Baltimore — Marlyn Barnes would have turned 32 years old on May 14 if he had not died in custody at the Harford County Detention Center last year. The jail claims he committed suicide, but his family has not gotten the answers they need from the authorities, and they continue to fight for truth and justice in his case.  

The number of reported suicide deaths at Harford County jail is alarming. In April, another prisoner allegedly died as a result of suicide. 

The Barnes family and the Prisoners Solidarity Committee of the Peoples Power Assembly have continued to press for answers in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and to amplify the demands of prisoners locked up in Maryland jails, who have demanded personal protective equipment (PPE), adequate showers, soap, hand sanitizer and much more. 

On May 14, the Barnes family, and PSC and PPA supporters drove a block-long car caravan to the Baltimore City jail complex to underscore the demand to #FreeThemAll. When the caravan reached the jail, prisoners shouted out of their cell windows thanking them.

The caravan then traveled as a procession to the home of Marlyn Barnes’ mother and to the nearby Gwynn Oak Park, a designated civil rights site where a historic protest against segregation took place in 1963. Family members had gathered at the park for a social-distance commemoration of Marlyn Barnes. They lit 32 candles and raised balloons in his honor.

Cars were not only decorated with signs and banners declaring “Justice for Marlyn Barnes,” “Free Them All,” and demanding PPE and testing for prisoners, but also calling for “Justice for Ahmaud Arbery!”

Andre Powell of the Prisoners Solidarity Committee stated, “Everywhere we drove, we were received with enthusiastic support — people clapping, raising fists and shouting ‘Yes!’”

SLL photos: Sharon Black

Seventy-two years ago, the majority of the people of Palestine were expelled from their homes by terror, force and massacre. Thousands of children, women and men were executed in cold blood and 530 villages were destroyed so that the racist settler state of “Israel” could be created on their land. Today that state, which declared its so-called “independence” on May 15, 1948, directly occupies 85 percent of the land of Palestine and part of Syria. 

For Palestinians, 1948 was the start of Al-Nakba, the catastrophe of exile and occupation that continues to this day. Palestinians on the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem live under a daily reign of terror from Israeli troops and settlers, who murder and kidnap them and destroy their crops and animals in an effort to drive them from their land. In the Gaza Strip, nearly 2 million Palestinians live under a constant state of siege, locked inside a giant open-air prison where water is not fit to drink, electricity runs a few hours a day, and people die from lack of medicine.

The very existence of “Israel” has been a 72-year-long war against the people of Palestine and the neighboring countries of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. For 72 years, this war has been subsidized by the United States, which provides an endless flow of arms and dollars to the Zionist fortress in Palestine. On May 22, while millions of workers in the U.S. worried about their next meal, the U.S. Senate Foreign Aid Committee approved a $38-billion aid package to Israel. On May 12, Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, visited Jerusalem to support Israel’s plan to annex large areas of the occupied West Bank. 

For the corporate stooges in Washington, the racist state of Israel is part of the U.S. warfare state, a tool in their bloody struggle to maintain the position of U.S. banks and corporations in the world economy.  In 2017, aboard the USS George Bush, moored in Palestinian waters, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “A few miles from here, there is another aircraft carrier for our common civilization — it’s called the State of Israel.” 

For the people of Palestine, however, the land between the river and the sea remains their homeland. In 72 years, they have never stopped fighting for the right to live in peace and freedom in every corner of their land. Their victory in this just struggle would alter the global balance of forces in favor of the workers and oppressed people of the world.

Palestinians and their allies around the world marked May 15-22 as a week of struggle for freedom and the right to return to their land. Millions around the world also marked May 22, the last Friday of Ramadan, as the International Day of Al-Quds (Jerusalem), a global day of solidarity with Palestine. 

As part of this week, several powerful webinars were held. They can be viewed at the links below: 

72 Years of Nakba, Marching Toward Return: Al-Awda Virtual Rally

Liberate Palestine from the River to the Sea, with Palestinian writer Khaled Barakat

Talk by Mohammed Khatib of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoners Solidarity Network 

Al-Quds Day Global Online Rally

AFRICAN LIBERATION DAY 2020

Will be a “VIRTUAL” Celebration

ALD IS going to be a very special and unique experience.

