cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/211404

Israel is planning to use Gaza as a "model" for its expanding assault on Lebanon, its defense minister said on Sunday as he pledged to begin the demolition of homes in border villages.

In a statement Sunday, Defense Minister Israel Katz said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered the Israel Defense Forces to "immediately destroy all the bridges over the Litani River that are used for terrorist activity, in order to prevent the passage of Hezbollah terrorists and weapons southward."

He also said he'd ordered the military to "accelerate the destruction of Lebanese homes in the border villages in order to thwart threats to the Israeli settlements—in accordance with the Beit Hanoun and Rafah model in Gaza."

Dylan Williams, the vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, described the invocation of this "Gaza model" as "an open admission of intent to commit ethnic cleansing" in Lebanon.

The two cities Katz referred to were largely wiped off the map during the Gaza genocide.

Beit Hanoun, a city on the northeastern edge of the Gaza Strip, which once had a population of more than 50,000 people, had nearly all of its structures totally "flattened" by Israel's bombing and was totally depopulated, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in mid-2025. The far-right in Israel has pushed for Jewish Israeli settlers to move in and build settlements on the territory.

Rafah has been similarly devastated, with nearly 70% of the structures "wiped out" according to an October 2025 investigation by the Center for Information Resilience.

At the time that Israeli forces moved into Rafah in mid-2024, it was the last refuge for more than 1 million Palestinians who'd been displaced from their homes elsewhere in the strip. UN experts described the attack on Rafah as a culmination of a monthslong campaign to “forcibly transfer and destroy Gaza’s population," with more than 800,000 people being forced to flee.

Human Rights Watch said on Monday that Katz's announcement demonstrated "an intent to forcibly displace residents, destroy civilian homes, and conduct strikes that could target civilians" in Lebanon as well.

Already, more than 1 million civilians in Lebanon, from the area south of the Litani River and in Beirut's southern suburbs, have become displaced following orders from the Israeli military to evacuate their homes.

Katz has said hundreds of thousands of Shiite civilians will be forbidden from returning from their south of the Litani "until the safety of Israel’s northern residents is guaranteed," and he has said Israel “will not hesitate to target anyone who is present near Hezbollah members, facilities, or means of combat.”

Human Rights Watch has said these indefinite displacements raise the concern that Israel is perpetrating the war crime of forced displacement and doing so based on religion.

“The Israeli military does not get to decide when civilians lose protections afforded by international law, nor should it be allowed to prevent displaced residents from returning to their homes based on some undefined ‘safety’ standard,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. Deliberately targeting civilians, civilian objects, and others protected under international law would be a war crime, and countries supplying Israel with weapons need to realize they are risking complicity in war crimes too.”

Since the latest outbreak of hostilities at the beginning of March following the launch of the US-Israeli war against Iran, at least 1,024 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli attacks, including 79 women and 118 children, according to a report from Lebanese authorities this weekend.

Last week, the United Nations Human Rights Office reported that Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have "destroyed hundreds of homes and civilian infrastructure, including healthcare facilities."

“For over two years, Israel’s allies and European states that purport to support and uphold human rights have buried their heads in the sand as atrocities continue in Lebanon, as in Gaza,” Kaiss said. “Atrocities flourish when there is impunity, and other countries should no longer stand by as they continue.”

Iran's military spokesperson: 'Don’t dress up your defeat as an agreement. Your era of empty promises has come to an end'

BEIRUT — It is morning outside Mohammed Al-Amin Mosque in downtown Beirut, and beneath the gigantic crescent moon statue, a woman in a white hijab and dirtied floral dress is calling for her children.

She screams out the name of one of them, Mohammed, when he almost wanders into the busy street.

Fatima, 45, fled the southern suburb of Bourj al-Barajneh with her family on March 2 when Israel bombarded the community as part of the broadening regional war.

She is a mother of two young boys and an older daughter who are sitting cross-legged around her on cardboard boxes. Thick comforters, a jug of water, and a half-eaten bag of Lebanese bread lean on the statue behind them.

