#Omali Yeshitela

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Cheryl LaBash

The U.S. government is attempting to criminalize international solidarity but has come up against a solid and growing wall of support for the Uhuru 3 when their federal trial opened Sept. 3 here in Tampa.

Collectively known as the Uhuru 3 — Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party, Penny Hess, Chair of the African People’s Solidarity Committee, and Jesse Nevel, Chair of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement — are falsely accused of being pawns of a foreign government. And, of course, that foreign government would need to be Russia to justify spending so much on the investigation and what, at the outset, looked like a lengthy trial.

The proverbial election interference elephant in the room is undoubtedly AIPAC and “Israel” that get a free pass. Not to mention the holier-than-thou U.S. government interventions on every continent, “color” revolutions like the one preceding the war in Ukraine.

What an indictment of the U.S. government that it would even suggest that an African freedom organization with a 50-year history would need a foreign power to instruct them to fight for reparations.

[ncfcatalyst]

Black leaders from St. Petersburg indicted by FBI for allegedly "sowing dissent"

“Come out with your hands up,” boomed a voice from a mobile intercom on Jul. 26, 2022. This according to longtime Uhuru Movement leader and Black rights advocate Omali Yeshitela, who at the time was sitting  across the dinner table with his wife, Ona Zené Yeshitela, at their home in St. Louis. Deafening explosions from flashbang grenades began as the 81-year-old Yeshitela descended his staircase…

[ultramagapatriots]

WATCH: Omali Yeshitela joins Tucker Carlson and details Democrats’ use of fear-mongering and “welfare slavery” programs to win elections.

[theculturedmarxist]

The Biden administration's Department of Justice has just charged four members of the African People's Socialist Party (APSP) for conspiring to act as agents of Russia by using speech and political action in ways the DOJ says "weaponized" the First Amendment rights of Americans.

The Washington Post reports:

Federal authorities charged four Americans on Tuesday with roles in a malign campaign pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda in Florida and Missouri — expanding a previous case that charged a Russian operative with running illegal influence agents within the United States.

The FBI signaled its interest in the alleged activities in a series of raids last summer, at which point authorities charged a Moscow man, Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, with working for years on behalf of Russian government officials to fund and direct fringe political groups in the United States. Among other things, Ionov allegedly advised the political campaigns of two unidentified candidates for public office in Florida.

Ionov’s influence efforts were allegedly directed and supervised by officers of the FSB, a Russian government intelligence service.

Now, authorities have added charges against four Americans who allegedly did Ionov’s bidding through groups including the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement in Florida, Black Hammer in Georgia, and an unidentified political group in California — part of an effort to influence American politics.

AFP reports that the conspiracy charges carry a sentence of up to ten years, with three of the four APSP members additionally charged with acting as unregistered agents of Russia which carries another five years.

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights – freedoms Russia denies its own citizens – to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen in the DOJ's press release regarding the indictments, adding, “The department will not hesitate to expose and prosecute those who sow discord and corrupt U.S. elections in service of hostile foreign interests, regardless of whether the culprits are U.S. citizens or foreign individuals abroad.”

Looks like the United States has decided to dispense with those freedoms as well.

The superseding indictment containing these charges consists of a lot of verbal gymnastics to obfuscate the fact that the DOJ is prosecuting US citizens for speech and political activities in the United States which happen not to align with the wishes of the US government. The grand jury alleges that the aforementioned Ionov "directed" these Americans to "publish pro-Russian propaganda" and "information designed to cause dissention in the United States," which is about as vague and amorphous an allegation as you could possibly come up with. 

For the record Omali Yeshitela, the founder and chairman of the African People's Socialist Party and one of the four Americans named in the indictment, has adamantly denied ever having worked for Russia. Earlier this month before charges were brought against him, the Tampa Bay Times quoted him as saying, "I ain’t ever worked for a Russian. Never ever ever ever. They know I have never worked for Russia. Their problem is, I’ve never worked for them.”

But it's important to note that this should not matter. Under the First Amendment the government is forbidden to abridge anyone's freedom to speak however they want and associate with whomever they please, which necessarily includes being as vocally pro-Russia as they like and promoting whatever political agendas they see fit, whether that happens to advance the interests of the Russian government or not. The indictment alleges that the four Americans engaged in "agitprop" by "writing articles that contained Russian propaganda and disinformation," but even if we pretend that's both (A) a quantifiable claim and (B) a proven fact, propaganda and disinformation are both speech that the government is constitutionally forbidden from repressing.

It's not reasonable for the government to just dismiss the First Amendment on the grounds that it is being "weaponized". You can't have your government dictating what speech is valid and what counts as "agitprop" and "disinformation", because they'll always define those terms in ways which benefit the government, thus giving more power to the powerful and taking power away from the people. You can't have your government dictating what political groups are legitimate and which ones are tools of a foreign government, because you can always count on the powerful set such designations in ways which benefit themselves. 

There's also the brazen hypocrisy of it all. The US government is constantly engaging in foreign influence operations with outfits like the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up to help foment coups and color revolutions and advance US information interests overtly in ways the CIA used to do covertly.

