Mass Liberation AZ

Attorneys React to Court Hearing, ASU Protests

On May 14, 2024, students and those arrested during the establishment of Arizona State University’s Gaza solidarity encampment had their arraignment hearings. Over 70 protesters faced charges after being violently arrested by ASU police in the early hours of April 27th. Mass Liberation AZ hosted a protester support rally and a press conference with the defense attorneys at the conclusion of the hearings. 

Watch attorney Zayed Al-Sayyed, part of an incredible joint defense team of 10 lawyers representing the protesters, break down exactly what happened at court and the impact of these cases on those arrested.

We still have more to do to make sure ASU is held accountable for their violence against students and community members who persist in the demand for a #FreePalestine.

Make sure to take part in the letter campaign demanding accountability from ASU’s leadership.

Community Groups Declare State of Emergency in Arizona; Interpret PPE Results

On March 19, 2024, Arizona voters leveraged their votes in protest of the disheartening selection of candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. Community groups are declaring a State of Emergency in Arizona based on the 2024 Presidential Preference Election results. Following Michigan, Washington, North Carolina, Minnesota, Hawaii, and Georgia, Arizona voters protested with their ballots through a multitude of tactics, including voting for Marianne Williamson, abstaining from voting, and voting for “Anybody But Biden”.

We are experiencing a crisis in our democracy. We are locked in a two-party system that refuses to put forward candidates who represent issues critical to the survival of our community. Over 80% of Democrats have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, yet most elected officials are ignoring their constituents. This is only one example of the severe lack of representation across a spectrum of issues. With the turbulence of the current political climate, Black, Indigenous, Arab, and young communities are responding by protesting in this election cycle.

Community organizations have come together to send a warning to our local candidates and elected officials, demanding they “Give Us A Reason To Vote” or risk further abandonment by voters. We will no longer vote under the threat of the lesser of two evils. We reject voting blue no matter who when the lesser of two evils is genocide!

Watch the press conference below:

Response to ABC15 NEWS - Genocide in Gaza

Today, ABC 15 released a story on Mass Liberation AZ’s statement in solidarity with Palestine and the Gazan resistance. You can read our initial responses to the questions ABC 15 posed below:

email tRanscribed below:

YOUR QUESTION: Mass Liberation AZ is an organization dedicated to reforming the criminal justice system. Your efforts are widely regarded. Do you have any concerns this reputation will be undermined by saying Hamas is not terrorist organization and The October 7th attack on Jewish civilians was justified?

MLAZ ANSWER: To quote our statement more accurately: We do not condemn Gazan resistance, we condemn the genocidal conditions that led to this violence. Mass Liberation AZ is a principled people’s movement. We are accountable to directly impacted people, therefore, it is our responsibility to tell the truth without concern for our reputation. Western media continues to work from Israeli military talking points rather than doing the diligent work of accurate journalism. A more appropriate question would be: 

Mass Liberation AZ is an organization dedicated to reforming the criminal justice system. Your efforts are widely regarded. How does your work connect with the genocide currently taking place in Gaza? To which we would reply: 

“The conditions of Palestinian people in occupied Palestine, particularly Gaza, but also in the refugee camps in the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon are a result of settler colonialism in the US and the UK for over 100 years. This was supported by the EU, Nato, and others. The occupying forces that are exterminating Palestinian people in Gaza also train Phoenix police, one of the most deadly police forces in the nation. And, most importantly, just as Nelson Mandela said in his 1997 speech on International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, ‘We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.’”

YOUR QUESTION: Your belief Hamas was democratically elected is challenged by history. It was part of unity government formed in 2006. But Hamas later broke the agreements and started killing Fatah members taking over Gaza in what many governments (not just the U.S. and Israel) say was coup. Can you speak to that? 

MLAZ ANSWER: This question is misleading and based on false information. It’s truly disappointing the amount of misinformation coming from reputable journalists, fueling the American misunderstanding of the situation in Gaza. It was in January 2006 that the Palestinian territories held elections. Hamas won and that is an indisputable fact. To be specific, Hamas won a bare plurality of votes (44%) to Fatah (the moderate) party’s 41%, which amounts to a strong majority of seats (74 to 45). Israel initially promoted Hamas, so, Israel, too, acknowledged Hamas as a legitimate political actor. Additionally, Hamas has a current approval rating among Gazans (57%) that is much higher than Joe Biden in the US (36%) when both were separately polled in July of this year. These approval ratings come after over 17 years in leadership. 

