Oak Lawn, IL – Hadi Abuatelah is a 17-year-old Palestinian youth in Oak Lawn, Illinois. On Thursday, July 28, a cell phone video taken by a Black woman captured the savage beating of Hadi by three white police officers. The video went viral, and the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) immediately called for a protest.

300 Arab community members and their supporters held a militant rally in front of the Village of Oak Lawn Police Department (OLPD) building that afternoon. OLPD responded by brandishing assault rifles and deploying rooftop snipers to intimidate the protestors.

Hadi suffered serious injuries from the attack and spent the next five days in the hospital. Chief of Police Daniel Vittorio defended the actions of the three racist officers. He even went on to add that they would have been justified in using “deadly force.” Later on, the Village of Oak Lawn doubled down its support of their officers by saying “compliance with, and respect to law enforcement is the only way we will stop these incidents.”

In the following days of the protests, and while working with the family, AAAN organized a call-in campaign asking Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to file charges against the officers who assaulted Hadi and violated his civil rights. Calls were also made to Vittorio to fire the officers.

On Tuesday, August 2, Hadi was released from the Juvenile Detention Center to his family. He came out using a walker because of the injuries he sustained from the assault by OLPD.

Waiting for Hadi to be released, Muhammad Sankari of AAAN said, “Oak Lawn police could have done the right thing and released Hadi into the custody of his parents yesterday. Instead, they decided to punish him further by transferring into the Juvenile Detention Center overnight. They're trying to punish Hadi for the audacity of standing up. We’re here to support Hadi, his family, and all the youth in our community, and we're not going to take this anymore.”

Standing alongside Hadi, his parents, and the family attorney were Frank Chapman, of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and Bishop Tavis Grant of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

#OakLawnIL #PoliceBrutality #ArabAmericanActionNetwork

Chicago, IL – On Sept. 26, the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), a grassroots community organizing and social services institution based in southwest Chicagoland, filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI to force them to release records about a secretive and controversial federal initiative called Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), and how it has spread to Illinois. The CVE initiative is a collection of federal programs and grants, allegedly designed to prevent homegrown terrorism by identifying potentially ‘radicalized’ people in local communities.

“We're very concerned about the intrusion of federal law enforcement into our local neighborhoods through this highly criticized program,” said Muhammad Sankari, lead organizer of the AAAN. “The people of Chicago need to know how and why the federal government funds police departments and community organizations to spy on our neighborhoods, using the very people we should trust: teachers, therapists and religious leaders. The public needs to know what these programs are, how they work, and what information the government keeps about our community members, particularly young men, people of color, and Arabs and Muslims.”

“Every major civil liberties group in the country has raised the alarm about CVE,” said Mary Zerkel of the American Friends Service Committee, “but the program has only grown and spread. Now that it's here in Chicagoland, the government needs to provide the public with records that show what it's doing here and why.”

Hanan Van Dril, one of the attorneys who filed the suit on behalf of AAAN, notes that “the CVE program involves both funding – about $187,000 from the Department of Homeland Security to a state agency called the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority – and other activities coordinated by the FBI and the DOJ.” She added, “But we know next to nothing about the development and implementation of these programs. And, these federal agencies have simply failed to turn over records.”

Those who study national security issues have concluded that initiatives like CVE have no basis in science. Nicole Nguyen, an assistant professor who studies CVE at the University of Illinois at Chicago's College of Education, states, “There is no evidence that CVE, or any other similar program, can reliably identify who might be vulnerable to terrorist radicalization. And that's because there is simply no profile, pattern, or set of indicators by which at-risk individuals can be identified. For that reason alone, these CVE grants are a waste of federal tax dollars; but they're also dangerous, because they can lead to racial and religious profiling and other abuses of civil liberties.”

“The first step is for DHS, DOJ, and the FBI to give us the records we've asked for so we can show the public what's going on here,” said Hatem Abudayyeh, executive director of the AAAN. “And the next step is for the federal government to shut this program down, because we're confident that by shedding light on these programs, it will be apparent that CVE is a domestic spy operation in Chicago's backyards.”

