11/05/2015 / By Norman Smith
We just passed the fifth anniversary of one of the worst attacks on free speech in the history of the United States. And most Americans don’t even know about it.
It involves the Supreme Court case known as Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project.
The Humanitarian Law Project is a non-profit organization “dedicated to protecting human rights and promoting the peaceful resolution of conflict by using established international human rights laws and humanitarian law.”
On behalf of the Obama administration, former Attorney General Eric Holder sued the Humanitarian Law Project for giving advice to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which represents the severely repressed Kurdish minority in Turkey, and has engaged in armed resistance against the authoritarian Turkish government for many years. The Humanitarian Law Project advised the PKK on peaceful ways to achieve its goals.
However, the PKK happens to be on the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), which includes just about any group or person that the US executive decides to choose. Nelson Mandela, for instance, was on the list for many years, and was only removed in 2008. Saddam Hussein, on the other hand, was on the list until his name was stricken off by the Reagan administration in 1982.
Not only is the list totally arbitrary, it’s also based on sheer hypocrisy, considering that the U.S. government itself has long been a leading sponsor of terrorism — from its decades-long campaign to unleash “the terrors of the earth” against Cuba (Operation Mongoose), to its support of Augusto Pinochet’s neo-Nazi terrorism throughout Latin America (Operation Condor), to its close alliances with terror-funding governments like Saudi Arabia (the primary backer of ISIS), to the Obama administration’s current international terrorist campaign of drone assassinations.
Citing the infamous Patriot Act, which prohibits Americans from associating with groups on the terrorist list, the Obama administration went after the Humanitarian Law Project for merely talking to the PKK. The case ultimately went to the Supreme Court.
David Cole, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, in describing the Supreme Court’s decision, said:
“According to today’s Supreme Court decision, advocating for human rights and peace can be prosecuted as a ‘terrorist’ crime, punishable by 15 years in prison. Under this ruling, President Jimmy Carter, in monitoring an election in Lebanon, would be providing ‘material support’ to Hezbollah. It does not matter that the speaker intends to support only nonviolent activity, and indeed seeks to discourage a resort to violence. It does not matter if the speech in fact convinces its listeners to abandon violence. For the first time ever, the Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment permits the criminalization of pure speech advocating lawful, nonviolent activity.“
The Carter Center, the widely-respected humanitarian organization founded by former President Jimmy Carter, issued this response:
“We are disappointed that the Supreme Court has upheld a law that inhibits the work of human rights and conflict resolution groups. The ‘material support law’ — which is aimed at putting an end to terrorism — actually threatens our work and the work of many other peacemaking organizations that must interact directly with groups that have engaged in violence. The vague language of the law leaves us wondering if we will be prosecuted for our work to promote peace and freedom.“
In terms of its attack on free speech, the Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project decision has been compared to the 1940 Smith Act, which made it illegal to “teach or advocate” against the U.S. government. The purpose of that law was to make it illegal to be a Communist, and it was used to imprison the entire leadership of the U.S. Communist Party — a legal political organization that was effectively destroyed by the tyrannical Smith Act.
And now, in a blatant attack against human rights and free speech — it’s also illegal to be an anti-terrorist.
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Tagged Under: Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, Humanitarian Law Project, terrorism
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