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Trump Orders Dismantling of Decades-Old DC Peace Vigil
The volunteer who has manned the vigil for years said that "it is covered by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression" and moved to take legal action.
Sep 08, 2025
An anti-war vigil that has been a fixture in Washington DC's Lafayette Square since the 1980s was taken down over the weekend under orders from US President Donald Trump.
The Associated Press reports that the vigil, which was first erected in 1981 by activist William Thomas to promote nuclear disarmament, was removed by the Park Police on Sunday morning, just days after Trump indicated that he wanted it gone.
Philipos Melaku-Bello, a man who has manned the vigil for years on a volunteer basis, said that law enforcement officials falsely accused him of setting up an illegal shelter.
"The difference between an encampment and a vigil is that an encampment is where homeless people live," Melaku-Bello told the AP. "As you can see, I don't have a bed. I have signs and it is covered by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression."
Melaku-Bello added that he's been in touch with attorneys who may help him file a civil rights complaint against the Trump administration, whom he accused of "choosing to call a place that is not an encampment an encampment just to fit what is in Trump's agenda of removing the encampments."
Trump has deployed the National Guard to the nation's capital to "end vagrancy" and forcibly displace unhoused people who live in encampments in the city.
As the AP noted, the vigil first came to Trump's attention this past Friday when right-wing journalist Brian Glenn of Real America's Voice asked the president about the vigil, which he described as an "eyesore" that had "morphed into... an anti-American, sometimes anti-Trump" display.
"Take it down," Trump said in response to Glenn. "Take it down today, right now."
The president's threat against the peace vigil came days after he signed an executive order in an effort to rename the Department of Defense "the Department of War," and as he suggested his administration is going to "war" against major US cities as it carries out its anti-immigration agenda.
The removal of the vigil also came on the same weekend where tens of thousands of Washington, DC residents marched to the White House to demand Trump end his deployment of the National Guard in their city, which he has baselessly claimed is necessary to stop crime in the nation's capital.
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House GOP Revives Bill to Let Authoritarian Trump Crush Nonprofits
"We urge the House of Representatives to reject this dangerous bill and to protect our freedom of speech and our right to dissent," said the president of Oxfam America.
Nov 18, 2024
House Republicans have revived and are looking to push through legislation this week that would hand President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration sweeping power to investigate and shut down nonprofit organizations, including news outlets and humanitarian groups.
The bill, H.R. 9495, failed to pass the House last week despite bipartisan support because the Republican leadership attempted to pass the measure using a fast-track procedure that requires a two-thirds majority vote. More than 50 Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and other prominent members, backed the legislation in last week's vote, along with 204 Republicans.
This time, the GOP is attempting to advance the bill through regular order, meaning it can pass with a simple majority. The Republican-controlled House Rules Committee is scheduled to hold a markup hearing for H.R. 9495 on Monday.
After learning of the hearing, advocacy organizations that mobilized against the bill redoubled their warnings about its dire implications for free expression and the right to dissent—particularly in the hands of a would-be authoritarian who has vowed to prosecute his political enemies.
"The bill we defeated days ago is back," the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights wrote on social media over the weekend. "Representatives are trying to ram through H.R. 9495, a repressive bill that could shut down nonprofits & student groups supporting Palestinian rights."
The legislation, if passed, would give the Treasury Department the authority to unilaterally strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status by designating them supporters of terrorism. As of this writing, Trump has not announced his pick to lead the Treasury Department.
While the bill provides a brief period for an accused nonprofit to defend itself, the ACLU said the provision "is a mere illusion of due process," noting that the federal government would be able to "deny organizations its reasons and evidence against them, leaving the nonprofit unable to rebut allegations."
Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, warned in a statement after Republicans revived the bill that H.R. 9495 "would grant the Trump administration, and any future administration, the ability to silence and censor its critics, curb free speech, target political opponents, and punish crucial organizations that speak truth to power and help people in the United States and around the world."
"This bill would increase the powers of the president at the expense of all of our freedoms, and could impact not only organizations like Oxfam, but other nonprofits, news outlets, or even universities who dare to dissent," said Maxman. "It could put our ability to respond to some of the worst humanitarian crises at risk and prevent us from delivering lifesaving aid to some of the world's most marginalized people."
"This bill follows the same playbook Oxfam has seen other governments around the world use to crush dissent. Now we are seeing it here at home," Maxman added. "We urge the House of Representatives to reject this dangerous bill and to protect our freedom of speech and our right to dissent."
It's not clear whether the U.S. Senate, narrowly controlled by Democrats, would bring H.R. 9495 to the floor for a vote if it passes the House this week, or whether President Joe Biden would sign it into law. But Republicans will gain full control of Congress and the White House starting in January, giving them the ability to push the legislation through at a later date.
"Their rush to reconsider this bill is solely to offer Trump more and more power, while Trump's nominees for key national security posts this week indicate how he will be using it," Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a leading opponent of the measure, told The Intercept on Friday.
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Universities Welcome Students and Staff Back to School With Repression
Administrators, driven by fear, political pressure, and donors, have engineered a power grab bypassing the established structures of governance to securitize campuses and restrict free speech.
Sep 17, 2024
In the 1960s, social critic Paul Goodman offered a parable to describe what had gone wrong with American higher education.
He wrote:
Millennia ago, there were wise people who knew many things that they were eager to share. Young people came to them and asked, “Would you teach us?” And they did. Over time more students came to learn. And after learning, there were many more wise ones able and willing to teach. The enterprise grew with more students, more teachers, and more subjects to teach. It became so complicated that the wise ones hired clerks to keep track of who was teaching, what they were teaching, and which students were with which teachers. The problem today is that the clerks are running the show deciding who will teach, what they will teach, and who is qualified to learn.
