Skip to content

Free Speech

Bellevue City Council Adopts Ordinance Criminalizing Protests

May 19, 2026 Fight Back! News. , , , , , ,
On Tuesday evening, May 2, the Bellevue City Council voted to adopt an ordinance making protests at U.S. Congressman Adam Smith’s house illegal. The ordinance changes the city’s definition of criminal conduct to include targeted residential protests. The ordinance states that any gathering of people “with four or more persons” in a protest that is “targeted, directed or focused at a particular occupant of the residence” would be a gross misdemeanor. “Protest means any protest, demonstration or picketing activity including but not limited to marching, congregating, standing, posting, parading, demonstrating, picketing, with our without signs, with or without making audible or amplified noise.”

PhD Student Yousof Azizi Is Illegally Abducted, Imprisoned And Abused

April 24, 2026 The Yousof Azizi Defense Committee, Popular Resistance. , , , ,
Maryland - Without warning, on April 13, after returning home from dropping off his 11 year-old daughter at school and his 3 year-old son at daycare, public policy PhD student Yousof Azizi was abducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in front of his home in Germantown, MD on fabricated charges regarding his visa status. Azizi and his wife, Aliyeh Hashemi, who recently completed her PhD in the field of health, have been living in the United States for over a decade and have complied with all visa requirements throughout that time. Both of their children were born in the United States.

Washington DC Protest Demands Freedom For Yousof Azizi

April 22, 2026 Cameron McLaren, Fight Back! News. , , , ,
Washington, DC – On Saturday, April 18, about 20 protesters gathered outside the Customs and Border Patrol headquarters to protest the ICE detainment of Yousof Azizi, a PhD student and outspoken anti-war activist. On Monday, April 13, Azizi was on his way home from dropping off his two children at school when ICE agents kidnapped him. Since then, he has been transferred first to a detention facility in Louisiana, then again to Arizona, against his will. Azizi has also been denied access to his lawyer, and allowed limited contact with his wife.

War On Free Speech Expands To Detention, Sanctions Of Individuals

April 20, 2026 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , , , ,
The plutocratic power structure in the United States is clamping down on our right to know and to dissent by illegally detaining individuals who speak out or shutting down their access to financial services. Clearing the FOG speaks with political analyst Ali Alizadeh about the unlawful detention of Iranian public policy PhD student at Virginia Tech, Yousof Azizi, who is frequently a guest on major media outlets. The second guest is Rainey Reitman of the Freedom of the Press foundation, who discusses her new book, "Transaction Denied: Big finance's power to punish speech."

Free Yousof Azizi!

April 17, 2026 The Yousof Azizi Defense Committee, Popular Resistance. , , , , ,
Yousof Azizi, a final-year PhD student in public policy at the University of Virginia, was arrested on the morning of Tuesday, April 14, in front of his home by ICE forces, and up to this moment he has not been allowed to meet with his lawyer. ICE officials have informed him that he will soon be transferred to a detention camp for undocumented immigrants in Louisiana. This arrest is highly questionable, because the duty of ICE forces is to detain undocumented immigrants, while Mr. Azizi holds a valid visa and absolutely no deficiencies exist in his visa record.

‘Everyone’ To Defy UK’s Farcical ‘Cat And Mouse’ Game Of Arrests

April 9, 2026 The Canary. , , , ,
On Saturday 11 April 2026, thousands of ordinary, peace-loving people will gather in Trafalgar Square, London. They’ll be there in open defiance of the UK government’s misguided crackdown on peaceful protest. This peaceful vigil, called ‘Everyone Day’, will demonstrate the unwaning resistance to the ban on Palestine Action. The UK government unlawfully proscribed this direct action movement as a ‘terrorist group’, paving the way for numerous arrests. The action will be a peaceful vigil, with people sitting down holding their handwritten paper signs.

In Defense Of De-Platforming Zionists On College Campuses

February 27, 2026 Tarik Aougab, Mondoweiss. , , ,
Recently, Haviv Rettig Gur— political analyst for the Times of Israel— visited Haverford College to give a talk entitled Roots, Return, and Reality: Jews, Israel, and the Myth of Settler Colonialism. Knowing what I already knew about Gur’s politics and analysis, and having made the mistake of attending previous events organized by the same small group of Zionist faculty members, I had no intention of attending. Given the first-hand accounts from students who did attend— and given the shared tactics of Zionist agitators all over the country— I didn’t need to be there to have a fairly clear view of what transpired.

Organizers Fight Back As Missouri Cracks Down On Free Speech In schools

February 18, 2026 Marianne Dhenin, Mondoweiss. , , , , ,
A bill moving through the Missouri legislature threatens to censor public school curricula, lead to attacks on teachers, and chill First Amendment speech. If passed, HB 2061 would adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism into codes of conduct for Missouri’s public schools and universities. That definition has been the subject of intense critique from dozens of civil society and rights groups since its adoption in 2016, including Jewish organizations and thinkers who warn that legislating a definition of antisemitism singles out Jews in a way that runs counter to the goal of decreasing antisemitism.

