Supreme Court upholds local laws that criminalize homelessness  

Last week, in response to the Supreme Court ruling upholding laws that criminalize homelessness, we issued a statement that says, in part:

This ruling will have a devastating effect on the rights and wellbeing of the hundreds of thousands of people denied housing in the United States. Rather than provide safe shelter to those who need it, hundreds of local governments have criminalized homelessness via laws similar to the Oregon ordinances upheld by the Supreme Court. These laws put humans in jail because they cannot afford shelter.

As detailed in an amicus brief we submitted, the ruling will inflict disproportionate harm on LGBTQIA+ people, because they are unhoused at extremely high rates. Homelessness is especially prevalent among LGBTQIA+ youth: they make up 40 percent of unhoused youth and 65 percent of youth enduring chronic homelessness.

Amid a national affordable housing crisis, the ruling affirms the prevailing punitive approach to homelessness. It also empowers the State to continue to shrink “the commons” both by restricting use of public land and selling it to private entities.

Read the full statement on our website. For information on how to support #HousingNotHandcuffs, visit the campaign’s website.

Assange’s former U.S. lawyers applaud his release from prison  

For several years, we were part of the legal team that represented Julian Assange. Before his death in 2016, Michael Ratner, our president emeritus at the time, was Assange’s lead lawyer in the United States. Last week, Assange pled guilty to a single felony offense under the Espionage Act with a sentence of time served. In response our legal director Baher Azmy, who twice visited Assange when he was confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, issued a statement that says, in part:

We applaud the decision to release Julian Assange after more than a decade of unjust imprisonment. Assange is a publisher persecuted by the U.S. government and its allies for exposing their grave crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. He was targeted for exposing human rights abuses, while those responsible for these offenses have largely escaped accountability. 

The plea deal represents the Biden administration's belated acceptance of what was obvious to the world: Assange was and is a journalist. 

Still, his conviction under the Espionage Act sets a terrible precedent. The law is a relic of the WWI era, created to suppress political dissent and antiwar activism. 

We are proud to have represented him, and we wish him well as he begins the slow process of rebuilding his life.

Read the full statement on our website.

Training on “Sweet Tea with Transparency: An Open Records Resource for Movements in the South” 

Last month, on June 17, Ian Head and Emily Early presented a training on, Sweet Tea with Transparency: An Open Records Resource for Movements in the South, to students participating in JULIAN's 60th Anniversary of Freedom Summer in Mississippi.  

Sweet Tea with Transparency is a project of our Open Records Project and our Southern Regional Office. This resource is a series of toolkits for activists, organizers, and community members who are interested in obtaining public records from state government agencies or officials in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

July 15: “Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power” – A Freedom Flicks screening in the South 

Freedom Flicks is coming to the South! Join us for a Birmingham, AL screening of Emmy-winning Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power, followed by a discussion with Southern organizers from the 1960s and the present, as well as the film’s producer, about the ongoing and renewed fight to protect the power of civic and community engagement, democracy, and right to vote. 

Date: Monday, July 15, 7:00 – 9:30 p.m. CT
Location: Sidewalk Cinema, 1821 2nd Avenue South, Birmingham, AL 35203

The event is free and open to the public, but please register to hold your spot. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the program begins at 7:00 p.m.

For full event information details, including co-sponsors and speakers, view the event page on our website.