We are featuring our first Virtual Symposium addressing topics important to Africans across the Diaspora, which includes YOUTH SPEAKERS

I encourage everyone to spread the word and visit OUR PAGE for updates:

Facebook Page:
African Liberation Day Baltimore Maryland 2020

EMAIL:
marylandcouncilofeldersbmore@gmail.com

SATURDAY May 23rd,
RALLY
3pm-5pm
SUNDAY May 24th,

SUNDAY May 24th
SYMPOSIUM
2pm-5pm

ALD International Webinar
MONDAY May 25th

On Facebook

AFRICAN LIBERATION DAY 2020 WEBINAR
May 25th @ 6pm

COVID-19, Sanctions, and the Human Right to Health Care

Presenters

H.E. Ambassador Neville M Gertze
Permanent Representative to the United Nations
for the Republic of Namibia

H.E. Ambassador Petronella Nyagura
Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations
for the Republic of Zimbabwe

H.E. Ambassador Fatima Kyari Mohammed
African Union Permanent Observer to the United Nations
(As of today, yet to be confirmed)

Feature Film excerpts
“Breaking the Chains of Oppression”
1st African Liberation Day (USA) 1972

Hosted by the December 12th Movement International Secretariat
Co-Sponsored by:
National Black United Front
Organization of African American Unity
C.E.M.O.T.A.P (Committee to Eliminate Media Offensive to African People
Peoples’ Organization for Progress (POP)
Malcolm X Commemoration Committee

WEBINAR LINK: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83488824116

DAIL IN:
US: +1646 876 9923
WEBINAR ID: 834 8882 4116

INTERNATIONAL NUMBERS AVAILABLE:
https//us02web.zoom.us/u/kebvWnHZyz

Sunday, May 24, 2020 at 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM EDT

20th and N. Charles Street (staging car caravan)

We will hold a car caravan to tell Trump “stay at home” —

Staging the event from 20th and N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218. We will decorate cars and drive to Fort McHenry as a group in a funeral procession. Bring your signs to tell Trump No to racism and bigotry, yes to workers. We will raise justice for Ahmaud Aubrey along with all of the other major issues including demands for $2,000 a month, health care etc.

Baltimore Event in support of the NAARPR Call:
(Please stay tuned for local info. on place and form of event i.e. caravan and or distancing protest
PLEASE PUT DATE ON YOUR CALENDAR

NATIONAL ALLIANCE CALLS NATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST
MAY 30TH, 2020

The recently re founded National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression calls upon all its members, comrades, friends and allies to join in a national day of protest on May 30th, 2020 at 3:00 PM EST.
We as a movement have been agitated into taking mass, united action not by the pandemic alone but even more significantly by the Federal Government and the financial lords and barons of Wall Street who, driven by their own greed and lust for political power, are willing to sacrifice the lives, health, safety and well being of the people; who deem their profits and their continuing plunder of the national treasury of our nation more important than the lives of the people.

We will be protesting to stop the racist murder and violence that this administration has willfully unleashed. Not only is the government standing by as COVID-19 ravages African American, Latinx and Indigenous communities—inciting mass Black death with their calls to reopen the economy, but the police and racist vigilantes continue to brazenly hunt and kill Black folks while they sleep in their beds and on open roads in broad daylight. We are protesting the murders of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and Breonna Taylor in Louisville because they are outrages that demand justice. This lynch style, racist terrorism must stop, and perpetrators must be punished.

We are calling for this united action to protest genocidal policies of government that have allowed city and county jails, federal and state prisons, juvenile detention jails, and Immigrant detention centers to become hot beds for COVID-19 infections and death camps for millions. Who are the human beings incarcerated in these so-called correctional facilities?

They are overwhelmingly oppressed Black and Brown people, LGBTQ and Trans people and poor white, working class people. They come to jails and prisons in large part from the 140 million poor people living in America. They cannot voluntarily social distance themselves. Their confinement prevents them from taking action to protect themselves from death-causing infections. Their continued imprisonment under these circumstances is an act of genocide

We must help them. The prisoners of Cook County jail in Chicago managed to write on one of the windows of the jail: HELP WE MATTER 2.

We are calling this united action to help protect all prisoners from COVID infections and death by demanding that all prisoners be liberated from the death camps that U.S. prisons have become. We demand that the President, Governors and Mayors, Prosecutors and Judges take immediate steps to depopulate jails, prisons and Immigrant detention centers and juvenile facilities.

We are calling this united action to demand the immediate release of all political prisoners and the wrongfully convicted survivors of torture immediately. These prisoners can be released by pardons, commutation of sentences, paroles, furloughs, signature bonds and prosecutors dropping charges and judges granting probations. The federal and state governments have plenty of means for meeting our demands and no reason to deny them other than greed and profiteering off of private prisons and prison labor, the still legal form of slavery under the 13th Amendment.

We will mobilize for car caravan protests and social distancing protests throughout the country. In united action we will stand up, fightback and resist to exist. We will not now or ever stand in silence in the face of the crimes of government perpetrated against oppressed peoples and the working class. We must make certain that there is resistance throughout the land in order to have a new and better world after we overcome this pandemic.