It’s not the first time they have been displaced. The family is originally from Syria but escaped the civil war for the relative peace of Bourj al-Barajneh. Fatima’s mother, Warde, 70, is there in her wheelchair; she sheltered in the exact same spot under the gigantic crescent moon statue in 2024 when Israel last struck their neighborhood.

This time, they abandoned their home when the explosions brought her sons to tears. “Children are not like adults; there is fear and there is terror,” she says. “So we left Bourj al-Barajneh. Yesterday we slept near this statue.”

“Our children have been hungry since yesterday. I mean there’s no food, no drink,” she explains. “And yesterday night the children were freezing.”

“Children are not like adults; there is fear and there is terror.”

Authorities in Beirut have done nothing to help them, Fatima says. They are among a wide swath of the Lebanese populace that has been uprooted and one of tens of families who have found shelter near the gigantic crescent moon statue. A few men brought them blankets when they saw that the family was cold. The problem is that they have nowhere to go now. “Now we’re afraid to go back. They’re saying there’s bombing. So, we’re forced to be sitting here on the ground. What can we do? There’s no solution. There’s nothing,” she says.

The next day, they are gone.

Israel’s wave of attacks on Lebanon are the deadliest conflict in the country since the 1975–1990 civil war. According to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 1,000 people, 118 of them children, and displaced 1 million others. Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah but has consistently struck residential buildings in the south and east of the country, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and, recently, parts of central Beirut as well.

Nowhere seems safe, especially for those whose apartments are in evacuation zones that encompass nearly 600 square miles, according to the United Nations. As of mid-March, as many as 1 in 5 people in Lebanon have been displaced by Israeli military operations. The Intercept walked the streets of Beirut to learn their stories.

Displaced people find shade by public art in downtown Beirut. Photo: Afeef Nessouli/The Intercept

Across the street from the statue where Fatima’s family sheltered, two teenage boys lay on a thin mattress pushed up against a wall covered with purple and yellow graffiti. One is awake and scrolling his phone with one hand behind his head. Behind him, his brother sleeps.

Karim is 16, with dark brown hair and an inviting face. A few days ago, he was in Dahieh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, trying to pick up odd jobs to make money. He lived with his family in an apartment and shared a room with his brother.

On February 28, the night the U.S. and Israel killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Karim heard “problems would soon be coming to Lebanon.” He wasn’t convinced at first. When Israel started hitting the southern suburbs, Karim narrowly avoided an air attack as his parents and brother tried to escape by car on the street known as Airport Road, which connects downtown Beirut to the Rafic Hariri International Airport. “They were striking in front of us, cutting off the road.”

“If we find a house, we’ll go, and if we find a school, we’ll go. And if we don’t find anything, we’ll stay here.”

When they made it to downtown Beirut, his family tried to find a place to stay in schools that were being converted into makeshift shelters, but they were mostly full. “My mom has a mental health condition,” he explains. “The schools are overcrowded, and it bothers her too much.”

That’s why he’s sleeping on the street and using cafes to charge his phone. Karim runs into dukkan, or corner stores, for food, water, or whatever else he needs.

He wants to return to his house, but the strikes have only gotten worse in Dahieh since they arrived. “We have to be patient. What can we do? If we find a house we’ll go, and if we find a school we’ll go. And if we don’t find anything we’ll stay here. We have to have patience,” he says.

“Right now, everything is exhausting. I am just so tired.”

It’s hard to grasp the scale of displacement inside Lebanon. Already, according to the U.N., 667,831 people have registered themselves as displaced with Lebanon’s government. Lebanon’s National Disaster Risk Management Unit reports that “119,700 displaced individuals [are] currently accommodated in 567 collective shelters.” However, reports suggest that more than 1 million people — of a population of just about five and a half million — are displaced, including many who have not yet registered. According to Al Jazeera, about 99,000 homes were already damaged or destroyed in the previous 14 months before this escalation started.

