Tallahassee, FL – On December 13, members of the Tallahassee Coalition Against Trump rallied at the Florida Capitol to condemn the attacks on Palestine and Venezuela by the Trump administration.

The inaugural rally of this new coalition happened on International Human Rights Day in response to the United States and Israel’s repeated attempts to undermine sovereignty and peace in Venezuela and Palestine. The Israeli occupation of Palestine continues in Gaza and the West Bank, as Israel violates a ceasefire they never planned to uphold.

Off the coast of Venezuela, the Trump administration has illegally killed over 80 people and recently seized an oil tanker headed to Cuba, more proof of the economic terror that goes hand in hand with the U.S.’s military operations in Latin America.

Students, community organizers, and even some groups more closely aligned with the Democratic Party have joined the Tallahassee Coalition Against Trump. A member of FRSO stated that “coalition building is about finding a common enemy and using collective action to defeat that enemy, and that enemy is the capitalist system.”

A student organizer with the Students for a Democratic Society said that SDS’s fight against the genocide in Palestine is not over, saying that the link between institutions like Florida State University and Israel grow larger every day and “lobby groups, IDF training with local police, and surveillance technology with AI detection” must be stopped.

Activists around the country continue to speak out against the Trump administration's illegal attacks and violent repression of oppressed peoples inside and outside of the U.S.

#TallahasseeFL #FL #TCAT #HumanRightsDay #AntiWarMovement #ImmigrantRights

Minneapolis, MN – Human Rights Day is celebrated internationally every year on December 10. This year, activist groups from the Twin Cities gathered in the Minneapolis’s Uptown neighborhood for a protest and march to bring attention to the ongoing fight for human rights. Over 50 people attended the protest and march despite the cold weather.

Human Rights Day provides a space for local and international human rights concerns to be discussed and the demand for change shared with the community.

The program included speakers representing many areas of human rights including reproductive, native, workers, Palestinian and immigrant rights, along with climate justice, police accountability and the right of the people of Haiti to reject U.S. military intervention.

The program began with Montana Hirsch, a speaker from the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee, who brought attention to the human rights needs of immigrants in Minnesota. She called for support from local lawmakers, “Join us this coming year, as the DFL has control of the state legislature, to demand that driver’s licenses for all is finally passed in Minnesota! With the lack of identification comes a lack of protection. Being undocumented means it is dangerous to drive to work. Without documentation it is harder to get to a job, to pick up your children from school or daycare – every driving commute becomes a risk.”

Robyn Harbison from Minnesota Abortion Action Coaltion who is fighting for reproductive rights after the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court in June of this year, told the crowd, “This was a vile and criminal injustice on behalf of women and people with uteruses both nationwide and on an international scale. It was a denial to proper access to the basic human right of bodily autonomy.”

Addressing the needs of native and indigenous rights was Melanie Yazzie from Red Nation, a new and important voice at the yearly action. Human rights abuses in the U.S. include threats to upholding The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).

The protest is organized annually by the MN Anti-War Committee to draw connections between the human rights abuses in the U.S. with the ones the U.S. sponsors abroad. Christine Hauschildt spoke for the Anti-War Committee about the U.S. support for human rights abuses of Palestinians, stating “The U.S. sponsors the destruction of human rights all over the world. One of the most heinous examples of the U.S.’s support of human rights abuses is its investment in Israel. The U.S. gives billions upon billions of dollars to Israel every year to fund the oppression of the Palestinian people. We are directly paying for the abuse of Palestinians.”

Additionally, a statement from protest organizers noted, “The U.S. uses the language of human rights to justify U.S. intervention in Ukraine and to impose sanctions on Iran, Venezuela and Cuba. Meanwhile, the U.S. government continuously refuses to act in support of the basic human rights to education, healthcare, housing and a livable planet for our children here at home.”

