professor fired for speaking at a Socialism conference:

 We call on activists, trade unionists, students, organizers and people everywhere to condemn these attacks on free speech and to defend the right of people everywhere to organize and defend themselves. An injury to one is an injury to all.