#silencingdissent — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #silencingdissent, aggregated by home.social.
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Congress members join protest against #oligarch’s dinner for #Trump thrown by Ellisons
#Paramount #Skydance CEO fetes administration as it weighs $110bn merger with CNN parent #WarnerBros Discovery
Jeremy Barr in Washington
Thu 23 Apr 2026 20.43 EDT"Dozens of protesters, including members of Congress, gathered along the National Mall on Thursday to protest an 'intimate' dinner being held by #ParamountSkydance’s chief executive, #DavidEllison, 'in celebration of the first amendment' and 'honoring the Trump White House and CBS White House correspondents', and attended by Donald Trump.
"Paramount has faced criticism for the dinner, which has been seen by some as illustrative of the cozy relationship between the #Ellisons and the White House – right as the Trump administration is weighing whether to approve the company’s $110bn merger with CNN parent company #WarnerBrosDiscovery ( #WBD ). The dinner comes before Saturday’s White House correspondents’ dinner, which Trump will attend. His defense secretary, #PeteHegseth, is expected to sit at one of the many tables bought by CBS News for the event.
"Earlier Thursday, WBD shareholders voted 'overwhelmingly' to approve the merger, which will still require approval from the Department of Justice and European regulators.
"The US representative Jamie Raskin, who has been vocal in his criticism of the Ellisons’ ownership of CBS News, referred to the event as 'a lavish oligarch’s dinner for Donald Trump'.
" 'We’re gathered here together tonight [because] in the building behind us, David Ellison is hosting a dinner to honor President Trump, a dinner that’s designed to cement the Ellisons to the president in their years-running corrupt merger scheme,' Raskin said."
Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/23/david-ellison-trump-dinner-paramount-skydance-cnnArchived version:
https://archive.ph/hQ6Ku#USPol #PowerCorruptionAndLies #CorporateSuckUps #Oligarchy #Fascism #SilencingDissent #SilencingCriticism #OligarchsDinner #Oligarchs4Dinner #EatTheRich #CharacteristicsOfFascism
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Well, well, well... Even the little ol' #ClamshellAlliance had an #FBIInformant (#Infiltraitor), who I had a bad gut feeling about. Trust your gut! Especially if they are encouraging more extreme actions! The Clamshell Alliance documentary I watched recently (#AcresOfClams) mentioned those who were advocating for more extreme stuff, but did not identify them (really a "him") as an infiltrator.
Longtime Paid FBI Informant Was Instrumental in Terror Case Against '#TurtleIslandLiberationFront'
Kash Patel and others touted the FBI’s investigative work, but the few available details point to a more complicated picture.
Noah Hurowitz, Trevor Aaronson
December 16 2025Excerpt: "An FBI investigation into an alleged terror plot in Southern California bears the familiar hallmarks of the bureau’s long-running use of informants and undercover agents to advance plots that might not otherwise have materialized, court documents show.
News of the plot surfaced Monday morning in a Fox News report that ran ahead of court filings or official statements. Within minutes, FBI officials amplified the story on social media.
'PROTECT THE HOMELAND and CRUSH VIOLENT CRIME,' wrote FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, a former podcaster. 'These words are not slogans, they’re the investigative pillars of this FBI.'"What followed, however, painted a more complicated picture.
"The limited details available suggest an investigation that leaned heavily on a paid informant and at least one undercover FBI agent, according to an affidavit filed in federal court. The informant and the undercover agent were involved in nearly every stage of the case, including discussions of operational security and transporting members of the group to the site in the Mojave Desert where federal agents ultimately made the arrests.
"The informant, who has worked other cases on the FBI’s payroll since 2021, had been in contact with the group known as the Turtle Island Liberation Front since at least late November, just two months after President Donald Trump designated '#antifa' a domestic terrorism organization.
"On the morning of December 15, FBI Director Kash Patel announced the arrests, calling the plot 'a credible, imminent terrorist threat.'
"Yet the case had the familiar markings of FBI terrorism stings that stretch back more than two decades — hundreds of cases that have disproportionately targeted left-wing activists and Muslims, and, less often, right-wing actors."
Read more:
https://theintercept.com/2025/12/16/fbi-informant-turtle-island-terror-plot/Archived version:
https://archive.ph/XeDj8#Entrapment #USPol #SilencingDissent #DomesticTerrorists #Activists
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#PrivatePrison Companies Set to Make Billions Reopening #Jails for #ICE
“There’s a private interest behind the #detention and the incarceration of our community,” said an #activist #protesting the facilities.
by Sophie Hurwitz, March 6, 2025
Excerpt: "Late Wednesday afternoon, private prison company CoreCivic announced it would be reopening a notorious family detention center in South Texas, under an amended contract with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The facility, first built in 2014, will house up to 2,400 people, including children. It had been shut down last year to save costs, after years of reports suggesting poor treatment, including a report of one toddler who died due to a lack of medical care.
