FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 9, 2024
WHY IS THE NEW YORK TIMES SILENT ABOUT THE CASE OF THE UHURU 3?
The First Amendment is on the Line
NY/NJ activists rally to demand First Amendment rights to criticize the U.S. government
What: Press Conference in front of the New York Times Building
When: Wednesday, 8/14/24, 4:00 pm
Where: 620 8th Avenue , between 40th and 41st Street, Manhattan
Contact: Lisa Davis, Hands Off Uhuru Coalition, 973-517-1405
On Wednesday, August 14, the Hands Off Uhuru Coalition is taking action to defend the rights of the Uhuru 3 and expose corporate media’s complicity in refusing to cover this important case, which threatens the First Amendment for everyone.
Joined by organizations including the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee, CEMOTAP (Committee to End Media Offensive to African People), the December 12th Movement, the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico / NY Committee, the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement and the African People’s Socialist Party, they will hold a press conference in front of the New York Times building at 620 8th Avenue in Manhattan.
The trial starts September 3, 2024 in Tampa, Florida, and three activists within the Uhuru Movement – Omali Yeshitela, Penny Hess, and Jesse Nevel, are facing 10-15 years in prison for exercising their First Amendment right to criticize the United States government for its role in expanding NATO and provoking war in Ukraine, demanding reparations for the Black community, charging the U.S. with genocide for its treatment of Africans in the U.S. and participating in elections.
In 2022, Omali Yeshitela, the leader and founder of the Uhuru Movement, was one of the first people to publicly condemn the U.S. role in the Russia/Ukraine war, thus contradicting the narrative of the Biden/Harris administration. The U.S. responded with violent raids of seven Uhuru Movement homes and offices, false charges of working for the Russians, and with the real threat of long term imprisonment. They are being charged with acting on behalf of Russian agents in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
The United States government alleges that since 2015 that the actions of Chairman Yeshitela, who is credited as one of the foremost theoreticians and activists in the Black Liberation Struggle today, and who has been on the front lines of socio political struggles against U.S. imperialism and oppression for the last 60 years, has been directed by the Russians.
The DOJ makes an empty case that the Africans Charge Genocide petition, launched by the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM), which had gained 130,000 signatures before being forcibly removed from the internet, was launched at the direction of the Russians. The indictment also charges the Uhuru 3 with interfering with elections by running candidates on a reparations platform.
Organizer Lisa Davis declares, “These claims are outrageous on their face, considering that in 1982 Chairman Yeshitela and the Uhuru Movement held the first ever reparations tribunal in the United States, thus making reparations a household word, and that he was also a member of SNCC during the 1960s and risked his life, which included being firebombed and shot at, organizing for Black people to get the right to vote and to their freedom of speech rights to tell the truth about the realities of Black life in the U.S.”
Leonard Goodman, one of the attorneys for the Uhuru 3, argues that FARA is being used in ways the government never intended and that “this prosecution appears to be the first ever in which the government has attempted to use Section 951 to target speech. Every other Section 951 prosecution that we have found targets conduct such as espionage, fraud, bribery, extortion or illegal lobbying on behalf of foreign governments. . . The.defendants are being criminally prosecuted for making political speeches against U.S. policy . . .”
Davis says, “The U.S. Government has always been hostile to any individual or organization that challenges the status quo and it has a long history of suppressing the speech of those who are the victims of U.S. oppression and imperialism. Corporate media should resist complicity with this threat to the First Amendment, even if for its own self-interest as journalists. From the Black community, we are standing with Omali Yeshitela, Penny Hess, and Jesse Nevel to ensure that none of us are silenced!”
The Hands Off Uhuru campaign is holding a national rally in St. Petersburg, Florida on August 31st, days before the start of the trial in Tampa Federal Court. More info at www.handsoffuhuru.org…
THE MALCOLM X COMMEMORATION COMMITTEE*
973 202 0745; 917 346 8142
“I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people,
and then penalize them for not being able to stand under its weight…”
Malcolm X
August 12, 2024
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
GREATER NY BLACK COMMUNITY RALLIES AROUND THE UHURU 3!
