A former journalist and current Democratic congressional candidate in Illinois was indicted last week, along with five others, over protests they attended against immigration officials.
Kat Abughazaleh, the 26-year-old congressional candidate, and other protesters were indicted Oct. 23 by a special federal grand jury, and are accused of blocking vehicles outside of a federal immigration processing facility in Broadview last month.
The indictment accuses Abughazaleh and the other defendants ― Andre Martin, Michael Rabbitt, Catherine Sharp, Brian Straw and Joselyn Walsh ― of conspiring with one another when they “physically hindered and impeded” the vehicle of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent during a Sept. 26 protest outside of the processing facility.
The agent was “forced to drive at an extremely slow rate of speed to avoid injuring any of the conspirators,” the indictment said.
Martin, one of the defendants, works on Abughazaleh’s campaign as a field director.
Eileen T. Meslar/ Chicago Tribune via Getty Images
Video posted by Abughazaleh on social media that day shows her and other protesters standing in front of the agent’s vehicle, unarmed and chanting “Down, down with deportation.” Protesters banged on the vehicle’s hood, and a few stuffed animals were thrown onto it. Abughazaleh said she and fellow protesters were walking “on a public crosswalk.”
“At the Broadview ICE facility, an ICE agent tried to run dozens of protesters over with an SUV as we walked on a public crosswalk,” she posted. “He kept driving for about a full football field until ICE barraged us with pepper balls.”
The indictment accuses the demonstrators of banging ”aggressively on the Government Vehicle’s side and back windows, hood, and other vehicle body parts; crowded together in the front and side of the Government Vehicle and pushed against the vehicle to hinder and impede its movement; scratched the body of the Government Vehicle, including etching a message into the body of the vehicle, specifically the word ‘PIG;’ broke one of the Government Vehicle’s side mirrors; and broke a rear windshield wiper off the Government Vehicle.”
Abughazaleh is being represented by Chicago Attorney Josh Herman, who told HuffPost in a statement that the indictment is a “political prosecution that tries to turn dissent and First Amendment opposition to the Trump administration’s cruel policies into a conspiracy.”
“Kat has steadfastly opposed those policies and she will fight these charges with the same principled determination,” Herman added.
Abughazaleh had a confrontation with ICE agents at the facility just one week earlier when a masked agent was seen on video forcefully grabbing and violently throwing her to the ground during a protest.
During the same protest on Sept. 19, federal agents deployed tear gas and fired pepper balls at demonstrations. Abughazaleh told HuffPost at the time that one agent told her, “Your First Amendment rights are on the sidewalk.”
In a video statement posted to social media on Wednesday, Abughazaleh said she’s “not backing down.”
“As I and others have exercised our First Amendment rights, ICE has hit, dragged, thrown, shot with pepper balls and tear gassed hundreds of protesters, simply because we had the gall to say that masked men coming into our communities, abducting our neighbors and terrorizing us cannot be our new model,” Abughazaleh said in the video.
“And because Chicago doesn’t back down from bullies in masks who tear gas our neighborhoods, this administration has resorted to weaponizing the federal justice system to scare us into silence,” she continued. “But we’re not going to be silent. The Trump administration wants you to be afraid of speaking out against it and its anti-democratic power grabs. And there are plenty of reasons to be afraid right now, but we have to overcome that fear.”
Abughazaleh said immigration officials and the Trump administration are scared and know what they are doing is wrong.
“This case targets our rights to protest, speak freely, and associate with anyone who disagrees with the government,” she said. “And while we have seen the unhinged and unlawful tactics this administration has used against the American public, it’s important to remember they’re doing this because they are scared, they are wrong, and they know they are on the wrong side of history.”