Revolution Books Chicago

We just received this email from World Can't Wait! Chicago Chapter

Abortion Rights Freedom Ride Coming to Chicago! When: 1 pm, Saturday, July 27 Where: Rally at Michigan Ave & Congress Pkwy, Chicago Join the Facebook event & invite friends! Watch Rachel Maddow's interview with the director of the Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo, ND, and their discussion of the Abortion RIghts Freedom Ride.  US News reports on Pro-Abortion Activists Going on Freedom Ride. Now we will be welcoming the Freedom Ride to Chicago!  We'll hold an abortion speak out to break the stigma on abortion and honor those on the front lines providing abortions. Take pictures and sign banners with your statement of support for abortion rights to send to clinics in Fargo, ND, Wichita, KS, and Jackson, MS - then hear dynamic speakers speak unapologetically about abortion including people joining us the ride speaking passionately to why they are going on this MUCH NEEDED Freedom Ride straight into the 5 states that have only one clinic left! The Abortion RIghts Freedom Ride is 1. Mobilizing people on a national scale - it is connecting up the hundreds of local showdowns at clinics and in courthouses and counties across this country into a national effort to turn the tide. 2. Mobilizing people to go on the political and moral offensive - to not merely respond to each new egregious attack, but to raise our heads to fight for Abortion on Demand and Without Apology-For Every Woman in Every State! 3. Telling the truth: this war on women will only be defeated through massive independent political action taken by thousands, hundreds of thousands and before long millions of people!And this Abortion Rights Freedom Ride is giving people a way to act right now-relying on ourselves, changing the political terms, and connecting up the many streams of resistance into a national fight to turn the tide and defeat the war on women. Now we have secret rulings in a Cook County court? That's what Gregory Koger and his lawyers discovered when they went to court yesterday! Without any notice, Gregory's post-conviction relief petition had been dismissed more than three months ago, denying him the right to appeal this decision. This is just the latest in a long-running political prosecution for - what? - peacefully videotaping a statement against censorship!  We received the announcement below from the Ad Hoc Committee for Reasonthat explains what happened and how our friend Gregory Koger was taken to Cook County Jail. The committee has now started a petition to urge the Sheriff of Cook County to release him on electronic monitoring. Please signand share this petition! Letters, cards, magazines and paperback books (no hardcover books or newspapers) can be sent to Gregory at Gregory Koger #2013-0723091 P.O. Box 089002 Chicago, Illinois 60608 Gregory Koger sent back to Cook Co Jail in continuing political prosecution Tuesday, July 23, 2013 This afternoon Gregory Koger was sent back to Cook County Jail to serve the remainder of his 300 day sentence for peacefully videotaping a statement against censorship at a public meeting of the “Ethical” Humanist Society of Chicago (EHSC) on Sunday, November 1, 2009. Over 50 supporters, including fellow ex-prisoners, human rights activists, a priest, musician, scientist, retired business people, and a doctor, filled the courtroom in suburban Skokie.  Expressing their outrage at the vindictive hearing and sentencing, over two dozen supporters went straight to the main Cook County jail several miles away to demonstrate their support for Mr. Koger and the California hunger strike. The hearing today was supposed to be about adjusting Gregory's original sentence, which in part exceeded the statutory maximum. He was represented by attorney Jed Stone, who planned to argue that Gregory's Post-Conviction Relief Petition  filed in March, had to be adjudicated, after months of silence. When Gregory's case was finally called, however, the presiding judge  announced that she had rejected his post-conviction relief petition more than three months ago, on April 15, and that his 30 day period in which to file an appeal had expired!  No notice had been received by Gregory or his attorneys of record of the rejection, nor had they received notice that Gregory should appear in court on April 15. The judge stated  that the prosecutors had told her that Gregory had been seen in the courthouse on April 15 but left before his case was called, an impossibility because the defense team knew nothing of the date. Furthermore, although Gregory had served two months of his 300-day sentence, the Judge insisted the file showed that he had only been in jail for two weeks.  Jed Stone stated, “In my 38 years as an attorney I have never seen anything like the blatant, sloppy and disingenuous actions of the Court today.”  Gregory's attorneys plan to take further legal action and his defense committee, the Ad Hoc Committee, is determined to continue to press for his release.  For more information on this case, see www.dropthecharges.net. At the press conference before the hearing, Gregory announced that while in Cook County Jail, he would join the California prisoners hunger strike, now at Day 16, in solidarity with the demand to end solitary confinement.   Recently, Gregory has been speaking in support of California hunger strikers on WBEZ's Worldview, WVON'sCliff Kelley Show, and KPFK's Michael Slate Show.  In his youth, Gregory spent years in solitary confinement while in prison. During that time, he transformed himself and hasdedicated his life since his release to opposing injustice and struggling for a liberated world for all humanity, as he has written. Outside the Cook County Jail, July 23, 2013 Ad Hoc Committee for Reason mailto:adhoc4reason@gmail.com?subject=Gregory%20Koger%20should%20be%20released! Read "Revolutionary Gregory Koger Sent Back to Jail; Judge's Secret Ruling Comes to Light," including solidarity statements from Cindy Sheehan and Sunsara Taylor