The lesson conveyed by this parable is relevant to understanding worrisome developments unfolding on U.S. college campuses. Israel’s assault on Gaza, following Hamas’ attack of October 7, spawned a nationwide revolt of the young. While organised groups helped mobilize demonstrations demanding a cease-fire and Palestinian rights, the breadth and depth of the effort was more akin to a spontaneous eruption.
In this regard, it was not unlike earlier spontaneous protest movements that sprang up over the past decade: the Women’s March, the “Welcome immigrants” demonstrations that filled U.S. airports in response to the “Muslim ban,” the student-led “March for our Lives” after repeated mass shootings, and the Black Lives Matter movement that erupted after the murder of George Floyd.
The cease-fire/pro-Palestinian movement had much in common with these earlier efforts. Its politics skewed left, it was youth-led, and it was racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse. The difference was that a main locus of its activities was college campuses.
While many have expressed concern that these polices are similar to McCarthy-era repression and intimidation, equally worrisome is what all of this means for the future of the university.
It began with demonstrations, teach-ins, and vigils. But as the war continued into the spring and the world became aware of the mass killings and devastation inflicted by Israel—and the Joe Biden administration’s unconditional support in the face of the enormity of human loss and suffering—the intensity of the student response grew as well. This gave birth to the “encampment movement” that rapidly spread to hundreds of campuses across the country.
From the early stages, the campus anti-war protests were confronted by a number of malign actors who sought to silence or discredit the dissent. Charging that administrations weren’t acting to quash the protests, a number of pro-Israel donors and trustees at some elite universities withdrew their financial support.
While most of the early protests were self-policed, there were often instances where students on both sides of this emotionally charged conflict engaged in hurtful or threatening behaviors. At this point, a second group of malign actors entered the fray.
A few prominent pro-Israel Jewish organisations drummed up an exaggerated campaign charging that the entire protest effort was at its core antisemitic and should be stopped to protect Jewish students who felt threatened or excluded. They published reports, conducted a huge media campaign, and testified before Congress making their case. While some examples they used were clearly hurtful, the bulk of the instances they cited were not, by any reasonable standard, antisemitic.
This effort was enough to provide the impetus for a third group of malign actors: Republican members of Congress. For the GOP, this was “a perfect storm.” The cast of villains were “elite” universities with their spoiled upper-class students, those who oppose Israel, and Democrats who tolerate, or even encourage, disruptive behaviors.
Ivy League university presidents were summoned to testify before congressional committees, where they were badgered and confronted by deceptive and misleading questions designed more for media hits than information. The pressures placed on these presidents after they bungled their confrontations before different committees resulted in many feeling compelled to resign.
Republicans sensing victory and smelling blood in the water went further in their campaigns of harassment—threatening funding for colleges that didn’t act as the GOP saw fit and demanding more oversight. They also moved from maligning the movement as antisemitic to also supporting “terrorist ideology.”
Confronted by these multi-layered challenges and fearful of the pressures from donors and congressional meddling, many universities reacted by inviting in police to dismantle the protests—often using brutal force. In a few weeks, police arrested more than 3,000 students nationwide, with universities suspending many and banning several student groups from operating on campus.
When students and faculty returned to their campuses this month, they discovered that college administrators had been hard at work during the summer revamping policies with regard to both allowable protest activity and acceptable speech. While there were some differences from campus to campus, the new regulations had enough in common to lead researchers to uncover an industry of “security consultants” who had been brought in to advise on changing campus policies and practices.
The new procedures place limits on time, place, and duration of protests and require that sponsoring groups secure permission for protest activity and, in some instances, the content of signs to be used. Some faculty have been required to submit their curriculum for review (not only by administrators but by requesting members of Congress). More problematic has been the fact that all of these changes have been made without involvement of the schools’ faculty or student senates or the established faculty/student judicial committees. Instead of dealing with infractions internally, they involve external police enforcement.
While many have expressed concern that these polices are similar to McCarthy-era repression and intimidation, equally worrisome is what all of this means for the future of the university. And this is where Goodman’s parable is relevant, because what we have is a situation where the clerks, driven by fear, political pressure, and donors have engineered a power grab bypassing the established structures of governance and have securitized campuses, restricting both academic freedom and freedom of expression.
And all of this was done to silence a new awakening in support of Palestinian human rights.
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40 Groups Slam 'Deep Hypocrisy' of Saudi-Hosted Internet Governance Forum
"Is this a bad joke?" asked one campaigner.
Sep 06, 2024
As Saudi Arabia prepares to host a global internet summit in December, 40 human rights groups on Friday urged authorities in the kingdom to release everyone imprisoned for online expression, including an activist serving a 27-year prison sentence for criticizing her country's severe repression of women.
The 40 groups said in a joint statement that "Saudi Arabia must free all individuals arbitrarily detained solely for their online expression ahead of hosting the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Riyadh, which will take place from December 15-19."
"It is counter to the IGF's stated values for Saudi Arabia to host the IGF," the organizations asserted. "In 2024 it adopted a thematic focus on advancing human rights and inclusion in the digital age and Saudi Arabia continues to prosecute, lock up, forcibly disappear, and intimidate people into silence for expressing themselves on social media."
As Amnesty International—which accused Saudi Arabia of "deep hypocrisy"—noted:
Saudi authorities have waged a chilling crackdown against people who demonstrate even the slightest sign of dissenting or critical views online. Among those who have been convicted for their online expression is Salma al-Shehab. She was arrested in January 2021 and, after a grossly unfair trial, sentenced in January 2023 to a shocking 27-year prison term followed by a 27-year travel ban on trumped-up terrorism charges, simply because she tweeted in support of women's rights.