"The reopening is part of a trend. CoreCivic isn’t the only company bringing back facilities. We are at the beginning of what looks like a private prison boom, as the groups profit off President Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportation. They are set to make billions. As the Washington Post reported, the GEO Group and CoreCivic stand to benefit in particular from #Trump’s immigration plans—the companies hold at least 16 vacant facilities that can be reopened within months for mass detention and deportation.
"The GEO Group announced in late February that it would be reopening #DelaneyHall in #NewarkNJ, as a “massive” immigration detention center with 1,000 beds. In California, ICE is considering repurposing and reopening the women’s prison #FCIDublin, closed last year due to mass #SexualAbuse, for #ImmigrantDetention. In Baldwin, Michigan, ICE and the GEO Group have expressed interest in reopening #NorthLake Correctional Facility, a former private prison shuttered in 2022. (A Biden administration order directed the Department of Justice to allow contracts with private prison groups to expire.) In #LeavenworthKS, CoreCivic looks likely to partner with ICE to reopen yet another shuttered private prison, documents obtained by the #ACLU revealed.
"As of February 27, ICE held 43,759 detainees, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan data-gathering organization. Trump is putting pressure on ICE to increase the number of arrests per day. His administration has already fired one ICE director, ostensibly for not deporting enough people.
"In the communities surrounding these new jails for migrants, activists and politicians are fighting back. In Newark, where the GEO Group stands to make $1.2 billion by reopening Delaney Hall, the immigrant rights organization Make the Road is planning a rally against the jail March 11."
#USPol #TrumpSucks #BigUglyBill #BigBeautifulBill #PrisonState #SilencingDissent #IndefiniteDetention #ICE #protesters #CoreCivic #GEOGroup #ResistICE #Resistance
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Defendants in Georgia ‘Cop City’ case say they are in limbo as trial delays continue
By R.J. RICO
Updated 12:26 AM EDT, May 12, 2025ATLANTA (AP) — "Single mother Priscilla Grim lost her job. Aspiring writer Julia Dupuis frequently stares at the bedroom ceiling, numb. Geography and environmental studies researcher Hannah Kass is worried about her career prospects after she graduates from her Ph.D. program.
"The three are among 61 defendants accused by Republican Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr of participating in a yearslong racketeering conspiracy to halt the construction of a police and firefighter training facility just outside Atlanta that critics pejoratively call 'Cop City.'
"Their cases are at a standstill, 20 months after being indicted under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, or RICO, which is likely the largest criminal racketeering case ever filed against protesters in U.S. history, experts say.
"Trial for five of the defendants was supposed to start last year but got bogged down in procedural issues. The judge overseeing the case then moved to another court. A new judge has set a status hearing for Wednesday.
"The delays have left people in limbo, facing charges carrying up to 20 years behind bars for what they maintain was #LegitimateProtest, not #DomesticTerrorism. The case also has suppressed a movement that brought together hundreds of #activists to protect a wooded patch of land that ultimately was razed for the recently completed $118 million, 85-acre (34-hectare) project.
"Officials say the project is sorely needed to replace outdated facilities and boost officers’ morale. Opponents say it will be a training ground for a #MilitarizedPolice force and its construction has worsened #environmental damage in a poor, majority-Black area.
"Protests escalated after the fatal 2023 shooting of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, known as #Tortuguita, who was camping near the site when authorities launched a clearing operation. Officials said they killed Tortuguita, 26, after the activist shot and wounded a trooper from inside a tent.
"A family-commissioned autopsy concluded Tortuguita was killed with their hands in the air, but a prosecutor found the officers’ use of force was 'objectively reasonable.' "
Read more:
https://apnews.com/article/cop-city-rico-charges-61-atlanta-be5ef1ed1951a73870656f61fbbc567b#ACAB #StopCopCityQueens #StopCopCitiesEverywhere #JusticeForTort #USPol #StopCopCity #WeelauneeForest #DefendTheForest #CopCity #SilencingDissent #CiminalizingDissent #MilitarizedPolice
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Why is violence against #EnvironmentalDefenders getting worse? Five things to know
Maxwell Radwin
11 Sep 2024"In January 2023, two men mysteriously disappear after speaking out against pollution from a controversial iron ore mine in Michoacán, Mexico.
"The following March, climate change protesters in Austria and Germany are beaten and pepper sprayed, and some have their homes raided by law enforcement.
"In September, a pair of youth environmental advocates are abducted by armed men and interrogated for days about their work fighting construction of a new airport in the Philippines.
"All across the world, environmental defenders continue to experience censorship, threats, physical attacks, kidnappings, disappearances and even death because of their work fighting climate change, deforestation, pollution and other environmental issues.
"Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, more than 1,500 environmental defenders have been killed for their work, according to Global Witness, a human rights and environmental NGO. The figures for 2023 look like more of the same. At least 196 people were killed last year defending the environment, up from 177 in 2022. And those figures are considered a low-end estimate."
