More than 20,000 protesters are expected to gather along a court-approved 1.4-mile protest route near the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week, potentially setting up standoffs between demonstrators and police, who have a history of using excessive force.
The 264 protest groups that have said they will take part are primarily focused on Palestinian rights, an end to the war in Gaza, and cuts to US aid to Israel, while others represent a hodgepodge of left-leaning causes, including climate activists, socialists, anti-racist groups, and queer and transgender rights groups.
Arab American groups in the Chicago area, home to the nation’s largest Palestinian American community, say local police and federal agents have targeted their community for years, racially profiling residents and conducting raids and surveillance — tactics that have rarely resulted in convictions.
Muhammad Sankari, leader of the Arab American Action Network, a Chicago nonprofit advocacy group that is part of the protest coalition, said the limited protest area added to an increasingly tense atmosphere amid pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the United States.
“We think this is to give them leeway to be heavy-handed with people,” Sankari said. “These are deep-rooted biases and connotations of surveillance, racial profiling and oppression, and we’re sensitive to that.”
The Chicago Police Department, which famously clashed with protesters when the city hosted the Democratic National Convention in 1968, has been under a consent decree since 2019. The department has long been plagued by complaints of racism, incidents of excessive use of force and a series of high-profile, deadly shootings.
Between 2019 and 2023, Chicago will pay out about $379 million in police misconduct cases, with more than $62 million of that being paid out in use-of-force cases, according to city data.
Community advocacy groups have complained that compliance with court oversight has been slow as police departments grapple with staffing shortages, gun violence in neighborhoods and corruption scandals.
Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling told NBC News that as long as the protesters are peaceful, the police will be peaceful too.
“If people are coming here to peacefully protest and exercise their First Amendment rights, our officers will not only allow that, but they’re going to protect them while they’re doing that,” Snelling said in an interview. “But what our officers will not allow is we’re not going to allow someone to come into our city and vandalize. So acts of violence and vandalism will not be tolerated in this city.”
Law enforcement experts say some pro-Palestinian groups within the coalition are currently or have been under investigation by state, federal and international authorities for suspected ties to terrorist organizations, which could increase tensions.
“Which group emerges as the core could determine how peaceful this remains or how chaotic it becomes,” said Jonathan Schanzer, a former counterterrorism analyst in the Bush administration who has called for increased investigation into potential ties between pro-Palestinian groups and U.S.-designated terrorist organizations.
Demonstrators gathered on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles on May 1. Jae C. Hong / AP File
Controversial plan
Since March, Chicago protest leaders and city officials have been locked in a legal battle over how much space demonstrators should have to assemble and protest, with the city approving only 1.4 miles of the route — nearly a mile shorter than route organizers had requested.
Hatem Abdaye, a spokesman for the March on the DNC Coalition, said organizers were concerned the large number of expected protesters would not be able to fit into such a small space.
“We know it’s going to be in the tens of thousands, and we know it’s going to be too big for a one-mile route,” Abudaye said. “Nobody wants mass arrests.”
The Chicago Police Department, which is leading the security effort, has published a webpage detailing how to avoid arrest.
Police say they will give protesters the opportunity to comply with officers’ commands, but also plan to “isolate bad actors.” Police say disrupting traffic, for example, is not protected by the First Amendment, and behavior that could lead to arrest includes assault, throwing objects or vandalizing property.
The U.S. Secret Service has been working with Chicago police and other federal and state law enforcement agencies over the past year to develop security plans and protocols.
The plan involved “thousands of hours of analysis, training and collaboration with the public in its development,” Secret Service Deputy Special Agent in Charge Derek Meyer said at a security briefing earlier this week.
City officials also released an online map showing locations in and around the convention’s two main venues, the United Center and McCormick Place, where only people with a DNC ticket or ID will be allowed in.
Officers from across Illinois and the Milwaukee Police Department will be helping provide security for the Democratic National Convention, but Chicago police said officers from out of town will not be assigned to patrol the city or respond to 911 calls.
Protest leaders said they wanted the demonstrations to be peaceful and expected people to bring their children to the three scheduled demonstrations on Sunday, Monday and Thursday.
Ariel Rebecca, a spokeswoman for Jewish Voice for Peace in Chicago, whose chapters have seen members arrested in cities across the U.S. for traffic disruptions, said protesters at the Democratic National Convention were trying to avoid being handcuffed.
“The only thing we can control is what we can control, and that is subjecting ourselves to the coalition’s message that we should obey the police,” Rebecca said. “I don’t know what the police will do. All I can say is that the police are unpredictable.”
