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Report Exposes US Media for Framing Social Justice Protests as 'Terrorism'
"Equating activism with terrorism is undemocratic and serves to silence dissenters," said Deepa Kumar, who analyzed how major U.S. media outlets have covered protesters of "Cop City" in Georgia.
Nov 07, 2023
A paper published Tuesday by a media studies scholar explores what she calls "one of the enduring costs of the 'War on Terror,'" mainstream outlets parroting police talking points on terrorism and "legitimating state violence while stifling democratic protest."
Rutgers University professor Deepa Kumar's paper—released by the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs—focuses on how major U.S. media outlets have covered protesters of "Cop City," Atlanta's proposed Public Safety Training Center just outside of city limits in Georgia.
"Even though the 'War on Terror' is supposedly over now that the U.S. has withdrawn from Afghanistan, U.S. federal and state governments continue to use and even expand punitive measures targeting those they label as 'terrorists,'" Kumar said in statement. "The U.S. mainstream media sometimes supports this expansion, and in doing so imperils U.S. democracy. All of this is part of the legacy of the post-9/11 wars."
As Kumar's paper notes, "previous research has shown that the mainstream media's framing of terrorism influences public opinion and shapes support or opposition to policies such as Georgia's 2017 terrorism law," which expanded the definition of terrorism to include certain property crimes committed with the intent to use intimidation or coercion to change policy.
The expert analyzed how a local newspaper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and six national outlets—USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the New York Post, and the Los Angeles Times—reported on the "domestic terrorism" arrests of 42 anti-Cop City activists from December 2022 to March 2023.
The paper details her findings:
At first, the national news media did not cover the terrorism arrests in Atlanta. The local The Atlanta Journal-Constitution effectively served as the Atlanta Police Foundations' propaganda outlet. In January, 2022 several national media outlets picked up the story when violence and property destruction occurred, following the "if it bleeds, it leads" framework. However, some newspapers adopted a more critical stance. The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the LA Times humanized the protestors, depicting them as concerned activists opposing police militarization and environmental destruction. The New York Post and TheWall Street Journal, however, portrayed protestors as violent Antifa activists and justified their arrest on the grounds of terrorism. USA Today adopted a sensational tone, in effect also justifying the arrests.
As the protest movement gained national and international support, national media paid more attention. All seven outlets covered the story in March 2023. Also significant is that The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shifted to a more balanced tone and included the voices of Atlanta residents opposing Cop City. Rather than labeling protesters solely as "outsider agitators" and "far-left" activists who exist on the fringes of society, the newspaper quoted local activists, civil rights groups, and clergy. This happened at the highpoint of government arrests, when 23 more people were indicted on terrorism charges.
However, the analysis also reveals that apart from a handful of notable articles in The Washington Post and the LA Times that tacitly criticize the wider application of terrorism charges evidenced in Georgia, the majority of the seven media outlets have deferred unquestioningly to government authorities in the use of this label.
"Government and police officials have portrayed the protestors as violent terrorists," Kumar stressed. "For instance, in January 2023, when Georgia State Patrol Troopers shot and fatally injured activist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, also known as Tortuguita, they claimed that Terán had initiated gunfire. Shockingly, Tortuguita was shot a staggering 57 times."
The DeKalb County medical examiner's autopsy report "indicated an absence of gunshot residue on Tortuguita's hands," the professor pointed out. There was also an independent autopsy. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation later claimed gunshot residue was found on the activist's hands. Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney George R. Christian concluded last month that the use of deadly force "was objectively reasonable under the circumstances of this case," so police will face no charges for killing Tortuguita.
Kumar wrote that "in theory, the media are entrusted with the responsibility of posing critical questions and disseminating accurate information to the public so that troubling practices like the use of state violence and extrajudicial killings are not normalized. In reality, U.S. media institutions have often continued to defer to government sources, reproducing and thus reinforcing the expansion of terrorism discourses to criminalize protestors—with sometimes deadly consequences."
Costs of War Project co-director Stephanie Savell responded to the paper by nudging journalists to do better. She said, "The media can make or break how activism is portrayed in an increasingly militarized era of policing that imperils our democratic rights."
The research comes after 57 of the 61 Cop City protesters charged in September under Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law appeared in court on Monday, as hundreds of their supporters rallied outside the building in Atlanta.
"Among the defendants: more than three dozen people who were previously facing domestic terrorism charges in connection to the protests; three leaders of a bail fund previously accused of money laundering; and three activists previously charged with felony intimidation after authorities said they distributed flyers calling a state trooper a 'murderer' for his involvement in Paez Terán's death," according toThe Associated Press.
Noting the RICO charges, Kumar's paper quotes a pair of ACLU experts, who wrote in September that the indictment "paints the provision of mutual aid, the advocacy of collectivism, and even the publishing of zines as hallmarks of a criminal enterprise. In doing so, it flies in the face of First Amendment protections for speech, assembly, and association."
This post has been updated with additional autopsy reports.
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Vindication: Protesters Who 'Put Arms Trade on Trial' Acquitted
"We invite you to question why it is us—and not the war makers and profiteers—that are on trial," protesters had said.
Apr 15, 2016
Protesters who had blocked the road outside one of the world's largest arms fairs were cleared of charges on Friday, with the judge finding "credible and largely unchallenged evidence" of wrongdoing at the weapons expo.
In mid-September while the DSEI (Defence Security Equipment International) was underway in London, the five men and three women were charged with wilful obstruction of a highway for attempting to stop delivery of equipment to the arms fair.