As commentator Brian Berletic noted on Twitter, "The US through the National Endowment for Democracy has created armies of organizations carrying out malign influence operations around the world including here in Thailand. When the Thai government attempts to stop this activity, the US embassy shouts 'free speech.' Thailand's government and others around the world could easily cite this move by the US Justice Department to target and uproot US-funded organizations doing exactly this and worse."

So for the US government to now claim it's legitimate to start throwing US citizens in prison for a decade because they published "propaganda" for another country is absurd, and more than a little scary. The most powerful government in the world needs more political dissent at home, not less, and here they are trying to turn it into a crime.

When they claim the members of the APSP published "propaganda" and promoted "dissention", what they really mean is that they engaged in speech and political activism that the US government does not like. The spinmeisters will try to spin it, the legal mumbo-jumbo will try to obfuscate it, but that's what's happening. Don't let them conceal this from you. They're not worried about Russian propaganda, they're worried you'll stop listening to US propaganda.

[afriblaq]

Uhuru 3: Meet Black Liberation Leader Omali Yeshitela; Faces 5 Years in Prison in "Conspiracy" Case

Three activists with the Uhuru Movement will be sentenced by a Florida judge Monday as part of a legal saga that began when the FBI raided the group in 2022, accusing the antiwar Black liberation group of working as Russian agents. The "Uhuru 3" are Omali Yeshitela, chair of the African People's Socialist Party, and white solidarity activists Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel. A jury acquitted them in September of acting as illegal agents of the Russian government, but convicted them on the lesser charge of conspiracy to act as agents of a foreign government — something they reject. The activists face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine but plan to appeal the ruling. Yeshitela spoke with Democracy Now! ahead of the sentencing hearing and called it "ridiculous" that prosecutors suggested the movement's antiwar position was inspired by Russia. "The Black liberation movement in this country has historically been opposed to those wars, and that's been a strategic problem for the United States," Yeshitela said. "It's a thought crime that they have convicted us for, and we fought it all along, and we continue to fight that."

[readyforevolution]

Members of the Uhuru Movement, Omali Yeshitela, Penny Hess, and Jesse Nevel – the “Uhuru 3” – were sentenced to three years probation and community service after being convicted in September 2024 of supposedly conspiring with the Russian government to interfere in U.S. elections. The Black Alliance for Peace recognizes that this sentence is confirmation that the charges against Uhuru members by the Biden Administration Justice Department were baseless.

[mariacallous]

Jury in Florida convicts four Americans involved in African Socialist Party activism of conspiracy to act as agents of the Russian government, accepting money and instructions from Moscow-based Anti-Globalization Movement leader Alexander Ionov interfacing for the FSB

[wise-words-wisdom]

Omali Yeshitela - Wolves

[workersolidarity]

Watch "DOJ indicts Black radicals for "weaponizing speech"" on YouTube

How long did people who claim to be on the Left insist that censorship under Capitalism wasn't a threat to anyone except Right-wing white nationalists?

Can't make that claim now.

Now we see the FBI raiding the home of 80 year old Black Nationalist Socialist Omali Yeshitela and his wife Ona Zene, leaders of the small but passionate African People's Socialist Party out of St. Petersburg, Florida.

Multiple members of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement as well as the cofounder of the Black Hammer Party along with the leaders of the African People's Socialist Party were all indicted on trumped up charges accusing them of a "plot to promote the political in interests of Russia within the United States."

Back in July, the FBI raided the home and offices of Yeshitela and Zene, throwing smoke bombs through shattered windows and storming in with full camouflage and assault rifles, startling the senior couple in the early hours that morning.

The charges are basically this, that by accepting trips to Moscow and small donations from a Socialist organization with NO evidence of State ties located in Moscow, and by then fielding their own candidates outspoken against the US proxy war in Ukraine in St. Petersburg, Florida, they violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

These kind of minor violations of the statute occur within the two party system everyday, but it's not someone from one of the two Parties being arrested here, instead it's a group of Socialist Black Activists.

This is the two-Party system defending itself and squashing even the tiniest of attempts to defy that system and run independent, Socialist candidates.

Also, this article with more detail from The Real News Network

[t4t4t]

Controversy and criticism [of the Uhuru Movement]

...At the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, the General Students' Committee (AStA) broke apart in April 2015 as a consequence of internal dispute over purported antisemitism after having organized an information event about the Uhuru Movement on JGU campus in January.[19] The AStA distanced itself both from the Uhuru Movement, African People's Socialist Party and its leader Omali Yeshitela stating that "the struggle against racism and the consequences of colonialism should not blind us to other reactionary ideologies" and regretted providing a platform for this movement.[20]