In another deeply disturbing case, in January 2024, Saudi Arabia's terrorism court sentenced Manahel al-Otaibi to 11 years in prison in connection with social media posts promoting women's rights and sharing images of herself online at a mall without wearing an abaya (a traditional loose-fitting long-sleeved robe).
Those targeted also include Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, a Red Crescent worker, who in April 2020, after a grossly unfair trial, was sentenced to 20 years, to be followed by a 20-year travel ban, for his satirical tweets, and Mohammad bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, a retired school teacher, who was sentenced to death in July 2023 for criticizing authorities on X (formerly Twitter) and his online activity on YouTube.
"These cases are emblematic of the Saudi authorities' chilling crackdown on freedom of expression, but they are not isolated examples," the 40 groups said in their statement. "Dozens of people in Saudi Arabia, including visitors to the country, have been detained solely for their online expression."
"Consequently," the signers added, "many civil society organizations and advocates, who would ordinarily attend the IGF, have chosen not to travel to Saudi Arabia, fearing that they cannot safely and freely participate in the conference."
Representatives of some of the 40 groups that signed the statement weighed in on Saudi Arabia hosting the IGF.
"Is this a bad joke?" asked Freedom Forward executive director Sunjeev Bery. "There's a phrase for this: 'rights-washing.' Rights-washing is when a human rights violator tries to hide their crimes by wrapping themselves in human rights language and causes."
"Saudi Arabia's dictatorship is one of the most repressive governments on the planet," Bery added. "Saudi internet users who dare to speak their minds are often arrested, tortured, and jailed for years."
Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard said that "Saudi Arabia's authorities have 100 days before the IGF begins to demonstrate that they will ease their draconian crackdown on freedom of expression, and to show that they will use this event as an opportunity to carry out genuine reforms rather than as part of an image-washing campaign."
"In order to prove that their hosting of the conference about the internet's future is more than just a cynical PR exercise, the Saudi authorities must release all those arbitrarily detained solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression online before the IGF begins," she added.
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Allies Vow to Fight Off Big Oil Lawsuit Aimed at Ending 'Existence' of Greenpeace
"No matter who you are, no matter what your politics are, this is one of the most important issues in America right now," one Greenpeace spokesperson said.
Aug 02, 2024
Nearly 300 organizations and tens of thousands of individuals have signed an open letter supporting Greenpeace USA against a $300 million lawsuit brought against the environmental group by Energy Transfer—a company with a majority stake in the Dakota Access pipeline.
The corporation is falsely accusing Greenpeace of being the driving force behind Indigenous-led protests against the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) in 2016 and 2017.
Greenpeace USA announced its supporters on Thursday as it launched a campaign to raise awareness about the lawsuit—which it said could "functionally bankrupt" the organization, threatening its "existence." However, Greenpeace said that the dangers posed by strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), like the one it faces, extend far beyond one organization.
"No matter who you are, no matter what your politics are, this is one of the most important issues in America right now," Greenpeace USA spokesperson Rolf Skar said in a statement. "Energy Transfer built the Dakota Access pipeline. But they're suing anyway in order to send a message: If you dare to oppose us, we will financially ruin you."
The Dakota Access pipeline drew massive protests from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, more than 300 other tribal nations, and non-Indigenous allies. While former U.S. President Donald Trump forced the pipeline through shortly after taking office in early 2017, the protests rattled the fossil fuel industry and their allies in government. After 2016, 18 states passed anti-protest laws that shielded around 60% of U.S. oil and gas production and related infrastructure from peaceful protests. The industry also turned to "judicial harassment."
Energy Transfer (ET) initially brought suits against Standing Rock Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault and other Water Protectors, as well as a federal suit against Greenpeace in 2017.
At the time, ET CEO Kelcy Warren told a reporter: "Could we get some monetary damages out of this thing, and probably will we? Yeah, sure. Is that my primary objective? Absolutely not. It's to send a message—you can't do this, this is unlawful, and it's not going to be tolerated in the United States."
"Everyone who says they care about freedom—of whatever political stripe—should join together to support the Greenpeace campaign to protect people's right to speak out against corporate abuses."
While the 2017 cases were all dismissed, ET immediately filed a similar case against Greenpeace in North Dakota state court in 2019. The new case, which is scheduled to go to trial in February 2025, makes what Greenpeace called a "deeply racist" case that Greenpeace, and not Indigenous leaders, coordinated the Dakota Access protests.
"The lawsuit against Greenpeace is also an attack on the Indigenous movement in our fight for self-determination to protect Mother Earth, our waters, sacred and cultural sites, and our youth and future generations," Morgan Brings Plenty of the Standing Rock Youth Council said in a statement. "These colonialist lawsuits are trying to send a warning to anyone who might consider speaking out and to be quiet—any of you could be next."
ET also makes several claims that would set a dangerous precedent if upheld, including denouncing legitimate speech as defamatory and making anyone who is present at a protest liable for things that occurred at the same protest.
"The whole point of this type of lawsuit is to limit freedom of expression, so even if you don't care about climate change, or you don't care about Greenpeace, you should pay attention," Skar said. "What's at stake isn't just Greenpeace or environmentalism, but the fundamental American rights to freedom of peaceful expression and advocacy for all of us."
Greenpeace has circulated a letter to ET that has so far been signed by more than 290 organizations—including 350.org, Public Citizen, ACLU North Dakota, SEIU, Indigenous Environmental Network, and Amnesty International USA—and tens of thousands of individuals, including prominent celebrities and activists like Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, Billie Eilish, and Adam McKay.
"This is corporate overreach that is part of a disturbing trend of attacks on advocacy and speech around the world," the letter reads. "We will not allow lawsuits like this one to stop us from advocating for a just, green, and peaceful future. On the contrary, we will ensure they have the opposite effect, increasing the support for organizations like Greenpeace and strengthening the broader movement for justice."
