“Antifa” Protesters Charged With Terrorism for Constitutionally Protected Activity |
Federal prosecutors are making good on the Trump administration’s threat to treat antifa-related activity as terrorism.
On Thursday afternoon, prosecutors in Texas announced that terrorism charges had been filed against two people for alleged involvement in a shooting during a July 4 protest against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, in which a local police officer was injured.
This is the first time federal terrorism charges have been deployed in association with the “antifa” label, just a month after President Donald Trump announced that he was designating antifa a “major terrorist organization” — a designation that does not exist under law for domestic groups.
The Prairieland case is setting a chilling example for how the government will use so-called counterterrorism efforts to crush anti-fascist dissent. Neither of the people named in the indictment are accused of shooting the gun. Instead, Zachary Evetts and Autumn Hill are accused of “providing material support to terrorists” and having “aided and abetted” the alleged attempted murder of government officers.
“The framing of the case by the federal government should worry all of us.”The federal indictment accuses Hill, who prosecutors dead-named, and Evetts as being part of an “antifa cell.”
The terrorism charges are an escalation of government efforts to criminalize protest movements by attempting to attribute collective guilt.
With tactics like using RICO laws built to combat organized crime, the government has made a habit of mass-prosecuting activists for individual, individuated crimes alleged to have taken place in the context of legal protest activity — even when there is no direct link between those charged and the alleged crimes. Though such charges frequently don’t stick, the lengthy prosecutions hamper protest movements and chill dissent.
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