Movement for Black Lives: Feds targeted BLM protesters

Get Nadine White's Race Report newsletter for a fresh perspective on the week's news Get our free newsletter from The Independent's Race Correspondent Get our free newsletter from The Independent's Race Correspondent SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy The federal government deliberately targeted Black Lives Matter protesters via heavy-handed criminal prosecutions in an attempt to disrupt and discourage the global movement that swept the nation last summer in the wake of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd according to a new report released Wednesday by The Movement for Black Lives. It also drew a comparison to how the government used Counterintelligence Program techniques to “disrupt the work of the Black Panther Party and other organizations fighting for Black liberation.” “We want to really show how the U.S. government has continued to persecute the Black movement by surveillance, by criminalizing protests, and by using the criminal legal system to prevent people from protesting and punishing them for being engaged in protests by attempting to curtail their First Amendment rights,” said Amara Enyia, The Movement for Black Lives' policy research coordinator. It’s based on institutions that were designed around racism and around the devaluing of Black people and the devaluing of Black lives.” In the report, published in coordination with the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility clinic at City University of New York School of Law, The Movement for Black Lives is calling for amnesty for all protesters involved in the nationwide protests. The group, also known as M4BL, is demanding reparations from the government that includes an acknowledgment and an apology for the long history of targeting movements “in support of Black life and Black liberation.” It also is pushing for passage of the BREATHE Act, proposed federal legislation that would radically transform the nation’s criminal justice system, and ending the use of Joint Terrorism Task Forces in local communities.