"This legal attack on Greenpeace is an attack on us all," the letter continues. "We will not stand idly by. We will not be bullied. We will not be divided and we will not be silenced."
Organizations also issued individual statements of support.
"Everyone who says they care about freedom—of whatever political stripe—should join together to support the Greenpeace campaign to protect people's right to speak out against corporate abuses," said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. "As Greenpeace knows from its own experience, too often corporations use their political, economic, and legal power not just to run PR campaigns justifying their wrongdoing, but to threaten public interest advocates with bad-faith lawsuits (SLAPPs) and other intimidation tactics."
Brian Hauss, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU, said: "Protesters and advocacy groups should never have to fear the weight of groups like ETP as a condition for expressing their First Amendment rights. The court should see this lawsuit for what it is and toss it."
Progressives are also calling for a national legislative solution to the problem of SLAPP suits. While most states do have laws on the books against them, North Dakota is one of the 18 that do not.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) introduced the Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) Protection Act during Congress' last session, and plans to reintroduce it in September of this year.
"The case against Greenpeace illustrates how mega-corporations can use lawsuits to silence, intimidate, and ruin their critics," Raskin said. "America must demand, and Congress must pass, bipartisan legislation to protect First Amendment rights against ruinous litigation practices."
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'For Gaza': Hundreds of Students Stage Walkout at Harvard Commencement Ceremony
The demonstration followed the “unduly harsh punishment” of 13 students barred from receiving their diplomas stemming from their support for Palestinian rights.
May 23, 2024
Update (2:20 PM ET):
Hundreds of graduates walked out in protest at Harvard University's commencement ceremony on Thursday in protest of the war in Gaza and the college's decision not to confer degrees on 13 pro-Palestine seniors.Harvard's controversial decision to block the 13 seniors from graduating strengthened the intensity of Thursday's demonstration, which was "far larger, louder, and more extensive than graduation protests at any other university in the region thus far this spring," according to The Boston Globe.
Many of the protesting graduates wore keffiyehs, waved Palestinian flags, and carried placards with messages such as "For Gaza." They chanted "Let them walk!" in support of the 13 students during the ceremony before marching out to a nearby church for what one organizer called the "peoples' commencement," the Globe reported.
BREAKING: Hundreds of Harvard students and faculty have walked out of commencement in support of Palestine and the 15 seniors having their degrees withheld for protesting a genocide. pic.twitter.com/D0lGKrmzvq
— Harvxrd Palestine Solidarity Committee (@HarvxrdPSC) May 23, 2024
Earlier:
Harvard University's board on Wednesday rejected a faculty vote to allow 13 seniors who had participated in a pro-Palestine encampment to graduate, provoking outrage from educators and students, some of whom protested outside the commencement ceremony Thursday morning.
The Wednesday announcement followed competing decisions by Harvard institutions in the days leading up to graduation. On May 18, the college's administrative board announced disciplinary actions against students—suspending five and placing more than 20 on probation—for their involvement in the on-campus encampment, which ended last week. This left the 13 seniors ineligible to graduate.
Professors in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences responded on Monday by voting to amend the list of students receiving degrees to include the 13 students—effectively rejecting the administrative board's decision. Harvard's main governing board, known as the Corporation, had to make the final decision, which they announced in a statement on Wednesday:
Because the [13] students included as the result of Monday's amendment are not in good standing, we cannot responsibly vote to award them degrees at this time. In coming to this determination, we note that the express provisions of the Harvard College Student Handbook state that students who are not in good standing are not eligible for degrees. We also considered the inequity of exempting a particular group of students who are not in good standing from established rules, while other seniors with similar status for matters unrelated to Monday's faculty amendment would be unable to graduate.
Both faculty and students condemned the decision, which The Harvard Crimson called an "unprecedented veto" of the faculty.
"I would expect a faculty rebellion, possibly a faculty rebellion against the entire governance structure, because there's already a fair amount of mistrust toward the Corporation to begin with," government professor Steven Levitsky told the Crimson.
The decision leaves uncertain the immediate future of the 13 students, two of whom have been awarded Rhodes Scholarships to study at Oxford University. "Despite fulfilling their degree requirements, these [13] students will not receive their diplomas, fellowships, and grad funding because of the Corporation's decision," Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, a student group, wrote on social media. The faculty's vote was a "clear repudiation of the administrative board's unduly harsh punishment," the post said.
Pro-Palestine students also said that the Corporation's decision violated the terms of a deal they had reached with the administration. They ended the 20-day protest on Harvard Yard on May 14 after interim Harvard University President Alan Garber wrote an email promising to "encourage the administrative boards or other disciplinary bodies within the schools to address cases expeditiously under existing precedent and practice (including taking into account where relevant the voluntary decision to leave the encampment), for all students, including those students eligible thereafter to graduate so that they may do so."
Protestors set up outside of Harvard's graduation Thursday morning as the college's other seniors received their degrees.
Good morning from Harvard’s commencement. pic.twitter.com/dMMMZzmsk6
— Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (@HarvardOOP) May 23, 2024
Protesters gather outside Harvard University commencement after some students denied degrees https://t.co/y5CyZ0LxWv
— WBZ | CBS News Boston (@wbz) May 23, 2024
The tumult at Harvard follows a spring of Gaza-related protests at campuses across the U.S., which have led to thousands of arrests as well as disciplinary action by universities, despite the lack of protestor violence. Many of these colleges still have graduation ceremonies in the coming weeks.
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Why Biden Should Pardon Me to Uphold Climate Justice
No matter where one stands on the political spectrum, we should all be able to agree that what happened to me should not happen to anybody in any country that adheres to the rule of law.