Hamas didn’t ‘break agreements and start killing Fatah members’ as you claim in your misguided question. Rather, the US and Israel used divide-and-rule tactics to attempt a forced regime change, just as they have in other countries around the world. This is not challenged by history, it’s challenged by poor and uneducated reporting. 

  • Evidence of divide-and-rule tactics as reported by Vanity Fair: “Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)”

Western media’s desperate need to call Hamas “terrorists” is rooted in Islamophobia. These terms have been used against Palestinians and Arabs throughout the course of their resistance to occupation. Clearly the media has not learned its lessons from the disastrous consequences of “The War on Terror”. Sound journalists must explore these contradictions rather than exploit them.  

YOUR QUESTION: You condemn President Biden, but on his visit he renewed the call for a Two State Solution (in front of Israel’s Prime Minister) does that not matter? 

MLAZ ANSWER: No, it doesn’t matter when Biden is still actively sending hundreds of billions of dollars of “aid” to Israel for the sole purpose of bombing the Palestinian civilians in their homes, schools, hospitals and refugee camps. The money Biden sent Israel paid for illegal white phosphorus bombs. Those are not the actions of someone seeking a solution, those are actions of someone seeking extermination. As recently as 2017, Hamas was willing to accept a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders; Israel declined. At this point a two-state solution is a slogan of the past. It’s clearly no longer on the table. It’s easy for Biden to give this type of lip service because he knows it’s an impossibility. That’s why no one, least of all the Palestinian people, takes Biden seriously. Every action Biden has taken before and after October 7th cements his place in history as the US President who aided and abetted the genocide of the Palestinian people by funding the apartheid state of Israel. He is complicit in genocide.

In Solidarity with Palestine & the Gazan Resistance

*We reserve the right to add demands based on the demands that emerge from Gaza

As abolitionists, we recognize the brutal apartheid regime of Israel and its US-backed occupation of Palestine for what it is: a prison that must be abolished. 

In solidarity with Palestine, we reject the blatantly racist, Islamophobic narrative that claims Hamas is a terrorist organization. We do not condemn Gazan resistance. The expectation that the victims of a brutal 75 year imperialist occupation denounce their own resistance and betray their cause is a manipulative tactic of the US and other world leaders to delegitimize Palestine’s right to sovereignty. We acknowledge Hamas as a legitimate political actor and democratically elected Gazan resistance working to free Palestinian people. We unequivocally support Palestine’s demands and acknowledge Operation Al-Aqsa Flood as a necessary step to secure Palestine’s freedom. There are not two sides to genocide. As Palestinian people resist ethnic cleansing they must have unwavering global support. 

We refuse to acknowledge Israel as a legitimate state. No apartheid state has a right to exist. Zionism is not an excuse for mass extermination and support of Israel equals dehumanization and erasure of Palestinians as a people. Israel is a racist, violent, settler-colonial apartheid regime with no exclusive right to the land. The genocidal campaign by Zionists against Palestinian people is responsible for every single death – Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim – that has taken place on Palestine’s soil since 1920. And still, nearly 100 years later, Israel has dropped over 6,000 bombs in a single week, killing children at schools, patients in hospitals, and people in their homes, wiping out entire Palestinian family bloodlines, leaving Gazans to pull their loved ones from the rubble with their bare hands. Those who remain are completely trapped; imprisoned by the Israeli military who have, with the help of the US, cut off all aid, including electricity, water, food, and medical supplies. 

Mass Liberation AZ remains in continued solidarity with Palestine’s struggle for life and liberation. We do not acknowledge tactics that aim to silence our solidarity. We wholeheartedly reject the false Zionist narrative that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism. Palestinian people are Semitic people and any claim that Palestinian resistance is anti-Semitic is just another attempt to erase Palestinian people. We will not be bribed or extorted by funders or philanthropy who use anti-BDS clauses to silence our movement’s solidarity with Palestine. 

