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State Repression

August 26 Trial Date Set For Alejandro Orellana, Call For Actions

A trial date of August 26 was set for immigrant rights activist Alejandro Orellana at his July 3 court appearance in front of a room packed with supporters. Orellana was arrested by the FBI on June 12 for protesting against ICE in Los Angeles. He faces up to 5 years in prison for two bogus federal charges: conspiracy to commit civil disorder and aiding and abetting civil disorder. The Committee to Stop FBI Repression is calling for a national day of protests on the first day of Orellana's trial, August 26th, to demand that the charges be dropped. To everyone who believes in the right to free speech, to protest ICE, and to say no to deportations, we urge you to organize a local protest on that day at the nearest federal courthouse.

4,000 People Tried To March From Egypt To Gaza; Egypt Stopped Them

Lien Arits stepped off a plane in Cairo on a sweltering June evening. The Belgian politician wore heels and make-up at border control to avoid looking like an activist. It was a sensible precaution: the previous day, 40 members of the Dutch delegation to the Global March to Gaza had been denied entry to Egypt. Arits was travelling to the action with three fellow members of the Belgian Green party – but to avoid being identified as a group, they agreed to act like strangers. No talking at the airport; no eye contact on the plane. Weeks earlier, Arits and over 4,000 others from more than 80 countries had signed up for the march, which planned to take participants just 30 miles from El Arish to Rafah over three days between 15 and 19 June.

Panamanian Government Declares State Of Emergency In Bocas Del Toro

The declaration of a state of emergency in the banana-producing region comes in the context of a series of mass protests as part of a national strike that began in April. The strike was called for by trade unions and social organizations to protest a pension reform law (Law 462), which reduces the amount of money retirees receive and opens the door to the privatization of social security; the security agreements between Washington and Panama which, among other things, could involve the installation of several US military bases; and to protest the possible reopening of a mining megaproject that sparked major controversy in the Central American country a few years ago. The protests have been carried out by unions, student associations, teachers, doctors, and other social groups.

Lessons In Courage, Care And Collective Action

As authoritarianism takes hold in the United States and attacks against our movements and communities grow, many U.S.-based organizers and activists are searching for ways to resist, grow and protect ourselves and our communities. Yet, a feeling of overwhelm and hopelessness pervades, especially as this administration deploys tactics aimed at repressing, intimidating and squashing those fighting for change. Rather than despair, we can instead look at the ways movements across the world have responded to authoritarian regimes. After all, for as long as governments have used such tactics, movements, organizations, and individual organizers and activists have cultivated strategies to keep themselves and their communities safe.

Mahmoud Khalil To Be Freed From Detention

June 20, 2025, Newark, NY– A federal court today granted bail to Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student and lawful permanent resident targeted for deportation by the Trump administration because of his Palestinian rights advocacy. He will be able to return to New York to be with his wife and newborn son while his case proceeds.  “After more than three months, we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home to me and Deen, who never should have been separated from his father,” said Dr. Noor Abdalla, Mahmoud Khalil’s wife.

Mahmoud Khalil Still Detained Despite Court Ruling It Unconstitutional

Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who has been detained in a remote ICE facility in Jena, Louisiana, since March, was hoping to be released last Friday after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled there was no legitimate basis for his continued detention. The judge ruled that Mahmoud Khalil’s months-long detention by the Trump administration on the grounds that Khalil’s campus activism in support of Palestinian rights posed a danger to “U.S. foreign policy” had chilled Khalil’s ability to express himself and was presumptively unconstitutional. But in a letter to the judge Friday, the government justified not releasing Khalil based on false allegations that he committed fraud on his 2024 green card application by not disclosing his previous employment with organizations including a UN agency that helps Palestinians.

Philadelphia Police Crack Down On Anti-ICE Marches Twice In One Week

Philadelphia, PA — The increasing tempo of pro-immigrant, anti-ICE protests hit Philadelphia last week, and the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) has decided to crack down. On Tuesday, June 10, and Saturday, June 14, autonomous protests were called outside of the Federal Detention Center (FDC), where up to 125 immigrant detainees can be held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Tuesday protest included 80-100 protesters, while the Saturday demonstration brought an estimated 300. Both marches were met with intense police response which resulted in injuries and arrests. Unlike other cities, where police shot tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds, the Philadelphia Police Department dispersed marches with tools on hand: battering protesters with batons, corralling the crowd with bicycles and nearly running activists and journalists over with motorized dirt bikes.