Apr 25, 2024
About a month ago, a group of 14 prominent lawyers from the United Stateslaunched a global campaign to demand a pardon from President Joe Biden for my misdemeanor contempt conviction after I helped Amazon communities in Ecuador win a landmark $10 billion pollution judgement against Chevron. While I want a pardon for personal reasons—including the restoration of my freedom to travel and to earn a livelihood—this request is also a major opportunity for the White House to uphold its stated commitments on climate justice, human rights, and corporate accountability.
First, the personal.
I need this pardon because I am the only person in U.S. history to be privately prosecuted by a corporation. More specifically, the government (via a pro-corporate judge) gave a giant oil company (Chevron) the power to prosecute and lock up its leading critic. As a result of this unprecedented and frightening private prosecution, I still cannot travel out of the country and I have been prohibited from meeting with clients I have represented for over three decades. Nor can I practice law, maintain a bank account, or earn a livelihood. I am largely dependent for my survival on the support of people around the world who have contributed to my defense fund, which also pays my hefty legal fees to deal with Chevron’s attacks. I have no bank account because Chevron essentially stole (they would say “garnished”) all of my assets after a judge ordered me to reimburse the company millions of dollars for legal fees they spent trying to destroy me.
This obviously matters deeply to me, to my clients in Ecuador who are deeply suffering from the impacts of Chevron’s pollution, and to anyone who cares about ending corporate retaliation against the climate movement.
The fact 14 highly credible lawyers—among them Marty Garbus, Natali Segovia, and Michael Tigar—are representing me pro bono attests to the merits of the pardon request. To understand the the powerful arguments on our side, I would urge everyone to read the 12-page pardon letter in full, available here.
The private prosecution was carried out by Chevron and two of its U.S.-based corporate law firms, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Seward & Kissel. It happened after Judge Lewis A. Kaplan charged me with criminal contempt after I appealed a clearly illegal order that I turn over my computer and confidential case file to Chevron. This unprecedented order would have forced me as an attorney to violate my ethical duties to my clients and would have put their lives in danger. (The ostensible basis of the order was to allow Chevron to search my computer for supposed hidden bank accounts that might contain money to pay the company the roughly $5 million in legal fees Kaplan ordered that I pay them; the reality is that the reason was manufactured to give the judge a reason to lock me up.)
Significantly, Kaplan’s criminal contempt charges were rejected for prosecution by the regular federal prosecutor in New York, Geoffrey Berman. That decision prompted the judge to illegally appoint the Chevron law firm to act in place of the government prosecutor. Not only was the appointment of a private prosecutor in a case already rejected by the government entirely inappropriate, neither Kaplan nor the law firm ever disclosed to our team that Chevron had been a client until we discovered it months later. Because Chevron had wrested complete control of a public prosecution rejected by the government, I ended up detained for 993 days on a petty misdemeanor charge with a maximum sentence of 180 days. That time included six weeks in a federal prison during a Covid-19 lockdown. Before me, no lawyer had ever been locked up even one day on such a charge.
The entire prosecution was condemned as illegal by the United Nation’s Working Group On Arbitrary Detention ( decision here) and in a detailed report issued by a team of international trial monitors led by former U.S. Ambassador for War Crimes Stephen A. Rapp and Canadian human rights scholar Catherine Morris. It also was condemned as unconstitutional by three U.S. federal judges, including two from the Supreme Court (decision here). In addition, dozens of Nobel Laureates (see article) supported my campaign along with 120 civil society groups, among them Amnesty International and Global Witness (see letter).
No matter where one stands on the political spectrum, we should all be able to agree that what happened to me should not happen to anybody in any country that adheres to the rule of law.
The petition to President Biden from the 14 lawyers states that “a pardon would bring a measure of justice to a prosecution that has been widely criticized as a violation of international law... and as a grave threat to free speech.” It adds: “This pardon is not only critical to protect the First Amendment rights of all advocates regardless of their political orientation, but also is vital to protect the climate justice movement both in the U.S. and around the world.”
Natali Segovia, one of the leading Indigenous rights lawyers in the world, has taken the lead in organizing the lawyers to push for the pardon. This is what she said in our press release announcing the campaign:
Around the world, human rights defenders like Steven Donziger are targeted and even killed for their advocacy and work on Indigenous rights and environmental justice issues. Such extrajudicial human rights violations have come to be expected occurrences in the Global South and “developing” nations at the hands of powerful corporations and extractive corporations who act with impunity and collusion from state governments; for Indigenous peoples and allies that stand to protect the Earth, this is a known assumption of risk. Steven’s case, however, is emblematic of the weaponization of the law by a powerful corporation against a human rights defender—an attorney, to be exact—and sets a dangerous precedent. We know the criminalization of Water Protectors and Land Defenders is on the rise, now we are seeing the rise of corporate-sponsored prosecution, RICO, and SLAPP tactics. If it could happen to Steven, a Harvard-trained human rights lawyer, it could happen to anyone on climate frontlines. This is what we are guarding against. This is why a pardon for Steven barely hits the tip of the iceberg to reverse course, but is a necessary step in ensuring fundamental rights of due process and human rights in the United States.
Others representing me include Jeanne Mirer, the president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers; Nadine Strossen, the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union; Beher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights; Terrance P. Collingsworth, a leading international human rights lawyer and the director of International Rights Advocates; Jeffrey Haas, the longtime civil rights lawyer who successfully represented the family of Fred Hampton after he was killed by Chicago police; Nadia Ahmad, a visiting professor at Yale and a leading environmental and corporate accountability lawyer; and Scott Badenoch, Jr., an environmental justice attorney and a visiting scholar at the Environmental Law institute.
Our operating assumption is that it is absolutely possible to obtain a pardon if we fight for it. That means creating massive public pressure on why this is so needed not just for one person and his family, but for all justice advocates in our country and across the globe. This obviously matters deeply to me, to my clients in Ecuador who are deeply suffering from the impacts of Chevron’s pollution, and to anyone who cares about ending corporate retaliation against the climate movement.
