[Pnews] Merrimack 4 defeat felony charges

[Prisoner News]

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/09/merrimack-4-defeat-felony-charges/>
Merrimack 4 defeat felony charges
Unity of Fields
September 25, 2024
------------------------------

[image: IMG_4435-1536x1024.jpg]
Activists from Palestine Action US target the Elbit Systems offices in
Merrimack, New Hampshire on November 20, 2023. The activists blocked the
entrances preventing employees from entering, scaled the roof, and painted
the facility red with paint.⁣ Elbit Systems is Israel’s biggest weapons
supplier. According to Palestine Action, Elbit supplies 85% of Israel’s
military drone fleet. These are the same weapons being used in the genocide
against Palestinians in Gaza.⁣ (Photo: Maen Hammad) Activists from
Palestine Action US target the Elbit Systems offices in Merrimack, New
Hampshire on November 20, 2023. The activists blocked the entrances
preventing employees from entering, scaled the roof, and painted the
facility red with paint.⁣ Elbit Systems is Israel’s biggest weapons
supplier. According to Palestine Action, Elbit supplies 85% of Israel’s
military drone fleet. These are the same weapons being used in the genocide
against Palestinians in Gaza.⁣ (Photo: Maen Hammad)

“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes
you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part! You can’t even passively
take part! And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the
wheels … upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it
stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people
who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from
working at all!” – Mario Savio
<https://x.com/plbmagazine/status/1727418860645798171>

Four Palestine Action activists — Paige Belanger, Sophie Ross, Bridget
Shergalis, and Calla Walsh — were facing extreme felony charges for
attacking the Elbit Systems facility in Merrimack, New Hampshire on 20
November 2023. Now, the Merrimack 4 are resolving their case and will serve
60 days in county jail as Amerikan justice for resisting genocide and
disrupting production at the largest zionist weapons company.

The Palestine Action US protest in Merrimack — characterized by the state
as a “siege and riot”— involved a simultaneous road blockade, roof
occupation, and attack on the building’s façade causing tens of thousands
of dollars in damages and, for the day, shutting down the facility
where workers produce weapons that surveil, massacre, and torture
Palestinians. Ross, Shergalis, and Walsh were arrested at gunpoint on
Elbit’s rooftop, jailed under preventative detention, and released after
three days on $5,000 to $20,000 bail. They were charged by the NH Attorney
General with conspiracy to commit criminal mischief, conspiracy to commit
burglary, criminal trespass, riot, sabotage*, and, later, conspiracy to
commit falsifying physical evidence — charges
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/02/palestine-action-activists-hit-with-felony-charges-over-new-hampshire-elbit-protest/>
totaling 37 years in prison.

The wave of counterinsurgency hit instantly: NH announced that the FBI was
also investigating Palestine Action US; state figures and zionist media
maligned the co-defendants as terrorists and “outside agitators” who
firebombed a local Jewish small business; Twitter advanced theories that
they were part of a sex cult or trained militia; the NH AGs threatened to
add on hate crime charges, and the court banned Walsh from leaving the
country. Within the movement, self-proclaimed leadership ignored the
arrests or actively distanced their organizations from Palestine Action,
isolating the militants as the “bad” protestors and urging tactical
de-escalation.

On 24 January 2024, dozens of anti-imperialist organizations led by
Samidoun, National SJP, Within Our Lifetime, Palestinian Youth Movement,
and Palestine Solidarity Working Group demanded
<https://samidoun.net/2024/01/drop-the-charges-justice-for-the-merrimack-3/>
the charges to be dropped:

“*We commend the Merrimack Three, as well as the broader campaign to Shut
Elbit Down, for directly challenging war profiteers in the face of immense
repression. The state will not deter our commitment to forge a world
liberated from the chains of Zionism, capitalism, and imperialism, a world
devoid of entities like Elbit*.”

