Governments worldwide clamp down on freedom of association

Presenter: In 2024, one independent KEPW News producer reported on the presidential election from Milwaukee, Chicago, and Washington D.C. He wrapped up the year with the big win in court for the Uhuru 3—no one was sentenced to prison. Still, governments around the world are clamping down on freedom of association, a First Amendment right. Curtis Blankinship:

Curtis Blankinship (KEPW News): U.S. District Judge William Jung sentenced Omali Yeshitela, Penny Hess, and Jesse Nevel, also known as the Uhuru 3, to three years of probation and 300 hours of community service.

[00:00:35] Uhuru is a Swahili word that means “freedom.” The Uhuru movement is the activist arm of the African People’s Socialist Party, which Yeshitela, 83, founded in St. Petersburg in the early 1970s. The group has worked toward various goals on behalf of Black people worldwide, including reparations, a single socialist African government, and the release of political prisoners.

[00:00:57] At a seminar during the ‘24 Democratic National Convention to call attention and gain support for the Uhuru 3 trial, Ketia, a Haitian young woman, asked one of the speakers, former U.N. Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter, about the right to association.

[00:01:13] Katia: You mentioned that we need to fight to keep our freedom to free speech, free press, and also freedom of association. What do you mean exactly by freedom of association?

[00:01:31] Scott Ritter (former U.N. weapons inspector): What I mean by freedom of association is right here: You and I are associating, all right? You’re Black. I’m white. It’s pretty obvious. All right? There’s people right now that are going to be offended that I’m standing here next to you, talking with you, talking with Chairman Omali, talking with you, who they’re going to say sold out to the white cause, and how dare I engage in a conversation that seeks to make this normal. Okay?

[00:01:58] This is what freedom of association is.

[00:02:00] Freedom of association also is my ability, for instance, to go to Russia and meet with the Russians and talk with the Russians and learn about the Russians, to come back here and inform people like you and everybody in this audience about the reality of Russia. It’s the same thing—you go to Africa to learn.

[00:02:15] That’s freedom of association. Freedom of association means that we get to associate with those people we choose to associate with, not which the government approves of our association with. So that’s what I mean by freedom of association.

[00:02:28] Katia: Thank you so much for clarifying that. And I ask that question because as a Haitian, I feel like I’m being neglected by the rest of the world, that nobody wants to be associated with Haiti. And today we are here to discuss our common cause, and if one person is not free all of us are not free.

[00:02:50] And I want to point out one story that I heard, that the Israelis have been attacking the Palestinians based on who they associate with and they called it that ‘Daddy’s Home’ and so you would have a (background sneezing) to a friend’s house for tea to hang out and just because they are associated with that person, if they labeled one of them as a threat, then they bomb and explode the whole place. And so because they do things like that, they instill fear in people to prevent them from associating with others.

[00:03:36] And I want to say that the Haitian people have not done anything to the capitalist, colonialist system. We are fighting for freedom to live as individuals. We don’t want to instill what they’ve done to us to them. We just want to be able to live and be free.

[00:03:55] And I want to say that I have friends and people that I speak to and associate with that I don’t necessarily agree with what they believe or what they think and so is it okay for the world to be standing by when people are being attacked just for the people that they associate with?

[00:04:18] Curtis Blankinship: For KEPW News, I’m Curtis Blankinship.