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For Immediate Release
May, 20 2020, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Nancy Mancias: (415) 342-6409 | nancymancias@codepink.org
Emily Dorrel: (310) 736-8881 | emily@codepink.org
Jan Weinberg: jan@ShowUpAmerica.org
CODEPINK to Hack BlackRock's Annual Shareholders Meeting
CODEPINK buys BlackRock shares to infiltrate meeting for the common good of humanity.
WASHINGTON
Members of the anti-war organization CODEPINK will attend the BlackRock Annual General Shareholders Meeting virtually to raise questions about the company's weapon investments and human rights policies.
CODEPINK purchased shares to acquire access to the annual meeting to influence change. CODEPINK plans to vote against the re-election of Laurence Fink as CEO of BlackRock. Simultaneous to the Annual Shareholders Meeting, CODEPINK is hosting a digital protest on video conference platform Zoom--which includes organizations that have previously staged BlackRock protests such as American Friends Service Committee, BlackRock's Big Problem, Don't Bank on the Bomb, Gays Against Guns, MoMA Divest, Show Up! America, and World Beyond War.
"If investment management firms like Calvert, the Boston Impact Initiative, organizations like The US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and leaders from the Domini Impact Fund and Amalgamated Bank can commit to divest $550 billion from weapons then so can BlackRock," states Nancy Mancias, a campaigner with CODEPINK. BlackRock is the largest investor in weapon manufacturers. "BlackRock recently announced that they were divesting from fossil fuels--signaling a serious shift in their policies. If CEO Larry Fink is serious about being a socially responsible game-changer for humanity--he should also divest from weapons."
BlackRock has been trying to improve its image as being socially responsible. CODEPINK is a shareholder in BlackRock, which gives them leverage. Close to 3000 community stakeholders support CODEPINK's efforts through an online petition that was emailed to BlackRock CEO Laurence Fink ahead of the 2020 Annual General Shareholders Meeting.
The organizers of the digital protest are available for interviews.
WHAT: BlackRock Shareholders Digital Protest
WHEN: 7:30 a.m. EDT on Thursday, May 21, 2020
WHERE: Via video conference platform Zoom
CODEPINK is a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs.
(818) 275-7232LATEST NEWS
Trump's Thanksgiving Attack on Immigrants Likened to 'Stuff You Hear Coming Out of White Nationalists'
"Completely identical language," said one observer.
Nov 28, 2025
US President Donald Trump wasted little time exploiting the shooting of two National Guard troops to advance his lawless assault on immigrants and refugees, pledging on Thanksgiving Day to "permanently pause migration from all Third World countries" and expedite the removal of people his administration doesn't see as "a net asset" to the United States.
The president announced his proposal in a series of unhinged, racism-laced posts on his social media platform a day after two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot in Washington, DC. The suspect was identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who worked with CIA-backed military units in Afghanistan and was granted asylum earlier this year by the Trump administration.
Trump ignored that fact in his Truth Social tirade, blaming his predecessor for Lakanwal's presence in the US and using the shooting to broadly smear migrants and refugees.
"These goals will be pursued with the aim of achieving a major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations, including those admitted through an unauthorized and illegal Autopen approval process," Trump wrote. "Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation. Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for—You won’t be here for long!"
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, highlighted Trump's "outrageous claim" that most of the immigrant population in the US is "on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels."
"As insulting as the 'deplorables' comment, and on Thanksgiving Day no less," said Reichlin-Melnick. "This rhetoric is indistinguishable from the stuff you hear coming out of white nationalists. Completely identical language."
How Trump's rant will be translated into policy is unclear. Reuters reported Thursday that Trump "has ordered a widespread review of asylum cases approved under former President Joe Biden's administration and Green Cards issued to citizens of 19 countries."
Like the president, his administration did not provide a specific list of nations, but it pointed Reuters to "a travel ban Trump imposed in June on citizens of 19 countries, including Afghanistan, Burundi, Laos, Togo, Venezuela, Sierra Leone, and Turkmenistan."
Trump's posts came days after US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced plans to reinterview hundreds of thousands of refugees admitted into the country under former President Joe Biden.
The advocacy group condemned the move as "a vindictive, harmful, and wasteful attack on people throughout US communities who have fled persecution and cleared some of the most rigorous security checks in the world."
"The decision retraumatizes families, undermines faith in the legal immigration system, disrupts integration, and misuses taxpayer dollars to scrutinize valuable new members of American communities," the group added. "This is part of the Trump administration’s unprecedented delegalization of people who arrived on humanitarian pathways and erodes the US as a nation of refuge."
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After 9 Months of 'Israel's Abuse,' US Teen Mohammed Ibrahim Freed From Detention
While expressing relief, the 16-year-old's uncle noted the "hundreds of children like Mohammed, unjustly trapped in an Israeli military prison."