On Facebook

Fin a la supremacía blanca y al asesinato racista

Declaración del Partido de Socialismo Unido

Las semejanzas entre los casos de Trayvon Martin, asesinado el 26 de febrero de 2012 y Ahmaud Arbery, asesinado el 23 de febrero de 2020, son peculiares. Ambos jóvenes negros estaban desarmados, ambos fueron acosados ​​y asesinados en febrero, y en ninguno de los casos se presentaron cargos porque los asesinos reclamaron actuar en defensa propia . Ambos jóvenes cumplirían 26 años este 2020, Trayvon Martin en febrero y Ahmaud Arbery el 8 de mayo.

Lo que es alarmantemente diferente en el caso de Ahmaud es que el vídeo estuvo en manos de la policía desde el primer día y fue lanzado públicamente el 5 de mayo, dos meses y medio después del asesinato. El vídeo encendió una tormenta de indignación en todo el país. Lo que es sorprendente, pero también típico, son las diferentes interpretaciones del vídeo: una como un asesinato a sangre fría y la otra, por el fiscal de distrito elegido George E. Barnhill, como un asesinato justificado de un corredor negro, asesinado a tiros por dos hombres blancos.

Como dijo  la madre de Ahmaud Arbery, Wonda Cooper, y que hacía eco a lo que la mayoría de las personas que vieron el vídeo comentaban: “Mi hijo fue asesinado en las calles cuando fue atropellado y perseguido por dos vehículos y nadie fue a la cárcel. Ellos pudieron llegar a su casa mientras que a mi bebé lo colocaron en una funda para cadáveres”.

El inquietante vídeo que apareció el 5 de mayo muestra a Ahmaud Arbery corriendo por una carretera estrecha en Brunswick, Georgia, a plena luz del día, cuando lo enfrentan dos hombres armados. Mientras Arbery sigue corriendo, se puede ver a Travis McMichael esperándolo en la carretera con una escopeta, y a su padre parado en la parte trasera de una camioneta con un revólver. Después de una breve confrontación, le dispararon a Arbery 3 balazos.

El vídeo fue filmado por un tercer hombre blanco, William Bryan, cómplice del asesinato que hasta el 9 de mayo, aún no había sido acusado ni arrestado. La policía de Brunswick admite haber tenido una copia del impactante vídeo desde febrero. Antes del 7 de mayo no se habían presentado cargos de ningún tipo contra los McMichaels, quienes afirmaron que persiguieron a Arbery porque “parecía un sospechoso de robo”.

El  asesinato de Ahmaud Arbery en el 2020, no solo nos recuerda el asesinato de Trayvon Martin en 2012, sino que nos recuerda el asesinato de Emmitt Till en 1955. Los tres linchamientos son lo que el prisionero político Mumia Abu-Jamal explica en su libro de 2017, “Have Black Lives Ever Mattered” [¿Han importado las vidas negras alguna vez?.]

En el capítulo titulado “¿Proteger y servir a quién? ¿Reformas? O cambio revolucionario”, Mumia escribe sobre las soluciones propuestas por el Dr. Huey P. Newton, Ministro de Defensa del Partido Panteras Negras. Newton escribió varios artículos proponiendo cómo podríamos transformar totalmente la “Policía estadounidense”. Al final de la ardiente década de 1960 y la escalofriante década de 1970, los artículos de Newton siguieron años de organización en el terreno, exigiendo no “vigilancia comunitaria”, sino “control comunitario sobre la policía”.

Hasta que este sistema capitalista, que necesita herramientas como el racismo para mantenernos divididos a fin de facilitar la súper explotación de los pueblos negros y marrones sea descartado, estos linchamientos, desafortunadamente, continuarán.

Parte de la lucha para cambiar esta sociedad incluye luchar por nuestras demandas.

Deberíamos exigir a este sistema racista que cualquier comunidad de color que haya sido víctima de asesinatos policiales, tenga derecho y se le den los recursos para reemplazar la fuerza policial existente en sus comunidades por una de su propia creación, que puedan contratar miembros confiables de sus comunidades- -una fuerza policial controlada y creada por ellos.

Además, para proteger a todas las personas de color, sin importar dónde vivan, las leyes que protegen a las víctimas del terrorismo y el asesinato racistas no pueden dejar de hacerse cumplir y deben cumplir con un conjunto de pautas más estrictas con respecto a la justicia penal. Debería haber arrestos inmediatos cuando personas de color sean asesinadas por racistas, por la policía o por el Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas o cualquier otra agencia de justicia penal estatal o local.

