For decades, the good people of Bristol – many of whom descended from the very people kidnapped and sold as chattel by Colston – pleaded with the authorities to remove this monument to human avarice and tribute to genocide, all to no avail.
That changed about a year ago. Fueled by the righteous anger at the systemic murder of black people by police, a crowd of thousands gathered in the heart of Bristol, tore the obscenity in question from its plinth, dragged Colston’s effigy through the streets, and dumped him in the habour.
Of course the powers-that-be read this as an affront to their authority and began a witch hunt to prosecute those responsible. Out of literally thousands of people who participated in the action, four have been singled and and charged with offences.
Fortunately, the team behind Glad Colston’s Gone has started a support campaign to ensure that the four accused have all the resources they need to mount an effective legal defence and beat the charges, including setting up a legal defence crowdfunder. Thanks to the support of its contributors, The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund has made a significant contribution to their legal defence and we would implore all those who believe monuments to slavers belong in the bottom of the sea to follow suit.
Antifascists show up to defend San Diego from armed, violent white supremacists, January 9, 2021
You would have thought that, three days after a violent insurrection at the nation’s capitol that resulted in five deaths, America would have had an awakening about the dangers of allowing fascists to publicly organize and gather. Maybe the officers of San Diego Police Department would have looked at the people who beat a cop to death and injured 140 other cops on Capitol Hill just three days before, then looked at the people holding a white supremacist rally in Pacific Beach (at least five of whom were the same people), and adjusted their response accordingly.
-at one point, a gang of Proud Boys chased a military veteran into an alley and severely beat him.
-moments later, a swastika-tattooed white supremacist sucker punched an Asian man, then pulled out a hunting knife and threatened to stab people coming to the man’s aid.
This man sucker-punched an Asian man in the face in full view of the police, then pulled out the hunting knife you see in his right hand to threaten other people with.He was reportedly disarmed – not by police – but by local skaters.
Oh, the cops did arrest people – two antifascists, JW & TC, both of whom now have to come up with the money to hire legal teams to defend themselves in court. Both have had crowdfunders set up here and here to help them with this. Of course, we were very pleased to be in a position to make significant contributions to both, which we were only in a position to do because of the contributions of anti-fascists all over the world to the Defence Fund. Maybe you’d like to make a contribution? If you sign up to become a monthly contributor this month, we’ll enter you a lil’ antifa prize package giveaway contest!
The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund is six! Since 2015, we have provided emergency support to antifascists the world over, whenever they’ve faced dire circumstances resulting from their work thwarting bigotry and fascism. We are the only international anti-fascist solidarity project we’re aware of that’s dedicated exclusively to supporting antifa in emergencies. To-date we have provided over $140,000USD in emergency aid to more than 600 antifascists in 22 different countries.
Over the last 12 months, we’ve been able to provide very significant levels of support to 125 antifascists in six different countries (Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, France, Germany, and the U.S.). We provided emergency support to antifascists 15 times since June 2020 – a 40% drop over the same period in 2018-2019 that we believe is entirely attributable to COVID-19 restrictions on things like public gatherings. That said, the $48,000USD of financial support we provided marked a 66% increase from the previous year and the most money we’ve ever contributed for emergency aid to antifascists since the Defence Fund began.
Emergency support provided to antifascists by the Defence Fund ($USD).
As usual, the majority (76.7%) of the funds disbursed went towards legal defence, court costs, fines, and prisoner support; 8.9% of contributions covered medical bills, injury recovery and living costs while antifascists recovered from injuries sustained in attacks against them; 7.8% of contributions covered emergency relocation; and 6.6% was used to repair serious damage to buildings after fascist attacks and to improve physical security/defences.
All decisions about how the Defence Fund is used and operates are made by the Decisions Crew – a body of antifascists from around the world who have made contributions of at least $20USD to the Defence Fund. The decisions are made via consensus wherever possible and by majority vote in circumstances where consensus is not forthcoming. In our first year, there were all of 45 Decisions Crew members. As of today, over 1200 antifascists from 25 countries have been invited to join the Decisions Crew.
