Appropos of nothing, here’s a picture of anti-fascist youth in Leuven, Belgium on the march earlier this month.

If you’ve been reading this blog for long enough, you’re well aware of the dangers inherent in anti-fascist work.  One way antifa try to make it a bit safer is to keep the public dissemination of details of actions to a bare minimum.  On one hand, that’s good “opsec,” but when you’re doing something like trying to run a defence fund for anti-fascists, that can create some difficulties when you need to confirm the details of a particular request or proposal for support.

One way we’ve dealt with this tension is relying on well-established, reputable antifa crews that we’ve built a relationship over the years to be our “eyes & ears” and verify or vouch for the circumstances of anti-fascists in emergency situations that we’re told about.  Case in point: a request to help with the legal defence of an antifa in a specific region, facing charges after confronting a well-known area nazi.  Because charges are pending + there is a real threat of retribution, we weren’t provided many more details beyond that.  What we did have, though, was the word of two highly-regarded antifa crews in the region who we were able to vouch for the veracity of the request.  In the absence of the kind of details we’d normally require before considering a request for help, the word of these two crews was enough for us and we were able to deliver funds to the antifa in trouble.

We’ve learned over the last four years of running the Defence Fund that it’s important to confirm that the events surrounding a request or proposal for support can be verified.  It’s also important to confirm that the person(s) trying to raise money are in contact with the subject of the request/proposal (we’ve seen many well-intentioned but poorly thought-out attempts to raise money set up by people that weren’t even in contact with whoever they were raising money for!).  After helping out more than 400 anti-fascists in eighteen different countries, we’re proud to say that we’ve never heard of a circumstance where we were tricked into providing support under false pretense.

Antifascists face off against outnumbered, flag-waving bigots.

Rah-rah America!  USA! USA!  America #1!  And what better way to show your patriotic devotion to the greatest country in the world than to gather a ragtag pack of bigots & miscreants like the white supremacist gang Proud Boys, anti-choice zealots, and violent gang leader Joey Gibson to come to a highway overpass and wave flags around.

On May 5th, Eugene, Oregon responded to just such an event in a big way, bringing out a counterprotest that outnumbered the white supremacist “patriotic” rally four-to-one.  That couldn’t have been encouraging for the extreme right, many of whom came in from out of town for this debacle.

Probably more encouraging for them was their police pals showing up to defend them.  Which largely consisted of turning a blind eye whenever they felt like shoving people and focusing their attention instead on the “dangerous” antifa there.  You know antifa, that super-violent movement that’s killed zero people, compared to the hundreds murdered by the far right so far this year.

Anyways, things ended rather predictably, with the extreme right fuckjobs slinking off to whatever rocks they crawled out from under, and the po-po arresting one person – of course, on the anti-fascist side.  Said person now needs to pay a lawyer to get the utter bullshit they’re charged with thrown out in court.  Their friends set up a crowdfunder to raise the cash and we were happy to be able to throw in a big chunk of money to help with that.

Should you donate to our friend’s crowdfunder?  Of course you should!
Should you donate The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund so we can continue to defend anti-fascists standing up for their communities in the face of bigotry and terror?  of course you should!

We leave you with something Banksy once said: “People who enjoy waving flags don’t deserve to have one.”

 Some of les antifascistes du Paris responsible for running fascists out of les gilets jaunes.

France’s gilets jaunes movement has been enormously successful.  What started as a protest against the ruling classes’ attempt to shift the responsibility/costs of climate change on to France’s overly-burdened working class quickly became an effective working-class movement, demanding things like a liveable minimum wage, improvements to education and health care, and proportional representation.  Despite having no leadership, they’ve won big concessions from the French government.

Predictably, a movement this successful is bound to attract fascist shitbags hoping to capitalize on the popularity of the movement.  In the UK and Canada we’ve seen white supremacists take off their white robes and put on yellow vests in a ham-fisted attempt to co-opt the French movement.  In France itself, all manner of fascist gangs have tried to infiltrate the movement on the streets.

As such, it’s been up to France’s legendary antifa crews to keep the bigots off the streets and out of the movement.  Which they’ve done so with much success!  Social Bastion, Génération Identitaire, the Zouaves Paris the Militia Paris, and others have all been sent running whenever they’ve tried to worm their way into the movement.

But recently, members of the fascist gangs have taken to crying to their friends les flics about the poor treatment they’ve received from antifa.  Which of course led the police to press charges against several Parisian antifascists recently.

A crowdfunder has been set up to help pay for the legal defence of those arrested antifascists and when the International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund was asked to help, we of course contributed our share.  We strongly encourage anti-fascists everywhere to demonstrate our international solidarity with those arrested by donating either to the crowdfunder for our friends in Paris, to the Defence Fund itself, or both!

The scene in Grantham in August 2017

A few times a year, The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund‘s Decisions Crew – the 700+ anti-fascists around the world who discuss and decide on how the Defence Fund is used – come across a request for help that they just don’t feel meets our mandate.  Such was the case of J., an antifascist who had spent several years behind bars for the “crime” of defending themselves & their community against white supremacist scum.  Now out of prison, J. was looking for some support getting back on their feet.