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #ArabAmericanActionNetwork #PoliticalRepression #AAANChicago #CounteringViolentExtremism

Fight Back! interviewed Bassem Kawar, national coordinator of the Campaign to TAKE ON HATE, a project of the National Network for Arab American Communities.

Fight Back!: A year ago, a Republican elected official in a heavily Arab area of Chicago’s suburbs insulted Arabs and Muslims, and an uproar has continued in that community. Who is this Republican? What were the racist statements that caused this uproar?

Bassem Kawar : Sharon Brannigan is a Palos Township trustee, and a former representative on the Cook County Commission on Women’s Issues. She was forced to resign from this commission two months into our campaign.

The comments that surfaced a year ago included unfounded allegations that the schools in the township are filled with undocumented students of Middle Eastern origin, a dangerous statement in this country today, when undocumented families are under attack, and while anti-immigrant biases and racism are the norm of Trump’s domestic policies. Her comments went so far as to assert that women who wear the hijab are “undignified,” which she wrote when Melania Trump visited Saudi Arabia without wearing the headscarf.

And Brannigan also tried to make political gains during her run for U.S. Congress against the conservative Democrat Dan Lipinski, by making racist and fear-mongering accusations that Arab and Muslim community members “keep themselves and their activities hidden from the general population.”

Fight Back!: How has the Arab community responded?

Kawar: We immediately convened a meeting that included community-based organizations, Arab community members, and other residents, and went right to work. Our first response was to call for her resignation, but we knew we had to also build a sustained campaign.

The Campaign to TAKE ON HATE, along with its partners at the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) and Family Services, led the newly built coalition, which began its organizing by administering a petition calling for the resignation, visiting local mayors to demand that they commit to inclusivity in their villages, and canvassing dozens of homes and over 100 businesses in the township.

The campaign we are running, and the platform we are creating, is turning traditional electoral politics on its head. We were very intentional in providing an inclusive platform to engage youth, undocumented immigrants, and other non-citizens in our campaign, by calling for the removal of an elected official from office vs. calling for the election of an alternative candidate. TAKE ON HATE trained over 50 volunteers in door knocking, canvassing and phone banking – community organizing hard skills that we believe are essential in continuing the base and movement building necessary to challenge white supremacy in the era of Trump.

We believe that the only way to defeat white supremacy and racism is by confronting the racists, and we have demonstrated this by rallying at and protesting every single township meeting in the last year and by picketing in front of Brannigan’s flower shop on Mother’s Day weekend. Our efforts have been led by the community and will continue to be led by the community until we win the resignation and real accountability from the Palos Township.

Fight Back!: What are the objectives of the movement?

Kawar: The movement is demanding the immediate resignation of Brannigan, a call that we believe will deliver a material and tangible blow to the right wing and white supremacists. We are localizing the struggle against white supremacy, as well as sustaining our community’s organizing momentum from the protests of the first Muslim Ban, the airport shutdowns, and the one-day bodega strike led by Yemeni women in New York.

Fight Back!: What has been Sharon Brannigan response, and the response of the Republicans in Palos Township?

Kawar: Brannigan’s response has been the traditional response of racists. She immediately hid behind the First Amendment, claiming that she had the “right to free speech.” We believe in free speech, of course, but completely reject the notion that racists should be allowed platforms for spewing hate against our or any other community.

Then, just a few months after the persistent pressure from our campaign, she issued a phony apology that did not address the racism and hate speech, but instead claimed that her words were “poorly crafted” and her feelings were “inadequately expressed.”

We rejected this ‘apology’ because it was insincere; a case of too little, too late; and clearly an example of political expediency. We had asked for it months before, and she refused to budge. So she decides to apologize months later, just to try and salvage her political career? No, that’s not acceptable.

The Republicans in the township, including the top dog, Cook County Commissioner Sean Morrison, have either supported Brannigan, or remained silent on the issue. We do not expect anything else from them, but did organize a call-in week to demand Morrison to speak out.

Fight Back!: Are there incidents like this in other parts of the country?

