Protesters in Atlanta held a week of action to stop the construction of the massive $90 million police training complex known as “Cop City” in the Weelaunee Forest. This comes as activists have been organizing for a citywide referendum on the project which officials have tied up in court. Meanwhile, 61 people facing RICO, or racketeering, and domestic terrorism charges appeared in court this month as the state tries to characterize them as “militant anarchists.” We get an update from Kamau Franklin, founder of the Atlanta-based grassroots organizing collective Community Movement Builders, who describes Atlanta’s repression of peaceful civil disobedience as part of an effort “to protect cops and capitalism.” We also feature excerpts from Al Jazeera’s new Fault Lines documentary on the “Stop Cop City” movement and speak with correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who calls the mass charges against protesters “unprecedented.”
