All out for November 29th federal court hearing – most important of the case – in Detroit! If you're not in the Midwest and can't make it to Detroit, organize a solidarity event in your city!

WHEN: Tuesday, November 29th, 2016, at 2 PM EST

(rally at 2 PM, hearing starts at 3 PM)

WHERE: U.S. District Court, 231 W. Lafayette Blvd., downtown Detroit, Michigan

Facebook event

The Rasmea Defense Committee is calling on everyone to mobilize for Detroit on November 29th, and tell us here that you're attending or if you need a ride or if you can provide transportation!

Supporters from Chicago and other parts of Illinois, Milwaukee, Detroit / Dearborn, Grand Rapids, Minneapolis / St. Paul, Cincinnati, Indiana, and other Midwest areas are already committed to attend.

In addition, NY is organizing a solidarity action on November 28th, Harvard Law School is discussing the case on November 11th, and others in Florida, Texas, and California are planning actions as well.

If you are NOT in the Midwest, we are calling on you to also organize support events for Rasmea on or around November 29th. Again, it is the most important hearing in the case, and it also falls on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, so there may already be Palestine support forces near you that are organizing events we can join with Rasmea's story.

Let us know once it's scheduled, by emailing info@stopfbi.net.

And continue to support #Justice4Rasmea by donating to the defense, and staying in touch through justice4rasmea.org and justice4rasmea@uspcn.org.

Background:

On Tuesday, November 29th, 2016, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Rasmea Odeh will once again be in a Detroit courtroom—this time for the most important hearing in her case to date—before Judge Gershwin Drain. This Daubert hearing will, in all likelihood, have two mental health experts from each of the prosecution and defense sides testify before the judge, and then he will hear legal arguments as to whether the testimony of Dr. Mary Fabri—the clinical psychologist from the world-renowned Kovler Center for the Treatment of Survivors of Torture, who diagnosed Rasmea's Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)—is scientifically valid and applicable to the facts of the case.

Recall that before the 2014 trial, Dr. Fabri, who has worked with torture survivors for over 25 years, was prepared to testify as to how Rasmea’s PTSD, caused by the torture and rape she experienced at the hands of Israeli military interrogators in 1969, affected her answers to questions on complex immigration forms decades later in the U.S.

Judge Drain originally ruled her testimony irrelevant and inadmissible, which led to Rasmea’s unjust conviction; but earlier this year, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that he had erred, and sent the case back to him for the Daubert hearing.

Recently, Rasmea was subjected to 17 hours of mental examination by a government expert. Her defense had argued strongly to oppose this questioning prior to the November 29th hearing, but Judge Drain still allowed it. Even though the government continues to try to challenge Rasmea’s story, and claim that she does not have PTSD and did not get brutalized by the Israeli authorities in the 1960s and 70s, Rasmea remains steadfast and strong, and will continue to exercise her constitutional right to assert a meaningful defense.

Rasmea and her lawyers are confident that the results of this hearing will lead to a new trial sometime in early 2017, in which Dr. Fabri will testify before a jury, and the details of Israel's torture and crimes against Rasmea will be heard. But if Judge Drain rules against her on November 29th, we will again appeal the decision.

That is why we are mobilizing heavy for this hearing. It is as important a moment as any we have had in the case.

From the beginning, the Rasmea Defense Committee has pointed out that the legal proceedings against Rasmea are nothing but a pretext to intimidate those who organize and struggle to realize a liberated Palestine. Demonstrations in support of her have taken place across the U.S. since her arrest in 2013, and we are again going All Out for Detroit on November 29th.

The Rasmea Defense Committee is led by the U.S. Palestinian Community Network and the Committee to Stop FBI Repression

November 3rd, 2016

#DetroitMI #AntiwarMovement #Palestine #PeoplesStruggles #politicalRepression #RasmeaOdeh #Missouri

Minneapolis, MN – About 150 people gathered, Aug. 21 on Minneapolis’s West Bank, carrying signs and banners demanding an end the U.S.-backed Israeli siege of Gaza. The demonstration also called for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel and a halt to state sponsored violence “from Ferguson to Palestine.” The rally was organized by the Minnesota Anti-War Committee.

