March, 19 2013, 02:54pm EDT
Rights Group Condemns Dismissal of Animal Rights "Terrorism" Case
Activists Will Appeal, Attorneys Say
WASHINGTON
Last night, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of the federal Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), without addressing the central First Amendment question in the case. The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) brought the case on behalf of five long-time animal rights activists who allege that the 2006 law violates their right to free speech. The judge ruled that the men and women suing the government did not have standing to bring the case and therefor the case could not go forward. The judge's ruling was based on a narrow interpretation of the AETA as criminalizing only property destruction and threats, despite the law's broad prohibition on causing an animal enterprise any loss of property, which is generally understood to include the loss of profit. Attorneys say they will appeal the dismissal.
"As Judge Tauro recognized, each of our clients has refrained from engaging in constitutionally protected speech out of fear that she or he will be prosecuted as a terrorist under the AETA," said Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Staff Attorney and lead counsel Rachel Meeropol. "While the judge's narrow reading of the statute would solve some of its many constitutional flaws, our clients and other activists have no guarantee that prosecutors, or even other judges, will agree. They will continue to be chilled from speaking out on important issues of public concern until this law is struck down."
According to attorneys, the language of the AETA is so overbroad that it criminalizes protected First Amendment speech. The law punishes anyone found to have caused the loss of property or profits to a business or other institution that uses or sells animals or animal products or to "a person or entity having a connection to, relationship with, or transactions with an animal enterprise." Furthermore, according to Meeropol, key terms in the statute, including the definition of an "animal enterprise," are unconstitutionally vague. The plaintiffs, who have long histories of participating in peaceful protests and animal rights advocacy, say that fear of prosecution as terrorists has led them to limit or even cease their lawful advocacy.
"Since the passage of the AETA, I no longer feel free to speak my mind on the issues closest to my heart out of fear that my advocacy could be prosecuted as terrorism," said plaintiff Sarahjane Blum. "How can I continue my activism if I cannot even challenge the constitutionality of the law that is chilling my speech?"
Groups including the Fur Commission USA, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, and several pharmaceutical companies lobbied for the law. Critics argue it punishes peaceful protests and turns non-violent civil disobedience into "terrorism." Moreover, though it targets animal rights activists specifically, the AETA is written so broadly, they say, it could turn a successful labor protest at Wal-Mart, which sells animal products, into an act of domestic terrorism. Non-violent protesters charged under the law face up to twenty years in prison, depending on the amount of profit loss that results from their actions.
In the first use of the AETA, in 2009, four activists were indicted and arrested in California by the Joint Terrorism Task Force for protesting, writing on sidewalks with chalk, chanting, leafleting, and using the Internet to find information on animal researchers. They each faced ten years in prison. A federal judge dismissed that case in 2010.
The AETA amended the 1992 Animal Enterprise Protection Act (AEPA), which punished causing a "physical disruption" to an animal enterprise. In 2006, six activists were convicted in New Jersey for conspiring to violate the AEPA, and served between one and six years in prison for publishing a website that advocated and reported on protest activity against an animal testing lab, its business affiliates, and their employees. The activists were not accused of injuring anyone or vandalizing any property. One of the defendants in that case, Lauren Gazzola, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging the AETA.
The Center for Constitutional Rights provided amicus support in the New Jersey AEPA case, and was co-counsel in the California AETA case.
Blum v. Holder, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Alexander Reinert, an associate professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, along with David Milton and Howard Friedman of the Law Offices of Howard Friedman PC, are co-counsel on the case.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
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US College Students Demonstrate in Solidarity With Palestinians, Columbia Protesters
"Columbia University made a huge mistake calling the cops on student protesters," said one educator. "It has transformed the activism of hundreds of students into a student movement of thousands."
Apr 19, 2024
Undeterred by Columbia University's sanctioning of a crackdown by the New York Police Department in which at least 108 people were arrested on Thursday for protesting Israel's war on Gaza, dozens of students continued to camp out on the campus' West Lawn Friday as solidarity protests cropped up at other schools across the country.
