DROP THE CHARGES NOW! HANDS OFF MARIA BELL!
On Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020, Maria Bell, a professional scientist and long time Anti-Assad Syrian Solidarity activist was arrested by the FBI and charged with multiple offenses of support to HTS (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham). The credulity required by the Feds of those who know Maria is matched only by scale of what these charges have cost her personal life already. Her employer fired her immediately and her associates in the New Jersey Libertarian Party instantly disassociated her from themselves! So much for the Libertairan concept of presumed innocence of the accused. They gave Trump more support during impeachment than they give their own membership.
Reuters reported,“…investigators found 136 pistols and rifles, 15 canisters of ammunition and an anti-tank rocket …”. In the United States today it is legal for Americans, asserting their Second Amendment rights to have a personal arms collection. Lawyers for Ms. Bell state the weapons were antiques left with her by her deceased ex-husband. She is accused of allegedly funding HTS to the amount of $3,150.00 in a series of 18 wire transfers (approximately $175.00 each.) This amount is more akin to the price of bandages and medicines than of armaments for a military force of 15,000. To an objective observer this hardly appears to be the act of a sleeper cell of American based ‘terrorists’ or a gunrunner for HTS. But it is possible that Barr wants to jail anyone who supplies so much as a vial of penicillin!
We suspend disbelief for the practical purpose of defending her against the persecution of an adult convert to Islam. Maria has defended the Syrian fighters and civilian Anti-Assad population now herded into Idlib by Russian bombers and U.S. “De-confliction” policy of Obama and Trump. We see FBI head Christopher Wray and AG Barr pleasing Trump in his final days by terrorizing an American-born Muslim anti-Assad activist. The absurdity of this prosecution is a patent attempt by the Barr/Trump regime to give a final parting gift to Putin and Al Assad and a warning to all who support the permanent revolution unfolding in MENA not to act on their internationalist sentiments.
And what of these charges? Maria claims her deceased ex-husband collected old weapons, something only a few million other American collector/hobbyists do! But let’s suppose for argument’s sake that she was raising funds and arms supplies and using her 30-year old G.I. Jane know-how to help arm HTS against Assad. You should ask yourself why THAT would be a crime (?)!! The real crime is U.S. de facto support for Assad! U.S. Russia and all imperialists out of Syria and the Middle East now! Down with the butcher Assad!
We say DROP ALL CHARGES! HANDS OFF MARIA BELL!
Signatories:
Communist Workers Group USA
Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT)