The best way to support the pardon campaign is to donate at our new crowdfunding site here and to sign the petition here.
This piece originally ran on Steven Donziger’s SubStack, Donziger on Justice. You can also support his campaign by subscribing to his SubStack or visiting his campaign website.
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Edward Said Warned Against Anti-Palestinian McCarthyism
Said’s legacy reads today as a scathing condemnation of the hypocrisy of U.S. liberal institutions, their moral corruption, and the hollowness of the very values that they profess to teach.
Apr 21, 2024
Students across the United States are rising up against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, bringing to memory the student movements of the 1960s. From Columbia to Brown, from Yale to Harvard, students are staging sit-ins, hunger strikes, class walkouts, and interfaith prayers, demanding an end to U.S. support for Israel and the complicity of their academic institutions in the ongoing genocide.
While some U.S. institutions are treading a delicate path, the Columbia University administration, led by President Minouche Shafik, has violently cracked down on its own students, summoning the NYPD to mass arrest over 100 students, and suspending others with a 15-minute notice. In an unprecedented brutal crackdown on free speech on campus, the police destroyed solidarity encampments and student belongings, while charging arrested students with “trespassing” on the campus that they are charged a whopping tuition of more than $60,000 a year to attend!
In its attempt to appease far-right extremists in Congress, and to save Columbia from “being cursed by God,” as a Republican Congressman warned Shafik, Columbia has sided with genocide, thus undermining its own legacy of safeguarding free speech and peaceful protest on campus.
Perceptively, Said warned of weaponizing antisemitism and the plight of Jews in Europe as a means to suppress and vilify Palestinians, and to justify Israel’s oppression of its victims.
The violence has backfired, as hundreds of students continue to protest at Columbia, sparking a ripple effect across U.S. campuses, and defying what they see as a growing McCarthyism in U.S. academia. An early target of this academic McCarthyism was the prominent Palestinian-American intellectual and distinguished Columbia Professor Edward Said, whose writings on postcolonialism, humanism, and democratic criticism are required readings at Columbia and across the humanities.
Said was a victim of anti-Palestinian intimidation himself. His office at Columbia was occasionally raided and vandalized. He received several death threats and was smeared with terrorism accusations and spied on by students and AIPAC agents. Shortly before his death, Said became the target of a vicious academic persecution, which he survived only because Columbia still had a shred of academic and moral integrity at the time.
In July 2000, Said went to South Lebanon on a solidarity tour, where he hurled a rock toward an Israeli guardhouse from the Lebanese border, which he described as “a symbolic gesture of joy” to mark the end of Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. A photographer caught the action, featuring Said with his arm reached far behind him, ready to throw. The Israeli lobby, led by Anti-Defamation League, called on Columbia to punish Said. Columbia refused to be intimidated, though it took the administration two months of eerie silence to respond. In its five-page letter response, the university said that Said’s action was protected under the principles of academic freedom. Citing John Stuart Mill as well as from the Columbia Faculty Handbook, the letter asserted:
There is nothing more fundamental to a university than the protection of the free discourse of individuals who should feel free to express their views without fear of the chilling effect of a politically dominant ideology... This matter cuts to the heart of what are fundamental values at a great university.
In defense of Said, the letter added: “If we are to deny Professor Said the protection to write and speak freely, whose speech will next be suppressed and who will be the inquisitor who determines who should have a right to speak his or her mind without fear of retribution?”
The era of moral clarity and intellectual integrity in academia is now unraveling amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The tragic irony is that the current atmosphere of anti-Palestinian McCarthyism on U.S. campuses—led by an unlikely coalition of far-right Republicans, mainstream media, and liberal academic institutions—was foreseen by none other than Said himself. In his seminal essay, “Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims” (1979), Said warned:
The special, one might even call it the privileged, place in this discussion of the United States is impressive, for all sorts of reasons. In no other country, except Israel, is Zionism enshrined as an unquestioned good, and in no other country is there so strong a conjuncture of powerful institutions and interests—the press, the liberal intelligentsia, the military-industrial complex, the academic community, labor unions—for whom […] uncritical support of Israel and Zionism enhances their domestic as well as international standing.”
Presaging the rise of anti-Palestinian McCarthyism in academia, Said detected a state of academic repression and campus policing in which Palestinians “have no permission to narrative” and are increasingly demonized and silenced in the name of fighting antisemitism—a loaded concept that has become a shield for Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Perceptively, Said warned of weaponizing antisemitism and the plight of Jews in Europe as a means to suppress and vilify Palestinians, and to justify Israel’s oppression of its victims. He understood that systematically inflating antisemitism with the critique of Zionism was feeding anti-Palestinian sentiments in U.S. academic and media discourse. He further warned:
One must admit, however, that all liberals and even most “radicals” have been unable to overcome the Zionist habit of equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Any wellmeaning person can thus oppose South African or American racism and at the same time tacitly support Zionist racial discrimination against non-Jews in Palestine. The almost total absence of any handily available historical knowledge from non-Zionist sources, the dissemination by the media of malicious simplifications (e.g., Jews vs. Arabs), the cynical opportunism of various Zionist pressure groups, the tendency endemic to university intellectuals uncritically to repeat cant phrases and political clichés (this is the role Gramsci assigned to traditional intellectuals, that of being “experts in legitimation”), the fear of treading upon the highly sensitive terrain of what Jews did to their victims, in an age of genocidal extermination of Jews—all this contributes to the dulling, regulated enforcement of almost unanimous support for Israel.
The assault on Columbia students is an attack on constitutional rights and the basic tenets of democracy. It’s deplorable that the one of the most violent crackdown on student protests in U.S. history is coinciding with one of the worst genocides in recent memory, which has killed over 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them children, and displaced nearly two million others.
