National Lawyers Guild - 61st
National Convention, 1999
RESOLUTION TO STOP THE WITCHHUNT AGAINST ANTI-KLAN DEMONSTRATORS IN
ANN ARBOR
Whereas:
- The Ku Klux Klan, the Nazis, racist skinheads, and other fascist and
extreme right groups pose a lethal threat to the rights and lives of
Blacks, Latinos and other minorities, to lesbians and gay men, and to the
labor movement and the rights and lives of all working and oppressed
peoples;
- These groups typically use public rallies to build support and
membership for their organizations, which they then use to organize
campaigns of terror;
- On May 9, 1998, the Ku Klux Klan staged a public rally in Ann Arbor,
Michigan with the assistance of the Ann Arbor City government, which spent
over $135,000 protecting this genocidal recruitment rally;
- Despite the efforts of the Ann Arbor City government, several hundred
anti-fascist protestors shut down the May 9 Klan rally;
- In the aftermath, the Ann Arbor city government and the Washtenaw County
Prosecutor have launched a witchhunt against antifascist demonstrators,
charging ten persons with riot, a felony punishable by a sentence of up to
ten years, and ten other persons with misdemeanors;
- This is the first time in 25 years that a Michigan Prosecutor has sought
convictions under the riot statute;
- The prosecution seeks convictions which would subject the twenty
defendants to a total of over 100 years in prison on the basis of fourteen
broken widows, three bruised cops, and one allegedly damaged fence;
- In the absence of evidence, the prosecution has attempted to whip up a
witchhunt, by attacking the rights of antifascist demonstrators,
restricting the First Amendment rights of the defendants as a condition of
their bail, attempting to convict the defendants on the basis of alleged
membership in or affiliation to the National Women's Rights Organizing
Coalition and Anti-Racist Action, and denying defendants of their Miranda
and other rights; I
- The success of the riot and misdemeanor prosecutions would open up other
activists to serious prosecutions both in Michigan and across the Midwest;
- The success of these prosecutions would invite and guarantee that the
Klan would return to Ann Arbor to recruit more support for the nightriding
acts of terror now increasing in Southeastern Michigan, and
- Numerous persons and organizations, including Geoffrey Feiger, Derrick
Bell, Michael Moore, and 7000 individual signatories have demanded that
these charges be dropped
Therefore be it resolved that the National Lawyers
Guild:
- Demand that the Washtenaw County Prosecutor and the Ann Arbor City
Government should drop all charges against the anti-fascist demonstrators;
and
- Convey the above resolution to the Mayor of the City of Ann Arbor, the
Washtenaw County Prosecutor and the local media.
Adopted: 10/24/98, Detroit, MI.
|