Mahmoud Khalil Vows To Oppose Trump Efforts To Deport Him

January 27, 2026 Michael Arria, Mondoweiss. , , , ,
A Trump administration official has declared that Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil will be deported to Algeria. “It looks like he’ll go to Algeria. That’s what the thought is right now,” Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, told NewsNation. Khalil, a former Columbia University student and lead negotiator during the school’s Gaza protests, was arrested in 2025 and detained at a Louisiana facility for three months on orders from the State Department. Khalil was never charged with a crime.

Trump Sought To Deport Student Over Pro-Palestine Op-Ed

January 27, 2026 News Desk, The Cradle. , , , , ,
Newly released court documents confirm that US immigration authorities arrested a Turkish university student in the state of Massachusetts last year over an opinion article she wrote criticizing Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, rather than for “terrorist activity,” CNN reported on 26 January. In March last year, Rumeysa Ozturk, a PhD student at Tufts University, was walking on the street when plainclothes immigration officers suddenly detained her. She was transported to a detention center on the other side of the country, in Louisiana, and held there for six weeks.

Hate Crime Laws Can Chill Free Speech

January 23, 2026 Anne Twomey, Consortium News. , , , , ,
What impact will the criminal hate provisions in the Albanese government’sCombatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Act 2026have on the ability of ordinary Australians to protest? An earlier version contained a criminal offence of promoting or inciting racial hatred. The government dropped this part of the legislation after both the Coalition and the Greens opposed it. However, inciting racial hatred remains relevant to the other key provisions, which permit the banning of “prohibited hate groups”. A group can be prohibited under the new law if the governor-general makes a regulation prohibiting it. The governor-general acts on the advice of the minister for the Australian Federal Police.

California’s AB 715 Claims To Combat Antisemitism

December 23, 2025 Jenin Younes and Deyar Jamil, Mondoweiss. , , , , ,
It’s not just Washington, DC that has sold out to the Israel lobby. In October of this year, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 715 into law, amending California’s education code, despite significant public opposition.   The ostensible purpose of the AB 715 amendments is to address the crisis of rising antisemitism by fortifying anti-discrimination law in public schools. A closer look says otherwise. The bill was rushed through the state legislative process: at the legislative hearing, even its proponents acknowledged that it had been drafted rather hastily and would require “clean-up” legislation down the road to ensure compliance with constitutional requirements.  

Defending Rights And Dissent Weighs In On Terrorism Definition

December 2, 2025 Chip Gibbons, Defending Rights & Dissent. , , ,
Since the 1980s, defending the right to political expression has increasingly meant challenging the use of counterterrorism powers to stifle political speech. In 1999, we published Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security. Written by two eminent legal scholars, David Cole and James Dempsey, it analyzed how counterterrorism laws and mandates were being used to abridge core rights to political expression. This work was necessitated by continuous revelations throughout the 1980s and 1990s as to how in the U.S. counterterrorism authorities were used to monitor domestic political speech, as well as the dramatic implementation of new counterterrorism laws in the 1990s that criminalized speech and humanitarian activities formerly understood to be protected by core expressive rights.

Lawsuit Charges That California Law Illegally Muzzles Students, Teachers

November 6, 2025 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , , ,
Beginning January 1, 2026, teachers in California classrooms will be looking over their shoulders to avoid running afoul of a frightening new “antisemitism” law. On October 7, despite widespread opposition from civil rights groups, teachers’ unions, and education advocates, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 715, which amends the California Education Code to police what teachers can teach and what students can learn about Israel and Palestine. “This problematic classroom censorship bill silences Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, Jewish, and other marginalized voices in California public schools by shielding a foreign government — Israel — from legitimate criticism and criminalizes honest discussions on Palestine and other global human rights issues,” the Council on American Islamic Relations said in a statement.

US Detains British Journalist During Tour After Israel Criticism

October 27, 2025 Middle East Eye. , , , , ,
US authorities detained a British Muslim journalist on Sunday, apparently due to his criticism of Israel, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair). Sami Hamdi was held by the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency at San Francisco international airport during a speaking tour in the US. Hamdi had spoken at a Cair gala on Saturday in Sacramento, where he condemned Israel's genocide in Gaza. He was scheduled to speak at another Cair event in Florida on Sunday. Cair has described the detention as retaliation for Hamdi's criticism of Israel, calling it an "abduction". “Detaining a prominent British Muslim journalist and political commentator during his speaking tour in the United States simply for daring to criticise the Israeli government’s actions is a blatant attack on free speech,” the Washington-based Cair said in a statement.
«12345678910»
assetto corsa mods

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here
Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.