Dana El-Kurd
speaker
4,891 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Mar 2026
last heard 30 May
Dana El-Kurd’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
So much of this case was spent arguing over whether the defendants were in fact Antifa and what that even means, like what does it mean to be Antifa and if that's actually relevant to the charges that they were facing.
And by the end of the trial, it became more clear that the defendants weren't exactly being prosecuted for being members of Antifa.
Rather, the government asserted that their proximity to this idea of Antifa was
provided evidence to their motive and preferred tactics.
Quoting the support committee courtroom notes, quote, the government's strategy was to display zines, stickers, pamphlets, flags, and other political materials, anarchist, anti-fascist, anti-ice, animal liberation, and argued that this shared ideology proves conspiracy and motive.
FBI case agent Casey Bennett testified that the materials, quote, show a group of people sharing an ideology and that this, quote, might lead us to intent behind the attack and shows a conspiracy, unquote.
Towards the end of the trial, Judge Pittman asked the prosecution, quote, is it necessary to prove this stuff about Antifa?
The support committee courtroom notes say that the prosecution responded by saying that Antifa ideology, particularly Black Bloc, was how the group operated.
The judge pressed, quote, whether it's Antifa or the Methodist Women's Auxiliary,
Why does it matter?
Yep.
The prosecution argued that they took quote unquote direct action against the ice facility and argued black block and Antifa ideology were central to how the alleged attack was carried out on quote.
The government described BlackBlock for the purposes of this case as, quote, dark clothing with head and face coverings that concealed their identities, designed to hide each individual's identity, but also to aid and abet those members engaged in illegal acts by making members indistinguishable from one another to law enforcement, unquote.
The jury was shown clothing from all the defendants as evidence, as well as body armor and a quote-unquote resist fascism flag.
Now, all this does raise the question about whether this prosecution is against the defendants' political ideology or the specific criminal acts of throwing fireworks or shooting at a police officer.
Rather than being convicted of being members of Antifa the terrorist group, something that still doesn't really have legal precedent, the prosecutors argued that the Antifa ideology, left-wing anti-authoritarianism, played a role in inspiring the defendants, formed the basis of political affinity that brought this collection of individuals together, and relates to a collection of security practices, subcultural practices, and associated tactics which were employed before, during, and after the criminal acts related to the noise demo.
Quote-unquote OPSEC practices like BlackBlocker using Signal were used as evidence that there was some sort of conspiracy at foot.
Sure.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, that makes sense from a prosecutorial standpoint, right?
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