Also on 24 January, Merrimack police officers staked out the Nashua
courthouse to arrest Belanger as she entered to attend a hearing supporting
the 3 co-defendants. They alleged she was part of the November action and
gave her the same charges. Upon release, the state gave the four
co-defendants no-contact orders to isolate them from each other and thwart
their joint defense, until the defense lawyers won a motion for the
no-contact orders to be dropped at the end of May.
[image: IMG_4474-1024x683.jpg]
Activists from Palestine Action US target the Elbit Systems offices in
Merrimack, New Hampshire. The activists blocked the entrances preventing
employees to enter, scaled the roof, and painted the facility red with
paint.⁣ Elbit Systems is the Israeli regime’s biggest weapons supplier.
According to Palestine Action, Elbit supplies 85% of Israel’s military
drone fleet. The same weapons being used in the genocide against
Palestinians in Gaza.⁣ (Photo: Maen Hammad) Activists from Palestine Action
US target the Elbit Systems offices in Merrimack, New Hampshire. The
activists blocked the entrances preventing employees to enter, scaled the
roof, and painted the facility red with paint.⁣ Elbit Systems is the
Israeli regime’s biggest weapons supplier. According to Palestine Action,
Elbit supplies 85% of Israel’s military drone fleet. The same weapons being
used in the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.⁣ (Photo: Maen
Hammad) [image:
IMG_4476-1024x683.jpg]
Activists from Palestine Action US target the Elbit Systems offices in
Merrimack, New Hampshire. The activists blocked the entrances preventing
employees to enter, scaled the roof, and painted the facility red with
paint.⁣ Elbit Systems is the Israeli regime’s biggest weapons supplier.
According to Palestine Action, Elbit supplies 85% of Israel’s military
drone fleet. The same weapons being used in the genocide against
Palestinians in Gaza.⁣ (Photo: Maen Hammad) Activists from Palestine Action
US target the Elbit Systems offices in Merrimack, New Hampshire. The
activists blocked the entrances preventing employees to enter, scaled the
roof, and painted the facility red with paint.⁣ Elbit Systems is the
Israeli regime’s biggest weapons supplier. According to Palestine Action,
Elbit supplies 85% of Israel’s military drone fleet. The same weapons being
used in the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.⁣ (Photo: Maen Hammad)

Losing comrades to jail, even for a short period, is painful for the
movement — but the Merrimack 4’s defeat of felony charges and avoidance of
decades in prison is a major win against repression.

After nearly a year of the state’s failed attempts to intimidate and break
the Merrimack 4, the NH AGs are now dropping all the felony charges. The
co-defendants are pleading guilty to misdemeanor criminal mischief and
criminal trespass. Their sentence includes 60 days in jail, a 24-month
suspended sentence for 3 years, and a stay-away order from every Elbit
Systems facility, among other conditions. Ross and Walsh still face several
charges for direct actions in Cambridge, Massachusetts where protestors
successfully shut down
<https://www.cambridgeday.com/2024/08/28/elbit-company-that-was-protested-weekly-confirms-it-is-moving-out-of-cambridge/>
the first Elbit office in the US. Information on how to support the
Merrimack 4 and write to them in jail will be publicized when
available. Losing comrades to jail, even for a short period, is painful for
the movement — but the Merrimack 4’s defeat of felony charges and avoidance
of decades in prison is a major win against repression.

The Palestine Action US “siege” on Elbit in Merrimack was just 44 days
after the Al-Aqsa Flood began, when no other organized militancy for
Palestine was happening in the US; it was before Gaza’s death toll passed
200,000
<https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext>
martyrs, before Aaron Bushnell or Matt Nelson
<https://unityoffields.org/?p=93>’s self-immolation, and before the Gaza
solidarity encampments exploded and cohered a new layer of militants. The
Merrimack 4’s charges were the heaviest criminal charges pressed against
post-7 October anti-zionist protestors in the country, until Casey Goonan
<https://unityoffields.org/?p=349>’s June arrest and federal charges for
alleged arson. The US-backed zionist genocide of Palestine has only
escalated since, but so have the unwavering Axis of Resistance forces, and
so has grown the urgency for us to open up another anti-imperialist front,
to join them in resisting and sacrificing. Since 7 October, the Palestine
“solidarity” movement in the US has been characterized by predictable
hemming and hawing about the merits of “non-violent” protest, and eschewing
our responsibility to resist the genocide using material force. Property
damage is not “violence,” but history shows both are viable and necessary
tactics, as is building the underground. Palestine Action US was an early
attempt
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/palestine-action-us-campaign-launches-to-stop-israeli-genocide-of-palestine-and-shut-elbit-down/>
at militancy within the imperial core aligned with the Palestinian
resistance — the state responded to it as a serious threat, but the
Merrimack 4’s case shows that trumped-up charges can still be defeated.

