NLG CHICAGO

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NLG Lawyers Fight Against the Prison Industrial Complex for Over 46 Years

Jeff Haas Speaking at Attica Rally Cook County Jail 1971

After returning from the 1971 Attica Prison Uprising in upstate New York, Jeff Haas spoke at a rally at the Cook County Jail to pass on the stories of the men inside. Their message was a call to prisoners to stand up against brutality and inhumane conditions, and for people on the outside to support their struggle.

You can read an article about the rally published at the time by the Notre Dame & St. Mary’s Observer.

PLO lawyers took the lead in the legal representation of the Attica prisoners. Following the suppression of the uprising and the killing by law enforcement of 39 guards and prisoners, the PLO lawyers were some of the first outsiders to enter the prison. They worked on several cases in which prisoners sought relief from maltreatment and abuse by guards following the riot. PLO lawyers joined with other attorneys to file a civil case for damages on behalf of the prisoners and against the state correctional system. This case continued for years, and eventually resulted in a settlement for the prisoners of $12 million.

On October 14th, last year, Loyola NLG, the Uptown People’s Law Center, and People’s Law Office hosted a panel/discussion about Attica and the prison strike of Summer 2016.

https://nlgchicago.org/blog/loyola-nlg-the-attica-prison-rebellion-its-legacy-and-the-prison-struggle-today/

For our 80th Anniversary, show your support for the Guild by buying a ticket and becoming a sponsor!

 

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NLG Chicago Condemns Trump Decision to Terminate DACA

The National Lawyers’ Guild of Chicago stands with all immigrants and for immigrant rights.

We stand in solidarity with over 800,000 DACA recipients in the United States in calling for the Trump administration and our congress to withdraw all threats to remove the current protections afforded these young people and instead to move forward in developing an immediate path to citizenship for these Americans. Under the current “phase out” of the DACA protections, anyone whose status expires by March 5, 2018, has until October 5, 2017 to apply for a new permit. This means that almost a quarter of all DACA recipients must reapply.

As lawsuits across the US have stated, including the one joined by the Illinois Attorney General filed on September 7, 2017, the DACA phase-out demonstrates a racial animus. It violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution as well as the Due Process Clause. Devoid of any attempt to create a better and more sustainable way forward for all DACA recipients, the phase-out puts hundreds of thousands of people in danger. This action yet again demonstrates the structural racism and pervasive inequality that dehumanizes, threatens, and degrades members of our community. This inhumane, racist, and illegal action is just one in a long line of recent actions by the administration against immigrants. As movement lawyers, we cannot and will not watch these actions tear apart our communities.

Due to the impossible timeline and obscene expense placed on thousands of DACA recipients to renew their DACA card in the coming weeks, the NLG urges our membership to act now. Please consider volunteering with The Resurrection Project, the National Immigrant Justice Center, or the ICIRR, or donating to You Caring –  an organization that helps people pay the $495 filing fee required by the US government.

Finally, NLG urges you to consider joining the NLG Legal Observers. Our Legal Observers, by documenting arrests made at protests, support those protesting this administration’s ongoing war on marginalized communities.

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NLG Mobilizes Legal Support as St. Louis Police Make Brutal Mass Arrests Following Stockley Acquittal

September 21, 2017

Contact: King Downing, Mass Defense Director
massdef@nlg.org

Tasha Moro, Communications Director
communications@nlg.org | 212-679-5100, ext. 15

ST. LOUIS—The NLG is on the ground in St. Louis, MO coordinating legal support following thousands-strong protests that have emerged since the Friday acquittal of former St. Louis Metropolitan Police (STLMPD) Officer Jason Stockley, in the 2011 murder of Anthony Lamar Smith. Using tactics reminiscent of Ferguson, STLMPD have arrested at least 170 people— including protesters, three Legal Observers, journalists, and bystanders—since demonstrations began Friday. A few have been released on their own recognizance, and a number are being charged with felonies. The St. Louis NLG Chapter has been leading legal support efforts, operating a legal support hotline and St. Louis Legal Fund, and providing Legal Observers and defense attorneys with the help of ArchCity Defenders and ACLU of Missouri.

The community is charging that STLMPD violated protesters’ rights—arresting people en masse without probable cause—and used excessive force during arrests, with indiscriminate and inappropriate use of tear gas and chemical projectiles.

“These arrests were more like a general ‘sweep the streets’ action than arrests for criminal violations,” said Steven Hoffmann, member of the St. Louis NLG Chapter. “Law enforcement is being carried out in a way that doesn’t protect public safety, but endangers it.”

“The police took people trying to get into their houses, tourists, people out with their children, knocking people off their bicycles, reporters, Legal Observers,” said Kat “Mama Kat” Daniels, a classically trained chef who has been cooking for and feeding protesters. “Thank you, Metropolitan Police Department—what you did was gain us more support. The people are now seeing what we’ve been saying for a long time.”

