On Thursday afternoon, prosecutors in Texas announced that terrorism charges had been filed against two people for alleged involvement in a shooting during a July 4 protest against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, in which a local police officer was injured.
This is the first time federal terrorism charges have been deployed in association with the “antifa” label, just a month after President Donald Trump announced that he was designating antifa a “major terrorist organization” — a designation that does not exist under law for domestic groups.
The Prairieland case is setting a chilling example for how the government will use so-called counterterrorism efforts to crush anti-fascist dissent. Neither of the people named in the indictment are accused of shooting the gun. Instead, Zachary Evetts and Autumn Hill are accused of “providing material support to terrorists” and having “aided and abetted” the alleged attempted murder of government officers.
The federal indictment accuses Hill, who prosecutors dead-named, and Evetts as being part of an “antifa cell.”
The terrorism charges are an escalation of government efforts to criminalize protest movements by attempting to attribute collective guilt.
Just testing the waters
Let’s hope no court will consider antifa terrorists, but there’s always a few judges.
Antifa doesn’t exist. It’s a straw man label to get what they want.
Antifa is just short for “anti-fascism”. Everyone in the world should fall under that label.
If the government considers anti-fascism to be a threat, that speaks volumes about the government.
Yes i know. But as an official organization like they talk about it doesnt exist. I know because id join it if it did exist.
I’ve been looking for antifa for years. I bought the t-shirts and the pins, have gone to the rallies, signed the petitions, etc, but I can’t find the antifa.
Some antifa, but nowhere enough antifa.
We could really use some organised antifa right now. It’s not there yet, though.
Any protester is antifa. It’s a suppression tactic.
All the combined allied forces at WW2 where antifa.
Every single US military member swears an oath which essentially amounts to being Antifa
but will they follow that oath?
lol
In Texas, there’s going to be judges who goosestep behind Trump