The Lebanese government, with the U.N. and local NGOs, says it is responding to the emergency by opening public schools, the city’s stadiums, and universities as temporary shelters. With support from the U.N. Development Programme, they also created a disaster management unit to coordinate aid, such as essential supplies and cash transfers, and direct people to safer regions like the North and Bekaa.

Despite these efforts, the scale of displacement has far exceeded the government’s capacity to provide aid. Every one of the 36 displaced people in Beirut who spoke with The Intercept said the response has been inadequate.

“Where is the government? What are they doing?” one humanitarian aid worker asks frustratedly.

The man who raises this question over and over again is Mohammed, who shares his frustration while sitting on his motorcycle and smoking a cigarette in front of Ras Beirut’s Public Secondary School, which has been converted into a shelter. He describes himself as part of the “resistance against Israel,” and as “a son of Ras Beirut,” known in the capital city as an upper-scale and religiously mixed neighborhood.

“I am here to help the displaced people in that school behind me,” he points.

Children’s clothes hang to dry on a balcony at the Ras Beirut Public Secondary School, where displaced families have found shelter. Photo: Afeef Nessouli/The Intercept

He doesn’t think the Lebanese government is doing enough for its displaced citizens. “Children, boys, women, girls, are just sitting in the street with no one to feed them, no medicine at all, so we are trying, as the sons of this area, to serve them best we can.”

Mohammed says that there are around 450 displaced people in the school with few resources. “They have no mattresses or pillows to put their heads on right now,” he begins to speak louder and get more agitated. “Inside the school, women and children are sleeping on the floor barefoot covering themselves with their clothes instead of blankets,” he says.

Throughout March, schools in Lebanon have faced a near-total disruption due to the sharp escalation in conflict. Since October 2023, Lebanon’s schools have faced repeated widespread interruption.

The atmosphere inside the school is tense as families bunch together in classrooms trying to find room. One couple has set up a nargileh, and the woman, who is in a black hijab, takes a long, deep pull from the hose and lets out a plume of smoke. “No pictures here,” one of the gentlemen running the displacement shelter tells a European journalist with a camera around her neck. “It is a very sensitive time for all of these people.”

The facade of the school has one blue balcony on the upper left-hand side that overlooks Hamra in Ras Beirut. On it, a pair of red children’s pajama pants, along with several other pieces of clothing, are hung out to dry. “These are the children of the southern suburbs, and where are they? They are on the streets,” Mohammed says.

Tents have popped up along the perimeter of Horsh Beirut, an urban park in Beirut, Lebanon. Afeef Nessouli/The Intercept

Hundreds of tents have sprung up along the highway that passes Horsh Beirut, a park that butts up against the southern suburbs of the city. Yara Sayegh has taken it upon herself to help their inhabitants.

Sayegh runs an organization called Truth Be Told, which usually focuses on transitional justice and human rights in Lebanon. Now it is serving as an emergency response initiative, cooking and distributing meals and medicine to families in tents across the area. She has experience after responding the same way in during a period of intense Israeli strikes in 2024.

Recently, she decided to build a makeshift kitchen at Riwaq Cafe near Mar Mikhael in Beirut. “I decided, given how much transparency is needed and the importance and the attention to detail, and the amount of corruption I have witnessed during crises, I would just open up my own [kitchen].”

Meals prepared for distribution for displaced people sheltering near Horsh Beirut park. Photo: Afeef Nessouli/The Intercept

Every day, volunteers show up to the cafe around 10 a.m. to help cook and pack meals for those fasting in Horsh Beirut. Her chef, Omar Khaled, directs volunteers on how to dice onions, squeeze lemons, and cook mujadara. He counts and recounts the boxed meals before they go out to the houseless people on the streets. Sayegh passes out as many as 1,000 meals a day in the park and surrounding areas.

“Whatever I do right now, whatever a lot of us are doing, isn’t enough,” Sayegh says “There are too many families who are displaced.”

On a rainy night in mid-March, Sayegh drives the meals to Horsh Beirut. Along the perimeter of the park, tents lining the streets are sopping wet. Tarps hang over four or five of them at a time. As she backs up her car, a line forms of people who need her help.

