Tampa, FL—Wednesday, September 4, the second day of the federal criminal trial of the Uhuru 3 on bogus charges of being secret pawns in a Russian government conspiracy to “sow discord” and “interfere in elections” saw the government begin to argue their case.

They presented three witnesses. 

The first was Syracuse University Professor Brian D. Taylor. He talked about the history of the Russian intelligence services and admitted that he knew nothing about the African People’s Socialist Party. Burning Spear Media will provide more detail on Taylor and his role in future reports.

The government’s second witness was an FBI special agent who specializes in “digital forensics.” His job was to organize the data from the electronics that the FBI seized during their raids on seven Uhuru Movement homes and offices. He testified that the FBI had taken more than 20 terabytes of data, so much data that it would take someone a lifetime to review. 

The government’s third witness was another FBI special agent. She had participated in the July 29, 2022 raid on the home of Uhuru 3 member, Penny Hess. 

This agent helped confiscate Chairwoman Penny’s computer, phone and all her electronic devices. She took data from hundreds of emails, Facebook and Skype communications. She testified about the content of the seized data that she had reviewed. 

This agent testified that she had been working to build a case against the Uhuru Movement since 2021. The Uhuru 3 filed Freedom of Information Act requests to uncover the extent and time frame of the FBI’s surveillance on them. Their requests were denied. 

This kind of U.S. government secret police surveillance has been carried out against the Black Liberation Movement for decades. The FBI’s first Director, J. Edgar Hoover, launched his career by framing Marcus Garvey.

Some of the Uhuru 3 email and Facebook communications that were introduced into evidence on day two dealt with an Uhuru petition that charged the U.S. government with genocide. This petition was brought to the United Nations.

The government is trying to make the case that the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement’s recent “Africans Charge Genocide” petition—which won over 130,000 signatures before Change.org took it down—was created under the control of the Russian government.

This is just what they said about William Patterson, W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson in 1951.

In the 1940s and ‘50s Paul Robeson was labeled a Russian agent after visiting the Soviet Union. He was forced to testify at the House Un-American Activities Committee and his passport was taken from him. Sound familiar?

In 1951 W.E.B. Du Bois was indicted, arrested and arraigned by the U.S. with the charge of being a Russian agent after he put out a petition against nuclear weapons. He was 83.

African people have a right to utilize international law to fight for our human rights. In 1982 the African People’s Socialist Party organized the First World Tribunal on Reparations for African People where we put the U.S. government on trial for violating the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. 

The U.S. government was found guilty by an international panel of jurors who decided that the U.S. owes African people $4.1 trillion, in 1982 dollars, for stolen labor alone. We don’t have state power to enforce the verdict, but we have the free speech right to advocate for our reparations. We never needed anyone foreign to the African experience to tell us we are owed reparations.

This month in Tampa, we are putting the U.S. State on trial! Join us as we pack the federal court and stand with the Uhuru 3!