Russian foreign influence controversy

The Uhuru Movement has been accused by state prosecutors of collaborating with alleged Russian foreign agent Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov to sow social divisions in the United States.[21] Members of the group have traveled to Saint Petersburg, Russia, to attend an anti-globalization conference, and the group has also acknowledged that it supports Russia in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.[22][23] On July 29, 2022, the Uhuru House in St. Petersburg, Florida, was raided by the FBI due to an indictment by a grand jury alleging a conspiracy between Ionov and the Uhuru movement to spread Russian disinformation under the guise of domestic political movements. An FBI Tampa Special agent said that "The facts and circumstances surrounding this indictment are some of the most egregious and blatant violations we've seen by the Russian government in order to destabilize and undermine trust in American Democracy."[24][25] On December 23, 2022, the Uhuru Movement organized an emergency meeting via Zoom, stating that the APSP expected new indictments by the FBI and the Department of Justice "in early January 2023 and possibly sooner", for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act.[26] On April 18, a federal indictment was unsealed alleging that the Uhuru Movement, including the founder of the African People's Socialist Party, worked on behalf of the Russian government to spread pro-Russian propaganda and influence local elections.[27][28]

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Cheryl LaBash

At issue is the right of people in the United States to speak, write, and organize disagreement with the federal government’s policies and practices — particularly its foreign policy — and associate with co-thinkers internationally.

Don’t let the government use its massive anti-Russia propaganda to win this attack on all who fight for peace and just causes. Uhuru owns a 50-year history of exposing genocide against Black communities, international collaboration, and organizing.

[theprophet359]

DOJ vs. African People's Socialist Party: Omali Yeshitela Blasts Charges...

[mubashirnews]

Months After FBI Raid, Uhuru Leaders Call Church Fire an 'Assault' | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

click to enlarge Monica Obradovic African People’s Socialist Party Chairman Omali Yeshitela says his organization tried to turn a former north city church into a community center before it “suspiciously” caught fire this month. Members of a Black liberation group under investigation by the FBI called on the federal government today to answer for a church fire they described as a “direct…

[normanthedove]

HANDS OFF UHURU-3 A DECISIVE VICTORY: AS PHYSICIANS, PHARMACISTS, DENTISTS AND NURSE PRACTITIONERS CAN LEARN A VALUABLE LESSON DEVELOPING COALITION IN FIGHTING DOJ/DEA MALICIOUS TARGETING (AN ANALYTICAL-PODCAST)

“NOT ONE DAY, NOT ONE DIME, NOT ONE NICKEL, NOT ONE PENNY” The 83-year-old (Yeshitela) from St. Petersburg, Florida, a 9 year veteran of The United States Army in uniform, serving all around the world in the early 1960’s (Germany, Korea ) only to returned home to Florida an subjected to horrific American Apartheid, Chairman Omali Yeshitela stated: “The only reason we didn’t get prison time is because we fought back against this government attack. We fought! Our lawyers were outstanding! The jury affirmed that we work for Black people, not Russia…It is a precedent-setting case, the first time a foreign agent law has ever been used to target pure political speech. The Hands Off Uhuru! Fightback Coalition is launching a campaign for the repeal of the foreign agent laws…” Jesse Nevel recounted, “On July 29, 2022, they came with hundreds of agents. How much money was spent on that day alone? You have the National Security Division of the Justice Department coordinating the prosecution… …You have an untold amount of resources and focus that the U.S. government tried to bring down against the movement of African people for liberation. And they got their asses handed to them...that is a testament to all of you, but above all, it is a testament to the relentless indestructible leadership of Chairman Omali Yeshitela, the African People’s Socialist Party, Deputy Chair Ona Zené Yeshitela…

!What So Proudly We Hail! “WHEN WE FIGHT TOGETHER WE WILL WIN“ Omali Yeshitela, co-founder and leader of the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement, left, stands with Jesse Nevel, center, and Penny Hess, right, outside the Sam Gibbons U.S. District Courthouse in Tampa after their sentencing hearings before U.S. District Judge William Jung on Monday. [ DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD |…

[emmabeverage]

DANGEROUS Gov’t Prosecution Of Black Uhuru Movement! w/ Omali Yeshitela

[garudabluffs]

Israel’s History of Booby Trapping TOYS & Cars With Lebanese Political Scientist Asad AbuKhali

Dec 7, 2024 Watch the full conversation with Asad AbuKhalil here on Syria, meeting Nasralla and more:   / omali-yeshitela-117262666   Lebanese-American Political Science professor Asad AbuKhalil reflects on how Israel terrorized and continues to terrorize not just Palestininans but Lebanese people. He recalls “I can say, without exaggeration, my entire life history is basically memories of various Israeli invasions, attacks, raids as well as massacres. I mark certain events in my personal life by references to 1978 invasion, ‘92 invasion, ‘96 attacks, like before or after, and I am not unique among Lebanese in that sense. I was born in 1960, and there was No PLO, there was no Hezbollah, there was no Hamas, and Israel was already committing various crimes throughout our region against Arabs. It became very clear to me from an early age that Arab lives do not matter whatsoever. To Israel as well as to Westerners that our lives are dispensable.” He also discusses Israel’s history of boobytrapping donkeys, cars and toys and recalls how one of his best friends was almost killed that way. But AbuKhalil is also hopeful that people are finally waking up to the crimes of Israel and Zionism.