WE DEMAND:

  • An immediate ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza
  • Immediate restoration of energy, water, food, and communication services to the Gaza Strip
  • Israel to release all Palestinian prisoners and the US to release the Palestinian-American political prisoners
  • The end of the Israeli occupation of the state of Palestine
  • A decolonized and self-determined Palestine
  • All Palestinian people be allowed to return back to their stolen homes, stolen land, and reparations to all Palestinian people
  • Israel be held accountable by the ICC for its countless war crimes; including using white phosphorus bombs, targeting civilian homes and hospitals, and deprivation of food, electricity, and water
  • The US government be held accountable by the ICC as accomplice to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people
  • End US military funding to Israel
    Demilitarize US to Palestine by ending state violence and police militarization in the US and Palestine
  • All elected officials in Arizona denounce Israel’s apartheid regime and genocide
  • Arizona State University “stand against colonial domination and cut all ties with Israel” as stated by Students for Justice in Palestine ASU 
  • End the bribery and extortion by funders and philanthropy that silence local movements through BDS clauses

*We reserve the right to add demands based on the demands that emerge from Gaza

District 8's new councilmember has already failed South Phoenix

On March 14, 2023, Phoenix’s eighth district officially elected Kesha Hodge Washington as councilmember after a run-off election.

Mass Liberation Arizona issued the following statement in response:

It’s clear the majority of District 8 voters are looking to Kesha Hodge Washington to bring change to the district, but Washington has already made clear she plans to continue the legacy of her predecessors by alienating and ignoring the needs of Black people in South Phoenix who are most impacted by state violence. We know this because Kesha Hodge Washington’s campaign was backed by anti-Black institutions, like the police union, PLEA, which continues to co-sign police brutalization of the residents of South Phoenix, putting profit and property interests above the wellbeing and safety of District 8. In the two weeks leading up to the run-off election, Phoenix Police shot six people, killing five of their victims, yet Washington has proudly aligned herself with the very police force that has inflicted immeasurable violence against the neighborhoods she was elected to represent.

District 8, and South Phoenix as a whole, has a long history of inept elected officials. In 2013, Kate Gallego won the District 8 seat, but failed the Black community miserably — in the same ways she fails us now as mayor. She promised progress and racial equity, but instead, she used her District 8 seat as an opportunistic stepping stone for her political career, neglecting her duty to our community. In 2019, Carlos Garcia followed Gallego’s footsteps by demonstrating indifference and inaction as South Phoenix faced the brunt of the current housing crisis, overwhelming police violence, environmental racism, and displacement.

As councilmember-elect, Kesha Hodge Washington must answer to our community: Will she represent the interests of Black community members who have endured violent erasure and the failures of her predecessors? Or will she allow herself to continue to be tokenized by the same racist institutions and politicians who supported her campaign? No matter which answer she chooses, we, the community, will hold Washington accountable to our demands for #CareNotCops.

Arizona Law Tramples People’s Constitutional Right to Record Police

SAN FRANCISCO – A new Arizona law that bans people from recording videos within eight feet of police violates the constitutional rights of legal observers, grassroots activists, and other Arizonans, says a brief filed Friday in federal court by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), two Arizona chapters of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), Poder in Action, and Mass Liberation AZ.

“Arizonans routinely hold police accountable throughout their communities by recording them within eight feet,” said Mukund Rathi, an EFF attorney and Stanton Fellow focusing on free speech litigation. “Arizonans use these recordings to document police activity at protests, expose false charges against protesters, and inform the public of police racism and misconduct. Everyone must be free to use mobile devices and social media to record and publish the news, including how police use their powers.”

The new law makes it a crime, punishable by up to a month in jail, to record videos within eight feet of law enforcement activity. The law was signed by Gov. Doug Ducey in July and is scheduled to take effect Sept. 24.

Several news organizations and the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona sued last month to prevent the law from going into effect, arguing it “creates an unprecedented and facially unconstitutional content-based restriction on speech about an important governmental function.”

The friend-of-the-court brief filed Friday by EFF and its collaborators agrees, and helps illustrate the potential impact of the law by detailing how the grassroots organizations create and use recordings to hold police accountable and keep their communities free and safe.