“Is my medicine ready?” one woman calls out.

“No, ma’am not yet, but inshallah I will try to bring it to you tomorrow,” Sayegh responds as she jots down another young woman’s information onto an Excel spreadsheet on her laptop.

“I am committed to them, there aren’t enough people helping, and they have nowhere to go,” Sayegh says.

Israel’s attacks on Lebanon extend far beyond Beirut and its suburbs. The most devastating strikes have been across the south of the country.

Evacuation orders took effect both south and north of the Litani River, a crucial and agriculturally rich landscape powered by the river itself, in the last week. But problems for southerners started much before that.

At the height of its war on Gaza in 2024, Israel began a series of strikes in southern Lebanon, aimed at what it said were militant groups, including Hezbollah, that had been launching retaliatory salvos across the border. This included a campaign of deadly Israeli ground raids in the border region and the expansion of what it says is a “buffer zone.”

[

Related

Israel’s “Limited, Localized” Invasion of Lebanon Is Sparking a Regional War](https://theintercept.com/2024/10/01/israel-invasion-lebanon-iran/)

According to the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, between November 2024 and the end of 2025, Israeli forces have committed over 10,000 air and ground violations of a November 2024 ceasefire agreement. This included daily airstrikes and ground incursions that killed hundreds in Lebanon, including civilians. Israel never withdrew troops from southern Lebanon and has pushed further into the country as its right wing parties call to settle Lebanon and make the Litani River Israel’s northern border.

Buildings in that area have been leveled to the ground, and the Israeli military has paved roads over Lebanese homes, making sure displaced people can never return. The reality on the ground is “undeniable erasure” says Hanan, a queer Lebanese American art history student at the American University of Beirut. She is among those dealing directly with Israel’s aggression in southern Lebanon.

Hanan grew up in Arizona about 30 minutes from the Mexican border. She came to Lebanon in August to pursue a master’s degree in art history and curation. Ever since Israel’s so-called ceasefire with Hamas, she felt a pull to Lebanon and her family there. She was drawn by bucolic memories of past visits.

“I romanticize the shit out of that time now,” she says. “We literally ate mulberries off the trees on the mosque grounds and chopped vegetables all morning listening to Arabic music.”

Last week, her family’s house in Chehabiye, near the southern border, was destroyed. Hanan is now housing 12 relatives in her two-bedroom apartment in Beirut’s Achrafieh neighborhood, an upper-class Francophile, predominantly Christian community.

“Some were more prepared than others when they came. They all mostly left in a hurry,” she explains. Because of the chaos and the traffic, it took her family two days to get to her apartment in Beirut. On the journey, they slept in their cars.

They had jobs at shoe stores and grocery stores, Hanan says. Kids were just beginning school. One relative had finally purchased a motorcycle after saving his money; it was destroyed in the strikes. “All of their lives have become completely upended,” she says.

She thinks her relatives’ building was targeted because a Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Qard Al-Hassan bank occupied the first floor. Founded in 1982, Al-Qard Al-Hassan operates more than 30 branches across Lebanon and is registered as an NGO with the Lebanese Ministry of Interior. But it is not licensed by Banque du Libam, the central bank of Lebanon, to operate as a bank. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Al-Qard Al-Hassan in 2007, stating Hezbollah uses it as a cover to manage financial activities and access the international financial system. This month, the Israeli military conducted a systematic campaign of airstrikes against numerous branches across Lebanon, identifying them as legitimate military targets because they fund Hezbollah’s military activities.

Even in Beirut, Hanan’s family is treated with suspicion. Soon after their arrival, a neighbor threatened to inform authorities that 12 relatives were crammed into Hanan’s two-bedroom apartment.

“My neighbors are afraid we are targets for Israel.”

“It is just because they are southern and could be supporters of Hezbollah, and so my neighbors are afraid we are targets for Israel,” Hanan explains. “What they don’t understand is that the people of the south are helping each other, even when others leave them hanging.”

