Fight Back! interviewed Newland Smith, a member of the Committee Against Political Repression in Chicago, the local affiliate of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression. Smith led a campaign within the national convention of the Episcopal Church to take a stand for civil liberties in the face of repression of Arabs, Muslims, Palestinians and peace activists. The convention adopted a resolution expressing concern, which will become part of the Episcopalian legislative agenda. There are 30 to 40 members of U.S. Congress who are practicing Episcopalians.

As the first national religious denomination to adopt such a resolution, this is a very important development and sends a strong message to President Obama and Attorney General Holder that opposition to political repression is spreading.

Fight Back!: You’ve been involved in the peace movement for a while. Tell us about your history.

Newland Smith: I became involved in the peace movement in the 1980s when I became an active member of the Chicago chapter of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship. One of the members was Michael Yasutake, a Japanese American Episcopal priest who was very active in a ministry to political prisoners. I also am one of the founding members of the Episcopal Diocese’s Anti-Racism team which came together in 1999 in the struggle to dismantle structures of institutional racism. And as a Deputy to the Episcopal Church’s General Convention since 1988, I have served on the National and International Affairs Legislative Committee a number of times and have entered into the debates on social justice resolutions.

Fight Back!: You are also very active in Palestine solidarity work. How did you get involved?

Smith: In 1983 I was invited to serve as a library consultant for Saint George’s College in East Jerusalem. Seven years later, during the week of events celebrating the new college building, 60 of the participants went to Gaza City to the Anglican Ahli Arab Hospital and saw wounded Palestinians being brought into that 60-bed hospital. We were shown a bullet taken from a wounded Palestinian and saw that the bullet had been made in Pennsylvania. A director of one of the NGOs in Gaza Strip charged those of us from the United States to return home and as members of a democracy work to change our country’s policy on Israel/Palestine.

Fight Back!: You presented a resolution at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church held in Indianapolis this month. Could you talk about what happened?

Smith: As a member of the Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission on Social Justice and Public Policy, I brought up the attacks on American civil liberties at the Commission’s meeting in the Fall of 2010 and a year later drafted a resolution with suggestions from several of the other members. The resolution with explanation was incorporated into the Commission’s report which appeared in the “Blue Book,” a compilation of reports with resolutions from the Commissions and Boards of the Episcopal Church for action by General Convention which meets every three years. The resolution, “American Civil Liberties,” (A079) was assigned to the National and International Affairs Legislative Committee, of which I was a member even though I was not a member of the sub-committee that worked on this resolution. As the originator of the resolution, I spoke to it at the hearing at one of the committee’s meetings. It had already been made clear to me that the Episcopal Church through its General Convention would not get into a Grand Jury proceeding. So I took the high road, i.e., attacks on American civil liberties, which was eventually heard by the subcommittee working on this resolution. The substitute resolution, which made no mention of the FBI raids on the 23 anti-war and peace activists, was approved by the Committee, was placed on the daily Consent Calendar in the House of Deputies which meant there would be no debate on the floor of that House, passed, and the next day the House of Bishops concurred. The resolution is now in the hands of the Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations, the Church’s lobbying group in Washington.

Fight Back!: What was the message of the resolution that you submitted?

Smith: The message of the original resolution was that General Convention express its concern of the use of the two acts and Supreme Court decision which allowed a federal district court to issue Grand Jury subpoenas and the chilling effect these subpoenas have on God’s call to peacemaking as well as their impact on Arab, Palestinian and Muslim communities of the United States. The resolution is to be sent to President Obama and Attorney General Holder.

Fight Back!: Did you find support from other delegates?

Smith: I had the support of the three Bishops and 10 Deputies who were members of the Standing Commission. One Deputy who is a lawyer for a legal aid organization in the South Bronx also spoke at the hearing on the resolution. But because the resolution was not debated on the floor of the House of Deputies, it is difficult to judge how much support this resolution had in the House of Deputies, although the Bishops did vote to concur with the resolution.

Fight Back!: The resolution was amended through the convention process. Could you tell us about that?

Smith: I addressed this earlier. In short, instead of citing the Grand Jury subpoenas to the 23 anti-war and peace activists, the resolution cites the use of the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the Patriot Act, and the Supreme Court decision, “Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project,” to chill God’s call to peacemaking.

Fight Back!: What lessons should people resisting repression take from your experience?

Smith: To change institutional policy, one must work through the structures of the institution. In the case of the Episcopal Church, this is the General Convention. In other words, organizing is essential. I was fortunate in that I was a long time Deputy, a member of one of the Standing Commissions and was assigned to the legislative committee that considered the resolution.

#ChicagoIL #CommitteeToStopFBIRepression #CommitteeAgainstPoliticalRepression #FightBackNews #TrinityEpiscopalChurch

“American Civil Liberties” resolution of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.