The groups, represented by EFF and co-counsel Kathleen E. Brody of Phoenix, told the court the new law harms efforts by legal observers and others to exercise their fundamental right to record police activity. Protest activity often occurs within eight feet of police, and sightlines of police activity are often obscured at greater distances. Also, officers often move closer to protestors and those who are recording videos–essentially creating the crime under this law. Video recordings also are more accurate, detailed, and shareable than written note-taking.

“Police and prosecutors in Maricopa County have arrested and falsely charged hundreds of protesters for their free expression in recent years,” said Lola N’sangou, Executive Director of Mass Liberation AZ, a Black-led abolitionist group based in south Phoenix and organizing throughout Arizona. “Scores of these protesters faced false felony charges that were later dropped, in many cases due to recordings filmed within eight feet of the arrests and surrounding circumstances. Without these recordings, most of these protesters would have spent decades in prison. One protester faced 100.5 years on completely fabricated charges.” 

The case is Arizona Broadcasters Association v. Brnovich, 2:22-cv-01431 in the U.S District Court, District of Arizona.

For the EFF, NLG, Poder in Action, and Mass Liberation AZ amicus brief: https:/eff.org/document/arizona-broadcasters-association-v-brnovich-amicus-brief

For the underlying complaint: https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/arizona-broadcasters-association-v-brnovich-complaint

For more on the right to record: https://www.eff.org/issues/right-record

Phoenix Police Chief Caught Destroying Evidence

Phoenix, AZ — On Wednesday, ABC15 revealed that the Phoenix Police Department’s executive leadership has been using Signal, a private and encrypted messaging application, to communicate without leaving a permanent record of their conversations. Since then, a letter from the attorney of the three assistant chief’s who were demoted by Chief Jeri Williams in 2021, refuted Williams’ claims to have deleted the app and discouraged her staff from using it.

Mass Liberation Arizona issued the following statement in response:

Once again Phoenix Police Department and the City of Phoenix have been caught lying and covering up misconduct. Top Phoenix Police officials were not only caught using the Signal app which allows messages to be permanently deleted; when they were confronted, they lied… again. Chief Williams said she asked her staff not to use the app and she claimed to have deleted it from her phone in 2020, but today, screenshots surfaced from August 2021 where Williams, herself, not only sent messages from the Signal app – she set the disappearing message feature to 30 minutes.

Chief Williams not only lied about deleting the app, she actively used Signal to intentionally destroy evidence long after she claimed to have told her staff not to use the app. Chief Williams is a liar. She absolutely must not be permitted to retire in good standing; she must be fired. She must also be Brady listed immediately. No public official should be using the Signal app, least of all the chief of the nation’s deadliest police department.

The Department of Justice has been “investigating” the Phoenix Police Department and the City of Phoenix for over a year, yet journalists, community organizations and attorneys have proven to be far more proficient at uncovering evidence of misconduct; for far less tax dollars.

County Attorney Rachel Mitchell is dangerous for Maricopa County

Phoenix, AZ — On Monday, July 18, a jury acquitted Glen Robertson, a Black man who was racially profiled, assaulted, and falsely arrested by Phoenix Police for a hit-and-run on June 25, 2020. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office charged Robertson with assisting a criminal street gang and threatening and intimidating an officer; but never charged him for the hit-and-run. Ironically, Robertson now faces charges for a DUI in the hit-and-run that was never charged. These retaliatory charges were filed nearly a year after the arrest.

Today, interim Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell responded to questions about her office’s conduct in their case against Mr. Robertson.

Mass Liberation Arizona issued the following statement in response:

Rachel Mitchell’s comments on the Robertson trial are deeply concerning. Glen Robertson was acquitted on all charges by a duly impaneled jury. Yet in a statement today, the Maricopa County Attorney told media that Robertson made “threats of gang retaliation” that MCAO will take seriously. It’s clear that Mitchell doesn’t have any remorse for bringing these false charges, but what’s most troubling is that Mitchell clearly doesn’t understand the legal definition of a “threat”. To be clear: Glen Robertson did NOT make any gang related threats.

