NLG Statement of Solidarity with Block Cop City

The movement against Cop City is gathering in Atlanta from November 6-13 for a Week of Action, culminating in a mass nonviolent direct action: Block Cop City. NLG continues to support the right of Atlantans to fight back against the imposition of this abhorrent project and the right of people from across the world to join them in this mobilization.

For the past two years, a vibrant and intersectional grassroots movement has emerged in Atlanta to resist the construction of Cop City. Using strategies such as protests, canvassing, public forums, music festivals, forest occupation, a citywide referendum, and multiple Weeks of Action, “Stop Cop City” has grown from a small group of local activists to a national and international movement at the intersection of environmentalism, racial justice, Indigenous rights, and the abolition of militarized policing.

The Stop Cop City movement has been unjustly targeted for acting to save the Weelaunee Forest and stop the construction of a $90 million police training facility. The murder of Manuel “Tortuguita” Esteban Peaz Téran by Georgia State Patrol Troopers in January marked a horrifying escalation, as did the unprecedented charges of domestic terrorism brought against 42 people since December 2022. Currently, 61 individuals are facing unsubstantiated RICO charges and 57 traveled to Atlanta for arraignments yesterday. Furthermore, legal support measures such as jail hotlines, bail funds, legal observing, and facilitating access to attorneys have all come under attack, despite being constitutionally-protected activities.

NLG fully and unequivocally supports the legal right to assemble, associate, and protest, protected by the First Amendment, and the right to have an attorney and defense of choice, protected by the Sixth Amendment. The Georgia Attorney General has launched alarming attacks against these fundamental legal protections in a political campaign to repress the people’s demands for environmental and racial justice.

Yet direct action has a long history in U.S. movements for civil rights and the environment. From lunch counters to bridges to pipelines to forests, activists have used civil disobedience to stop business as usual for social change. Block Cop City follows this long tradition of resistance, utilizing constitutionally-protected nonviolent direct action. Unfortunately, at every expression of free speech, the government has criminalized dissent, and it is no different in Georgia. NLG stands committed to these courageous voices for change and encourages its members and allies to do the same.

Stop Cop City! Block Cop City!