Nov 27, 2025
"Words can't describe the immense relief we have as a family right now," said Zeyad Kadur, the uncle of Mohammed Ibrahim, the 16-year-old Palestinian-American who was finally released on Thursday after over nine months in Israeli detention.
In February, Israeli forces arrested the Florida resident, then 15, at a family home in the illegally occupied West Bank over allegations that he threw rocks at Israeli settlers. Ibrahim's release follows a monthslong pressure campaign from his relatives, rights groups, and American lawmakers, who have specifically urged President Donald Trump to demand the US citizen's freedom.
"Israeli soldiers had no right to take Mohammed from us in the first place," said Kadur. "For more than nine months, our family has been living a horrific and endless nightmare, particularly Mohammed's mother and father, who haven't been able to see or touch their youngest child for nearly a year, all while knowing Israeli soldiers were beating him and starving him."
"We couldn't believe Mohammed was free until his parents wrapped their arms around him and felt him safe," he continued. "Right now, we are focused on getting Mohammed the immediate medical attention he needs after being subjected to Israel's abuse and inhumane conditions for months. We just want Mohammed to be healthy and to have his childhood back."
According to the Guardian, which first exposed Ibrahim's case in July: "Relatives said he was taken to a hospital for intravenous therapy and blood work immediately after his release, and noted he is severely underweight, pale, and is still suffering from scabies contracted during his detention. Ibrahim had lost a quarter of his body weight in detention, his family said."
Kadur said Thursday that "we'd like to thank the more than a hundred organizations, local Florida community members, volunteers, and members of Congress who continued to speak up for Mohammed and demand his immediate freedom. We are also deeply grateful to the countless people who refused to stop telling Mohammed's story, and to those who called their representatives every single day to demand they act to free him. Thank you for bringing Mohammed's story to the American people and the world."
The uncle added:
There are hundreds of children like Mohammed, unjustly trapped in an Israeli military prison, being subjected to Israel's abuse and torture. No mother, father, parent, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, or child should ever have to go through what Mohammed just went through. As we support Mohammed and are beyond relieved he is free, we will continue to demand justice for Sayfollah Musallet, an American and Mohammed's first cousin, who was beaten to death and murdered by a mob of Israeli settlers on July 11, 2025. We expect the American government to protect our families.
Mohammed was forced to spend his 16th birthday unjustly imprisoned by Israel, separated from the people who love him. Now that Mohammed is with his family, we can finally wish him a happy birthday. His mom, Muna, can prepare his favorite meal and be with her son. We are proud of Mohammed and love him dearly. The family requests time to be with their son after this painful experience.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding shared Kadur's statement and also called for justice for Musallet.
Ibrahim's freedom came as people in the United States celebrated Thanksgiving.
"Something to be thankful for today: Mohammed Ibrahim freed from captivity," wrote Drop Site News' Ryan Grim on social media.
US Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) similarly said, "On a day of thanksgiving we are so grateful Mohammed Ibrahim is on his way home."
Robert McCaw, government affairs director at the largest US Muslim rights group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement that "Mohamed’s homecoming is a blessing, but it does not erase the torture and suffering he endured."
"The US government has a responsibility to investigate Israel's abuse of an American citizen and ensure that no other child—American or Palestinian—is subjected to the same treatment," McCaw added.
The US government provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid annually, and has continued to do so over the past two years, as Israeli forces have waged a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip—a genocide that "is not over," despite last month's ceasefire agreement, as Amnesty International highlighted in a Thursday briefing. Amid that assault, there has also been a surge in Israeli soldiers' and settlers' violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
"Mohammed should have spent this year studying for his learner's permit and enjoying time with his family—not locked in a military prison, beaten, starved, and terrified. His release is cause for celebration, but it must also be a turning point," said CAIR's Florida chapter. "The US cannot continue providing unchecked support to a government that tortures American children."
"CAIR and CAIR-FL are calling on the US State Department, members of Congress, faith leaders, and civil society organizations to press for a full, public accounting of Mohammed's treatment and to demand concrete consequences for the Israeli officials responsible," the group added. "The organizations also reaffirm their commitment to supporting Mohamed and his family as he recovers from the trauma of his imprisonment and to advocating for all children subjected to abuse under Israel's military system."
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Librarians and Publishers Alarmed as Tennessee Libraries Shut Down for GOP 'Book Purge'
"It is illegal to remove books from public libraries because some people do not like them," said a coalition of 33 library groups, publishing companies, and civil rights organizations.
Nov 27, 2025
Public libraries in Tennessee have begun to shut down as they carry out an order from state officials to remove children's books containing LGBTQ+ themes or characters.
For Popular Information, Rebecca Crosby and Noel Sims reported Tuesday that the "book purge" is required to be carried out at all 181 libraries in the Tennessee Regional Library System, which encompasses most of the state, aside from cities like Nashville and Memphis.