"They said they had acted to stop the sale of weapons to regimes accused of human rights abuses, including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Israel," the Guardianreports.
A statement released in November 2015 by the protesters reads, in part, "Whilst outside the Excel Centre we were being detained and arrested by police, inside businessmen prepared to sell weapons designed to torture, maim and kill, for corporate profit." They added, "we invite you to question why it is us--and not the war makers and profiteers --that are on trial."
As the Independent reported, "District Judge Angus Hamilton accepted the defendants' argument that they had tried to prevent a greater crime from occurring by blocking a road to stop tanks and other armored vehicles from arriving at the exhibition center."
"[There is] clear, credible and largely unchallenged evidence from the expert witnesses of wrongdoing at DSEI and compelling evidence that it took place in 2015," the Independent reports Hamilton as saying.
"It was not appropriately investigated by the authorities. This could be inferred from the responses of the police officers, that they did not take the defendants' allegations seriously."
IBTimes UKadds:
Kat Hobbs, coordinator of Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), told the court Bahrain had been invited by the UK government to previous DSEI exhibitions in 2009, 2013 and 2015 despite the regime using weapons against pro-democracy protests. There was also evidence of UK-manufactured arms being sold to Saudi Arabia to be used in attacks on Yemen, including BAE Systems fighter jets and Raytheon's Paveway bombs.
One of the defendants, Thomas Franklin, 57, said he attempted to block access to the exhibition so weapons could not be sold to regimes that abuse human rights and the act was "in preparation for a crime". He told the court: "In every single previous arms fair, that had been found to be happening. We have evidence of that. We have parliamentary reports, we have reports from Amnesty International, we have reports from Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, listing illegal weapons being sold."
Following the ruling at the Stratford Magistrates Court, CAAT posted a statement by the protesters, which reads:
Over the week [of the trial], we have put DSEI and the arms trade on trial and we have proven them to be illegitimate. Our only regret is that we didn't succeed in shutting down DSEI.
Our thoughts are with the people who suffer as a result of the arms trade and the survivors of repressive regimes, torture, war and conflict. We call on more people to join us in our efforts to shut down DSEI 2017 and take collective action to end the arms trade.
DSEI boasts on its website that it "has attracted an unprecedented level of UK Government support," and offers "Unrivalled business opportunities with over 32,000 attendees." CAAT, meanwhile, was in 2012 awarded the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize, with the award organization saying CAAT "has exposed the corruption, hypocrisy and lethal consequences around this trade and has been instrumental in holding the UK government and arms companies to account for the same."
The protesters' supporters took to Twitter to welcome the acquittal:
\u201cNOT GUILTY! #StopDSEI Defendants celebrate in Stratford\u201d— CAAT (@CAAT) 1460721375
\u201cPeople who aren't guilty, found not guilty! Absolutely brilliant news. #StopDSEI https://t.co/kMTp4eDecV\u201d— Lisa Cumming (@Lisa Cumming) 1460722162
\u201cBrilliant news! Activists found not guilty for #StopDSEI arms fair protest. https://t.co/pi1q0HAi50\u201d— Peace Action WGTN (@Peace Action WGTN) 1460721402
\u201cWonderful, #StopDSEI protestors have all been acquitted on basis they believed were preventing crime at arms fair\u201d— Ian Brownhill (@Ian Brownhill) 1460721437
\u201cHuge victory today for the peace movement. #StopDSEI\u201d— Sayed Ahmed AlWadaei (@Sayed Ahmed AlWadaei) 1460721440
\u201cPeace activists: NOT GUILTY!!!!!!\nBy extension: arms fair: GUILTY!!!!!\nhttps://t.co/OVHLGILZRa\n#StopDSEi #StopArmingSaudi\u201d— Sam Walton (@Sam Walton) 1460721206
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Showdown at Sea: Greenpeace Puts Boats and Bodies Between Shell and the Arctic
"If they are going to push past us, if they're going to continue on to the Arctic, they are not going to do it without opposition."
Jun 17, 2015
The people will not back down against drilling in the Arctic, whether by boat, raft, or by swimming through frigid northern waters.
That was the message Wednesday morning as about 30 environmental campaigners on Greenpeace vessels--including Musqueam First Nation activist Audrey Siegl, featured in a video on Tuesday preparing for the action--chased down oil giant Shell's Arctic drilling rig, the Polar Pioneer, as it moved past Vancouver Island toward its final destination in Alaskan waters.
Under the banner of People vs. Oil, several protesters jumped from a raft into the choppy ocean waves to block the path of the Polar Pioneer. Shell plans to drill for oil in the Arctic's Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, which are home to numerous Indigenous communities and marine species.
According to Vancouver's CKNW news outlet, the protesters on the raft had a message for Shell:
What they're planning to do is really dangerous. It's bad for the Arctic. It's bad the coast and it's terrible for our climate. We cannot afford to extract the oil in the Arctic and burn it, according to all the latest climate science. If they are going to push past us, if they're going to continue on to the Arctic, they are not going to do it without opposition.
The swimmers included a Fijian activist named Victor Pickering. "For me, standing up to Shell is a personal struggle to protect my country's way of life, which will be further devastated by rising sea levels and a melting north pole," he said in a statement.
As of Wednesday morning, the Polar Pioneer had barreled down on the swimmers, forcing them to move out of the way, but two smaller boats of activists were still facing off with the vessel.
Follow the action on Twitter with the hashtags #PeopleVsOil and #ShellNo.
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