Protesters face off with armed National Guard troops at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 28, 1968. CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
History of Law Enforcement Surveillance
While observers often cite clashes at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, police actions since the 9/11 attacks have been a major concern for the region’s Arab American community. The Chicago-based American Palestinian Community Network is one of the key members of the coalition, which has been under law enforcement scrutiny for more than a decade.
Abudae, who is also the national chair of the USPCN and spokesman for the coalition organizing the Democratic National Convention protests, said he and other USPCN members attracted police attention after protesting at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Over the next few years, federal authorities subpoenaed Mr. Abdayeh and his associates to testify before a grand jury, but they refused, Mr. Abdayeh said. His wife’s bank accounts were frozen and FBI agents searched their home, according to the USPCN.
A spokesman for the FBI’s Chicago field office declined to comment on Abdaye’s allegations or whether an investigation into the USPCN had been conducted.
In 2013, one of the USPCN’s co-founders, Rasmia Odeh, was indicted on charges of lying on her immigration and U.S. citizenship applications by failing to disclose that she had been convicted of terrorism offenses in Israel, according to federal court documents.
Odeh, who served 10 years in an Israeli prison for allegedly being a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organisation designated by the US, said Israeli authorities helped bomb a supermarket in Jerusalem and the British consulate in the city.
The United States stripped Odeh of his U.S. citizenship in 2017 and deported him to his native Jordan, where he still lives. The USPCN said Odeh, who still lives in Jordan, is no longer associated with the group.
Odeh’s supporters say she was forced by the Israeli military to confess to crimes she did not commit and that she did not knowingly lie on her U.S. immigration application.
“They came after us, and when they realised they had nothing, that they were going to lose the case, they continued their searches and searches, they found my colleague Rasmea, and they brought up the technicalities of his immigration application,” Abdaye said. “It was just a continuation of the attack, the political attack, on our community.”
The coalition’s pro-Palestinian group, Samidoun, has been banned in two countries for supporting terrorist organizations. An NBC News investigation in March found that Israel designated Samidoun a terrorist organization in 2021 and also claimed its leaders were members of the PFLP. Then, last November, Germany banned Samidoun for its members’ open support of Hamas.
Samidoun’s international coordinator, Charlotte Cates, appeared on a February webinar with senior Hamas leader Dr. Bassem Naim and hailed the October 7 attack as a “heroic operation.” Earlier this month, Cates was photographed receiving a human rights award in Iran. Cates did not respond to a request for comment.
The Virginia attorney general’s office is investigating another coalition member, the Chicago chapter of American Muslims for Palestine, whose parent organization, American Muslims for Palestine, is headquartered in Virginia. Investigators say the parent organization may have violated Virginia charity law and are looking into allegations the group supported terrorist organizations.
In a statement released late October, the Virginia Attorney General’s Office cited a federal lawsuit filed by the family of David Boim, an American killed in a Hamas attack in 1996. In 2004, Boim’s family won $156 million in damages against the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), alleging that U.S.-based organizations had supported Hamas.
IAP has since closed, but the Boyms claim it has rebranded itself as American Muslims for Palestine. The family is now suing AMP. An AMP spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Chicago Police officers patrol downtown on October 19, 2021. Scott Olson/Getty Images File
Underlying tensions
Following years of anecdotal reports of bias by law enforcement, the Arab American Action Network and its partners sued city and state police to obtain more than 230 “suspicious activity reports” that residents had filed with police.
A 2022 data analysis found that more than half of the cases police submitted to a federal law enforcement database involved people described as Arab American, Muslim, Middle Eastern or “olive skinned.” The organization said these reports are used for racial profiling and reinforce stereotypes that paint Arab and Muslim Americans as terrorists.
Sankari, the organizer with the Arab American Action Network, said the pro-Palestinian actions across Chicago, which will continue after next week’s rally, involve a community that has long felt “disappointed” by police responses.
He said the community will be watching closely to see how officers respond during protests at the Democratic National Convention.
The Chicago Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about its ongoing relationship with the city’s Arab American community.
But distrust of law enforcement extends to other organizations in the Democratic National Convention protest coalition.
Meredith Abbey of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee was among those whose homes and addresses in Minneapolis and Chicago were searched by the FBI in 2010. Law enforcement tried to find connections between anti-war activists and designated terrorist groups in the Middle East and Colombia, but the members ultimately refused to cooperate and no one was ever charged.
Undaunted by the experience, Abbey and his anti-war committee are sending two busloads of supporters from Minneapolis to organize and protest outside the Chicago convention on Monday. They also attended the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month.
Abbey said government oversight is to be expected, but it should not infringe on free speech or civil rights.
Still, “there is a degree of oversight in this country,” Abiy added, “and it’s important that people are careful about what they say and how it can be used against them.”
