Denver, CO – On Saturday, April 27, the Auraria Encampment for Palestine entered its third day. Despite police violence and the arrest of 44 protesters the day before, campers were in high spirits to continue.

The encampment is organized by Students for a Democratic Society with community support from the Colorado Palestine Coalition. Throughout the day, hundreds of students, faculty and community supporters spent time at the camp. At 1 p.m., there was a rally featuring speakers from SDS, supportive city council members, and veteran organizers from groups such as the American Indian Movement.

“When we went to the United Nations to develop an indigenous people’s presence at the UN in the 1970s and the 1980s, our greatest ally was the Palestine Liberation Organization,” said Dr. Glenn Morris, a professor at CU Denver.

Morris continued, “Those people in Boulder, those people in Colorado Springs, at DU, at Regis, there should be this on every campus – they don’t have enough cops to deal with all that!”

Then the encampment received a visit from Angela Davis, founder of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression(NAARPR) and national leader of Black liberation movement since the 1960s. “As a person who has been active in the movement to develop solidarity with Palestine since the 1960s, this is the movement we’ve all been waiting for,” said Davis to thunderous applause.

SDSers who had just been released from jail from the previous days’ arrests, returned to the camp immediately after release to speak to the crowd. By the end of the night, the encampment had grown significantly, and protesters celebrated one more night of maintaining the camp.

#DenverCO #CO #StudentMovement #SDS #AntiWarMovement #International #MiddleEast #Palestine #NAARPR #AngelaDavis #Occupy4Gaza #Feature

The organizers’ main objectives for this conference are to continue to build the struggle for police accountability as well as stand in solidarity with the movement to free political prisoners. So far over 60 organizations from Florida to California have endorsed this conference and are slated to attend. At the conference, those attending will be hearing from activists in various movements, including addresses from Angela Davis as well as Chicago community leader Frank Chapman, Field Organizer from the CAARPR. Attendees will also hear from the families of police crime survivors and Chicago police torture victim families. There will be workshops ranging from building strategies for community control of the police to the fight against racist and anti-LGBTQ violence.

It hasn’t been since the Black Lives Matter conference in Cleveland, Ohio in 2015 that have we seen a conference dedicated to gathering so many activists in the Black freedom and other movements. As of July of this year, over 487 people have been killed by police. In 2018 that number was 992 and in 2017, 987, according to the Washington Post data on police shootings. These senseless killings show the need for radical reform and why it’s important to align all progressive forces that can be united to build a national fightback against police crimes.

“We are expecting hundreds of attendees and various fighters of the Black liberation movement, labor movement, movement to free political prisoners, along with other movements fighting for democracy and civil rights, to attend the reestablishing of the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression,” said Frank Chapman of the CAARPR. “This conference will put forth a national agenda to win community control and fight for democracy in all movements.”

To register for the conference: https://naarpr.org/product/refounding-conference-registration/

#ChicagoIL #OppressedNationalities #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #PoliceBrutality #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #PoliticalPrisoners #AngelaDavis #Antiracism #PoliticalRepression #CAARPR #NAARPR

Chicago, IL – Longtime leader in the Black liberation movement and the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Frank Chapman, condemned the January 4 decision of the Alabama-based Birmingham Civil Rights Institute to abruptly cancel their plan to present Angela Davis with the Fred Shuttlesworth Award. Fred Shuttlesworth was a prominent leader in the civil rights movement.

Chapman stated, “Angela Davis and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth were dearest friends and co-leaders in the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression at the same time that I served as its executive director.”

“It is very shameful and cowardly that she is being denied an award that bears the name of Fred Shuttlesworth because she opposed the racist, Zionist regime in Israel for their continued persecution of Palestinian freedom fighter Rasmea Odeh. This particular U.S. cultural center dishonors Fred Shutlesworth, Angela Davis and our movement,” continued Chapman.

According to a statement from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, because of “Ms. Davis’ statements and public record, we concluded that she unfortunately does not meet all of the criteria on which the award is based.”

Organizations supporting the Israeli occupation of Palestine have been waging a vendetta campaign against political figures who demanded justice for veteran Palestinian American activist Rasmea Odeh. A powerful movement that brought together Palestinians and progressive people across the U.S. prevented her imprisonment on trumped-up charges, but she was deported.

