A Woman Who Makes Bags For Michael Kors Was Sent To One Of The Most Crowded Prisons In The World For A Facebook Post

A Cambodian woman who makes bags for brands like Michael Kors and Kate Spade was jailed for two months after expressing her fears about the coronavirus.

Nishita Jha BuzzFeed News Reporter
Reporting From  New Delhi
Posted on June 10, 2020

Courtesy Soy Sros
Soy Sros

“I’m sorry if I seem distracted, I’m not fully myself yet,” Soy Sros said, pushing sweaty brown bangs off her forehead.

It had been less than a day since Soy was released from prison, where she was crammed into a tiny cell with 72 other women and children, without masks, hand sanitizers, proper food, or even any room to lie down. The prison was all she’d known for nearly two months. Now, she was sitting on a plastic chair in an empty office, staring at a laptop and hoping her story would reach Michael Kors, the 60-year-old billionaire and darling of the fashion world.

“I am not afraid,” she said, speaking clearly and directly, her chin raised to the camera. “I will go back to work. I’m looking forward to it.”

Soy, a Cambodian woman who makes bags for international fashion brands like Michael Kors and Kate Spade, worked at the Superl factory in the country’s Kampong Speu province. On April 4, Soy was sent to prison for a Facebook post in which she wrote about her concerns that workers from her factory would be laid off in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Graeme Sloan / Sipa USA via AP
A boarded-up Michael Kors store in Washington, DC.

Depending on who you are and which part of the world you live, venting on social media has either become a seamless part of your life or something that could endanger it and everything you love. The day after she complained about her employers on Facebook, the 30-year-old single mother received a summons to the supervisor’s office at Superl. The note said someone at the office wanted to meet her. When she got there, Soy said the supervisor presented her with a document that included a warning and an admission — by signing it with her thumbprint, Soy would admit she had made a mistake, and that, if she were to do so again, the factory would start a disciplinary process against her. BuzzFeed News has seen a copy of the letter Soy was asked to sign by her employers at Superl.

She refused to sign the document and returned to her workstation, resuming gluing and sewing bag handles. Since the pandemic began, orders at the factory had slowed down, but there was still, always, more work for someone like her. At the end of her shift, Soy was summoned to the office again. This time, she said, the police were waiting. She was taken to an interrogation room, where she was quizzed by the police for more than 48 hours.

“There were several policemen in the interrogation room, and they asked me if I wanted attention, or to be famous, whether I was trying to incite somebody,” Soy said. “They called me names, offended my dignity as a woman.” Soon after that, Soy was thrown into the Kampong Speu prison.

Cambodia’s overcrowded prisons, some of which hold over 400 times more detainees than they were built for, have been described in a report by Amnesty International as a “ticking time bomb” for coronavirus cases.
Superl’s initial charges against Soy had claimed that she had posted fake news and defamed the factory. But the court that was looking into her case also charged her with two criminal offenses, relating to provocation and discrimination. If Soy were found guilty, she faced up to three years in prison and a fine of up to 6 million riels (approximately $1,500). Superl Factory did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this article.

When Soy spoke to BuzzFeed News, she had been temporarily released from the prison while her case was being argued in court. A week after she spoke, Superl agreed to withdraw the complaint against Soy, but the criminal charges invoked by the court against her could still stick. Despite requests by BuzzFeed News and labor rights organizations, Superl has not indicated whether Soy can return to work, when that might be, or whether it will pay her for the days of work she missed, or compensate her, as Soy wants, for “harm to her reputation.”

On the video call, before the factory dropped charges against her, Soy appeared gaunt and disturbed as she described her mental and physical state in prison. Over the course of two months, she said she had developed a persistent low-grade fever and frequently needed an IV drip and medicines. She also said she had barely eaten or slept in weeks because she was so anxious about her health, whether her children and mother would survive if something were to happen to her, and what the factory would do to the rest of the workers at Superl.