Disturbing footage of STLMPD tactics immediately circulated on social media. On Friday, police trampled an elderly woman who had been attempting to disperse before arresting her for “interference.” Sundaynight, STLMPD “kettled”—a tactic in which law enforcement encircles a large group before arresting them for failure to disperse—about 100 people, while attacking them with chemical weapons. Shortly thereafter, a group of police chanted, “Whose streets? Our streets!” in a chilling display of intimidation.

This brutal treatment of anti-racist protesters by law enforcement in St. Louis stands in stark contrast to the laissez-faire attitude of Charlottesville PD toward armed, white supremacist demonstrators during the deadly “Unite the Right” rally last month. Such hypocrisy that casts doubt over the violent intentions of the white supremacist far right, while criminalizing and demonizing the anti-racists who resist them, fuels the toxic “many sides” myth championed by President Trump and his following. Even evidence as blatant as Stockley’s declaration that he was “going to kill this mother****r” before the shooting was not enough to convince Judge Timothy Wilson of the officer’s intent to kill. It is this systemic racism that permeates our institutions and routinely fails people of color like Anthony Lamar Smith.

The National Lawyers Guild was formed in 1937 as the nation’s first racially integrated bar association to advocate for the protection of constitutional, human and civil rights.

Photo: Anthony Lamar Smith with his daughter in a family photo.

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Continuing the Fight Against White Supremacy After Charlottesville

August 14, 2017

Contact: Pooja Gehi, Executive Director
212-679-5100,ext. 11 | director@nlg.org

or Tasha Moro, Communications Director
212-679-5100, ext. 15 | communications@nlg.org

NEW YORK—The National Lawyers Guild (NLG), founded in 1937 as the first racially-integrated, human rights bar association, is committed to ending white supremacy in all its forms.  Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Heather Heyer, who was murdered was while standing up to racism and fascism, as well as the 19 additional counter-protesters injured at the “Unite the Right Free Speech Rally” in Charlottesville, VA this weekend.

Primarily through local NLG chapters, the NLG provides mass defense legal support for anti-racist community organizers participating in protest actions and other demonstrations.  In Charlottesville, this support included:

As an organization committed to human rights, the NLG categorically refuses to provide legal support to white supremacists or other hate groups.

“The Charlottesville community experienced multiple waves of horror this weekend. NLG trained Legal Observers were on the ground watching as those who terrorized our community by fulfilling their promises to enact violence. Our hearts our broken but our chapter is united and resolute in our determination to provide legal support to organizers who will continue to protect Charlottesville,” said Andrew Mahler, NLG Central VA Chapter Chair.

While the hateful rhetoric and policies of President Donald Trump and his administration have emboldened racists to assert their “right” to hate speech and violence, the United States was founded in white supremacy—it is nothing new. It is in the spirit of dismantling this oppression that we move forward in the struggle to liberate our institutions, society, and culture.

Photo: NLG Legal Observers in Charlottesville, VA, August 12, 2017.

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Oscar Lopez Rivera is Free

I have come home with my head high, and my honor, my dignity and my spirit stronger than the day I was sent to prison

– Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Oscar López Rivera

On May 17, after almost 36 years in U.S. custody for his commitment to the independence and self-determination of Puerto Rico, Oscar López Rivera walked in to the waiting arms of the Puerto Rican people, his sentence commuted in the last days of Barack Obama’s presidency. Greeted with an early morning serenade by the chorus of the University of Puerto Rico, flowers, embraces, tears and media from all over the world, Oscar emerged with a message of unity, grateful for the consensus that resulted in the presidential commutation of his sentence.

Thousands of cheering people of all ages packed the plaza in San Juan to welcome him home. As the country’s finest musicians performed a concert in his honor, families passed their small children over and through the crowd, so they could be photographed with Oscar. His message was firm and loving: We must act together to save Puerto Rico from the U.S. imposed “junta” [Fiscal Control Board] which is ravaging our country; We must support the students whose strike at the University of Puerto Rico has galvanized the movement to stop the draconian economic measures being imposed on the island and to focus on the necessity to decolonize our country.

Oscar is perhaps the most recognized Puerto Rican on the island. When he walks down the street, traffic stops, as people jump out of their cars, rush to his side to hug him, thank him, and take a selfie. When he eats in a restaurant, the wait staff, the chef, the patrons, all embrace him and take a selfie.

Each day of freedom has led him to another welcome event, from the Ecumenical Coalition where he was embraced by the Archbishop of San Juan and bishops from several denominations, to the 36 Women for Oscar who for four years had demonstrated the last Sunday of every month, to the striking UPR students, to the pro-statehood mayor of San Sebastián’s reception in his hometown, to the pro-commonwealth mayor of San Juan’s sponsorship of his art exhibit in the city’s art gallery.