Kawar: Not exactly with the same level of organizing and community mobilization, but there was a post-Trump election incident in Kalkaska, Michigan, where the mayor called for the killing of “every last Muslim” on his social media.

Keep in mind that, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “the number of hate groups [in 2017] rose to 954 from 917 the prior year, up 4%. Within the white supremacist movement, neo-Nazi groups saw the greatest growth – soaring by 22% from 99 to 121. Anti-Muslim groups also rose for a third straight year. After tripling from 2015 to 2016, they grew by another 13%, from 101 chapters to 114 in 2017. Anti-immigrant groups also leapt, from 14 to 22 in 2017.”

This is the alarming reality of where we are, and where we are still headed, in Trump’s United States.

Fight Back!: What are the lessons of this?

Kawar: The main lesson is that racism and white supremacy must be confronted head on. We know what it looks like, and we know what it sounds like, so we cannot allow it to continue to infect U.S. society. This is why we challenge Brannigan directly and call on others to do the same when their elected officials, media personalities, or other public figures spew racist hate.

And to defeat this racism and Trump overall, we must continue to build our alliances with the most affected and impacted communities (Black, Latinx, Native American, Asian, women, workers, LGBTQIA, and other oppressed people), and together establish platforms that will advance our political understanding and activism in the broader social justice movement in the U.S.

#ChicagoIL #PoliceBrutality #ArabAmericanActionNetwork #Racism #Antiracism #TakeOnHate

Palos Hills, IL – On Sept. 11, hundreds of community members protested outside the Palos Township Board of Trustees meeting for the third month in a row to demand the resignation of racist trustee Sharon Brannigan. The protest was organized by Take On Hate, alongside local Chicagoland partners.

Brannigan has made several posts on social media demonizing the growing population of Arabs and Muslims in the southwest suburbs, most recently vilifying Middle Eastern students. Palos Township has one of the largest Arab populations in the state of Illinois, encompassing all or portions of Bridgeview, Hickory Hills, Orland Park, Palos Hills, Worth and Willow Springs.

After rallying outside, residents packed the township board room and exterior hallway spilling into the outdoor parking lot. More than a dozen community members spoke out against Brannigan and the board members, who many said they viewed as complicit for not pressuring their colleague to resign.

A non-resident who had signs that read “No ISIS in Palos”, “Illegal alien invaders out of our schools”, and “Brannigan stays” attempted to speak, but was forced to leave by residents who chanted for the racist get out.

Township Supervisor Colleen Schumann adjourned the meeting, in a failed attempt to quell the residents’ outrage. Community members followed Brannigan outside, chanting that she should resign. Brannigan, refusing to address any of her mostly Arab constituents, quickly ran to her car without as much as bothering to turn around.

Bassem Kawar of Take On Hate and the Arab American Action Network told Fight Back!, “We will continue mobilizing community members for every township meeting until Brannigan resigns, and have saturated the southwest suburbs with literature condemning Brannigan’s racist attacks.”

Take On Hate is asking all community members and supporters to continuously call the Palos Township office at 708-598-4418 and demand Brannigan’s immediate resignation. Sign the #ResignBrannigan petition here: bit.ly/ResignBrannigan

#PalosHillsIL #ArabAmericanActionNetwork #Antiracism #PalosTownship #SharonBrannigan #ResignBrannigan #TakeOnHate

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following Oct. 23 statement from the Arab American Action Network. We urge all our readers to participate in the national call in day.

Statement from the Arab American Action Network

The Arab American Action Network (AAAN) condemns the politically-motivated arrest and indictment of Rasmea Yousef Odeh, our beloved Associate Director. The sixty-five year old was arrested at her home yesterday by agents from the Department of Homeland Security, alleging an immigration violation on a 20-year-old application. Rasmea, who has made it her life's work to serve and help empower Palestinian and Arab families, is the victim of another witch-hunt by our federal law enforcement agencies, which continue to violate the civil rights of Arabs and Muslims with impunity, particularly those who are critical of U.S. support for Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people.

