On May 19 – one day before 15,000 anti-NATO protesters took to the streets of downtown Chicago – 18 anti-racist activists allegedly disrupted an “economic summit” held by members of the Illinois European Heritage Association (IEHA) at a restaurant in Tinley Park, a Chicago suburb.
The IEHA, along with Stormfront, the “Nationalist Socialist Movement” and other KKK types belonging to the “Pioneer Little Europe (PLE) movement,” seeks “to establish mutually supportive white supremacist enclaves throughout the United States,” according to the Anti-Defamation League website. According to the ADL, Stormfront has a worldwide forum in various languages with “over 6 million posts, 490,000 discussion threads, and 170,000 members.”
While the Department of Homeland Security, the Chicago police and other federal, state and local agencies were working overtime to wiretap, arrest and spy on anti-NATO activists, they allowed neo-fascists who openly promote the extermination of people of color and Jewish people to meet publicly in a restaurant.
Five of the anti-racists from Indiana were arrested on May 19. They have become known as the Tinley Park Five. Jason W. Sutherland, Cody L. Sutherland, Dylan J. Sutherland, Alex R. Stuck and John S. Tucker are currently imprisoned in Cook County Jail in Chicago. The Five, who are white, are facing major felony charges, including “mob action, criminal damage to property and aggravated battery.” The bond is $175,000 each for three of the defendants, $200,000 for another and $250,000 for the other. Another 13 others allegedly involved in the incident are being sought by the police.
The Five are scheduled to have a 9 a.m. hearing on Tuesday, June12, at the Bridgeview Courthouse, 10220 S. 76th Ave., Bridgeview, Ill. Conscious anti-racist, anti-fascist activists are urged to pack the courtroom to show their solidarity. Hoosiers Anti-Racist Movement/"Indiana Antifa Support" wants to send a strong message to the movement that one of the main goals of packing the courtroom is to allow family members to have a crowd to blend into, since there is a possibility of retaliation from white supremacists, including death threats simply for attending the hearing. HARM requests that supporters not disrupt the courtroom proceedings, for similar reasons.
The media has attempted to violence-bait and demonize the Five in order to divert attention away from the real terrorists – the IEHA and other white supremacist terrorists who hide behind the First Amendment to openly call for racist genocide. One of the IEHA members had been arrested on May 19 for illegally possessing a firearm in his car near the restaurant. His bond was only $25,000!
The International Action Center is urging all progressives to stand in solidarity with the Five on June 12 by attending the court hearing in Bridgeview or calling a solidarity action in your area for the Five on that day. Let’s not allow the media, the police and the government to politically isolate the Five. Such isolation only serves to weaken our movement and the struggle for social justice.
No matter how one views whether and when to use militant tactics, the Tinley Park Five had the political right to carry out a preemptive strike to help expose the real danger that divide-and-conquer, fascistic extremist groups pose to the movement and the masses here and worldwide.
