Stop Cop City: Imaginary Crimes Tour
This week, we’re sharing an interview with Selena who speaks about the “Stop Cop City: Imaginary Crimes Tour” and Jordan, a RICO defendant from the Stop Cop City 61 case. The two speak about anti-repression, about where the case is at right now and a wider view of resistance and support. The tour will be hitting over 60 cities (not all in the USA)
From their tour announcement:
61 people are facing RICO trials in Atlanta for alleged involvement in resistance to the construction of Cop City. The State uses imaginary associations and crimes, framed as RICO, as a means to break solidarity and momentum when movements are strong. Anti-repression is a response that uses an alternate imagination to strengthen solidarity and resistance.
In Spring 2025, a nationwide tour will visit over 60 cities to discuss the history of the Atlanta forest, the resistance to Cop City, history of RICO, ongoing legal updates and facilitate discussions on anti-repression and movement defense. Through this tour we aim to share the lessons we have learned across struggles, and adapt to the evolving repressive forces so that we can continue to move bravely together.
Stay updated here:
- www.instagram.com/sccimaginarycrimestour/
- linktr.ee/sccimaginarycrimestour
- tinyurl.com/SCCImaginaryCrimesTourUpadates (announcements only signal chat)
If you want some more content on the struggle, check out this really interesting episode of Audio Interference, a podcast associated with the Interference Archive in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood featuring materials from and discussion of a September 2024 installation entitled “Archiving Stop Cop City: This Is Not A Local Struggle”
To hear past episodes of ours on the Stop Cop City movement, check out this link.
The Last Standing House In The Neighborhood (Hamza M. Salha in North Gaza)
Then, we’re sharing audio from audio recorded by Franklin Lopez of Amplifier Films with Palestinian journalist Hamza M Salha who lives in North Gaza describing the conditions with the resumption of the escalated genocide being conducted by the Israeli settler-colonial military. Hamza speaks about the means that people are informed of incoming bombing raids, speaks of the sleepless night in the midst falling bombs in the rubble and tents, clearly exhausted himself. He speaks about the availability of food, his thoughts on the strangling and murderous siege of Israel, the failure of the world to stop the genocide and occupation.
You can find stories and photos from Hamza on his instagram account. If you want to support him and 40 members of his extended family and attempting to get out of Gaza to get medical attention, you can check out his Go Fund Me.
You can watch the video without any accounts, only a web browser and internet connection by visiting the Amplifier Films mastodon account. To echo Hamza, thanks to Franklin Lopez of Amplifier Films (Facebook, Instagram) for sharing this audio and creating videos to share Hamza’s world with us on the outside, and our deep gratitude to Adrienne for the support and Hamza for expressing his experience for the audience. We wish you solidarity and health.
You can read some of Hamza’s writings below (same as last episode):
- “I was buried alive beneath the rubble and awoke in a ‘graveyard’” (17 March 2024) https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-on-gaza-buried-alive-beneath-rubble-awoke-graveyard
- “Terrified, starving, crushed: The agonising death of my grandfather in Gaza” (2 Nov 2024) https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/11/2/terrified-starving-crushed-the-agonising-death-of-my-grandfather-in-gaza
- “Israel turned Jabalia into a barren desert and made our home a grave” (25 November 2024) https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-turned-jabalia-desert-made-home-grave
- “Israel’s May 2023 military bombardments on the Gaza Strip killed 33 Palestinians in 5 days and disrupted countless lives.” (3 September 2023) https://wearenotnumbers.org/a-shadow-over-our-childhoods-the-peril-of-occupation/
- “Famine is already here” (8 March 2024) https://electronicintifada.net/content/famine-already-here/45026
- “Are we going to die this time?” (14 June 2023) co written with Khaled El Hissy https://electronicintifada.net/content/are-we-going-die-time/37966
- “The Jabaliya Massacre: Heaven Embraces Five Angels” (29 August 2022) https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-jabaliya-massacre-heaven-embraces-five-angels/
- “Tensions, struggle and an unshakable will to stay” (5 March 2025) https://electronicintifada.net/content/tensions-struggle-and-unshakable-will-stay/50458
- “The night Israeli forces left families buried alive under rubble” (10 December, 2024) https://www.newarab.com/features/night-israeli-forces-left-families-buried-alive-under-rubble
- “Gaza’s open-air cinema offers temporary escape from blockade” (21 September, 2023) https://www.newarab.com/features/gazas-open-air-cinema-offers-temporary-escape-blockade
. … . ..
Featured Track:
- Helwa Ya Baladi by Dalida (covered by Lina Sleibi)