John Brown Caucus of SDS/MDS Statement on the SF (Panther) 8.

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We in the John Brown Caucus of Students for a Democratic Society and
Movement for a Democratic Society, are outraged at the recent arrest of
eight former Black Panthers. Charged with crimes allegedly committed in
the 1970s, these charges are similar to one's originally thrown out
because the confessions, the state's so-called evidence, were extracted
under torture.

We condemn these indictments and demand that the
United States government drop all charges and immediately free the San
Francisco 8!

The FBI and CA police claim an alleged conspiracy to kill cops 35
years ago but the historical evidence is clear that the FBI and police
conspired to destroy the Black Panthers. The arrest of these former
Panthers in light of the growing push to re-open Congressional hearings
into
COINTELPRO, proves that the government's relentless campaign
to discredit the Panthers and silence radical black dissidents never
really ended. In their drive to quash all revolutionary peoples but
especially
revolutionary people of color, the government chose to wage an all-out war
on what it called Black Nationalist Groups. A war that included false
evidence, creating and exploiting "splits", torture, and murder.

The John Brown Caucus stands in solidarity with the San Francisco 8. We
recognize this latest government manipulation as yet another in a long
line of repressive tactics aimed at those colonized peoples who choose
freedom over oppression and who would rather fight than become victims of
America's racist system.


FREE THE PANTHERS!

FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!!


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