It is very disturbing that even after three judges warned MCAO about the weakness of this case and the community brought the problems to Mitchell’s desk, she is still accusing Robertson of making threats. A jury acquitted Robertson, and a jury’s decision should be respected by the most powerful prosecuting agency in Arizona. Yet Mitchell still fails to grasp that Glen Robertson did not make threats of any kind—not gang-related or otherwise. It’s dangerous to have someone like this in leadership.

We have not forgotten that Mitchell supported the previous administration when dozens of false gang charges were brought in 2020; we expect nothing less from her now. Our community is tired of being racially and politically targeted, arrested and prosecuted. We will not tolerate this for another term. Mitchell is displaying the same kind of belligerence and incompetence we’ve seen in her predecessors. It’s unacceptable. Mitchell is more concerned with pushing forward false charges and filling prisons than justice. She’s following the same playbook as the failed leadership that preceded her and allowing the legacy of brutality and corruption of this office to continue to go unchecked. The community deserves better.

Maricopa County Attorney Mitchell won't protect reproductive rights

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade, a decision reproductive justice advocates and organizers foresaw as an end to the constitutional right to abortion. Interim Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell also released a statement today on how her office will approach this decision.

Mass Liberation Arizona issued the following statement:

For the past two months interim County Attorney Rachel Mitchell has been maneuvering around the question of how her office will respond to abortion bans and every single time, she uses legal jargon to obscure her actual position. Her statements are ambiguous and that’s the point.

Last month she told multiple media outlets she was obligated to follow the law and the constitution, but wouldn’t prosecute any individual who sought an abortion — yet she wiggled around how she would handle providers as per the new AZ law. She also stated she wouldn’t prosecute when a pregnancy was the result of incest or rape — which is not an exception this new AZ state ban makes.

In these previous statements, Rachel Mitchell clearly demonstrates she’s aware of her power to apply discretion as County Attorney — yet today, she made an absolute statement making no reference to the exceptions she committed to just weeks ago.

In the coming weeks, we expect Mitchell, along with other conservative prosectors in the nation, profess they are bound by “law” to criminalize and cage abortion providers and seekers. And here in Arizona, Rachel Mitchell’s stance will become more and more inconsistent because she can’t win this election without the support of voters who do NOT want this ban.

What’s most ironic about Mitchell’s conflicting statements is that, as a “veteran sex-crimes prosecutor” (a major part of her platform this election) who keeps boasting about her plans to protect women and children, Mitchell refuses to guarantee the right to bodily autonomy to those who experience sexual violence that results in pregnancy. We should expect nothing more from the prosecutor who went on the record before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the historic 2018 Kavanaugh case, to discredit the testimony of a sexual assault survivor.

Chief Williams Lies Again, Retires to Avoid Accountability

Today, Jeri Williams announced her sudden retirement as Chief of the Phoenix Police Department. This announcement comes in the midst of continued scandals and investigations into her role in the 2017 anti-protester challenge coin and 2020 protest cases. Since 2021, Jeri Williams repeatedly denied having any prior knowledge of her department’s plan to falsely charge protesters as gang members or the creation and distribution of a neo-Nazi challenge coin that celebrates police violence.

Mass Liberation Arizona issued the following statement:

It comes as no surprise to Mass Liberation AZ that Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams chose to “retire” after being caught in a string of lies. She’s been avoiding accountability at every turn by scapegoating her staff and telling outright lies to protect her position. Her retirement, itself, is a lie. Williams is trying to slip out the back door while the whole city unravels at the hands of her deadly police force.

We warned the City every step of the way. We have been vocal about these deceptions and called for Williams’ job on our own platforms and directly to Phoenix City Council through thousands of public comments, dozens of citizen petitions, and meetings with councilmembers who claim to represent the community. Yet from May 2020 to May 2022, the City has done nothing but hide. What’s worse, Mayor “Cover Up Kate” Gallego tried and failed to cover up the police misconduct and now she, herself, will have to face accountability.

City Council should take heed. This scandal is far from over. We forced Ed Zuercher into retirement, now Jeri Williams. There will be more. City officials need to get on the right side of history or face removal