The tensions got worse on March 13, when Israeli aircraft dropped thousands of leaflets over several neighborhoods in Beirut. They called on the Lebanese citizens to “disarm Hezbollah” and said “Lebanon is your decision, not someone else’s.” Another flier, designed to look like a newspaper, warned that the current situation in Lebanon would turn into something similar to Gaza. The leaflets asked Lebanese people to inform Israel of Hezbollah’s whereabouts using a QR code.

A displaced family in downtown Beirut. Photo: Afeef Nessouli/The Intercept

The point, many believe, is to stoke civil tension and sectarian fractures that will destabilize the country. Sayegh, for instance, says her family and friends don’t support her humanitarian aid work. She comes from a Christian background and is often criticized for helping supporters of Hezbollah. “We are one people and that is the only way forward, and that is why I help. I believe in one Lebanon for all,” Sayegh says.

[

Related

“Liberate Their Bodies From Their Souls”: The Lies That Sell the Iran War](https://theintercept.com/2026/03/20/podcast-war-beirut-lebanon-iran/)

Many in Lebanon understand that its diverse religious makeup leaves it vulnerable to outs

"It's surprises like this that make me love the retro gaming community even more. No trailers, no teases, just straight-up shadowdropped out of nowhere.

One of the greatest Nintendo 64 games, Bomberman 64, has been recompiled for PC, allowing retro gamers to experience the game with modern features on their beloved personal computer.

The recompiling of this 1997 classic comes with widescreen support, high frame rate support, cheat support, mod support, it works on modern controllers and is even Steam Deck verified."

For context, Spondule's bestie almost blew herself up on purpose and is resolving to do it again, but she says it'll go better this time because she has safety goggles.

go slop, go flop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwt54FUmKLI&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260326-buzzfeed-goes-ai-then-it-goes-broke - podcast

time: 5 min 45 sec

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/45059519

Ever seen our AOSP based apps (Phone,Messages,Gallery...) & thought I could make a difference to bring them up?

We're seeking a senior Android engineer to take ownership of the default app suite:

https://grapheneos.org/hiring#android-apps-software-engineer

Code standard is high, vibe coders need not apply.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8020057

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/36750

For two weeks in a federal courtroom in Fort Worth, Texas, the government attempted something extraordinary: to transform a noise protest outside a detention facility into a domestic terrorism conspiracy.

On July 4th, 2024, a group of people gathered outside the Prairieland Detention Center in solidarity with those held inside. One person fired a weapon. Nine people now face decades in federal prison after being found guilty on a list of federal crimes.

That is the case, stripped down to its bones.

And it should make every single one of us stop and pay attention. Because what was put on trial in that courtroom wasn’t nine individuals. It was the act of showing up at all.

After days of testimony riddled with contradictions—no breach, no coordinated plan, one shooter—the jury, selected entirely by the judge, still returned sweeping guilty verdicts against all nine defendants.

Seven others had already pleaded guilty in late 2025 and are awaiting sentencing. All nine now face decades in federal prison while simultaneously fighting state charges alongside eight additional defendants.

What unfolded in that courtroom wasn’t just a trial.

It was a test case. And now, it is precedent.

The Verdict

Batten, Evetts, Hill, Morris, Rueda, Song, Soto, and Soto were each found guilty of:

• riot
• providing material support to terrorists
• conspiracy to use and carry an explosive
• using and carrying an explosive

Song was additionally convicted on three counts of discharging a firearm during a violent crime. Song was also convicted of attempted murder of an officer.

Rolando Sanchez-Estrada and Rueda were found guilty of conspiracy to conceal documents. Sanchez-Estrada was also convicted of corruptly concealing a document.

Several defendants were acquitted on other serious charges:

• Hill, Evetts, Morris, and Rueda were found not guilty of discharging a firearm and attempted murder
• Song was found not guilty on two of the three attempted murder counts

One Shooter. Nine Convictions.

By the government’s own admission, only one person discharged a firearm that night. That fact never changed. What did change was how far prosecutors were willing to stretch the concept of responsibility to make the numbers work.