Normally in our annual reports, we like to highlight particular cases we dealt with over the previous 12 months that we felt were significant or special in some way. This past October, New York antifascist David Campbell was released from prison after being forced to accept a non-cooperating plea deal on charges that were largely fabricated. David was good enough to create this message for us:
Looking forward to the twelve months ahead, we anticipate a a drop in contributions to the Defence Fund. Since Donald Trump is no longer occupying the most powerful position in the world and since he has lost most of the channels he used to rail against antifascists, the cause of antifascism may not seem as urgent to some who we could normally count on for support. Compounding this expected reduction in contributions, we also foresee a marked increase in requests for support as more regions move out of COVID-mandated lockdowns and antifascists have to contend with a resurgent fascist movement which wasted no time infiltrating and co-opting the COVID conspiracy movement.
We are extremely proud of the work we’ve done with The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund and we firmly believe it has proven itself as one of the most effective ways to support antifascism. We strongly encourage anyone opposed to bigotry and fascism to make a contribution to the Defence Fund today and become actively involved in our project of international antifascist solidarity!
Scottie Tripn under arrest by the LAPD, January 6, 2021
We’d be understating the point if we told you that the LAPD has had a race relations problem over the last several decades. There’s a reason Black Flag wrote “Police Story” about them waaay back in 1981 and NWA would write “Fuck Tha Police” about them seven years later.
So don’t be surprised if we tell you that in 2021 ain’t a damn thing changed. Witness the po-po’s actions on January 6th. While MAGA chuds in DC attempted to overthrow the government, their LA counterparts came downtown to attack people there. Well-known LA musician, veteran, and Black Lives Matter supporter Scottie Tripn came down to make sure people weren’t hurt by the fascist losers.
Not long after he arrived there was an alleged interaction between him and one of the Piss Boys. These two photos – of Scottie getting bear maced & how “captain america” looked afterwards tell the tale:
How it started.How it’s going.
Witnesses report that after defending himself ably from the cosplaying shitsack that bear maced him, Scottie was then jumped by more fascists, then dragged off and beaten with nightsticks by the LAPD. Now Scottie faces serious charges and has mounting legal and medical bills from this attack.
Because they published a photo of him on their website mobilize for a protest against him, under the slogan “Never again!”
A photo they took from his facebook page.
Yes, that’s how little Kickl had to work with to get The Platform. But that was enough to force them to mount a legal defence – one they estimated would cost approximately 10,000€.
The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund was pleased to be able to help them get to the amount they need to defend themselves in court; just as we’ll be even more pleased when they win in court and Kickl is forced to faced the consequences of wasting the court’s time and resources on such a frivolous and vexatious matter. As the judge will no doubt put it in her ruling.
If you’d like to read more background on the lawsuit against The Platform and their legal defence (or would like to personally contribute), here it is.
If you’d like to make sure the Defence Fund is always ready to defend anti-fascists the world over against any charges, no matter how frivolous, please contribute here.
March 2021: 50 Generation Identitaire fascists attack the anarchist book shop La Plume Noire in Lyon, France.
“Cancel culture is out of control!” the right wing pundits shriek. “Hasbro is making a gender-neutral potato toy! We can’t buy the more-racist Dr. Seuss books for our children anymore! WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN???”
Nothing outrages a bigot more than people demanding that they treat the people they believe to be their inferiors with basic respect and common courtesy. Whether it’s Jordan Peterson decrying the violation of his sacred free speech rights by trans students who wanted him to do the bare minimum of politeness by refering to them by the pronouns that conform to their identity; to the decision by major league baseball to move their All-Star game to a state that doesn’t try to suppress the votes of black people – nothing gets far-right bigots and extremists more apoplectic than their bigotry being “cancelled” when people call them out on it.
This is, of course, just the latest rebranding of a tired old trope in far-right circles. For historical reference:
But something the far-right doesn’t like you to think about is that they have their own form of “cancel culture.”
Unfortunately, the damage done to the book shop was significant and enough to force them to close down while they try to put the money together for repairs:
Pictured: Portland Police Bureau’s idea of “media liaison.” (photo credit: Dave Killen/The Oregonian)
One of the difficulties of running a defence fund for anti-fascists is deciding what does or does not constitute anti-fascist action or, when an anti-fascist runs into trouble, if it was their anti-fascism that put them in that trouble. This is something The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund has wrestled with, on a case-by-case basis, over the last few years. Earlier this month, they were called again to do so when presented with a request to send some support to Cory Elia, a freelance journalist in Oregon.
