Tear Down the Walls People’s Power Assembly, Scheduled for Sunday, November 3 at 8:30-11:15 A.M.

Freedom of speech, assembly, privacy and dissent are regarded as a birthright. Yet increasingly dissent is being criminalized. Spurred by Edward Snowden’s revelations, a Washington Post study has revealed that the US government has over 850,000 federal and private employees engaged in the collection and analysis of data on US residents. Incarceration is an important part of the intimidation and suppression of dissent. Of special concern are private prisons, especially immigration detention centers that are making huge profits off of the misery of undocumented workers. Jails exist as an extension of slavery and Jim Crow, with detentions of oppressed nationalities and ethnicities at much higher rates than of Whites. Prisoners are forced to work for little or no pay. The US is exporting its incarceration model. Through the New Penitentiary Culture program, the US Bureau of Prisons and USAID are spending millions to build new jails and restructure prison systems in Colombia, Mexico, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq—not to mention the Guantanamo Prison on Cuban territory.

The Anti-Repression and Prison Industrial Complex People’s Power Assembly will bring together anti-war, Latin America solidarity, immigration, prison, police brutality, civil liberties, and Occupy groups to strategize on how to work together across movements to build a stronger, more unified opposition to the the Prison Industrial Complex and to dismantle the systems of repression, within and without the nation’s borders. The People’s Power Assembly will commit to one or more joint actions during the next year including at least one [inter]nationally coordinated day of local action.