And if it were as simple as that, the Decisions Crew may have been more inclined to lend a hand.  But there were some complicating factors, including the fact that J’s recent release was for a second conviction – this one unrelated to anti-fascist work and stemming from a non-political crime they committed when they initially got out of prison for the altercation with the nazis.  That + some other stuff = this request feeling a little too far out from the Defence Fund’s mandate to “provide immediate support to anti-fascists and anti-racists anywhere in the world, whenever they found themselves in a difficult situation as a result of their stand against hate.”

On the other hand, the Decisions Crew also dealt with a more clear-cut request from Bristol Antifascists.  One of their own had been done up by the coppers at a confrontation with the National Front in Grantham two years ago and after an agonizingly slow process before the courts, came out on the other end with a hefty fine.  Bristol Antifascists were looking for help paying off about half of the fine (as they could cover the rest) and we quickly came to a decision to do just that.  It’s outrageous that anyone would be fined for defending their communities against fascists and we weren’t about to let our friend stand alone for doing so.

JM Carico

One thing that can be said about cops in Tennessee: they just do not give up!  Back in 2017, when JM Carico was attacked by a white supremacist named William Markley, who was attending the annual AmRen convention that Carico was protesing, the police thought they might be able to jam Carico up after Markley ended up very much on the losing side of that altercation and got a helicopter ride to ER for his troubles.  We’re pleased to report that Carico very handily won the court battle as well that time, thanks in some part to the Defence Fund being able to help out with legal defense costs.

Well, the police were just not willing to let it go or learn lessons, it seems, and when the 2018 version of that white supremacist circus came back to Tennessee, they hit Carico with charges again – this time some very sketchy simple pot possession charges.  So once again, Carico is going on trial and once again the Defence Fund decided to throw in to make sure a decent lawyer is there.

We can’t wait to see what bullshit charges the po-po will dream up this year.  Stay tuned for that.

Ação Antifascista São Paulo, Fevereiro de 2019

It’s been a brutal winter, hasn’t it?  But neither rain nor sleet nor snow no subzero temperatures nor deadly windchill could keep antifascists from their appointed rounds of keeping the streets nazi-free, which means that some of our antifa friends got into a bit of a jam as a result.  Here’s how  The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund was put to good use over the last three months:

• We ensured that nine anti-fascists in Ottawa, Canada had the money they need to defend themselves against fabricated charges after they confronted a gang of Islamophobes & their taxpayer-funded police bodyguards.
• We also defended four antifa – three of them transwomen – that tried to have a frank discussion with “Genocide Jimmy” Marr about his mobile anti-semitic billboard and were assaulted for their efforts.  We’re happy to report in this case all charges against the anti-fascists were dropped!
• We provided legal support to a London antifascist arrested by the Met after successfully thwarting an Islamophobic march through the city.
• We helped legendary DC antifascist Louise Thundercloud get the dental surgery she needed after getting her teeth smashed out (courtesy of the Philly police!) while opposing the Proud Boys in Philadelphia.
• We helped OG Portland antifa Luke pay for much-needed physical therapy to help him restore movement in his legs after he was targeted by nazis and gunned down in the streets, leaving him paralyzed.  Happy to report that he’s making huge progress thanks to the therapy he’s now getting!
• We help Oleg, a Russian antifascist forced to seek asylum in Finland, reunite with his family & keep them safe from continued death threats from Russian nazis, facilitated by their friends in the police.

We think that’s a pretty good three-month record of accomplishments – helping anti-fascists fight bullshit charges, repair injuries, reunite with the families, and even walk again!  None of that would happen without the generous support and donations from anti-fascists all around the world.  The Defence Fund relies 100% on donations from people just like you to do what we do.  Ensure that we’ll always be there to back up anti-fascists no matter where they are by making a donation to the Defence Fund today!

Luke and Oleg.

The thing about fascist violence is that the consequences don’t just end after the event itself.  The ramifications can continue for years and years.  Such has been the case for two anti-fascists The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund has supported in the past – one in Portland, OR. and another in Helsinki, Finland.

Luke is a well-respected OG antifa in Portland that is hated by area neo-nazis.  So much so that they ambushed him on the streets in 2010 and shot him, leaving him partially paralyzed.  Luke has been fighting since then to literally get back on his feet.  In 2017, we made a contribution to his crowdfunder to help him access alternative therapies that were otherwise unavailable to him.  We were ecstatic to hear that his condition has improved dramatically since then and in a recent blog post on his crowdfunder Luke seems confident he’ll make even further strides with the right physical therapy.   Unfortunately, physical therapy isn’t cheap so Luke reached out to see if he could get some more help with that.  He could and we did!  We want Luke focused on getting stronger and healthier and not on how he’s going to pay to do that.

Meanwhile, 5000 miles away from Portland: Oleg is a Russian anti-fascist living in Helsinki, Finland.  Like Luke, Oleg was an active and well-known antifascist in his home town and was brutally attacked by the fascists in 2004, leaving him with a permanent brain injury.  That injury requires some very expensive medication to mitigate the symptoms of and in 2016 we helped Oleg take care of that bill.

