Right-wing attack blocks donations to solidarity groups

The statement below was issued by Alliance for Global Justice Feb. 14.

This is an emergency! 

Alliance for Global Justice and our fiscally sponsored projects are under attack by right-wing media. They’re doing their best to intimidate and silence us in order to neutralize our effectiveness in growing and supporting movements for liberation and justice worldwide. They have convinced the company that handles our credit card donations to block AfGJ and our projects from use of this critical fundraising tool.

This isn’t the first time they’ve come at us. In the 1980s, the Young Republicans claimed that the Nicaragua Network, our founding organization, was taking college students to Nicaragua to train in guerrilla warfare techniques. (The students visited coffee plantations and helped with the harvest. Scary, I know!) Then we were accused of funding the pink hat demonstrations at Trump’s inauguration and the counterdemonstrators in Charlottesville, where Heather Heyer was killed by a Nazi who plowed his car into a crowd of anti-fascists. 

Shortly afterward, they published a claim that George Soros was paying AfGJ to hire “members of Antifa” to punch Nazis. (I hope nobody’s still waiting on their Soros check — they seem to be lost in the mail.) Ironically, most of us remember when being anti-fascist was considered an honor. Democracy in this country is clearly in crisis. 

Most recently, the Washington Examiner, a far-right rag known for its love of all things Trump, accused AfGJ of providing material support to terrorists, which is a federal crime. They claimed that having an organization called Samidoun as a fiscally sponsored project is supporting terrorism. 

Samidoun is an international organization that supports the thousands of Palestinians unlawfully imprisoned by the far-right Israeli government. Hundreds of these prisoners are children under the age of 12. The right wing has tried to shut Samidoun down previously, but the organization has successfully defended the legality of its work. This attack on AfGJ is also another attempt to damage work in defense of Palestinian human rights. 

This time, they succeeded. As of this writing, AfGJ cannot accept credit card donations — and neither can the 140 organizations that rely on us to provide them with fiscal sponsorship, which includes handling their accounting and providing them with nonprofit status. 

From people bringing clean water to the Apache reservation, to programs that mentor LGBTQIA kids and teach them to use art as a means of self-expression, to bail funds that shell out money to [people held by] carceral systems that lock up people for demonstrating to demand an end to police murders of BIPOC people, our fiscally sponsored projects are laboring to create a more sane, sustainable and just world.

AfGJ is working too. Our support of our partners in Central and South America, many of whom risk their lives every day and sometimes pay the ultimate price … our solidarity with Palestinian people who struggle for national liberation and against unjust occupation and apartheid … our work for immigration justice … our human rights school … all of this is at risk.

Our staff and board collective are working overtime, under stressful conditions, to find alternatives to protect AfGJ and our projects. We are doing everything we can to stop this assault on our freedom and our right to organize for that more beautiful, just and sustainable world we all dream of.

This is what we do not do: We do not support terrorism! We do not raise money nor do we give any material support to terrorist groups in Palestine or elsewhere — and we have the evidence to back this up. We do work for a just peace and an end to the real terrorism of warfare, sanctions, imperialism, global capitalism and white supremacy.

That dream is worth defending, and we are ready to do so. But even when we reverse this cowardly attack, we cannot easily make up for the income lost by our inability to accept credit card donations.

Because of this attack, the tax-deductible paper checks you write and send us in the mail take on a new dimension. When you make out a check to AfGJ, you are engaging in direct action, in frontline resistance to a concerted effort by the most extreme right-wing groups to stop justice in its tracks. You are sawing away at the chains that bind us. You are pushing back against those who prefer a world of inequality, white supremacy, imperialism, repression and war.

One thing is certain: If they succeed in destroying Alliance for Global Justice, they will turn their sights on other organizations that are fighting back against the rising tide of repression. They will come for you.

This attack shows us how vulnerable we are to digital attacks by the people’s enemies. We have anti-virus and other protections on our website; we take pains to keep our data secure — but there’s little we can do when they attack us through third parties.

We have to resort to old-fashioned techniques, and we need your solidarity:

• Paper checks, mailed to AfGJ, 225 E. 26th St., Tucson, AZ 85713.
• A phone tree that can be used to mobilize supporters when attacks occur. We are looking for supporters such as you to join that phone tree. Please send us your name and phone number and let us know that you’d like to participate. (Please send to info@afgj.org.)
• Spread the word! Use whatever platforms you have at your disposal — including word of mouth.

As the enemies of the people gloat about our troubles, we are counting on you to help us stand. To help with legal costs. To make donations via paper checks. To spread the word. To shout from every doorstep, every keyboard, every workplace, every street and every field that every human being has dignity and the same human rights as the privileged few. The people we work with to create real, sustainable, just change refuse to back down, even when things get tough. We cannot afford to fail. We have seen what it looks like when the forces of oppression prevail. AfGJ refuses to go there. We’re certain that you refuse too.

Please help in any way that you can!

In solidarity, resolve, hope and perseverance,

The board and staff collective of Alliance for Global Justice