Y los cómplices de esos delitos, incluidos los funcionarios de justicia penal, desde policías hasta jueces que ignoran los homicidios racistas, también deben ser acusados ​​de criminales.

Sabemos que el sistema no puede satisfacer estas demandas a menos que sean forzadas por un movimiento poderoso y militante.

En 2013, provocado por el asesinato de Trayvon Martin, el Movimiento Malcolm X Grassroots publicó un informe anual del 2012 titulado “Los asesinatos extrajudiciales de 313 personas negras asesinadas por la policía, los guardias de seguridad y los vigilantes en los Estados Unidos”, encontrando que una persona negra es asesinada cada 28 horas. Este informe inspiró más investigaciones que descubrieron que entre los años 2013 y 2018, la policía mató anualmente un promedio de 1,000 personas. Los hombres negros y los nativos americanos tenían el porcentaje más alto. ¿Ha cambiado este número?

Nuevamente, por ira y por rabia, nos movilizamos por la justicia para otro hombre negro brutalmente asesinado por un asesino retirado de la policía y su hijo, a quienes inicialmente se les dio un pase, fueron enviados a su casa para descansar y les dieron una palmada en el hombro por haber hecho un buen trabajo.

Si nuestro movimiento progresista, sus organizaciones y activistas que luchan por la justicia social y económica se unen en solidaridad con las personas de color que luchan por la liberación y la autodeterminación, podemos mover montañas.

Se necesitarán millones de personas que actúen contra este problema del terror policial, no solo cuando ocurran estos incidentes. Tenemos que estar listos en todo momento. En esta época de COVID-19, debemos buscar otras formas de involucrar a nuestras comunidades en la lucha para derribar este sistema de justicia penal existente y reemplazarlo con un sistema que realmente “proteja y sirva”, no a los racistas ni al sistema que protegen, sino al pueblo.

Por: Gloria Verdieu, Rebecka Jackson, John Parker

“It all started with the sudden terminations of all J-1s,” said Mary Lee Philline Camello, calling in from Hot Springs, Va. “Instead of receiving termination letters, we were informed via phone call, video chat or from other coworkers.” On May 13, the J-1 Workers Network held an online press conference with support from the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON) and Migrante USA. 

The J-1 visa is granted to young workers from outside the United States who have been sponsored by U.S. employers to be placed in temporary jobs in industries like hospitality, retail and food service. Camello is one of the many J-1 workers who spoke about the challenges they face under the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. 

These workers formed the J-1 Workers Network and launched the Support J-1 Workers campaign in response to the inaction and neglect from sponsoring employers and home and host country governments. 

“Some of us still had three months left in our contracts,” Camello continued. “Some of us just arrived, and only were able to work for a week.” This leaves the J-1 workers jobless, having to spend their savings on rent, groceries and paying back the loans to their recruiting agencies — the same agencies that put them in this situation in the first place. 

“We tried reaching out to our visa sponsors, and their only advice for us was to go home, or others got no response. We also tried reaching out to the Philippines Embassy, the host company and the community, but there was little to no support given.”

The J-1 Visa Exchange Visitor Program is overseen by the U.S. State Department, and is touted to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and the people of other countries by means of education and cultural exchange.” In reality, it’s a way for U.S. employers to hire workers from overseas for far below the federal minimum wage without shouldering any of the costs of travel, housing or insurance. 

These costs are passed on to the workers themselves: sponsoring employers and recruiting agencies charge hundreds or thousands of dollars to register, which does not include the costs of travel, housing and insurance. These registration and sponsorship fees are completely unregulated and there is no limit to how much recruiting agencies can charge.

“We are liable to pay a program fee of $5,500, which includes the $500 registration fee, the fee for the sponsorship and the cost of health insurance,” said Jorizza Garcia, a J-1 worker living in Dallas, attesting to the fees charged by her recruiting agency. “[After the registration fee of $500], we are given 3 to 5 days to pay the first payment of $3,000 for us to get our training plan. If we cannot pay within 3 to 5 days, the process will be cancelled and no refund will be granted.” 

After applicants pass their visa interview, they then have to pay the next $2,000 within 3 to 5 days. If they do not, their process is cancelled without the possibility of a refund. Further, most contracts enforce a strict no-refund policy, even if the internship is terminated or the applicant departs the U.S. early. 

Federally sponsored labor trafficking

The J-1 visa program is essentially a labor trafficking program, in which the State Department designates recruiting agencies to promise high pay, professional job training and opportunities for cultural exchange. Of course, the young applicants find these promises empty, and instead are paid less than minimum wage in menial jobs and forced to live in overcrowded housing with other J-1 workers. 

