“People wrest only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.”
— Emma Goldman, The Social Significance of the Modern Drama (via philosophybits)
Two months ago, the federal government summoned me before a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia.
As a general principle, I object to grand juries.
Prosecutors run grand juries behind closed doors and in secret, without a judge present.
Therefore, I declined to cooperate or answer any questions.
Based on my refusal to answer questions, District Court Judge Hilton ordered me held in contempt until the grand jury ended.
Yesterday, the grand jury expired, and I left the Alexandria Detention Center.
Throughout this ordeal, an incredible spring of solidarity and love
boiled over. I received thousands of letters, including dozens to
hundreds of them a day.
This means the world to me, and keeps me going.
Jail and prisons exist as a dark stain on our society, with more people confined in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world.
During my time, I spent 28 days in solitary confinement–a traumatic experience I already endured for a year in prison before.
Only a few months before reincarceration, I recieved gender confirmation surgery.
This left my body vulnerable to injury and infection, leading to possible complications that I am now seeking treatment for.
My absence severely hampers both my public and private life.
The law requires that civil contempt only be used to coerce witnesses to testify.
As I cannot be coerced, it instead exists as an additional punishment on top of the seven years I served.
Last week, I handwrote a statement outlining the fact I will never agree to testify before this or any other grand jury.
Several of my closest family, friends and colleagues supported this fact.
Our statements were filed in court.
The government knows I can’t be coerced.
When I arrive at the courthouse this coming Thursday, what happened last time will occur again.
I will not cooperate with this or any other grand jury.
Throughout the last decade, I accepted full responsibility for my actions.
Facing jail again, this week, does not change this fact.
The prosecutors deliberately place me in an impossible situation: I either go to jail, or turn my back on my prisons.
The truth is, the government can construct no prison worse than to betray my conscience or my principles.
After the failed amateurish coup attempt in Venezuela, the US government has brought the anti-Bolivarian repression to its own territory. The “protector of democracy”, the “defender of human rights” is going one step further in the blatant violation of international law: it besieged the embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Washington D.C., cut the electrical power and water supply, and started brutalising its own citizens who dared protect Venezuelan diplomatic mission upon the invitation of the president Nicolas Maduro.
In the latest attack, 72 year old Veterans for Peace member Gerry Condon has been violently beaten and arrested for trying to bring food to the embassy. He is the third person to suffer from the police repression against the activists who originally came to protect the embassy from the supporters of the imperialist agent Guaido.
The Anti-Imperialist Front joins and extends the call of Struggle-La Lucha to support the defense of the embassy of Venezuela, and the anti-imperialist resistance of the Venezuelan people.
