Stand with the Prairieland 19!
Free All Politica Prisoners button, 1970
Marxist Unity Group stands in unwavering solidarity with all people resisting United States’ fascism, including the Prairieland defendants recently convicted in Texas.
Last week, a federal jury found nine protestors guilty of various charges in connection with a July 4th noise demonstration outside of an ICE detention near Dallas. This facility imprisons hundreds of detainees, including, until this week, Palestinian protestor Leqaa Kordia. Eight of the nine defendants were convicted on material support for terrorism for wearing black to the protest – they face up to 15 years in prison for this alone. This is the first time the federal government has used this charge against ‘antifa’ members. One of the nine defendants wasn’t even there, but was still convicted for moving a box of radical zines after the protest. Like the Stop Cop City RICO defendants before them, these protestors face decades in jail for their beliefs and First Amendment protected activities. From Georgia to Texas, state and federal officials are using escalating charges to choke out dissent.
Though the legal precedent created by Prairieland represents a new fetter on political freedom, the method of their punishment is familiar. They will enter a system of incarceration that the United States has long deployed against colonized people and working class people resisting capitalism’s warfare. They join generations of political prisoners like Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier held prisoner for resisting national oppression. The state’s strategy is to isolate political prisoners from their communities and the broader Left, creating the illusion that our cooperation will buy safety. Our response must be to shine light not just on the Prairieland 19, but on every prisoner of the American empire. The release of Columbia University Palestinian solidarity protesters Mahmoud Khalil and Leqaa Kordia, just like the release of the Panther 21 in New York City decades before, or the dropping of all charges against the J20 Defendants, proves that political struggle can outmaneuver state repression. Describing the experience of political prisoners from the New Left, Ashanti Alston once said:
They know it’s tough, because what goes on in the prison is a microcosm of what goes on out there. It’s a microcosm. They just want us to remember them. They want to be free. They would love to be free. But we know on the outside, and they know too from the Panther days in the ‘60s, that power is really with the people. It’s with the people.
Incarceration has a direct impact on our movement. The Prairieland defendants were largely convicted for activities—attending protests, carrying left-wing zines, wearing black—that could lead to the arrest of anyone on the Left. Our movement depends on the right to assembly and speech. If attending a protest means risking decades of confinement, so, too, does membership of a party fighting to remake the world. If a comrade can be arrested for wearing black, we can be arrested for wearing red. The fight to release the Prairieland prisoners, along with all people incarcerated by the criminal US empire, is our fight.
Every life is a universe--it is impossible for us to ever know what these defendants would be able to do if they were able to live free lives, free lives that have been taken from them and their communities. Every comrade the state throws into prison makes all of us less free. Marxist Unity Group supports the Prairieland Defendants and calls for the freedom of all political prisoners.
Please support the Prairieland Defendants at https://prairielanddefendants.com, and please support the family of Maricela at this gofundme.
