Vol. 77/No. 30      August 19, 2013

“The authorities or their vigilante friends hope to intimidate us and deal a blow to the rights of all working people in Omaha,” Perasso told the Militant. “That’s what we explained to everyone we met going door to door Aug. 4 in south Omaha, where I live. We showed them the Aug. 12 Militant with its front-page coverage of the attacks and the socialists’ response.”

“Your campaign is necessary,” Lorenzo Quijano, 37, a worker at the Old Chicago restaurant, told Perasso. “This kind of harassment shouldn’t be carried out against a person because they are fighting for a better system for workers.”

Supporters of political rights and free speech are circulating an open letter to Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert, demanding that she put an end to the harassment of Perasso and other supporters of the Socialist Workers Party.

Signers of the letter join Perasso in demanding “the Omaha Police Department carry out a thorough investigation of this break-in and arrest and prosecute those who carried it out and those who organized it.”

The July 16 break-in “had all the classic earmarks not of a typical burglary but of an attempt at political intimidation and harassment,” the letter explains. “The culprit left clear evidence that he went through the whole house, looking through drawers, files, and leaving things strewn about. Valuable items including electronic devices were in the house, but the only thing stolen was a wireless phone that contained call records, showing who Perasso called while the phone was active earlier this year during his activity with others against police brutality in Omaha.”

Opponents of cop brutality demanded the city press charges against the cops who on March 21 beat and framed up three brothers — Octavious, Juaquez and Demetrius Johnson — in the Black community of north Omaha.

Among those who have already signed the open letter are August Hogan Sr., former president of the Omaha NAACP and former human relations director, city of Omaha; Ethel Landrum-Shobe, former chair of the Nebraska Board of Parole; Charles Jones, professor of Africana Studies at the University of Cincinnati; Tariq Al-Amin, president of Nebraskans for Justice; and Carlos Carr Sr., Malcolm X Memorial Foundation.

All five participated in the Black August Weekend Human Rights-Political Prisoner Commemorative Festival, Aug. 2-3 at the Malcolm X Memorial Foundation Center here, the city of Malcolm X’s birth.

The conference was held to build support for the Omaha Two, Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice) and Ed Poindexter, who were framed up and railroaded to jail 43 years ago as young members of the Black Panther Party. They had been organizing protests against police brutality and working on community programs for youth in the Black community.

Perasso spoke at the event about the case of the Cuban Five, five Cuban revolutionaries framed up and imprisoned in the U.S. since 1998 for gathering information on rightist paramilitary groups in southern Florida who had a record of carrying out murderous attacks on supporters of the Cuban Revolution in Cuba, the U.S., Puerto Rico and elsewhere.

Hank and Barbara van den Berg, political activists in Lincoln, Neb., also added their names to the open letter.

The Omaha Police Department told Perasso Aug. 1 that the cop assigned to investigate the break-in was “not available” the week of July 29-Aug. 2 and that fingerprints taken at the scene of the black-bag job still had not been processed.

“We will continue to bring this case to the attention not only of working people and supporters of political rights here, but around the country and internationally,” Perasso said. “We aim to put as much pressure as possible on city officials and the cops to identify and prosecute those who organized and carried out this break-in.”

To find out how you can get involved in the free speech fight in Omaha, contact the SWP, P.O. Box 7908, Omaha, NE 68107. Telephone: (402) 779-7697; Email: swpomaha@fastmail.net.
 
 
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