Heavily armed police raided a music festival in a forest near Atlanta and indiscriminately detained and arrested dozens of people on March 5, 2023. https://theintercept.com/2023/03/08/atlanta-cop-city-protesters/
Twenty three of those arrestees have been charged under a Georgia state domestic terrorism law, an overly broad law passed in the wake of the 2020 uprising to criminalize dissent and keep activists out of the streets. Two of the people charged were working that day as NLG Legal Observers. Several hours before and a mile away from the location of the arrests, a group of people left the concert area and damaged and burned some construction equipment. But the probable cause statements for these arrestees focuses mostly on them having mud on their shoes, and a few of them are alleged to have been carrying shields.
All but one of the people arrested on March 5th who were charged with domestic terrorism were held without bail by the court, often in horrendous conditions in the Dekalb County jail. They have new bond hearing scheduled for Thursday, March 23rd. Three of those arrested are from Massachusetts, and our NLG-Mass Chapter has been deeply involved in support work for those arrestees.
These arrests come in the context of a multi-year campaign to stop Cop City, a proposed training ground for police that will involve destroying a beloved community forest. https://stopcop.city/what-is-cop-city/ . There have been dozens of arrests, and in January this year one activist was shot and killed by the police during a raid on the protest encampments.
In total, 42 people arrested in connection with the repression of this Stop Cop City campaign are now facing domestic terrorism charges, which carry a mandatory minimum of five years in prison and a max of 35 years. Funds are being raised for their legal defense and bond, and a legal support infrastructure is being set up, including NLG, to work with them to fight this repressive and anti-democratic prosecution. https://atlsolidarity.org/ #FreeThemAll