The Human Rights Day protest and march was organized by the Anti-War Committee and endorsed by Red Nation, Climate Justice Committee, Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN), Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Haiti Justice Committee, MN Abortion Access Coalition, MN Immigrant Rights Action Committee, MN Peace Action Coalition, Students for Democratic Society U of MN, Students for Justice in Palestine U of MN, Twin Cities Assange Defense, Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar, Veterans for Peace, and Women Against Military Madness.

For more information about the Anti-War Committee, you can find them on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @antiwarMN and on their website at antiwarcommittee.org.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #PeoplesStruggles #HumanRightsDay

Minneapolis, MN – Despite a 12-inch snowfall, more than 60 people marched in recognition of International Human Rights Day in Midtown Minneapolis, shutting down a major business thoroughfare on December 11.

The Anti-War Committee (AWC) united with the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC), the Council for American-Islamic Relations – MN (CAIR-MN), the Climate Justice Committee (CJC), Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar Clark (TCC4J), Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), and the Minnesota branch of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to put on the event.

The ongoing trial of Kim Potter, the killer cop who murdered Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, weighed heavily on the minds of protesters. After speaking about how the human rights of Black Americans are regularly violated by the racist, violent, police thugs, Loretta Van Pelt of the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar led the crowd in chanting Wright’s name. The police are regularly used to repress activists of all stripes, and Kat Lewis of the CJC insisted, “It is a human right to defend your environment and be politically active without being punished with incarceration, threat of violence or death.” She detailed her own experiences with police repression as a water protector fighting back against the Line 3 oil pipeline, summarizing the experience as “feeling like I had been kidnapped.” She described being deprived of medication and her legally-mandated phone call, not being told where she had been detained, and being provided nothing but spoiled food for several days, all for protesting the destruction of indigenous land and fighting for indigenous sovereignty.

Siobhan Moore of SDS insisted that the U.S. doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it criticizes other nations for their “human rights violations,” stating: “When it comes to the rest of the world, the U.S. government seems to have a lot of things to say for a country trying to ban abortion and curtail women's and trans folks' rights. When the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, a lot of noise was made about women's rights there, how the U.S. needs to sanction Afghanistan and start the war all over again. It takes only a second of critical thinking to know that everywhere U.S. militarism and war goes, the situation for women and trans people gets worse. If our government is so worried about women's rights, why don't they focus on protecting women's and trans rights in the U.S.?”

The reality is that the U.S. uses these supposed concerns for human rights to put a friendly face on its imperialist projects around the world, and the ruling class of professional politicians and big capitalists do not want people to wake up to what’s really going on.

Erin Stene of the AWC drew attention to how Israel, the largest single recipient of U.S. financial aid, an important military ally of the U.S. in the Middle East, and itself a supposed champion of human rights, has recently criminalized six Palestinian civil society groups by designating them as terrorist organizations.

Stene stated, ”These six organizations relentlessly demand the Palestinians’ right to life, resistance and dignity. They are on Israel’s radar because they call out Israel by documenting all human rights abuses and international law violations that Israel commits against the Palestinian people. Israel is committed to persecuting Palestinians and Palestinian organizations who shine light on what Israel really is: a racist settler-colonial and apartheid state.”

International Human Rights Day is an opportunity for activists in a variety of fields of organizing to come together to highlight how all our struggles are deeply interrelated. War leads to environmental devastation – speaking for CAIR-MN, Jaylani Hussein noted that the tornadoes that ripped through a Kentucky factory that same morning, killing at least 70 people, were a direct result of the U.S. war economy – and this environmental devastation overwhelmingly affects people of color. The same legal system that protects racist killer cops is used to deprive women and trans people of their rights, and the same ICE cops who deport immigrants are sent to brutalize Line 3 protesters in northern Minnesota. All of these struggles are tied up in a knot, but by recognizing these connections and uniting around those common struggles, we can cut that knot.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #PeoplesStruggles #HumanRightsDay

Minneapolis, MN – On December 10, 25 protesters rallied outside of Senator Amy Klobuchar’s office to mark International Human Rights Day. After chanting outside the senator’s office, Brad Sigal from the MN Immigrant Rights Action Committee addressed the crowd to draw attention to Trump’s record of human rights abuses against immigrants. The protesters then marched in -10 degrees windchill to the legendary May Day Books in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood.