Despite the attack and his injury, Oleg continued to speak out against neo-nazis and they, in turn, never stopped targeting him.  When it became increasingly apparent that his enemies were collaborating with the police to come after him and his family, Oleg wisely decided to flee Russia entirely and has claimed asylum in Finland – again with our support.  Two years later, when he needed more assistance paying for his medical needs, we covered them.  This week, we’ve also helped cover the costs of sponsoring his family to reunite with him in Finland.  We hope nothing but the best for all of them.

If you’d like to support Luke’s recovery, you can contribute to his crowdfunder here.
If you’d like to help Oleg reunite with his family and settle in their new home, please contact us and we can tell you how best to do that.
If you understand that supporting other anti-fascists means doing whatever we can to make sure they’re okay, no matter how long it takes them to recover from being attack by neo-nazi thugs, then you should make a contribution to the Defence Fund today.

Louise Thundercloud.

If you were a mixed-race indigenous woman in her senior years experiencing homelessness, you of all people should get a free pass from having to confront entitled white supremacist goons in your spare time.  No one’s going to think bad thoughts if you don’t turn up to shut down a Proud Boys event in another city, because you probably have enough to deal with in your life already.

But then you wouldn’t be Louise Thundercloud.

Despite the fact that most of us would succumb to a wheezing panic attack if we had to contend with even 10% of what Louise’s daily life must look like, there she was in Philly in November, out with an army of antifa & Gritty cosplayers to shut down a Proud Boys event.  Which they did successfully, but not without costs.  For Louise, the price came when Philly kkkops attempted to kettle her & her comrades and exact some revenge for stopping the white supremacists from gathering.  As she made her escape, Louise took a really bad fall and smashed her head pretty badly, leaving her with a concussion, broken teeth, and a dislocated wrist among other injuries.

Louise has been in near-constant pain ever since and required some pricey medical and dental intervention, so her friends set up a crowdfunder to help raise the money she needed to get better.  The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund was honoured to be able to top it off and get them to their initial fundraising goal.  We look forward to seeing Louise’s smiling face back in the frontlines of the fight very soon!

It’s 2019.  We’re all quite aware of what happens when you let violent bigots march in the street to demonize religious minorities without opposition.  Luckily, hundreds of thousands of us are willing to stand in the streets against them and demonstrate exaclty what no pasarán means.  London knows this more than just about anywhere in the world, from the Battle of Cable Street to present day.

So when Islamophobic charlatan/multi-millionaire/convicted scam artist/former leader of a grooming gang Tommy Robinson Stephen Yaxley-Lennon declared that he & his slavering followers would march against Muslims there on December 9th, Londoners rose up to make sure this wasn’t going to go off as the bigots had planned.  Led by an anti-fascist feminist coalition, the Islamophobes were outnumbered and outwitted all day long.  Unfortunately, the Met could not let this opposition succeed without attacking the anti-fascists and in the end three of our own were arrested.

One of the three is a proud member of Brigata Ultrá Clapton – supporters of London antifa football club Clapton CFC – and reached out to us for assistance with his legal costs, which we were happy to help with.  You can do the same by donating to their crowdfunder right here.

Neo-nazi/Anti-Semite/snappy dresser “Genocide Jimmy” Marr

Imagine living in a small community in Oregon that counted among its townspeople colourful characters like “Genocide Jimmy” Marr – a man that has gained international notoriety not for us fashion-forward tendency to wear wrinkled earth-tone clothing several sizes too large and held up by massive grandpa suspenders, but rather for driving around the state with the most racist signs imaginable on his pickup truck.  You probably could not be able to just let this go without have a frank discussion with the man, now could you?

Such was the case for four Corvallis, OR. anti-fascists who chanced upon Genocide Jimmy and his mobile hate crime of a truck in a parking lot and attempted to engage in him a frank & earnest discussion about his problematic beliefs.  Fascists like Genocide Jimmy, not having a lick of logic or reason to back up their bullshit, don’t usually fare very well in such situations and predictably Mr. Marr made the encounter into a physical assault pretty quickly, and injured three of the four people confronting him (all of whom happened to be trans women).  But Genocide Jimmy himself did not come out of it unscathed and last we heard was still in the hospital due to an undisclosed medical concern that arose around the time this encounter took place.

Of course the police became involved, and when they saw that one side was their good ol’ pal “Genocide Jimmy,” who they also know from his staunch endorsement of the racist front group Blue Lives Matter, they decided to arrest the four people Mr. Marr assaulted instead of the other way around.

Cops & the Klan literally go hand-in-hand.  “Genocide Jimmy” Marr gets a handshake from local law enforcement for his “Blue Lives Matter/Jew Lies Matter” signs in June 2016.

A crowdfunder has been established to help our four friends defend themselves against the charges they’re facing as a result of confronting this fucking kkklown and the Defence Fund was happy to kick in to help them out.  If you can’t imagine seeing this truck around your town without doing or saying anything about it, then you’d do well to make a donation yourself.  If you think backing up people like our four friends in Corvallis is important & necessary work, then you should make a donation to the Defence Fund today!