ACTION ALERT: Call Office of Foreign Assets Control, demand they unfreeze bank accounts of activists

Note: After a flood of phone calls on Tuesday, May 10, TCF Bank returned assets to the Abudayyeh family.

FBI, U.S. Attorney Attacking Civil Liberties of Anti-War, Palestinian Human Rights Activists

Call the Office of Foreign Assets Control to demand they unfreeze the bank accounts of peace activists

The U.S. government has frozen the bank accounts of human rights activists Hatem Abudayyeh and his wife, Naima. This unwarranted attack on a leading member of the Palestinian community in Chicago is the latest escalation of civil rights violations of anti-war and Palestinian human rights activists by the FBI, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Hatem Abudayyeh is a Chicago community leader and one of 23 activists from Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois subpoenaed to a federal grand jury in Chicago. In September of last year, his home was raided by the FBI, but neither Hatem nor Naima have been charged with any crime. Our Constitution guarantees that a person is innocent until proven guilty, and that a person cannot have their livelihood taken unless they are afforded due process.

Call the Office of Foreign Assets Control: 202-622-2410 or 202-622-1651

Demand: -Unfreeze the bank accounts of the Abudayyeh family -Stop the civil rights violations of Palestinian, anti-war and international solidarity activists.

Representative Luis Gutierrez is the latest congressperson to send a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder questioning the FBI investigation of 23 Midwestern anti-war and international human rights activists. He joins Illinois Representatives Jan Schakowsky and Danny Davis, as well as Representatives Keith Ellison (MN), David Price (NC), and Jim McDermott (WA).

In their letters, the six congressmen share their concerns that these activists are being targeted for participating in activities protected by the First Amendment. Gutierrez writes, “there is significant fear that the targeting of these activists will have a chilling effect on others who only seek to assemble and express themselves as protected under the Constitution.”