Rasmea is a leading member of Chicago's Arab and Muslim communities, and her decade of service here has changed the lives of thousands of people, particularly disenfranchised Arab women and their families. She has been with the AAAN since 2004, and as Associate Director, is responsible for the management of day-to-day operations and the coordination of our Arab Women's Committee, which has a membership of close to 600 and leads our work in the areas of defending civil liberties and immigrant rights. She is a mentor to hundreds of immigrant women, as well as many members of our staff and board, and is a well-known and respected organizer throughout Chicagoland, the U.S., and the world.

Earlier this year, Rasmea received the “Outstanding Community Leader Award” from the Chicago Cultural Alliance, which described her as a woman who has “dedicated over 40 years of her life to the empowerment of Arab women, first in her homes of Palestine, Jordan, and Lebanon, where she was an activist and practicing attorney, and then the past 10 years in Chicago.”

Rasmea is a community icon who recently completed a Master's degree in Criminal Justice from Governors State University. She overcame vicious torture by Israeli authorities while imprisoned in Palestine in the 70s, and is a proud reminder of the millions of Palestinians who have not given up organizing for their rights of liberation, equality, and return.

It is appalling that our government is now attempting to imprison her once again. We condemn this attack on our friend and colleague Rasmea, as well as the broader pattern of persecuting Arabs and Muslims who are outstanding and outspoken leaders in their communities in the U.S.

We ask all of our supporters to call Barbara McQuade, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit, at 313.226.9501 or 313.226.9100, on Friday, October 25th, from 8 AM to 4 PM CST, to demand that she Drop the Charges Now!

We will also be mobilizing to support Rasmea at her next hearing in Detroit on November 1st. Details coming soon.

And for more information, email the Coalition to Protect People's Rights at cppr@aaan.org

#ChicagoIL #Palestine #ArabAmericanActionNetwork #PoliticalRepression #AAAN #JusticeForPalestine #RasmeaOdeh

“It's the basic human right of people to go back to their homeland,” said Palestinian Legislative Council member Abdel Jawad Saleh, who spoke at the rally. “I want to tell them [world leaders] that conceding the right of return will make any future peace agreement a transitional truce.”

Terrorist gangs of Zionists, holding the racist view of a country exclusively for Jews, forced 800,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948. Many Palestinians who refused to leave were massacred, including thousands from the villages of Deir Yassin and Tantura.

Exiled Palestinians found themselves in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. One of the survivors of the massacre at Deir Yassin, Imad ad-Dean Ahmad, lamented the death of his relatives in a folk song he performed at the rally.

Sponsored by the Palestine Right of Return Coalition, the rally's date coincided with the 18th anniversary of the Israeli-supported massacre at Sabra and Shatilla, two refugee camps near Beirut, Lebanon. More than 2000 Palestinian civilians living in these camps were killed during an Israeli invasion in 1982.

Buses and caravans brought protesters from all over the U.S., including Chicago, Detroit, Boston, and New Jersey. Many more traveled by plane from as far as Oregon and California. Joining the rally in solidarity with the Palestinians were hundreds of other Arabs, North American Christians, non-Arab Muslims, and Jews.

A youth delegation of college and high school students joined adults at the demonstration. Fatimah Ismail, a 17 year-old Palestinian-American and a youth organizer with the Chicago-based Arab American Action Network, admitted that she “knew nothing of Palestinian refugees” until she took part in the Arab Youth Leadership Academy this past summer. In this academy, Ismail heard the story a young girl from Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem. This girl, Manar, who also spoke at the rally, thanked supporters, and asked to be allowed to “return to [her] father's home in Palestine.”

Although the status of Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip dominates the negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian leadership, participants at the rally insist that a comprehensive peace agreement is impossible without the right of return. “I would go back even if they put me in a cage,” an impassioned elderly man said through an interpreter.

Hatem Abudayyeh is Youth Program Director, Arab American Action Network Chicago, IL

#WashingtonDC #News #Palestine #rightOfReturn #ArabAmericanActionNetwork #MiddleEast