Release the Colorado Anti-Racist Political Prisoners now!

Central Executive Committee, September 20, 2020

The YCL-LJC takes up the call for international solidarity with the political prisoners in the United States, arrested on September 17th, for organizing in the anti-racist movement and demanding justice for George Floyd, Elijah McClain, and other victims of racist police brutality in the United States. 

Four members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) who took part in organising Black Lives Matter protests this summer in Colorado have been arrested. All four face multiple felony charges and numerous misdemeanours including the preposterous charges of ‘kidnapping’ 18 cops inside a police station and ‘conspiracy to influence a public servant’. Last week, more than 1,000 people gathered at the state capitol to demand district attorneys drop charges in connection with demonstrations held on June 27, July 3, July 12 and July 25. We second the call of fellow signatories across the world, such as Cuba’s Central de Trabajadores, to immediately release these political prisoners and drop all charges.

It is a dangerous development in the United States for communists to be arrested for political organizing for the interests of the working class and for all oppressed peoples. We know that around the world our comrades are persecuted not just for their beliefs but for their strength and capabilities as fighters for emancipation. In Bolivia, Brazil, Columbia, Ukraine, Serbia, and elsewhere, young communists have been targeted violently by the state and their reactionary paramilitaries. We stand with all those who take up the fight for working class power and remember the words of Gallegos Mancera in his letter to young communists: “Do not bend at any time. Revolutionary honour is found at every level”. 

We know that there has been a similar history of repression against communists in Canada. The first meeting of the Communist Party of Canada was forcefully shut down by police. From the Padlock Law of the Duplessis government, to the deregistration of the party by the Mulroney Tories and the secret contingency plan – PROFUNC – which allowed police to round up and indefinitely detain Canadians believed to be Communist sympathizers, Canada has its own history of political repression of young people and the working class. Young communists returning to Canada after bravely struggling for democracy in Spain were labelled ‘premature anti-fascists’. The privileged ruling class that lives off of the exploitation of workers will always bitterly resist the idea of losing their place in society.

These American political prisoners have not committed any crimes, rather they are victims of a vicious propaganda campaign declaring them criminals for simply exercising their right to protest for justice. Furthermore, this is a political attack against the entire international anti-racist movement. Therefore we commit to mobilizing in solidarity for the release of the political prisoners in Colorado, as well as the dropping of all charges laid against them. We as young communists stand in solidarity with the international movement against police brutality and racism, and call on progressive youth, both in Canada and around the world, to campaign for the release of communist and anti-racist political prisoners.