Some defendants were not in any planning communications. Some arrived late or left early. At least one never exited their vehicle. Cell phone data placed one defendant nowhere near the scene. Another, Autumn Hill, had allegedly already left before the shot was fired.

None of that mattered.

All nine were convicted, not because the government proved what each person did, but because it argued they should have known what someone else might do.

The legal mechanism was Pinkerton liability, a doctrine that allows the state to hold an entire group responsible for the actions of one person if those actions were “reasonably foreseeable.”

In practice, that meant attending the same protest, being in the same group chat, or sharing the same politics could be enough to make you responsible for someone else’s choices.

That isn’t accountability.

It’s a trap.

And now it’s been tested, and it worked.

Some of the people convicted in this case were barely present at all. People who never approached the facility. People who stayed in their cars. People who were leaving. People whose only connection was knowing the same people or existing in the same political orbit.

The government collapsed all of that into one thing: guilt.

Ownership of literature became evidence. Zines became evidence. Stickers became evidence. A printing press became evidence. None of it illegal. All of it reframed as proof of intent.

Daniel “Des" Sanchez-Estrada, a Green Card holder who now has an ICE hold and is facing deportation, was convicted for transporting zines from one place to another, or, according to the indicting document, “a box that contained numerous Antifa materials.” Des was not even remotely close to the noise demonstration, but rather was arrested two days later after getting a call for familiar support from his incarcerated wife, a Prairieland defendant.

Some of the zines Des transported

This is what it looks like when the state stops trying to prove what you did and starts prosecuting who you are.

When Evidence Fails, Ideology Steps In

The prosecution’s factual case was shaky from the start. Their own witnesses undermined it.

An officer testified he drew his weapon first and aimed it at someone running away. He couldn’t identify any defendants. His statement was written weeks later with legal guidance. Other officers confirmed there was no breach, no coordinated movement, and no meaningful damage to the facility. One officer contradicted his own report on the stand. Another admitted to conducting an illegal search.

Although it was acknowledged in court that the officer drew his weapon first, the defense was still barred from using self defense as an argument.

The “explosives” described in court were fireworks—the kind used in celebrations across the country every Fourth of July. Fired mostly into the air. No structural damage. No injuries.

But language did the work evidence could not.

Fireworks became “explosive devices.” A scattered protest became an “attack.” A demonstration became “terrorism.”

Rather than grapple with the contradictions, prosecutors pivoted. If the facts wouldn’t carry the case, ideology would.

Jurors were shown zines, pamphlets, antifascist artwork, a printing press, and a sticker reading “Make Amerika Not Exist Again.” None of it illegal. Every witness admitted as much, as did the judge.

That wasn’t the point.

The point was to equate shared beliefs with shared intent and demonize the defendants.

The government’s “antifa expert,” Kyle Shideler of the Center for Security Policy—designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center—has a documented history of Islamophobic fear-mongering and far-right political alignment. His own methodology was acknowledged to be non-scientific and with no direct evidence of planning. And yet his testimony sat at the center of this case, framing a community's politics as evidence of a conspiracy. At one point during the trial, defense asked Shideler if this case was good for his career, to which he responded “I guess it will depend on how it goes.”

At one point, an FBI agent admitted he had to Google what an “antifa flag” looked like.

Another FBI agent, who was responsible for reviewing the phone calls between Sanchez-Estrada and Rueda, was incapable of translating even the most basic Spanish phrases, and yet his translation was used as the basis to convict on conspiracy to conceal documents. The jurors were not provided a transcript of the call and instead were forced to rely solely on the agent's review of the conversation.

This is the expertise used to prosecute people for terrorism.

The Cooperators: Pressure, Deals, and Manufactured Narratives

If the evidence was weak, the government had another tool: cooperators.

And cooperation in cases like this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It is manufactured.

Witnesses described being held without adequate medical care, under extreme stress, facing unclear and escalating charges, and even tortured. They were presented with deals and told, in effect: give us the story we need, or face what comes next.

Some testified they did not write their own plea statements. That key language, like “antifa cell,” was written for them. One witness said they were told they had to “snitch, even if I have to make shit up.”