Minneapolis has been the scene of constant protests since Israel launched its assault on Gaza, killing more than 2000 Palestinians – many of them young children.

Sophia Hansen-Day, of the Anti-War Committee, told the crowd, “We must follow the lead of Palestinians who have offered up their solidarity to protesters in Ferguson. We must demand an end to the siege of Gaza backed by the U.S. government while also demanding the immediate halt of state violence within U.S. borders. We must demand an end to U.S. funding of the Israeli military, while also demanding the demilitarization of domestic police who the Pentagon has supplied with $4.3 billion in weaponry – weaponry used to terrorize communities of color.”

Protesters were encouraged to attend a solidarity rally for Mike Brown and all victims of police brutality on Aug. 28, 6pm, at the Hennepin County Government Center, 300 S 6th Street, in Minneapolis.

#MinneapolisMN #Gaza #Palestine #PoliceBrutality #Minnesota #MichaelBrown #Ferguson #Missouri #MO #MikeBrown

Ferguson, MO – Around 150 people gathered shortly after 12 noon today, Aug. 14, in Ferguson, a suburb of Saint Louis, across the street from Ferguson Fire Station. They are preparing to march to the Ferguson Police Department, demanding “Justice for Mike Brown.” Brown, an African American 18-year-old teenager, was ruthlessly gunned down by the Ferguson Police Department on Aug. 9. So far, the Ferguson Police Department has yet to release the name of the officer who killed Brown.

#FergusonMO #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #MichaelBrown #Missouri #MO #MikeBrown

Two witnesses say that Michael had his hands up in the air when the police officer fired several shots, killing him. After murdering him, the police left his body for hours on the street, showing a total lack of respect. The next day, during a candlelight vigil, clashes broke out once again in Ferguson. The people's rebellion lasted late into the night. The police had wrongly murdered a community member and the people of Ferguson wanted justice.

The murder of Michael Brown, as well as the murder of others like Eric Garner, Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin, shows that the system of national oppression is alive and well in the U.S. The police are the day-to-day enforcers of this system and they remind us of this with every Black man they murder.

Just as one of the foundations of the U.S. economy was profits from slavery, the U.S. legal system began with a constitution that said that African Americans were only three-fifths of a person. In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that African slaves and their children have no rights in the U.S., in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford. Then in 1896, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was constitutional in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. And early last year, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, opening the door for racist local and state governments to exclude Black and Brown voters from the polls.

Even though an African American man has been elected president and there is a Black Attorney General, the law, the police and the courts are not about justice. They are there to protect the property, privilege and power of the monopoly capitalists – the richest 1% who own and control the companies and government that dominate the economy and society. They enforce the national oppression that African Americans face: the all-round, social, political and economic inequality of oppressed nationalities in the U.S.

The struggle for full equality and liberation by African Americans has been a powerful force for progress in the U.S. The sit-in by four African American college students at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter on Feb. 1, 1960 started a national movement of direct action to desegregate the South and to fight for Black political power. This movement, and the organization that arose out of it, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), was an inspiration to other oppressed nationalities, especially Asian Americans, Chicanos, Native Americans and Puerto Ricans, as well as the women’s movement, and the struggle of LGBTQ people.

Our experience has shown us that justice does not mainly come from the courts or elections. Nor does it mainly come from economic struggles, like boycotts. The fight for justice advances when the masses of working class people organize and show their power in the streets through militant mass actions such as rallies, marches, pickets, occupations, strikes, etc.

The way to get justice for Michael Brown lies through these militant mass actions. The Freedom Road Socialist Organization is calling for rallies and marches to demand justice for Michael Brown and to demand that the murderous cop be jailed. The people, not the police, are the makers of history and they will make their justice in the streets.

Stop Police Terror! Jail the Killer Cop! Justice for Michael Brown!

#FergusonMO #PeoplesStruggles #Racism #TrayvonMartin #Antiracism #MichaelBrown #Missouri #MO #PoliceBrutality #JusticeForMichaelBrown