His travels have taken him to Chicago’s Puerto Rican community, the Bay Area, and New York City, Holyoke and Springfield, MA, and Bridgeport, CT where he has been regaled by civic and community leaders, with cultural presentations, and with much love. In New York City, in addition to leading the National Puerto Rican Day Parade, he was honored by the United Nations Decolonization Committee, where, during its annual hearings on Puerto Rico he received standing ovations. He told the Committee:

I have spent five decades serving what I believe is the most just and noble cause any Puerto Rican citizen can serve. Doing it has been an act of love and fulfilling my duty as a citizen. And because I believe that when one serves a just and noble cause, it is never a sacrifice, even if it means giving one’s life doing it. I say this to let people know that for me, serving a just and noble cause has been the most liberating experience I have had, and that in spite of all the horrible things done to me during the years I spent in prison, I have come home with my head high, and my honor, my dignity and my spirit stronger than the day I was sent to prison.

During his trips to Chicago, his home for many years, among the many activities he took part in, he spoke at the honorary naming of Oscar López Rivera Way in Humboldt Park and at a diverse welcome home celebration; he was grand marshal of the Puerto Rican Day Parade; and he led a walking tour of institutions in the Puerto Rican community which he helped found more than 40 years ago, which continue to thrive and offer much needed services to the community.

His travels will take him to the 2017 NLG #Law4thePeople Convention in Washington, D.C. this August, where he will receive the Arthur Kinoy Award and speak on a panel about political prisoners.

Come celebrate with the NLG’s Puerto Rico Subcommittee, which has for years held the Guild’s laboring oar advocating for his release and the noble cause which led to his imprisonment – the independence and self-determination of Puerto Rico, sponsoring resolutions, workshops and panels – even the NLG’s 2013 convention on the island! Join us in celebrating Oscar this summer: this is an opportunity you won’t want to miss!

Written by Jan Susler

Some more info on Oscar Lopez Rivera’s ongoing work:

Oscar López Rivera’s Tour Through Puerto Rican Community In Chicago Following His Release From Prison

Ecumenical group hosts welcome at Puerto Rico church for freed prisoner

Special Commitee Approves Text Calling on United States to Expedite Puerto Rico’s Self-Determination Process, Welcomes Release of Long-Time Independence Activist

Oscar Lopez Rivera Urges UN to Put an End to US Colonialism in Puerto Rico

Here’s the full video of Oscar Lopez Rivera’s Hearing at the UN Special Committee on Decolonization:

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The Case of Palestinian Community Leader Rasmea Odeh

After a three year fight to oppose a politically motivated federal indictment charging her with failing to disclose her 1969 arrest and imprisonment by Israeli military authorities in her naturalization citizenship application,  Rasmea Odeh plead guilty, in return for no time in prison or immigration custody. As a result, following her sentencing on August 17th, she will lose her citizenship and be required to leave her adopted home and beloved community.

Rasmea’s story, like most other Palestinians, is one of dispossession and repression. She was born in 1947 in Lifta, a Palestinian village outside Jerusalem. In 1948, as a result of Israeli aggression and “ethnic cleansing,” Rasmea and her family, along with 750,000 other Palestinians, were forced out of their homes by Zionist militias. The Odeh’s lost their home and all their possessions.

The family resettled on the West Bank of the Jordan River, then under the control of Jordan, when in 1967 the Israeli Army invaded and began its military occupation which continues to this day. Hundreds were arrested resisting the Occupation, and many were tortured and forced to sign false confessions. Rasmea, a college student, who was refused permission to return to school in Lebanon, was arrested in 1969. While in Israeli custody, she confessed to involvement in two bombings after she was tortured: sleep deprivation, beatings, sexual assault, rape and electro-shock.  Following her arrest, her parents’ West Bank home was demolished – a form of collective punishment that continues – and an Israeli military tribunal sentenced her to life in prison. Ten years later, Rasmea and other Palestinian woman prisoners were released in a prisoner exchange.

After living and working on behalf of refugees in Jordan, Rasmea came to the U.S. in 1995 to take care of her ailing father, and then relocated to Chicago in 2004, after obtaining her naturalized citizenship. In Chicago she joined the Arab-American Action Network (AAAN) where she founded a project supporting women’s empowerment, the Arab Women’s Committee.  Her work has become the model for other Arab women’s organizations across the country and she has received many awards recognizing her as an inspirational community leader.

Despite the final outcome, Rasmea’s legal fight raised important issues of Israeli torture and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused to Palestinian detainees, the kangaroo Israeli military courts, and how the government targeted Rasmea because of Palestine solidarity work.   Hundreds of supporters filled her court hearings and many more were educated about the Palestinian fight for justice.  We will miss Rasmea, but are confident wherever she is; she will be a strong voice for the human rights of the Palestinian people.

Written by Michael Deutsch and Jim Fennerty

Contact

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Chicago, IL 60605

chicago[@]nlg.org