Episcopalian members of Congress urged to oppose repression of antiwar activists

The resolution specifically identified several laws and a Supreme Court decision that it said were being used to suppress the speech of peaceful critics of government policy. The resolution warned that the “use of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the Patriot Act, and the Supreme Court decision in Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project, have a chilling effect on God’s call to peacemaking and unduly impact the Arab, Palestinian and Muslim communities in the United States.”

The explanation that accompanied the resolution also contextualized this suppression historically, remembering that the FBI labeled Rev. Martin Luther King a “direct threat to American security” following King’s public condemnation of the war in Vietnam.

Just a month before the second anniversary of the FBI raids on the antiwar and peace activists in Chicago and Minneapolis, the Commission sent a copy of the resolution to the forty Episcopal members of Congress urging them “to convey [their] concerns about these attacks on American civil liberties to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.” http://spencepages.homestead.com/congress.html

Newland Smith, Deputy to General Convention from the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, commended the Church’s principled stance, stating, “As a member of the Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission on Social Justice and Public Policy that submitted this resolution to the General Convention meeting in Indianapolis in early July, I am proud that my Church has taken a stand on the right to dissent from U. S. government policy.”   

On September 20, 2012 at 3:30 p.m. at the Federal Dirksen building in downtown Chicago, the Episcopal Peace Fellowship – Chicago Chapter/Episcopal Diocese of Chicago will join the Committee Against Political Repression, the Coalition to Protect People’s Rights, the United States Palestinian Community Network-Chicago, and the Palestine Solidarity Group in a press conference followed by a protest calling for an end to the United States Attorney’s Grand Jury investigation into the legitimate non-violent political activity of the 23 anti-war activists.