It comes after Tennessee's Republican Secretary of State, Tre Hargett, sent a pair of letters earlier this fall. The first, sent on September 8, said that in order to receive state and federal grants, which run through his office, libraries needed to comply with a Tennessee law banning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices from agencies, as well as President Donald Trump's executive order on "gender ideology," which effectively ended the federal recognition of transgender and nonbinary individuals.
As the report notes, neither of these orders says anything about library books. However, Hargett argued that compliance with the executive order mandated book bans because it states that "federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology.”
Not only do executive orders typically not apply to state and local governments, but the federal funds Tennessee's libraries receive are not used to purchase books at all. Instead, according to the secretary of state's website, they “provide all state residents with online access to essential library and information resources, including licensed databases, a statewide library catalog and interlibrary loan system, bibliographic services, and materials for the disadvantaged.”
The Every Library Institute, an advocacy group that supports federal funding for libraries, said that Hargett's instructions "contain significant errors, likely exceeding the secretary’s authority and reflecting a political agenda rather than a neutral or accurate interpretation of federal or state law."
"Hargett is setting a dangerous precedent by placing Tennessee’s state and municipal government under the authority of any executive order by any president," the group continued. "Executive orders are not laws."
But Crosby and Sims argued: "Even if the executive order did apply to Tennessee local libraries, simply having books with LGBTQ stories and characters does not constitute 'promoting gender ideology.' The classic fairytale Little Red Riding Hood involves a wolf eating a little girl, but does not promote violence. Children’s books are stories, not instruction manuals."
On October 27, Hargett sent another letter, giving libraries 60 days to undertake an "age appropriateness review" of all books in their children's section to find any books that may be inconsistent either with Tennessee's age appropriateness law or with Trump's executive order.
As Ken Paulson, the director of Middle Tennessee University's Free Speech Center, noted, the age appropriateness law, which was last updated in 2024, "is modeled after obscenity laws and prohibits nudity, excessive violence, and explicit sexuality, hardly the stuff of children’s sections. Further, the law applies to school libraries, not public libraries."
Though Hargett provided no criteria for how to assess what books would need to be purged, he did provide an example of one he felt violated both orders: Fred Gets Dressed, a 2021 picture book by the New York Times bestselling author Peter Brown. As Popular Information noted:
The book, which was written by a straight, cisgender man, does not feature any LGBTQ characters. Instead it is based on a childhood experience of the author in which he tried on his mother’s clothing and makeup. If a book about a boy trying on his mother’s clothes is the strongest example of “promoting gender ideology” that Hargett could identify, it raises questions about the necessity of the review.
Earlier this month, the state's Rutherford County Library System, which serves the cities of Smyrna and Murfreesboro, shut down several of its library branches for up to a week to “meet new reporting requirements" from Hargett's office.
It's unclear why the Rutherford County system determined it needed to shut down in order to carry out the review, nor has it been made clear whether other library systems will be expected to do the same.
As former librarian Kelly Jensen noted for the blog Book Riot, the Rutherford County system has made its own efforts to ban transgender-friendly books, but backed off from the policy earlier this summer for fear of litigation after a Murfreesboro law branding "homosexuality" as a form of "public indecency" resulted in the city being forced to settle a lawsuit for $500,000.
Kelly wrote that for Rutherford library system's board, Hargett's order is "a convenient means of subverting their fears of litigation, which drove them to change their anti-trans book policy earlier this summer. If the directive is from the state, then they 'have to' comply. The Tennessee secretary of state is granting permission slips to public library boards to ban away."
This week, a group of 33 major publishers, library advocacy groups, and free speech and civil rights organizations signed onto a letter to Hargett expressing "profound concern" over its review mandate.
The coalition included PEN America, the American Library Association, the National Coalition Against Censorship, and the transgender rights advocacy organization GLAAD. Major publishing houses also signed on, including Penguin Random House, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster.
"These types of reviews create immense administrative burdens for library systems and often lead to illegal censorship, which raises liability risks for local communities and the state," the groups said. "Many libraries, uncertain about the legal and procedural basis for the mandate, have had to redirect limited resources, with some temporarily closing branches to complete these reviews, which are implied to be necessary for future funding."
"The demands in your letter need immediate clarification, as it is not reasonable to expect libraries to follow directives that would risk violating applicable law, including the US Constitution," they added. "It is illegal to remove books from public libraries because some people do not like them. This is a well-settled legal principle."
The Rutherford County Library Alliance, which has challenged municipal anti-LGBTQ+ laws as well as the censorship policies of the library's own board, said that “we have seen firsthand the concrete harm of the Secretary’s directives—library closures during story time, intimidation of professional librarians, and the breakdown of democratic representation in our public library system."
"We hope Secretary Hargett will fulfill their duty to promote library development by supporting our constitutionally-guaranteed rights and our highly trained librarians," the alliance added, "rather than enabling censorship from 0.001% of our community for 100% of our community.”
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