RESOLUTION

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That the 77th General Convention urge each congregation in The Episcopal Church to become a model for peacemaking in our society by encouraging its members to commit themselves to nonviolent and peaceable behavior in their relationships with others and to express concern about attacks on human rights, including attacks on the right to dissent from U.S. government policy; and be it further resolved:

That the General Convention express its concern through its Office of Government Relations that use of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the Patriot Act, and the Supreme Court decision in Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project have a chilling effect on God's call to peacemaking and unduly impact the Arab, Palestinian and Muslim communities in the United States, and be it further resolved:

That the General Convention commend Episcopal congregations for their work in interfaith bridge building, including between Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities.

EXPLANATION

American government surveillance and oppression of people who challenge United States policy has a long history, including FBI surveillance of civil rights movement leaders: Martin Luther King, Jr., in particular, and Puerto Rican independence advocates. Anthony D. Prince wrote in The People’s Tribune, “ the harassment intensified after King publically condemned the war in Vietnam, denouncing the U.S. involvement as irreconcilable with economic and social justice for American’s poor…his assassination came on the heels of an internal FBI report that labeled King a ‘direct threat to American security.’” The FBI’s surveillance program, which became known as COINTELPRO, targeted not only Martin Luther King, Jr. but also the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement and many other individuals and organizations.

Since September 11, 2001, the Bush and Obama administrations have brought Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim activists before Grand Juries, including Dr. Abdelhaleem Ashqar, Dr. Sami al- Arian, and Ghassan Elashi of the Holy Land Foundation. Most recently on September 23, 2011, ten Muslim students who had been arrested for protesting Ambassador Michael Oren’s February 8, 2010 speech at the University of California at Irvine, were found guilty of misdemeanor charges and were sentenced to 56 hours of community service and three years’ probation, to be reduced to one year after the completion of the community service. In late July 2011, FBI training material that contained bigoted and inflammatory views on Muslims came to light.

In the fall of 2010, twenty-three anti-war and peace activists, including Colombian and Palestinian solidarity workers, have been subpoenaed by the FBI as part of what the United States government is calling an investigation into “material support” for groups the United States Department of State has declared “foreign terrorist organizations.”

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 created this new category of prohibited activity, namely “material support.” Five years later, as one result of September 11, Congress approved the USA Patriot Act, which broadened the provisions of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. Then in June 2010 the Supreme Court’s decision, “Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project,” according to the

Center for Constitutional Rights “marks the first time that the Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment permits Congress to make pure speech advocating lawful, non-violent activity-human rights advocacy and peacemaking a crime.” In summary, the Center for Constitutional Rights contends that “these material support provisions violate the First Amendment as they criminalize activities like distribution of literature, engaging in political advocacy, participating in peace conferences, training in human rights advocacy, and donating cash and humanitarian assistance, even when this type of support is intended only to promote lawful and non-violent activities.” (1) In early October 2010, seventeen organizations and ninety-six individuals signed the “Chicago Faith Community Statement on FBI Raids and Grand Jury.” It reads in part:

“We are people of faith and conscience who condemn the recent FBI raids in Chicago as a violation of the Constitutional rights of the people and organizations raided. They are a dangerous step to further criminalize dissent. The FBI raids chisel away and bypass fundamental Constitutional rights by hauling activists before grand juries under the guise of national security. An overly broad definition of “material support for terrorism” in the June 2010 US Supreme Court ruling concerns us as people of faith who continue to be actively engaged in humanitarian work and peacemaking…we believe that peacemaking is a sacred commandment…we refuse to remain silent in the face of the latest efforts of the FBI to chill dissent against war by invading homes of peace activists and calling a grand jury with sweeping powers to manufacture fear. We denounce the use of fear and the far-reaching labeling of critical dissent as “terrorism” that tramples on not only our right, but our duty to dissent as people called to a moral standard of justice for all.”

For the original document see www.generalconvention.org/resolutions/download/146-1342045299

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The church, located at 125 E 26th Street, is the closest congregation to McCormick Place – literally in the shadow of the NATO summit.

Trinity Episcopal has invited protesters arriving from outside Chicago to camp on their lawn during the weekend of May 19-21. One group of cyclists (grassroutescaravan.org) that will be arriving from Madison, Wisconsin, on the evening of May 19 will be the first group to take them up on the offer.

To prepare the neighbors for the sight of protesters sleeping in tents on the lawn of the church, the congregation will co-host a town hall meeting with the Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANG8) on May 3, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Newland Smith, organizer for CANG8’s Interfaith Committee and an Episcopalian activist, said, “The stand taken by Reverend Narain and the leadership at Trinity is an inspiration. This is the response to the expression of First Amendment rights we would expect of our elected representatives, instead of threats to re-open Joliet Prison.”

Speakers at the town hall meeting will include Father Bob Bossie, 8th Day Center for Justice; Mary Dean, Voices for Creative Non-Violence, who spent part of last year in Afghanistan; Margaret Jackson, American Friends Service Committee and Rabbi Brant Rosen of the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston. National Nurses United and the Iraq Veterans Against the War will also have spokespersons present.

Joe Iosbaker of CANG8 praised the congregation. “More and more people are turning against the war in Afghanistan and will march in their thousands and tens of thousands to bring an end to it. We expect more churches will follow the lead of Trinity Episcopal.”

#ChicagoIL #AntiwarMovement #CANG8 #ChicagoNATOSummit #TrinityEpiscopalChurch