And because so many of these workers accrue debt in order to pay registration fees, they are forced to stomach wage theft, discrimination, sexual harassment and human trafficking — after all, they’re not getting a refund if they leave the job placement, and have virtually no other recourse. 

With neither recourse nor assistance from employers or governments, the J-1 Workers Network composed an open letter with the following demands:

“Given these conditions, we are calling on the Philippine government to:

1. Support us with financial assistance through its Assistance to Nationals program for rent, purchasing plane tickets and reimbursement for those who have already bought a plane ticket;
2. Provide legal assistance for taxes, immigration, labor rights and other areas of concern;
3. Investigate and prosecute recruitment agencies accountable for neglect and corruption; and
4. Declare cash bonds and post-dated checks unenforceable, and refund any cash paid.

“We demand our visa sponsors and recruitment agencies to:

1. Take responsibility for the well-being and safety of J-1 workers;
2. Communicate clearly and timely with us, instead of neglecting us;
3. Assure us of our program’s restarting or extension;
4. Provide a full refund of our program fee, all miscellaneous fees and provide receipts for all payments, if program was not completed or was suddenly terminated;
5. Provide damage compensation;
6. Pay us in the full amount written in our contract; and
7. Stop the harassment of J-1 workers and our relatives in the Philippines for payments.

“Finally, we call on the U.S. government to:

1. Provide assistance for J-1 workers victimized and abused due to discrimination; and
2. Protect J-1 workers during disasters and emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic.”

To follow developments, visit and “follow” the Support J-1 Workers Facebook page. Please sign their petition to show support.

The recently refounded National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR) calls upon all its members, comrades, friends and allies to join in a national day of protest on May 30, 2020, at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

We as a movement have been agitated into taking mass, united action, not by the pandemic alone, but even more significantly by the federal government and the financial lords and barons of Wall Street who, driven by their own greed and lust for political power, are willing to sacrifice the lives, health, safety and well-being of the people; who deem their profits and their continuing plunder of the national treasury more important than the lives of the people.

We will be protesting to stop the racist murder and violence that this administration has willfully unleashed. Not only is the government standing by as COVID-19 ravages African American, Latinx and Indigenous communities — inciting mass Black death with its calls to reopen the economy — but the police and racist vigilantes continue to brazenly hunt and kill Black folks while they sleep in their beds and on open roads in broad daylight. We are protesting the murders of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Ga., and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky., because they are outrages that demand justice. This lynch-style, racist terrorism must stop, and perpetrators must be punished.

We are calling for this united action to protest genocidal government policies that have allowed city and county jails, federal and state prisons, juvenile detention jails and immigrant detention centers to become hotbeds for COVID-19 infections and death camps for millions. Who are the human beings incarcerated in these so-called correctional facilities?

They are overwhelmingly oppressed Black and Brown people, LGBTQ and Trans people and poor white, working-class people. They come to jails and prisons in large part from the 140 million poor people living in the U.S. They cannot voluntarily social distance themselves. Their confinement prevents them from taking action to protect themselves from death-causing infections. Their continued imprisonment under these circumstances is an act of genocide.

We must help them. The prisoners of Cook County jail in Chicago managed to write on one of the windows of the jail: HELP WE MATTER 2.

We are calling this united action to help protect all prisoners from COVID-19 infections and death by demanding that all prisoners be liberated from the death camps that U.S. prisons have become. We demand that the president, governors and mayors, prosecutors and judges take immediate steps to depopulate jails, prisons, immigrant detention centers and juvenile facilities.

We are calling this united action to demand the immediate release of all political prisoners and the wrongfully convicted survivors of torture immediately. These prisoners can be released by pardons, commutation of sentences, paroles, furloughs, signature bonds, prosecutors dropping charges and judges granting probations. The federal and state governments have plenty of means for meeting our demands and no reason to deny them other than greed and profiteering off of private prisons and prison labor, the still-legal form of slavery under the 13th Amendment.

We will mobilize for car caravan protests and social distancing protests throughout the country. In united action, we will stand up, fight back and resist to exist. We will not now or ever stand in silence in the face of the crimes of the government perpetrated against oppressed peoples and the working class. We must make certain that there is resistance throughout the land in order to have a new and better world after we overcome this pandemic. 

Struggle-La Lucha newspaper and the Socialist Unity Party/Partido de Socialismo Unido are members of the NAARPR.

Source: NAARPR.org

Please join the virtual AlQuds Day protest on Friday, May 22 @ 6:50 pm EST sharp.
All are encouraged to take a picture with the Palestinian flag and post on social media.
#FreePalestine
#FlyTheFlag
#AlQuds2020