The Department of Justice’s September 16 press release on unregistered foreign agents is a transparent attempt to criminalize and chill political dissent. By suggesting that public demonstrations or any First Amendment activity calling for an end to the war on Iran or an end to the blockade on Cuba, causes that millions of people in the United States support and that foreign governments may also support, can be labeled as “furthering the propaganda or other goals of the foreign power,” the DOJ is establishing a pretext to investigate, subpoena, and prosecute anyone who opposes the Trump administration’s policies based on their constitutionally protected speech.
The logic is absurd and authoritarian: political positions that coincide with those of a foreign government are now grounds for suspicion of criminal activity. If you protest against a war or a blockade that a foreign government also opposes, you are being threatened with years in prison.
The timing is revealing. This DOJ statement comes just weeks after House Republicans issued subpoenas to The People’s Forum, BreakThrough News, and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, demanding internal communications and financial records. The pretext was a State Department report alleging ties between anti-war activism and “foreign influence”. The pattern repeats the history of McCarthyism: political opposition is being reframed as foreign subversion.
Additionally, at a recent congressional hearing, our Executive Director, Manolo De Los Santos, was effectively labeled a “Cuban agent”, not based on evidence, but on the writing of US-funded journalists whose outlets receive substantial government support. When the US government funds media outlets that attack Cuba, and then uses those same outlets’ claims to justify investigating Americans who oppose the blockade, that is not a legitimate inquiry. It is a state-sponsored smear campaign.
Manolo De Los Santos responded directly to these accusations: “I am an agent of my own conscience”. That is exactly what the First Amendment protects: the right to act according to one’s conscience, not according to the dictates of the US government.
The People’s Forum will not be intimidated. We will continue to organize against war, against the blockade, and against all forms of US imperialism. We call on all people of conscience to reject this escalation and to defend the right to protest without fear of being branded a foreign agent for holding opinions that contradict Donald Trump.
The First Amendment belongs to the people, not to the US government. We will not surrender it.
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Categories: Statements + Announcements