On Wednesday, August 14th, the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee (MXCC) will join a number of organizations in the greater New York City area to support the Uhuru 3 as they prepare to be put on trial by the United States government in September.
Participants are hosting a press conference in front of the NY Times to condemn the puzzling lack of coverage that this outrageous case has gotten.
The press conference will take place at 4pm in front of the NY Times office located at 620 8th Avenue, Manhattan.
In July 2022, long time activists Omali Yeshitela, 83, Penny Hess, 77 and Jessie Nevel, 27, found themselves facing predawn FBI raids on their respective homes and being charged with acting on behalf of Russian agents in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). If convicted, they can face up to 10 years in prison.
At the heart of their empty Department of Justice case is an online petition that International
People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, one of the key organizational vehicles of the Uhuru Movement condemning Human Rights Violations against people of African descent in the United States. Police Violence against African descendants like Michael Brown, Eric Garner, George Floyd, among others drove the momentum of the petition that garnered some 130,000 signatures before being pulled from the internet. Government prosecutors allege that the petition was Russian led, linked and sponsored.
“Our people have never needed anyone to tell us what to do or how to fight,” said Zayid Muhammad, on behalf of MXCC.
“Malcolm X went to his death launching a similar campaign in 1965.
“This particular attack is eerily reminiscent of a similar attack that legendary Black radical scholar WEB DuBois faced in his 80s in the 1950s.
“The Malcolm X Commemoration Committee (MXCC) has spent 32 years fighting for the release of COINTELPRO targeted Black political prisoners in the United States.
“Under no circumstances can we standby and watch the Uhuru 3 go to prison now,” said an angry Zayid Muhammad on behalf of MXCC.
Other activists echoed similar outrage.
Omowale Clay of the December 12th Movement had this to say about the case:
“The trial of the Uhuru 3 is America’s historical and persistent attempt to criminalize the TRUTH of what these freedom fighters have been practicing all their adult lives, fighting the greed and dehumanization of the people by American racial capitalism,” he asserted.
When the Uhuru 3 were first indicted in July 2022, the December 12th Movement organized a press conference to rally Solidarity for them with allies in the greater New York area.
Dr. James McIntosh of CEMOTAP, the Committee to Eliminate Media Offensive To African People, also weighed on the case.
“Issues of African survival transcend ideologies and demand a united resistance
“If the government will do this to Chairman Yeshitela and the African Socialist Party, it will also do it to us,” he said pointedly.
The Uhuru Movement sees the attack on their some of their key leaders as a dangerous frontal attack on ‘Free Speech’. MXCC agrees and goes further.
“The current weaponizing of the police to attack the Palestinian Solidarity Movement protesters and real efforts to legislatively criminalize criticism of Israel, sharpens the Uhuru Movement’s analysis.
‘More of us can face situations like this if we do not unite and check this now,” Muhammad went on.
Other drivers of their prosecution include the Uhuru Movement participating in an Anti Globalization Conference in Russia.
Most absurd, as far as the defendants and their supporters are concerned, are the allegations that they used Russian resources to interfere in American elections.
“Former president Trump is on videotape pressuring Georgia’s security of state “find 11,780 votes” in order to take the state of Georgia from Biden in 2020, and they are indicting the Uhuru 3,” raised Zayid Muhammad incredulously for MXCC.
Just as absurd, is that this prosecution is coming from a Democratic administration now hugely dependent on the Black vote.
The Uhuru 3 go on trial on September 3rd in Federal Court in St Petersburg Florida.
Press contact Lisa Davis of the Hands Off Uhuru Coalition at 973 517 1405…
Looking Ahead…
Black August and Reparations!
On Saturday, August 17th, the 137th birth anniversary of arguably our greatest organizer Marcus Garvey, the December 12th Movement presents a Black August Reparations Rally!
This year’s theme ‘PanAfricanism and Reparations.’
It will take place at BedStuy Restoration Plaza, 1368 Fulton St, Brooklyn at 2 30pm.
Our own Zayid Muhammad will be among the presenters…
*To follow the work of the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee, ‘Like’ us on Facebook or text Zayid Muhammad at 973 202 0745. Malcolm X Commemoration Committee
Uhuru Solidarity Movement
Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement 
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