Trump’s Manufactured Crisis And The Urgency Of Strategic Nonviolence

We can see on the streets now the precarious situation we’ve studied around the world: the need for mass resistance to state violence and assaults on democracy, and the concurrent need to maintain nonviolent discipline in a dire and escalating situation. Following the example of other authoritarians, Donald Trump wants us to burn cars. He wants us to throw rocks. He wants images of chaos — especially violence against police or National Guard troops — to flood the evening news. These are precisely the results he wants: to manufacture chaos as a means of justifying repression and extending his authoritarian raids on our communities.

The Left Must Defend PSL And All Of Those Facing State Repression

To the surprise of perhaps no one, the tragedy of McCarthyism is being played out yet again as farce by the unimaginative buffoons running the U.S. congress. On Wednesday, June 11, The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Counter-Terrorism, chaired by Republican Josh Hawley, sent what appears to be a slightly modified form letter to the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) and several other organizations. In the letters, Hawley accuses these groups of fomenting civil unrest and demands that they immediately “cease and desist any further involvement” in the ongoing protests in Los Angeles. The letters also provided a bullet-point list demanding that the groups preserve records going back to November of 2024, including internal communications, emails, and text messages, suggesting that the groups may be formally investigated by the Senate in the near future.

The Use Of National Guard And Active Duty Troops To Control Opposition

The Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild is opposed to the use of military forces to “put down” or “control” the heartfelt reactions by community members to workplace immigration raids in Los Angeles and other cities. The Trump administration claims the use of the troops is necessary because local police are incapable of protecting the masked, non-uniformed, but heavily armed, federal forces from ICE, DHS, ATF and the FBI. Nothing could be further from the truth. In California, for example, Governor Gavin Newsom has denounced the use of military troops as a dangerous escalation of the confrontations.

National Guard Attacks Raza In Los Angeles

Los Angeles, CA – Chicanos and supporters have been gathering at the Metropolitan Detention Center since yesterday evening, June 7, when the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents and other law enforcement personnel, started flash bombing and tear gassing protesters. Today, June 8, the National Guard was deployed and amped up the militarization in downtown Los Angeles. The Metropolitan Detention Center is in downtown. LAPD, California Highway Patrol, ERO [an immigration removal unit] and HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] agents have been deployed and are beating protesters while using tear gas and flash bang grenades.

Protesters Clash With Law Enforcement In Downtown Los Angeles

Federal agents conducted a series of immigration sweeps across Los Angeles on Friday, prompting anger and resistance from onlookers and immigrant rights groups that have braced for this type of action for months. Over the weekend, tensions continued to rise between state and local authorities and Trump administration officials, who said they were calling up the National Guard in response to what they said were "violent mobs" attacking "ICE Officers and Federal Law Enforcement Agents carrying out basic deportation operations in Los Angeles." Gov. Gavin Newsom called the plan to take over deployment from the state "purposefully inflammatory," adding that it "will only escalate tensions."

Chris Hedges: Trump’s Useful Idiots

The media, universities, the Democratic Party and liberals, by embracing the fiction of “rampant antisemitism,” laid the groundwork for their own demise. Columbia and Princeton, where I have taught, and Harvard, which I attended, are not incubators of hatred towards Jews. The New York Times, where I worked for fifteen years and which Trump calls “an enemy of the people,” is slavishly subservient to the Zionist narrative. What these institutions have in common is not antisemitism, but liberalism. And liberalism, with its creed of pluralism and inclusiveness, is slated by our authoritarian regime for obliteration. 

Panama: Indigenous Leaders Condemn ‘Criminalization Of Protests’

Indigenous authorities in Panama have condemned the “escalation of persecution and repression” by the government of President Raúl Mulino. The traditional authorities of the Ngabe-Buglé Comarca claim that armed security agents have made violent house-to-house raids including the use of tear gas, large-caliber weapons and arbitrary arrests of indigenous leaders in various communities, such as Trinidad, El Piro, Ojo de Agua, Tolé, Viguí and El Prado. Faced with nationwide strikes and protest, President Mulino has eschewed dialogue and instead deployed riot police and armed SENAFRONT (National Border Service) officers to disperse marches and gatherings using chemical agents. Dozens have been injured but the protests are continuing into their second month.

My Politically-Motivated Detainment By US Customs And Border Patrol

After spending a month in revolutionary Cuba, I was welcomed back to the Great Satan by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) detaining me, interrogating me, and seizing my phone in Miami International Airport on 19 May 2025. Every step of the way both to and from Cuba, I experienced endless harassment, secondary screenings, and physical groping by Transportation Security Administration (TSA). All of this indicates to me that I am on some sort of domestic terrorism watch list, as a result of my anti-imperialist political activity and my criminal record for taking direct action to resist the amerikan-zionist genocide against Palestine. For context, I am 20 years old.

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Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

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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.

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