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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 1/24/11

Profiles of the Targeted: FBI Raided My Home, Wanted to Know About "My Indoctrination"

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Pham's grand jury date was "the first of three dates" set in October for activists who had been subpoenaed to appear. All of the fourteen who were subpoenaed pleaded the fifth and refused to testify. A month went by and then on November 2nd, Election Day, Pham's lawyer was notified that Pham's subpoena had been reactivated.

"When I tell people what's happening to me and what I see in my subpoena, people who are not activists, who go to classes of mine and who are just people in day to day life who do any political work say that this is McCarthyism," explains Pham. "These aren't things they are getting from any literature we've put out, but these are things they remember from growing up here."

She fears the PATRIOT Act and the Holder v. Humanitarian Aid Law Supreme Court decision is being used by the government to prevent activism and deter Americans from getting into debates about what their country is doing in their name.

 

Pham joined the AWC when she was no longer a college student and had graduated. She wanted to be part of a group that wasn't a student group. Her profile on the Committee to Stop FBI Repression website says, "As a member of the AWC she helped organize local forums, pot-lucks and teach-ins as well as buses to Washington D.C.for protests. She traveled to El Salvador to attend an anti-globalization conference and then to Israel and the occupied territories of Palestine where she met with NGO workers and activist who shared their struggles."

 

When news came that the Republican National Convention was going to be held in St. Paul, Minnesota, the AWC began to do the work necessary to ensure a large mobilization against U.S. wars took place during the Convention.

 

"Many of us felt that because it was going to be held in the center of the country there was a fear that there would be no response and especially with the failed antiwar policies that there needed to be a strong response," explains Pham. The members of the AWC wanted the public to know there were people who thought the occupation of Iraq was wrong and the continued militarization that is going on in the country should be opposed.

 

The AWC applied for a permit. Their application for a large legally permitted demonstration on the very first day of the Convention was denied. The AWC organized a large coalition with antiwar organizations, trade unions, etc, which met over a period of time and held regular protests along the proposed march route. Finally, they were given the permit, which made the coalition proud. However, in the week before the Convention, when the activists saw the pens authorities expected the activists to use during their protest at the Xcel Energy Center, where the Convention was to be held, they realized they were not going to get anywhere near the center to really speak and deliver their message to those at the Convention.

 

Finally, Anh Pham's profile on the Coalition to Stop FBI Repression website also says, "Pham immigrated to the U.S. from Viet Nam with her family in 1975 after the end of the war. Her family raised her with a strong sense of community service and she taught Sunday school to toddlers at the first Vietnamese Buddhist temple in Minnesota."

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Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof Press. He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast, "Unauthorized Disclosure." He was an editor for OpEdNews.com
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