One day after the mass arrests at Columbia, Palestinians in Gaza unearthed large mass graves at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, containing hundreds of civilians and patients who were massacred or buried alive by Israel. More deplorable, from the young generation’s standpoint, is that this genocide is being backed and sustained by U.S. weapons and tax money, diplomatic support, and media and academic complicity. (The Biden administration is preparing to send its largest military aid package to Israel in U.S. history, with bipartisan blessing.) Despite massive protests, U.S. colleges have refused to divest from Israel over its genocidal war in Gaza (with few notable exceptions that include Rutgers and UC Davis.) Several universities, including Columbia, have suspended the chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.
Edward Said’s legacy reads today as a scathing condemnation of the hypocrisy of U.S. liberal institutions, their moral corruption, and the hollowness of the very values that they profess to teach. This irony is best illustrated by a Columbia student’s protest sign, which read:
“Columbia, why require me to read Prof. Edward Said, if you don’t want me to use it?”
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USC Has Buckled Under Neo-McCarthyism by Cancelling Its Valedictorian’s Speech
Asna Tabassum’s solidarity with Palestinians, especially as a hijab-wearing Muslim woman, while Israel relentlessly bombs civilians in Gaza, may actually be what USC doesn’t want to “‘present as an image.’”
Apr 19, 2024
At the center of the University of Southern California’s campus in Los Angeles stands a statue of Hecuba, queen of ancient Troy. “A statue celebrating the women of Troy,” says USC’s website. “Hecuba would defend her children and her city with fierce passion and loyalty. She would urge the Trojans to fight on, even when they were outnumbered, exhausted, facing impossible odds.”
USC is suffused with the imagery of Troy, said by ancient writers like Homer to have been sacked by the Greeks after they entered the walled city by hiding inside the fabled Trojan Horse. The motto of USC’s sports teams, the Trojans, is, “Fight On!” But this week, USC decided to abandon one its most prominent young women students, its 2024 valedictorian Asna Tabassum, and to give up the fight, buckling under a wave of neo-McCarthyism sweeping campuses nationwide.
Last Monday, USC announced it was canceling Tabassum’s valedictory commencement address. “The intensity of feelings, fueled by both social media and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East… has escalated to the point of creating substantial risks relating to security and disruption at commencement,” USC Provost Andrew Guzman explained in the statement, adding, “To be clear: This decision has nothing to do with freedom of speech. There is no free-speech entitlement to speak at a commencement.”
While genuine antisemitism exists, this current witch hunt appears to be targeting campuses where Palestinian solidarity and anti-war movements are growing in strength.
Asna Tabassum is a first-generation South Asian-American Muslim, graduating with a major in biomedical engineering and a minor in resistance to genocide. She posted a response to USC’s announcement on the website of CAIR, The Council on American-Islamic Relations, saying in part, “I am not surprised by those who attempt to propagate hatred. I am surprised that my own university—my home for four years—has abandoned me… on April 14, I asked about the alleged safety concerns and was told that the university had the resources to take appropriate safety measures for my valedictory speech, but that they would not be doing so since increased security protections is not what the university wants to ‘present as an image.’”
Speaking on the Democracy Now! news hour, Asna described the vitriol she suffered after being named valedictorian: “It only took a few hours before… a very generalized and, honestly, very hateful and disappointing campaign to remove me as valedictorian.”
USC officials wouldn’t share details of the threats they allegedly received. “I was offered no information and was told it was not appropriate for me to know,” Asna said.
Her major and minor may seem completely disparate areas of study, but Asna explained, “My minor in resistance to genocide allows me to study the human condition at possibly one of its worst conditions.”
She continued, “Biomedical engineering is my way of learning technically, how we can improve the human condition through increasing health accessibility… so that we can improve the ways in which people experience healthcare when they are most in need.”
One likely reason she was targeted, not raised by the USC administration, is her solidarity with Palestinians. In her Instagram bio, she links to a website detailing the Israel/Palestine conflict. On that site, both the two-state solution and the one-state solution, the two principle proposals for a permanent peace in the region, are described. One sentence reads, “One palestinian state would mean Palestinian liberation, and the complete abolishment of the state of Israel.”
Asna responded on Democracy Now!, “The sentence right after talks about coexistence between Arabs and Jews… I’m only advocating for human equality, and for the sanctity of human life when I say that Palestinians, as well as Jews, as well as Muslims… and anyone else who has invested in this conflict has the equal right to life and the equal privilege of the fullest extent to life.”
Asna’s solidarity with Palestinians, especially as a hijab-wearing Muslim woman, while Israel relentlessly bombs civilians in Gaza, may actually be what USC doesn’t want to “‘present as an image.’”
This all comes as Congressional Republicans mount a neo-McCarthyite campaign accusing elite liberal universities of tolerating antisemitism on campus. While genuine antisemitism exists, this current witch hunt appears to be targeting campuses where Palestinian solidarity and anti-war movements are growing in strength.
Before Columbia University President Minouche Shafik appeared Wednesday at the same House committee that led to the resignation of two presidents, both women, from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, 23 Jewish Barnard and Columbia professors wrote her a detailed open letter. It stated, “We object to the weaponization of antisemitism. And we advocate for a campus where all students, Jewish, Palestinian, and all others, can learn and thrive in a climate of open, honest inquiry and rigorous debate.”
CAIR is calling on the public to join its demand that USC reinstate Asna Tabassum as a commencement speaker. In the spirit of Hecuba, Asna vows to fight on.
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'My Own University... Has Abandoned Me': USC Cancels Muslim Valedictorian's Speech
"I am both shocked by this decision and profoundly disappointed that the university is succumbing to a campaign of hate meant to silence my voice," student Asna Tabassum said in a statement.