What the cooperators actually said often contradicted the prosecution’s narrative. One described the event simply: a noise demo. Another testified firearms were present defensively, not as part of a plan. One said they radioed others to leave when officers approached, undermining the idea of a coordinated attack.

But by then, the framework was already built.

Let’s be clear about what this is.

It is testimony produced under pressure, shaped to fit a theory the government could not prove on its own.

This tactic is not new. Informants and cooperators have been used for generations to fracture movements, from labor struggles to Black liberation organizing to environmental activism.

You can understand the pressure without excusing the outcome.

The damage is real.

And it worked.

This Is Not New. But It Goes Further.

None of these tactics emerged from nowhere. From the Haymarket affair to the Red Scare, to COINTELPRO, to the Green Scare, the pattern is consistent: when the state feels threatened, it expands conspiracy law to criminalize movements, not just actions.

The J20 inauguration protests attempted—and ultimately failed—to use that same framework, arguing that protesters could be convicted simply for wearing black bloc, turning clothing into evidence of conspiracy. The Red and Green Scares similarly show how the state repackages political organizing as an existential threat whenever it needs to justify repression.

More recent cases suggest that strategy is evolving, and succeeding.

In 2024 in San Diego, a jury found Brian Lightfoot and Jeremy White guilty of conspiracy to riot, as prosecutors argued they had acted not as individuals, but as part of “Antifa” treated as a criminal organization. Defense attorney Curtis Briggs warned at the time: “I think the door is wide open to now hold lawful protesters in violation of conspiracy law.”

Just three months later, journalist Alissa Azar was convicted of felony riot after defending herself while covering a demonstration countering Proud Boys in Oregon. For weeks in court, the focus of the trial drifted away from her actions and toward her political alignment.

The Prairieland case borrows from all of them, but it goes further.

It refines the playbook. It proves the state can secure convictions not despite weak evidence, but alongside it, by filling the gaps with ideology, informants, and fear.

Here, the government didn’t just target organizers. It swept up friends, acquaintances, people who shared rides, people who stood in the same field.

It argued that proximity is guilt.

And it won.

This case also marks the first time that people have been convicted of material support to terrorists who are not alleged to be part of designated foreign terrorist organizations.

None of this began with Donald Trump. But under his administration, it has been accelerated, formalized, and openly embraced.

What was once quieter repression is now explicit policy.

The administration has repeatedly framed this as the first legal case against “antifa,” while directing federal law enforcement to prioritize antifascism as a domestic terrorism threat under National Security Presidential Memorandum 7. At the same time, federal officials publicly labeled the defendants “antifa-aligned anarchist violent extremists” before the trial had even concluded.

These weren’t just political statements. They were prejudicial signals, ones that made the possibility of a fair trial increasingly impossible from the outset.

What was once done through infiltration and surveillance is now stated outright: antifascism is being framed as a domestic terror threat, and the legal system is being used to make that framing real.

That shift signals not just repression, but confidence.

Confidence that the courts will allow it.

The National Lawyers Guild stated that this is all taking place against the backdrop of the ongoing “Antifa Scare,” which paints those who oppose fascism as the problem, instead of fascism itself.

What This Verdict Actually Does

This is the precedent, written plainly:

A protest can be reframed as terrorism.
Political beliefs can be introduced as evidence of intent.
Group chats can become conspiracies.
One person’s actions can justify decades in prison for many.
You do not have to commit violence to be convicted of it.

The judge acknowledged that political speech is protected.

And then allowed a case to proceed that criminalized it anyway.

That contradiction is the point.

What We Do Now

The nine defendants are awaiting sentencing while fighting additional state charges. They remain incarcerated. They are not abstract symbols. They are real people who need real support.

When letter-writing information is released through the defendants’ support committee, use it. Write. Show up. Donate. Share accurate information. Challenge misinformation.

Isolation is one of the state’s most effective tools. Breaking it matters.

But this moment demands more than support for nine people.

It demands attention.