Tracy Molm of the Anti-War Committee spoke at the closing rally inside the bookstore. “On Human Rights Day we come together to call attention to human rights abuses at home and abroad. At the same time the U.S. government talks about human rights abuses and lack of democracy in places like Iran, Venezuela and Cuba, the U.S. government runs concentration camps on the U.S.-Mexico border where horrific conditions and abuse are rampant, and President Trump spouts hate speech against Muslims and immigrants,” she said. “In addition to this hypocrisy, the U.S. government uses sanctions and blockades to create starvation and inflation in other countries; then it blames the elected government, like President Maduro’s in Venezuela, for this starvation. Meanwhile, sanctions are touted as the ‘humanitarian option’ – ignoring that sanctions overwhelming affect children and elderly – ignoring that sanctions kill!”

Other speakers included Sylvia Schwartz from Jewish Voice for Peace Action, who demanded human rights for Palestinians, and Gina VanArnam from Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar, who denounced police crimes against people of color.

The rally was organized as an annual event by the MN Anti-War Committee. They announced the MN Peace Action Coalition’s upcoming protest on December 21 at 2 p.m. at the intersection of Hennepin and Lagoon Avenues in Minneapolis as the next anti-war action.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #PeoplesStruggles #AntiWarCommittee #HumanRightsDay

New York, NY – Around 60 New Yorkers gathered in front of the Consulate General of the Philippines, December 10, in Manhattan to mark the 70th anniversary of Human Rights Day. On this day in 1948 the United Nations General Assembly ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) called for the rally on the cold December evening. Chants could be heard throughout the streets, such as, “No justice! No peace! Stop the killings in the Philippines!” and “Defend democracy! Rise, resist, unite against Duterte’s tyranny!”

The spirited group of protesters marched to Trump Towers after a round of speeches and singing, We Shall Overcome. They passed by the tourist-heavy Rockefeller Center and out-of-towners stopped ogling the giant Christmas tree to take pictures of the marchers.

Jessica Schwartz from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression-NY gave a speech connecting U.S. imperialism and the human rights abuses abroad, stating, “That is why when we oppose Duterte, when we oppose Trump, we must fight for an end to the entire U.S. war machine. We here in the belly of the beast must continue speaking out, no matter what threats and intimidation we receive. From New York to the Philippines, stop the U.S. war machine!”

The evening ended with a speaker from ICHRP, who announced their new campaign to have the U.S. stop sending aid to Philippine military and police.

#NewYorkNY #AntiwarMovement #Philippines #PeoplesStruggles #HumanRightsDay #ICHRP #UniversalDeclarationOfHumanRights #InternationalCoalitionForHumanRightsInThePhilippines #Asia

New York, NY – Around 60 New Yorkers gathered in front of the Consulate General of the Philippines, December 10, in Manhattan to mark the 70th anniversary of Human Rights Day. On this day in 1948 the United Nations General Assembly ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) called for the rally on the cold December evening. Chants could be heard throughout the streets, such as, “No justice! No peace! Stop the killings in the Philippines!” and “Defend democracy! Rise, resist, unite against Duterte’s tyranny!”

The spirited group of protesters marched to Trump Towers after a round of speeches and singing, We Shall Overcome. They passed by the tourist-heavy Rockefeller Center and out-of-towners stopped ogling the giant Christmas tree to take pictures of the marchers.

Jessica Schwartz from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression-NY gave a speech connecting U.S. imperialism and the human rights abuses abroad, stating, “That is why when we oppose Duterte, when we oppose Trump, we must fight for an end to the entire U.S. war machine. We here in the belly of the beast must continue speaking out, no matter what threats and intimidation we receive. From New York to the Philippines, stop the U.S. war machine!”

