Drop the Charges!

UPDATE (May 5th, 2025): After months of community organizing and pressure, AG Dana Nessel has dropped the charges against the seven protestors facing felony and misdemeanor charges from the UMich Gaza Solidarity encampment. Four protestors from the Encampment are still facing misdemeanor charges, and three protestors from the Festifall Die-In are still facing felony and misdemeanor charges. Nessel has continued to mount her attack against the pro-Palestine and divestment movement by sending the FBI and local police to raid the homes of pro-Palestine protestors in Michigan. The fight continues! Read our press release here.

Let’s show Attorney General Dana Nessel that we won’t stand for her suppression of pro-Palestine protest and our First Amendment rights! In September 2024, Attorney General Dana Nessel announced criminal charges against 11 people, including felony charges against 7, over the UMich Gaza Solidarity Encampment. As the Guardian reported:

Frustrated by local prosecutors’ unwillingness to crack down on most of the students arrested at the height of the pro-Palestinian encampments last spring, the regents executed a highly unusual move in recruiting the Michigan attorney general, Dana Nessel, because she was more likely to file charges, three people with direct knowledge of the decision tell the Guardian.

This is corruption, plain and simple. The Guardian found tens of thousands of dollars of campaign contributions by the UMich Regents to Dana Nessel’s campaign, among other political connections. Nessel later doubled down by bringing additional charges against 3 protestors over a die-in demonstration at UMich’s Festifall event (including felony charges against 2).

Nessel is also attacking the First Amendment rights of everyone in Michigan. Nessel’s charges against pro-Palestinian protestors appear to be the leading edge of her broader crackdown on political speech. On January 6, 2025, Nessel issued “guidance” for local law enforcement on legal ways to suppress First Amendment protected activity.

What can we do to fight back? This takes all of us to fight. For now, our immediate ask is for supporters to donate to our legal fund and to support those who had their lives upturned by FBI raids, who are fired for their activism, or who are facing charges for Festifall or the encampment raid. Follow us on social media, and we will provide updates on events for us to talk together and strategize further.

Send a Tweet to tell Attorney General Dana Nessel and Governor Gretchen Whitmer to drop the charges against the Encampment 11 and Festifall 3, and stop their corrupt protection of the UMich Regents and zionist genocide!

Call Nessel out for launching spurious charges against anti-genocide protesters:

Call Nessel out for her hypocrisy with regards to LGBTQ rights and liberation:

Call Nessel out for her complicity with the genocide in Gaza:

Call Nessel out for prosecuting protesters instead of fighting against Trump: