Leah Plante
(Image from leahxvx.tumblr.com)
Source: Russia Today
http://rt.com/usa/news/refusing-grand-jury-plante-196/
A third self-described anarchist from the Pacific
Northwest has been jailed by federal officials for refusing to speak before a
secretive grand jury that the accused have called a politically-motivated
modern-day witch-hunt.
Leah-Lynn Plante, a mid-20s activist from Seattle,
Washington, was ushered out of court by authorities on Wednesday after refusing
for a third time to answer questions forced on her by a grand jury — a panel of
prosecutors convened to determine if an indictment can be issued for a federal
crime.
Plante was one of a handful of people targeted in a
series of raids administered by the FBI and the Joint
Terrorism Task Force on July 25 of this year which the feds say were in
conjunction with an investigation into acts of vandalism that occurred during
May Day protests in Seattle nearly two months prior. As part of their probe,
search warrants were issued at multiple residences of activists in the area,
including Plante’s, demanding that dwellers provide agents with
“anti-government or anarchist literature” in their homes and any flags,
flag-making material, cell phones, hard drives, address books, and black
clothing.
“As if they had taken pointers from Orwell’s 1984, they
took books, artwork and other various literature as ‘evidence’ as well as many
other personal belongings even though they seemed to know that nobody there was
even in Seattle on May Day,” Plante recalls in a post
published this week to her Tumblr page.
Only one week after the raid, Neil Fox of the National
Lawyers Guild told Seattle Times that raids like this are create a “chilling
effect” by going after lawful, constitutionally-allowed private
possessions.
“It concerns us any time there are law-enforcement raids
that target political literature, First Amendment-protected materials,” Fox said.
This week Plante still maintains her innocence, now she
has reason to believe that the raid that has left her suffering from
post-traumatic stress syndrome may have been more than an investigation into an
activity, but an ideology. Plante says a Freedom of Information Act request she
filed in the months after her apartment door was broken down by armed officials
reveals that the grand jury investigating her was first convened in March, two
months before the vandalism she is being accused of even occurred.
“They are trying to investigate anarchists and persecute
them for their beliefs. This is a fishing expedition. This is a witch hunt,” she says this
week.
On the day of her third meeting with the grand jury on
Wednesday, Plante wrote on her blog that she’d almost certainly be jailed on
charges of contempt for refusing once again to testify about herself but said
she was willing to face the consequences for exercising her right to remain
silent.
“I do not look forward to what inevitably awaits me
today, but I accept it,” she writes. “My convictions are unwavering and
will not be shaken by their harassment. Today is October 10th, 2012 and I am
ready to go to prison.”
Hours later, her Tumblr was updated with a note authored
by one of her supporters confirming that Plante “was thrown into prison for
civil contempt” after her court date. Plante is now the third anarchist to
be imprisoned in the last month for refusing to answer questions about their
belief and behavior before a grand jury.
Last month, Plante spoke openly about the grand jury
before refusing their questioning for only her second time. “I believe that
these hearings are politically motivated,” she wrote in a September 16
statement. “The government wants to use them to collect information that it
can use in a campaign of repression. I refuse to have any part of it, I will
never answer their questions, I will never speak.”
“While I hate the very idea of prison, I am ready to face
it in order to stay true to my personal beliefs. I know that they want to
kidnap me and isolate me from my friends and my loved ones in an effort to
coerce me to speak. It will not work. I know that if I am taken away, I will
not be alone.”
Katherine “KteeO” Olejnik, a fellow anarchist from the
Seattle area, was taken into federal custody on September 28 for refusing to
cooperate with a grand jury, a decision she said was based on humanity and her
First Amendment protections.
“I cannot and will not say something that could greatly
harm a person’s life, and providing information that could lead to long term
incarceration would be doing that,” Olejnik wrote before being booked. “Icannot
and will not be a party to a McCarthyist policy that is asking individuals to
condemn each other based on political beliefs.”
On the No Political Repression blog, a support of Olejnik
writes that she was prohibited from taking notes during her time on the stand,
during which she says she resisted questioning.
Days before her imprisonment began, Matt Duran was also
jailed for contempt. According to his attorneys, Duran was not only imprisoned
by placed in solitary confinement, denied intimate contact with his lawyer,
denied visitor requests forms, personal dietary requirements and sunlight an
fresh air.
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