Solidarity Protest for J20 Defendants Held at DC Superior Court

On the 27th of November, a protest was held outside DC Superior Court in soiidarity with J20 (Inauguration protest) defendents facing up to 65 years in prison. One message of the protest was that “a vote to convict is a vote for Trump” driven home by a chant. It has also come out that police had already decided to carry out the mass arrest prior to the march ever leaving Logan Circle.

This protest took place just before the opening of the third week of the first of a year long series of trials, this one with six defendants none of which the prosecution alleges carried out any individual acts of property destruction whatsoever. A speaker from the Defend J20 Resistance support crew reported that video has been played in court proving a police commander had decided to arrest all participants in the anticapitalist bloc before the march even left Logan Circle.

Many have said that if the J20 defendants are convicted, anyone and everyone attending any protest whatsoever will be risking imprisonment for the rest of their life if any other person anywhere in the protest commits any illegal act whatsoever. As further evidence that this is aimed at squashing all resistance to Trump’s agenda, a speaker cited the fact that rioting neo-Nazis and fascists were not mass arrested and charged with wholesale felonies in Charlottesville, and that even destructive riots by fans of sporting events do not normally lead to mass arrests and never lead to conspiracy charges and threats of decades in prison.