Conditions, levels of state repression, and our corresponding tactics and
strategies diverge in the US from the UK, where Palestine Action was formed
in 2020, successfully shut down
<https://palestineaction.org/tamworth-shutdown/> multiple Elbit facilities
through direct action, and sustained hundreds of arrests. The US has better
“free speech” protections than the UK (where people are arrested for
chanting “from the river to the sea”) but is far more hawkish when it comes
to treating property as sacrosanct. In the US, organized property damage
and militant anti-imperialist resistance quickly bring the threat of
terrorism or RICO charges, making the strategy of intentional arrest
<http://symbioid.com/pdf/Politics/Pacificism%20as%20Pathology%20-%20Ward%20Churchill.pdf?view=FitH>
for property damage here (but frankly, anywhere) unsustainable. The new UK
Labour government is now escalating
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/09/in-disturbing-escalation-against-the-palestine-movement-uk-police-arrest-journalists-and-activists-under-terrorism-act/>
its repression of Palestine Action UK by threatening them with terrorist
designation and detaining
<https://palestineaction.org/detained-without-charge/> 16 Palestine Action
political prisoners, including 10 on terrorism charges. The UK team’s set
of clandestine <https://t.me/unity_of_fields/146> tactics are better fit
than intentional arrests for building protracted struggle and resiliency to
state repression, particularly inside the US settler empire during this
highly advanced stage of counterinsurgency.

Since the 20 November action and resulting state crackdown, Palestine
Action US has analyzed its experience and articulated a line on what
militant resistance would look like in the US, explained in their May 2024
zine, Flood the Gates: Escalate
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/flood-the-gates-escalate/>:

“Through our many trials and errors, we learned that tactics used in the
UK, which has a very different legal system, could not simply be
copy-pasted into the US context…

Let repression breed more resistance. We will not disavow any actions taken
to escalate the struggle, including militant direct actions. Our notion of
“safety” in the imperial core is built on centuries of corpses…

While actions sometimes result in arrests, and those engaged in serious
action ought to prepare for that outcome, it should never be the *goal* to
lose our organizers to the carceral system. The goal should always be to
achieve whatever we set out to achieve, and then get home safe…We must
create our own “popular cradle” of resistance…Clandestine actions need to
express the general will of the movement and garner support from its
aboveground organizers. As long as other groups do not interfere, peace
police, or co-opt our militancy, we must build as broad possible unity,
inspired by the Palestinian resistance’s concept of “Unity of Fields
<https://unityoffields.org/?p=370>,” whereby, despite our differing
ideologies, short-term objectives, and locations, we can all work towards
one common goal…

It is insincere to glorify the Palestinian resistance if, at the same time,
we do not raise our own resistance here.”

*Author’s note: The day this article was planned to be launched, Meta
permanently suspended the Unity of Fields Instagram account with over 101k
followers. Follow our backup @unityoffields
<http://instagram.com/unityoffields>.*

*Notes*

* The Merrimack 4 were the first people ever charged in NH under this
defense sabotage statute (649:2
<https://casetext.com/statute/new-hampshire-revised-statutes/title-62-criminal-code/chapter-649-sabotage-prevention/section-6492-intentional-injury-to-or-interference-with-property>).
It carried a minimum of 1 year in prison, but was the first charge to be
dropped because the state had to admit it could only be applied when a
State of Emergency was declared:

“Whoever intentionally destroys, impairs, injures, interferes or tampers
with real or personal property with reasonable grounds to believe that such
act will hinder, delay or interfere with the preparation of the United
States or of any of the states for defense or for war, or with the
prosecution of war by the United States, or by any country with which the
United States shall then maintain friendly relations, shall be guilty of a
class A felony. Provided, if such person so acts with the intent to hinder,
delay or interfere with the preparation of the United States or of any of
the states for defense or for war, or with the prosecution of war by the
United States or by any country with which the United States shall then
maintain friendly relations, the minimum punishment shall be imprisonment
for not less than one year.”
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