Rafel Cervantes reflects on the implications for social movements of NGO-cop collaboration.

Rafa reflexiona en las implicaciones que tienen las organizaciones sin fenes de lucro y no-gubernamentales en colaboracion con la policia hacia los movimientos sociales por justicia.

PRESS RELEASE VIA MORATORIUM ON DEPORTATIONS CAMPAIGN

Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) used marshals and police to assault participants in the Mayday March. Marshals obstructed groups of marchers, blocking them from being able to walk or to pass on either side of the street, and directed police to kettle specific groups of people whose messaging was not convenient. Eventually, marshals signaled out Ze (Jose Garcia), an undocumented organizer and outspoken critic of ICIRR. ICIRR and SEIU marshals physically restrained him and signaled the police to arrest him and Anne Wooton. Ze is also currently fighting his deportation proceedings. This is a politically motivated attack intended to suppress dissent and to control people’s autonomous participation in a public event.

Join Moratorium on Deportations Campaign (MDC) to show solidarity for all those pushed, tackled and intimidated during the march and to hold the police and so called social justice organizations accountable. We cannot accept that any organization would resort to the use of state violence as a way to control a public event or people’s political ideas and expressions.

Documentation of past examples of ICIRR calling police on undocumented activists