Students at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC) set up tents at a rally, while the Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee announced a walkout to express solidarity with "steadfast Columbia students" and emergency protests were announced at Boston University; Miami University in Oxford, Ohio; and Ohio State University.
"Columbia University made a huge mistake calling the cops on student protesters," said Jairo I. Fúnez-Flores, a faculty member at Texas Tech University. "It has transformed the activism of hundreds of students into a student movement of thousands with millions around the world watching."
National Students for Justice in Palestine, whose Columbia University chapter was shut down late last year after members protested against the institution's investments in Israeli companies and partnership with Tel Aviv University, called on all of its chapters across college campuses to join in solidarity actions.
"The supposed power of these administrators pales in comparison to the combined strength of the students, staff, and faculty committed to realizing justice and upholding Palestinian liberation on campus," said the national group.
At the impromptu rally at UNC, students chanted, "No justice, no peace!"
The solidarity actions came a day after Columbia president Minouche Shafik authorized the police to dismantle an encampment set up by dozens of students. Shafik testified before a Republican-controlled U.S. House committee on Wednesday where the focus was antisemitism on the school's campus, and admitted she has not witnessed anti-Jewish protests at Columbia since Israel began its assault on Gaza last October.
After the students were arrested Thursday, one student Barnard College—which is part of Columbia—posted on social media an email she had received from vice president and dean Leslie Grinage about the suspension of several students.
The students were forced to leave their housing and have had their access to all campus facilities revoked during the suspension.
Several members of the press reported being denied entry to Columbia's campus on Thursday and Friday, prompting the university's journalism school to offer its assistance and reiterate its support for a free press.
Barnaby Raine, an historian earning his Ph.D. at Columbia, urged fellow educators at the Ivy League school to demonstrate solidarity with the student-led protests.
"As my employer, Columbia University, calls armed riot police into campus to smash a peaceful protest against a genocide, we must all speak out," said Raine. "My former students have been arrested. I'm proud of you. History will be too."
Actor, activist, and former New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon, who graduated from Barnard, condemned the administrators' response to the protests.
"I am shocked and ashamed that [Barnard] and Columbia are violently crushing the right of students to peacefully protest," said Nixon. "This is not who we are. Both schools must immediately reinstate these students and protect their right to fight for a free Palestine."
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Indigenous Brazilians Lament Lula's Unfulfilled Land Demarcation Promises
"This is revolting for us Indigenous peoples to have had so much faith in the government's commitments to our rights and the demarcation of our territories," said one Indigenous leader.
Apr 19, 2024
Friday is Indigenous Peoples Day in Brazil, and tribal leaders and activists used the occasion to criticize the left-wing government of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for falling short on promises to safeguard native land rights.
On Thursday, the Brazilian government announced the demarcation of Aldeia Velha, land of the Pataxó people, in the northeastern state of Bahia, as well as the territory of the Karajá people in Cacique Fontoura, Mato Grosso.
"Since the beginning of the current government, 10 areas have been regularized out of a total of 14 routed for approval," the government said in a statement. "The act reaffirms the focus of the federal government on the protection and respect of Indigenous peoples."
However, Indigenous peoples were anticipating the demarcation of six new territories. Lula acknowledged their disappointment.
"I know you are apprehensive and expected the demarcation of six Indigenous lands. But now we only announce two. And I'm being real with you," he said.
"Some of this missing land is occupied either by farmers or peasants," the president explained. "We cannot arrive without giving these people an alternative. Some governors asked for time to resolve, in a negotiated manner, the eviction of these territories so that we can demarcate them."
"The definition of these lands is already ready. What we do not want is to promise you today, and tomorrow you read in the newspaper, that a contrary decision was made," Lula added. "The frustration would be greater."
But the frustration was already there—and growing.
"This is revolting for us Indigenous peoples to have had so much faith in the government's commitments to our rights and the demarcation of our territories," Alessandra Korap Munduruku, a member of the Munduruku people and a 2023 winner of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, told Amazon Watch in a statement published Friday.
"We hear all of these discussions about environmental and climate protection, but without support for Indigenous peoples on the front lines, suffering serious attacks and threats. Lula cannot speak about fighting climate change without fulfilling his duty to demarcate our lands," she added.
Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), an umbrella group, said in a statement earlier this week that "the most serious thing is that the Lula government is tarnishing its historical trajectory."
"Since campaigning for his first term in 2002, the president has committed to demarcating Indigenous lands, but he was one of the governments that demarcated the least," the group contended. "And now, like other old and conservative governments, in the name of the country's progress and economic development, [Lula's government] undermines the basis of Indigenous peoples' existence, becoming hostage to the market, the powerbrokers, agribusiness, evangelicals, and the military."
APIB demanded that Lula "put an end to the criminal organizations that intimidate our people and communities, persecute and murder our leaders" and "dedicate farms for agrarian reform and demarcate our lands, which have been invaded and plundered for centuries by the invaders who arrived here 524 years ago and their current descendants."
Thousands of Indigenous peoples from throughout Brazil are expected to rally in the capital Brasília next week for the Terra Livre—or Free Land, camp—the country's largest annual native mobilization. Two years ago, Lula, then a presidential candidate, told Terra Livre attendees that he would end illegal mining on Indigenous lands. Despite a crackdown that resulted in an initial dramatic drop in illicit mineral extraction on Indigenous lands, illegal miners have returned with a vengeance in places including land belonging to the Yanomami people.
Criticism of Lula's demarcation process and the Brazilian government's Indigenous rights record came from outside Brazil as well.
"Human rights defenders are under extreme threat in Brazil. The federal government knows this but has so far failed to put the structures in place to provide them with better protection and tackle the root causes of the risks they face," Mary Lawlor, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, in a Friday statement after an official visit to Brazil.
"Land is also the key to the protection of these defenders," she continued. "When I asked them what they thought would protect them they were clear: removal of invaders and demarcation now; accountability for environmental crimes. This for them is what collective protection, which is what is needed, means."
"There must be demarcation and titling," Lawlor added. "There can be no more delay."
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Person Self-Immolates Outside Courthouse of Trump's NY Trial
An unverified online manifesto identifies the person as "an investigative researcher" who has discovered that "our own government (along with many of their allies) is about to hit us with an apocalyptic fascist world coup."
Apr 19, 2024
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
Law enforcement officials confirmed to CNN that someone lit themself on fire Friday outside the New York City courthouse where former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, is on trial for allegedly falsifying business records.
"The man walked into the park across the street from the courthouse, throwing flyers into the air," the network reported, citing law enforcement. "He then pulled something out of a backpack—it was not immediately clear what the item was—and lit himself on fire."
Journalists were in the area for the historic trial and CNN anchor Laura Coates was among those who described the scene live on-air as New York Police Department officers and emergency responders worked to extinguish the fire.
Police were "slow to respond in part because of barricades around park," Politico's Emily Ngo explained, sharing photos and videos from the scene on social media. There is "only one way to get into park outside the courthouse without jumping the fence. It's been barricaded in anticipation of protests. And since there hasn't been much in the way of protests, police presence is light. Police had to run all the way around to get to the man."
The person who self-immolated "was responsive when he was removed but he is very, very badly burned. Body charred," Ngo said.
CNN reported that the flyers featured allegations of wrongdoings against New York University and said, "NYU is a mob front."
A self-identified citizen journalist named Jack shared on social media a photo of a booklet the person reportedly left in the dirt.
An unverified Substack post says in part: "My name is Max Azzarello, and I am an investigative researcher who has set himself on fire outside of the Trump trial in Manhattan. This extreme act of protest is to draw attention to an urgent and important discovery: We are victims of a totalitarian con, and our own government (along with many of their allies) is about to hit us with an apocalyptic fascist world coup."
Inside Manhattan Criminal Court, the remaining jurors were sworn in for Trump's case, in which he faces 34 charges for records related to alleged hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 election cycle. There are 12 jurors and six alternates.
The former president was indicted by a New York grand jury last spring. He also faces two federal criminal cases—one related to his handling of classified material and another for trying to overturn his 2020 loss, which culminated in the January 6, 2021 insurrection—as well as an election interference case in Georgia.
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