#EnvironmentalActivists #WaterDefenders #EnvironmentalJustice #GlobalWitness #Mongabay #ReaderSupportedNews
#IACHR #ExtractiveIndustries
#Mining #Logging #LandDefenders #WaterIsLife #HumanRights
#Capitalism #Greed #Corruption
#CorporateColonialism #LatinAmerica #Phillipines #India #Indonesia #Honduras #DemocraticRepublicOfCongo #PublicOrderAct #SilencingDissent #HR9495 #CriminalizingDissent -
Dozens indicted on Georgia racketeering charges related to ‘Stop Cop City’ movement appear in court
by Kate Brumback, Nov 7, 2023
ATLANTA (AP) — “Nearly five dozen people indicted on racketeering charges related to protests against a planned police and firefighter training facility near Atlanta appeared in court on Monday as their supporters rallied outside the courthouse.
“Protests against the proposed training center — dubbed “Cop City' by opponents — have been going on for more than two years. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr obtained a sweeping indictment in August, using the state’s anti-racketeering law to target the #protesters and characterizing them as 'militant #anarchists.'
“Demonstrators and #CivilRights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (#ACLU), have condemned the indictment and accused #Carr, a Republican, of levying heavy-handed charges to try to silence a movement that has galvanized #environmentalists and #antipolice protesters across the country.
“All 61 people indicted were scheduled to be arraigned Monday, that is to have the charges against them formally read in court. Fifty-seven of them appeared, called in small groups before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams over a three-hour period, and each waived arraignment.
“Four defendants failed to appear. One was believed to be in France and prosecutors didn’t have a good address for him. One was in federal immigration custody. Another who is not American and who had left the country tried to return twice in recent days to attend the hearing but was denied entry to the country, her lawyer said. A fourth simply didn’t show.
“Most of the people who appeared had not yet surrendered at the Fulton County Jail to be booked on their charges. Some had recently reached agreements with prosecutors on a bond amount and conditions and others were still in the process of doing so.
“Adams told them they had until 10 a.m. Tuesday, 24 hours after the start of the arraignment proceedings, to turn themselves in. If they fail to do so, she warned, a warrant for their arrest could be issued and any bond would be rescinded.
“Adams instructed defense attorneys to provide the attorney general’s office with hard drives by Friday so they can receive copies of evidence in the case, known as discovery. Prosecutors are to finish copying and distributing that evidence to defense attorneys by the end of the year.
“A final plea hearing will be set no later than the end of June, Adams said. She explained to the groups of defendants that if they want to reach a plea agreement with prosecutors they must do it by that date.
“A couple of hundred supporters of the ‘#StopCopCity' effort rallied outside the courthouse in downtown Atlanta on Monday morning singing, chanting and waving signs.“Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and other supporters say the 85-acre, $90 million facility would replace inadequate training facilities, and would help address difficulties in hiring and retaining police officers. Opponents have expressed concern that that it could lead to greater police #militarization and that its construction in the #SouthRiverForest will worsen #environmental damage in a poor, majority-Black area.
“Protests against the project, which have at time resulted in violence and vandalism, escalated after the fatal shooting in January of 26-year-old protester Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, known as #Tortuguita. A prosecutor last month said he would not pursue charges against the state troopers who shot Paez Terán, saying he found that their use of deadly force was ‘objectively reasonable.'
“Most of those indicted in August had already been charged over their alleged involvement in the movement. RICO charges carry a sentence of five to 20 years in prison that can be added on top of the penalty for the underlying acts.
“Among the defendants: more than three dozen people who were previously facing domestic terrorism charges in connection to the protests; three leaders of a #BailFund previously accused of money laundering; and three activists previously charged with felony intimidation after authorities said they distributed #flyers calling a state trooper a
'murderer' for his involvement in Paez Terán’s death.“Prosecutors have alleged a conspiracy that includes a wide variety of underlying crimes that range from possessing fire accelerant and throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers to being reimbursed for glue and food for activists who spent months camping in the woods near the construction site.”
#DefendTheForest #ACAB #DefendWeelauneeForest #Fascism #Censorship #ClimateJustice #DirectAction #JusticeForTort #JusticeForTortugita #AtlantaGeorgia #EnvironmentalRacism #StopCopCitiesEverywhere #FreeAllForestDefenders #CriminalizingDissent #SilencingDissent
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Don’t Stop: Continuing the Fight against #CopCity
Six More Months in the Movement to Defend the Forest
2023-12-12"Starting in April 2021, people in #AtlantaGeorgia set out to defend #WeelauneeForest, where politicians and profiteers are attempting to build a police training compound known as #CopCity. Over the past two and a half years, this movement has given rise to one of the fiercest struggles in North America. Opponents of Cop City have repeatedly destroyed equipment and forced contractors to withdraw from the construction project, while the authorities have killed one #ForestDefender and pressed outlandish #racketeering charges against 61 more, including the members of a legal support collective."
#CriminalizingDissent #StopCopCity #DefendTheForest #ACAB #DefendWeelauneeForest #EnvironmentalActivists #ClimateActivists #Censorship #Fascism #ClimateJustice #DirectAction #JusticeForTort #JusticeForTortugita #SilencingDissent