No freedom of speech on dissent in US: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Raja Abdulhaq, a Palestinian activist in New York, to discuss the Canary Mission, a website created to expose pro-Palestinian activists.

What follows is a rough transcription.

Press TV: What happened to the freedom of expression guaranteed under the US Constitution?

Abdulhaq: I think right now what is going on with this website and what we see is really a clear sign that there is no such thing as freedom of speech when it comes [to speaking] against the interest of the foreign policy of this country. There is freedom of speech as long as you are talking points works in parallel with the foreign policy of this country and if it doesn’t and you have any kind of dissent against the foreign policies of the Unites States and Israel, you are automatically designated as terrorist, you automatically are demonized and treated as an enemy to the state and this is exactly what is happening. And it is really important to put this in the context that what this website is trying to create is the idea that dissent in the American society it is not only that is not welcome, but it is actually costly and you have to pay the price for it. And this will lead to demonizing anybody that works for the idea of social justice, to demonize anybody that works for the idea of social justice, to demonize anybody that works for freedom struggles. And the whole idea of it is to really eradicate the whole idea of activism and to continue to enslave the population into Norman’s materialism, and to supporting wars on Third World countries.

Press TV: And you said to eradicate activism; even in the Constitution there is a right for assembly, for you to assemble and speak out with your fellows, people that feel the same way, your peers who are like-minded against a certain cause. And to speak out, assemble, and you know maybe protest against something you feel is unjust. Now tell me something, how fair is it for these people to be persecuted, have their futures persecuted, at stake [because of] an activity that is guaranteed them by the constitution.

Abdulhaq: Well, that is basically the whole hypocrisy of the system. The system is telling everybody publicly that everybody is welcome to say whatever they want but on paper. In practice everybody that works for the struggle of Palestine and everybody that works for any struggle or any cause that is against the foreign policy of this country is automatically or systematically designated as a terrorist. And we know and we have seen many activists in Chicago, in Cleveland, in New York and California are not only being questioned by FBI, but actually were either imprisoned, some of them were actually held hostage for a while; others actually the FBI had to go back into… as we know in the case of Rasmea [Yousef] Odeh in Chicago, where they had to go back into her immigration status to find any mistakes that she made to use it against her as a price for her activism for Palestine. It is clear that this new initiative  is targeting the youth, is targeting the students who are the vanguards of the society; the people who are working so hard to spread the truth about the cause of Palestine and any other social justice causes. They are targeting them because they know that activism in campuses is very effective, activism in campuses does not only change the mainstream narratives and challenges it, but it basically plants a seed into the future leaders of this country that Israel and even the government in this country is afraid that this seed is planted within the leaders of the future. So what is happening right now is [that] this government and this country is making this… and again I don’t want to say government right now… we are talking about this website… this website is making it very hard for any youth, anybody, any student, any campus, to say that if you work for justice we are going to jeopardize your future, we are going to expose you in front of corporations and we are going to stop you from being able to find a job. This is a very dangerous situation and I think if the population of this country and activists in general don’t gather and get together to challenge this mission and challenge this website, this is going to affect the level of activism and this is going to challenge the constitutional right for every single American in this country.

MTM/KA

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