Oakland, CA – On Friday, August 14, around 20 community members rallied at a street corner in downtown Oakland to protest another man being killed by Oakland Police Department (OPD). Jose Santos Castillo Ortega, a 43-year-old Latino man, was shot and killed by officers last month after a call by California Highway Patrol, which had pursued him from a homeless community. Very few details of the incident were revealed to the public until body camera footage was uploaded to the public records website.
The protest, called by the Oakland Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, was joined by POOR Magazine, Black Alliance for Peace, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and Community Service Organization. Some protesters held picker signs with the words “FIght against police brutality.”
Oakland, CA – On June 19, hundreds of Black Oaklanders gathered around Lake Merritt for an annual Juneteenth celebration. The National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression put out a call for a day of action to “Defend families impacted by police crimes,” which led the Oakland Alliance Against Racist and Pollical Repression to take action.
Oakland, CA – On Sunday, January 4, 60 protesters rallied in Fruitvale Plaza in response to U.S. military strikes in Caracas, Venezuela, and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Oakland Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and the Community Service Organization called the action.
Esperanza, with Community Service Organization Oakland, highlighted the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan migrants by the Trump administration last year, saying, “The U.S. government cannot claim liberation abroad while caging, persecuting and disappearing immigrants at home. If this administration truly cared about Venezuelans, it wouldn't have terminated TPS in October, leaving thousands of Venezuelans, one of our impacted communities here in the U.S., leaving them vulnerable for mass deportation to meet Trump’s deportation agenda. The U.S. intervention abroad creates displacement and meets those forced to migrate with criminalization, detention and violence.”
