Free them now!

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression stands in solidarity with Northwest activists Katherine Olejnik and Matt Duran, who are currently being imprisoned for refusing to cooperate with a secret grand jury in Seattle. Leah-Lynn Plante was also unjustly jailed for refusing to testify before the grand jury and has been released.

The grand jury resistors have had their lives turned upside down. They are held in prison, separated from their friends and families, in the government’s desperate attempt to try to make them wave their Fifth Amendment rights. We applaud your silence and your refusal to testify against your fellow activists and the people’s movements.

These activists are being investigated by a secret grand jury just like the 23 Midwest anti-war and international solidarity activists. Just like in our case, the grand jury is being used as a fishing expedition to get information on political organizing and dissent. In the raids of the Northwest activists’ homes, just like in ours, the police and FBI took “evidence” of their political beliefs, like books and flyers, and are looking for evidence of who the activists organize with. Is this a grand jury to investigate anarchists? To investigate the Occupy movement? The problem with grand juries is that the prosecutor has sweeping latitude to use search warrants and subpoenas to terrorize and punish activists in order to gather information to scare people from political organizing or to target activists for investigation. We need to stand together against these repressive tactics to criminalize dissent!

We call on our supporters to take action and demand the immediate release of Katherine Olejnik and Matt Duran and that the U.S. Attorney’s office shut down the grand jury. For more information on the Northwest grand jury case go to: http://nopoliticalrepression.wordpress.com/

For more information on the Anti-War 23 go to StopFBI.net

#UnitedStates #CommitteeToStopFBIRepression #grandJury #NorthwestGrandJuryResisters #KatherineOlejnik #MattDuran #LeahLynnPlante #PacificNWGrandJuryResisters #PoliticalPrisoners