Perhaps you see the dilemma here for the Defence Fund’s Decisions Crew – if a journalist is attending a protest that is in many ways anti-fascist in nature, are they acting as an anti-fascist, as a journalist, or as both? This question led to an extensive discussion, which did not lead to a consensus among Decisions Crew members on the answer. After a vote, a majority of Decisions Crew members decided that in Elia’s case he was not acting as an anti-fascist at the time of the incident and therefore the request to support him fell outside of the Defence Fund’s mandate, which is to support anti-fascists in times of trouble that arises from their work as anti-fascists.
The hundreds of Decisions Crew members would probably reach consensus very quickly on supporting all people harmed by fascism and bigotry if the Defence Fund had an infinite pool of money and resources to draw from. Unfortunately that just isn’t the case and so we are careful to ensure that our support matches up with our mandate; in this case that match was not as clear-cut as a majority of Decisions Crew members needed it to be.
James being taken into custody after fascists told police to arrest him.
We know by now that fascists will do just about anything to further their agenda of bigotry and genocide, including (and we hope you’re sitting down for this one) lying to police in order to get anti-fascists arrested!
Such was the case for our man James in Portland. This past November, after fascist goons threatened to shoot up a Black Lives Matter event, James attended to defend people from attack. For his efforts, James got a short stay in the hospital after a far-right person bit him (!) + charges against him when four of the bad guys made up a story about him threatening them.
The good news: he beat the charges and was exonerated. The bad news: the fascists tracked him to his home and began an intense campaign of harassment and death threats. They vandalized his truck multiple times, causing thousands of dollars in damage. Things got so bad he was forced to break his lease and re-locate elsewhere, which cost him more moeny. Add all this to his hospital bill + legal costs to beat his case = James needed some support.
The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund was well-pleased to make a contribution to James that took care of a significant chunk of these costs. James was evidently also pleased, telling us, “That’s incredible. You guys just saved my arse in the biggest way imaginable.”
In 2007, Jock Palfreeman was an Australian national backpacking through Europe. In Sofia, Jock witnessed a gang of nazi hooligans attacking two Roma boys and stepped in to defend the two. Jock was quickly forced to defend himself and survived the attack, but one of the nazis did not and Jock was charged with his murder. In the sham trial that followed (where the state witheld video evidence that would have proven his claims of self-defence and exonerated him., Jock was wrongly convicted of the crime and sentenced 20 years in jail.
While unjustly imprisoned, Jock continued to maintain his innocence. He also learned Bulgarian and founded the Bulgarian Prisoners’ Assocation, the country’s first human rights advocacy for prisoners.
In 2019, Jock was suddenly released from prison after serving 12 years. The Bulgarian authorities seized his passport and refused to let him leave the country, then subjected him to a court appeal of his release. Jock beat that unconstitutional attempt to re-convict him on charges the evidence shows he was innocent of.
Not content to admit defeat, the Bulgarian authorities are now trying to expel and ban him from not just Bulgaria, but the EU altogether, based on Jock’s 2009 sham murder conviction. Once again, Jock is forced to defend himself – this time in an EU court. We stood with Jock while he served his prison sentence; we helped him get back on his feet when he was released; and now the Defence Fund is helping him hire the best legal defence team available to fight the expulsion attempt.
If there’s one things fascists like, it’s controlling and dominating women. Misogyny has always been a key component of fascism. So it comes as no surprise to hear that members of the Germany’s fascist AfD party joined religious zealots in a 2019 Berlin march against the right of women to control their own bodies. Likewise, it comes as no surprise that hundreds of anti-fascists and feminists took to the streets to shut them the fuck down, which they accomplished handily!
Finally & if you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you’ll also not be surprised that the Berlin police sided with the fascists and laid charges against 100 of the feminist counter-demonstrators. Those 100 people – who stopped neo-nazis from marching in Berlin – have had charges hanging over their heads for nearly two years now.
They’ve set up a crowdfunder to raise money for their legal defence against these charges and the Defence Fund was very happy to help them reach their fundraising goal!
Show us an anti-choice religious extremist and we’ll show you a fascist close by. Show us some fascists and we’ll be able to point you to bigots hiding behind their god(s) to justify their misogyny right there, too. Show us feminists standing up against misogyny and patriarchy and we’ll show you antifascists standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them. To be an anti-fascist = to be a feminist. To be a feminist = to be an anti-fascist.
You must be logged in to post a comment.