The evening ended with a speaker from ICHRP, who announced their new campaign to have the U.S. stop sending aid to Philippine military and police.

#NewYorkNY #AntiwarMovement #Philippines #PeoplesStruggles #HumanRightsDay #Antiracism #Antifascism #Duterte

Meredith Aby-Keirstead, from the Anti-War Committee, explains, “We hold a protest every year to highlight the importance of International Human Rights Day. This year it is more important than ever to protest. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Trump’s racist Muslim ban is legal. The civil rights of Muslims need to be defended!”

William Martinez from MIRAC agreed, “Trump's Muslim ban is not only racist, it's criminal and inhumane. Those of us who are victims of U.S. wars have seen our friends and family killed for U.S. interests and do not come here willingly. We are violently forced from our homes. We uproot ourselves into a system that criminalizes us for our color or for our religion. All immigrants from all countries and all of our allies in the U.S. and around the world must resist this attack on our Muslim sisters and brothers. We will unite in struggle on International Human Rights Day to defend the rights of all immigrants.”

The protest will include performances by Maria Isa and the Calliope Women’s Chorus.

The event is sponsored by the MN Anti-War Committee and MIRAC's No More Deportations Campaign. The protest is endorsed by: 320 Members First, AFSCME Local 3800, Black Lives Matter MN, blacklivesmattertwincities, Blue Lies Matter, CAIR – Council on American Islamic Relations – MN, Communities United Against Police Brutality, Filipinx for Immigrant rights & Racial justice in MN, Interracial Student Movement, Mayday Books, MN Neighbors for Justice, MN Peace Action Coalition, Native Lives Matter, Rise Up Times, SEIU Local 26, St. Paul Eastside Neighbors for Peace, Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar, Twin Cities Peace Campaign, Veterans for Peace – Chapter 27, Welfare Rights Committee, Women Against Military Madness, and Universal Movement for the Advancement of Hip Hop.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #AntiWarCommittee #MIRAc #HumanRightsDay

Minneapolis, MN – About 75 people rallied here Dec. 8, the weekend before International Human Rights Day, to say no to the U.S. using human rights to justify wars and sanctions.

Jess Sundin, of the Twin Cities based Anti-War Committee told the crowd, “With war or sanctions, the U.S. is not looking to liberate the peoples of Iran and Syria, any more than it was doing this in Viet Nam and Iraq. These countries are targets because they assert their independence from the will of Washington. Just as human rights are founded on respect for human dignity and equality, the anti-war movement must found itself on respecting the dignity and equality of nations, upholding the right to self-determination.”

Sundin emphasized, “The U.S. government can never be a champion of human rights.”

Sarah Martin, of the Women Against Military Madness Middle East Committee stated, “The objective of the U.S.-NATO alliance is to ultimately replace the independent secular Syrian state with a complaint regime. Syria has fiercely supported self-determination for Palestine. It is a strong ally of Hezbollah and Iran. It does not do the bidding of Israel or the U.S. Thrusting Syria into helpless chaos is part of the preparation of an eventual war against Iran.”

Sundin and Martin are among the Twin Cities anti-war activists who were raided by the FBI and called before a Chicago grand jury investigating “material support of terrorism.” Mick Kelly, who was also raided by the FBI, denounced the federal investigation into anti-war and international solitary activities as violation of human rights and an attempt to criminalize solidarity.

The event, which included a ten-block march thought the surrounding neighborhood, was organized by the Anti-War Committee. Endorsers included the Minnesota Committee to Stop FBI Repression, Communities United Against Police Brutality, the Joe Callahan Support Committee, Minnesota Peace Action Coalition, National Lawyers Guild (MN Chapter), U of MN Students for a Democratic Society, Veterans for Peace Chapter 27 and Women Against Military Madness.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #TwinCitiesAntiWarCommittee #HumanRightsDay