Apr 16, 2024
In a decision that the largest U.S. Muslim civil rights organization called "cowardly," the University of Southern California announced Monday that it would not allow a Muslim valedictorian to speak at its commencement ceremony, citing safety concerns.
USC's 2024 valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, is a first-generation South Asian Muslim student majoring in biomedical engineering with a minor in resistance to genocide. Her selection as valedictorian drew criticism from pro-Israel groups because of a link pasted into her Instagram profile that advocates for a single Palestinian state where "both Arabs and Jews can live together without an ideology that specifically advocates for the ethnic cleansing of one of them."
"This campaign to prevent me from addressing my peers at commencement has evidently accomplished its goal: Today, USC administrators informed me that the university will no longer allow me to speak at commencement due to supposed security concerns," Tabassum said in a statement. "I am both shocked by this decision and profoundly disappointed that the university is succumbing to a campaign of hate meant to silence my voice."
"I am not surprised by those who attempt to propagate hatred," Tabassum continued. "I am surprised that my own university—my home for four years—has abandoned me."
"USC cannot hide its cowardly decision behind a disingenuous concern for 'security."
In announcing the university's decision, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs Andrew Guzman said that, in recent days, "discussion relating to the selection of our valedictorian has taken on an alarming tenor."
Several groups had called for Tabassum's removal as valedictorian entirely because they argued the link that she shared, a slideshow titled "Free Palestine," was antisemitic.
"Trojans for Israel strongly supports the right to free expression—including informed criticism of the Israeli government. However, rhetoric that denies the right of the Jewish people to self-determination or calls for the destruction of the only Jewish state in the world must be denounced as antisemitic bigotry," a campus group wrote in a social media post calling on USC to choose a new valedictorian.
The slideshow Tabassum shared includes a page explaining that anti-zionism is not antisemitism and linking to a debate on the topic featuring former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan and Israeli-Jewish historian Ilan Pappé.
Tabassum told NBC Los Angeles that she had added the link to her Instagram bio five years ago—long before Hamas' deadly October 7 attack on Israel and Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza—and that she had not written the text herself.
However, Israel's current war on Gaza has led to widespread campus protests at U.S. universities, as well as repression of pro-Palestinian student groups and national attention on university leaders' responses to the conflict, which has led to the resignation of at least two high-profile university presidents.
"The intensity of feelings, fueled by both social media and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, has grown to include many voices outside of USC and has escalated to the point of creating substantial risks relating to security and disruption at commencement," Guzman said in the university announcement. "We cannot ignore the fact that similar risks have led to harassment and even violence at other campuses."
Guzman continued that he had spoken with the university's Department of Public Safety and campus security teams.
"After careful consideration, we have decided that our student valedictorian will not deliver a speech at commencement," Guzman said. "While this is disappointing, tradition must give way to safety."
The provost maintained that this was not a free speech issue.
"There is no free-speech entitlement to speak at a commencement," Guzman said. "The issue here is how best to maintain campus security and safety, period."
However, in her statement, Tabassum said that she attended a meeting with the provost and the associate senior vice president of safety and risk on Sunday, during which they told her that campus security would be able to protect her from any threats while speaking, but that taking appropriate measures would result in a commencement ceremony that was not what the university wants to "'present as an image.'"
"Because I am not aware of any specific threats against me or the university, because my request for the details underlying the university's threat assessment has been denied, and because I am not being provided any increased safety to be able to speak at commencement, there remain serious doubts about whether USC's decision to revoke my invitation to speak is made solely on the basis of safety," Tabassum said.
Council on American-Islamic Relations-Los Angeles (CAIR-LA) executive director Hussam Ayloush also cast doubt on the university's motives in a statement.
"USC cannot hide its cowardly decision behind a disingenuous concern for 'security,'" Ayloush said. "Asna is an incredibly accomplished student whose academic and extracurricular accomplishments made her the ideal and historic recipient of this year's valedictorian's honor. The university can, should, and must ensure a safe environment for graduation rather than taking the unprecedented step of cancelling a valedictorian's speech."
"The dishonest and defamatory attacks on Asna are nothing more than thinly-veiled manifestations of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism, which have been weaponized against college students across the country who speak up for human rights—and for Palestinian humanity," Ayloush continued.
Earlier this month, CAIR released its 2024 civil rights report, stating the organization received more complaints of anti-Muslim bias than during any other year in its three decades of existence.
Ayloush argued that USC's decision to cancel Tabassum's speech "empowers voices of hate and censorship, violates USC's obligation to protect its students, and sends a terrible signal to both Muslim students at USC and all students who dare to express support for Palestinian humanity."
Washington Post columnist and Columbia adjunct Karen Attiah also saw the university's decision as a setback for academic freedom.
"What is happening at USC shows that the credibility/legitimacy of many liberal institutions died in Gaza," Attiah wrote on social media. "Western journalistic objectivity died in Gaza. True academic freedom died in Gaza. Do we see how much violence it takes to uphold an imperial status quo?"
Writer and editor Tom Gara called out the university for the discrepancy between its actions and its course offerings.
"Incredible story. USC offers a minor in 'resistance to genocide,' this girl minored in it, was named valedictorian, and then they cancelled her speech because she might talk about genocide," Gara said on social media.
CAIR-LA is calling on USC to reverse its decision and circulating a petition in support of this demand.
Tabassum, meanwhile, addressed her fellow students.
"As your class valedictorian, I implore my USC classmates to think outside the box—to work toward a world where cries for equality and human dignity are not manipulated to be expressions of hatred," she said. "I challenge us to respond to ideological discomfort with dialogue and learning, not bigotry and censorship. And I urge us to see past our deepest fears and recognize the need to support justice for all people, including the Palestinian people."
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