Maggie Vascassenno
Maggie Vascassenno
De-platformed
On January 22 2020, Facebook disabled the main pages of two major community organizations, Peoples Power Assembly and Women In Struggle/Mujeres En Lucha, as well as activists around the country who have played roles in either group, including Puerto Rican activist Berta Joubert-Ceci; Greg Butterfield, Struggle La Lucha writer; Cheryl LaBash, co-chair, National Network on Cuba; Maggie Vascassenno, Los Angeles Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice; and others.
It also banished Peoples Power Assembly page editor Charlene Lady J. Jenkins, a founder of “What’s Up Baltimore,” whose Baltimore grassroots network was shut down as a result.
In addition, 16 individual activists’ profiles were disabled, which means that close to a dozen other progressive pages and groups were frozen when their administrators were disabled, including: the Baltimore Harriet Tubman Solidarity Center, ICE Out of Baltimore, Prisoners Solidarity Committee, Youth Against War & Racism, and Baltimore and Maryland Amazon Workers.
Sharon Black stated: “Facebook’s disabling of pages and the accounts of major activists who have not violated community standards is meant to silence and censor our voices. The Peoples Power Assembly has played a significant role in the Baltimore Black Lives Matter protests in the summer and more recently opposing Trump’s effort to overturn the election. On Dr. King Jr.’s birthday holiday, we held a car caravan to Jessup Correctional Institute and the Howard County Immigrant Detention Center to demand justice for prisoners and detainees.”
Berta Joubert-Ceci, founder of the Women's Fightback National Network/Red Nacional de Mujeres en Lucha and Women In Struggle, stated, "It is appalling - the cowardice of Facebook in silencing the voices of women and progressive people who struggle for justice and a better life for all." Joubert-Ceci is also an organizer of the International Peoples' Tribunal on U.S. Colonial Crimes in Puerto Rico. Her personal page, used to connect with the Puerto Rican movement, was deleted along with Women In Struggle.
Attorney Summerfield stated, “We intend to fight this. This includes waging a public campaign to demand that the pages of all activists and the groups they represent are reactivated. We intend to use every avenue at our disposal, including legal remedies, to stop the censorship of voices that are too often marginalized.”[1]
WWP conference
Long Island City, Queens, N.Y. — The stage banner in a school auditorium in Queens, N.Y., said it all: “Workers World Party stands in solidarity with Gaza, Ferguson and Ayotzi! Down with capitalism! Fight for socialism!”
This theme resonated on Nov. 15-16 2014, as the Workers World Party annual national conference highlighted major struggles here and worldwide, including resistance to U.S. police and military occupation — from Occupied Gaza to Ferguson, Mo.
Joe Lombardo was a guest at the 2014 Conference.
Maggie Vascassenno, from Los Angeles, chaired a panel on solidarity with Lucy Pagoada, a founder of Honduras USA Resistencia; Charles Jenkins, president, New York Chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; Kazem Azim, SI-Solidarity with Iran; Berna Ellorin, chairperson of BAYAN USA; Mick Kelly, Freedom Road Socialist Organization; Victor Toro, a founder of Chile’s Movement of the Revolutionary Left, who won the right to live in the United States after facing the threat of deportation; and Joe Lombardo, co-coordinator of the United National Antiwar Coalition.[2]