The J20 defendants weren’t acquitted because the state showed restraint. They were acquitted because people organized—through media, court support, fundraising, and sustained public pressure that made the government’s narrative harder to maintain. Just like they did during the Stop Cop City RICO cases where 61 defendants had their charges dropped after years of organizing and noncooperation.

That kind of collective defense matters.

And it is not optional now.

Because what this case establishes is a blueprint: identify a political moment, target a loosely connected group, inflate one act into a mass conspiracy, fill the gaps with informants and ideology, and secure convictions.

The state now knows this works.

It will use it again.

This was not a legal misunderstanding.

It was a political prosecution carried out successfully.

They put dissent on trial.

They got a conviction.

What we build in response, the solidarity, the defense networks, the refusal to be isolated or silent, is what determines what comes next.

Because there will be a next time.

And whether this precedent expands or collapses depends on what happens outside the courtroom.

We don’t disappear. We don’t shrink ourselves into safety.

There is no version of being quiet enough to avoid a system willing to criminalize association, belief, and presence.

What exists instead is each other. And whether we act like it.

Sentencing for the defendants is scheduled for this upcoming June. We will continue to update as necessary. Defendants are planning to appeal this unjust outcome.

Recommended Reading:

We recommend reading through the detailed notes published by the support committee for an in-depth look into the trial, which can be found here-

[First Week of Landmark Prairieland Trial Exposed Contradictions, Weaknesses in Government’s Case, Trial Resumes Tuesday - Support the Prairieland Defendants

Cross-Examination of Government Witnesses Leaves Defendants’ Supporters Feeling Confident as Trial Enters Second Week, Despite Attempts by the Prosecution to

Support the Prairieland Defendantsprairieland

](https://prairielanddefendants.com/press-release/first-week-of-landmark-prairieland-trial-exposed-contradictions-weaknesses-in-governments-case-trial-resumes-tuesday/?ref=wewillfreeus.org)[The Federal government coerced several Prairieland Defendants to take Plea deals through vile treatment at Johnson and Tarrant County Jail*.

Now they are propping them up as trophies to break public support In July 2025, a group of people were arrested after holding a noise demonstration outside the Prairieland Detention Center. Origina…

Dare to Struggledaretostrugglenyc

](https://daretostruggle.org/2026/03/10/the-federal-government-coerced-several-prairieland-defendants-to-take-plea-deals-through-vile-treatment-at-johnson-and-tarrant-county-jail/?ref=wewillfreeus.org)

Ways to Support:

International Day of Solidarity with the Prairieland Defendants is on April 4th, 2026:

Write to the defendants-

[Write to the Defendants - Support the Prairieland Defendants

Many of them have been incarcerated since July—let them know they are not alone! This page has addresses and guidelines to help ensure that your letter gets

Support the Prairieland Defendantsprairieland

](https://prairielanddefendants.com/write-to-the-defendants/?ref=wewillfreeus.org)[ZINES ARE NOT A CRIME!

ZINES ARE NOT A CRIME!

](https://freedes.net/?ref=wewillfreeus.org)

Donate:

[Support DFW Anti ICE Protesters

Please visit our website at https://prairielanddefendants.com/ for more updates, articles, and letter writing information.Español abajo Support DFW Anti ICE…

GiveSendGo

](https://www.givesendgo.com/supportDFWprotestors?ref=wewillfreeus.org)

From We Will Free Us via This RSS Feed.

March 26, 2026
https://archive.ph/3k5rE

The blockade’s effects are cascading through the system. Hospitals are canceling surgeries and sending patients home because doctors and nurses can’t commute to work. Clinics are struggling to administer treatments like chemotherapy and dialysis because of power outages.

Many ambulances are parked because drivers can’t find gas. Pharmacies are largely empty because the virtually bankrupt state is struggling to buy medicine.

Production of medicine has been mostly halted because factories run on diesel. Vaccine makers are searching for ingredients because flights that once carried them are canceled because of a lack of jet fuel. And refrigerated vaccine stocks could soon spoil if the blackouts continue.