#ChicagoIL #International #AntiwarMovement #InJusticeSystem #Palestine #MiddleEast #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #Israel #AngelaDavis #Antiracism #PoliticalRepression #FrankChapman #NationalAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression

Chicago, IL – Nearly 700 Chicagoans united to celebrate the coming home of over three dozen wrongfully convicted torture survivors during the People Power Weekend, hosted by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression on June 16 and 17.

On June 16, 100 community members gathered at Trinity United Church of Christ to hear powerful testimonies from police torture survivors about the horrendous abuse inflicted by Chicago Police Department officers. The following day, a crowd of 600 people returned to Trinity U.C.C. to welcome home the released torture victims and demand an all-elected Civilian Police Accountability Council in Chicago.

The Welcome Home Rally featured keynote speaker Dr. Angela Davis, former co-chairperson of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and lifelong activist and prison abolitionist. Davis spoke about the history of the Alliance, the connections between racism and violence, police crimes and the elephant in the room: capitalism. She called for the abolition of the criminal justice system because it is beyond reform. Davis also specifically mentioned the struggle for Palestinian liberation as the “model for freedom struggle to the rest of the world” and called for international solidarity to strengthen national liberation movements. She noted, “The Alliance has always worked in support of Palestine, most recently against the deportation of Rasmea Odeh.”

Davis closed out her remarks by stating despite Chicago’s “difficult stories,” the city “represents hope” and said, “the city is a great place to be if you are a radical activist.” “This is the place to be if you want to bring about change in this country.”

Other speakers included Armanda Shackleford, mother of Gerald Reed and Alliance member for nearly 20 years. Shackleford spoke about how Chicago Police detectives brutalized her son and forced him to sign a false confession, leading to his 27-year incarceration. Barbara Ransby (Resist Reimagine Rebuild Coalition), Aislinn Pulley (Black Lives Matter-Chicago), and Michael Brunson (Chicago Teachers Union) were also speakers.

The People’s Forum on Police Crimes and Torture, held on June 16, featured an 11-person panel of torture survivors and their families. Panelists included La Tanya Sublett, a woman tortured by Detective Jon Burge who was beaten to the point of miscarriage; Enrique Valdez, a torture survivor who became emotional discussing the night he was brutalized by Detective Kenneth Boudreau; and Tyrone Williams, a torture survivor who was recently held incommunicado by Judge Vincent Gaughn for speaking one word during a Jason Van Dyke hearing in March. The survivors spoke with great difficulty as they recounted their experiences with detectives using methods like electrocution and physical assault.

All of the panelists were CPAC supporters and spoke about the need for community control of the police in order to end police torture. Bertha Escamilla, the mother of police torture survivor Nick Escamilla, said, “We need to make sure something is done to these police officers. If CPAC was around when my son was tortured, none of this would have happened because they would’ve been in jail instead of our sons.”

People Power Weekend comes weeks after the Community Discussions About Civilian Oversight, five hearings held by the Public Safety Committee of the city council to discuss four pieces of police accountability legislation. CPAC dominated the discussion, receiving the most support from community members and activist at every hearing.

Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression Field Organizer Frank Chapman calls these developments historic, stating, “We must now muster new forces and harness this new energy our movement has created to storm the citadels of power and begin the liberation of our communities from the powers that be.”

#ChicagoIL #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #AngelaDavis #Antiracism #PoliticalRepression #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression

![Armanda Shackleford speaking](https://i.snap.as/MfeGwaPk.jpg “Armanda Shackleford speaking Armanda Shackleford speaking at hearing on the civilian component of the police accountability system in Chicago. She is the mother of Gerald Reed, tortured into confessing 27 years ago by members of the gang of cops under Detective Jon Burge.

(Photo by Mike Siviwe Elliott)”)

Chicago, IL – In the past two years in Chicago, over 50 cases of wrongful convictions have been thrown out of court, and most of the Black and Latino men involved have walked out of prison, or had their charges dismissed. These cases have been overturned because of the exposure of crimes by officers of the Chicago Police Department, including many cases of people’s confessions that were exacted through torture. According to attorneys involved in these cases, there are hundreds more that will be making their way through the courts in the coming years.