In April, the same month Soy was arrested, the CEO of Capri Holdings, the global fashion luxury group that owns the Michael Kors brand, as well as brands like Versace and Jimmy Choo, signed the UN Global Compact. This is a nonbinding pact to encourage businesses worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies toward honoring human rights and labor.



Amnesty International@amnesty
We've received shocking footage from Cambodia, revealing the inhumane conditions inside one of its prisons. Such extreme overcrowding is a ticking time bomb for a #COVID19 outbreak. Cambodian authorities must immediately address this overcrowding crisis.09:09 AM - 10 Apr 2020
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On its website, Capri Holdings mentions that nearly all Michael Kors products in the fiscal year 2019 were produced in Asia. The company’s webpage also includes its code of ethics, which it expects supply chain partners, like Superl, to follow. It includes things like respecting the “legal rights of employees to freely participate in worker organizations of their choice without harassment” (i.e., unionize), and zero tolerance policy for any partners who “employ any form of physical or mental coercion or punishment against workers.”

In prison, Soy’s days were a blur of sweat, bodies, hunger, and pain. The crowded cell meant the women could not all lie down at once, and when they slept, each woman’s head touched the feet of another person. The food was largely inedible and unhygienic.

While Cambodia has thus far reported zero deaths due to the coronavirus, Soy was concerned because several women in the cell were running persistent low-grade fevers like hers. She made friends; some of the women shared their medicines with her (each person was only allowed to take one pill a day) or fanned her when she was trying to sleep.

On April 14, when Cambodia celebrated the Khmer New Year, rumors circulated that several prisoners across the country would receive presidential pardons. Soy did not make much of this news until she learned that some men in Kampong Speu province, where she was held, had attempted to escape jail by feigning medical ailments when they learned they would not be pardoned. Through the “prison grapevine,” Soy said, she heard that the attempt was unsuccessful and that the men had been punished — while she would not say just what she saw and heard that day, Soy told union leaders she was “terrified.”

Unless they are unionized, workers like Soy, who are at one end of the supply chain, rarely know which brands they are making products for. This absence of transparency in the brands’ supply chains, according to labor rights activist Andrew Tillett-Saks, is one of the ways brands escape accountability for how factories treat their workers. “Brands hide behind these corporate structure nuances,” Tillett-Saks told BuzzFeed News over the phone from Myanmar, which along with Cambodia, Bangladesh, and India produces much of the world’s ready-made garments. “It’s important for the public to be reminded who is at either end of the supply chain and the vast gulf of inequality between them.”

Soy and her union, the Collective Union of Movement of Workers, knew the brands they were making bags for. Michael Kors has been a buyer from Superl’s factory in Cambodia since 2017, as shown on an international trade database. The factory also manufactures for Kate Spade (the brand now owned by Tapestry) as well as a few others. The leather tote bags and nylon backpacks made at the Superl factory where Soy works are shipped through Vung Tau, Vietnam and/or Kaohsiung in Taiwan; they arrive in the United States through the ports of Long Beach or Los Angeles in California or via Savannah, Georgia; Tacoma, Washington; and Newark, New Jersey.

This is why, soon after Soy’s arrest, CUMW members began writing to Capri Holdings and Michael Kors, as well as Kate Spade to call for her release. When they received no response, they looped in international labor watchdogs like Clean Clothes Campaign and IndustriAll Global Union for help.

“Brands have all the power to help us,” Pav Sina, a member of CUMW, said on a video call from the union’s office in Kampong Speu. “The factories will listen to them, but they have to listen to us first.”

On May 11 and again on May 28, the urgent appeals coordinator at Clean Clothes Campaign wrote to Krista McDonough, the chief sustainability officer at Capri Holdings, as well as Taryn Bird, the social impact director at Kate Spade. The watchdog reiterated CUMW’s demands to release Soy from prison. The letter, reviewed by BuzzFeed News, said:

“Following her arrest, Mrs Soy Sros’ family lost their income as she is the sole breadwinner. She is a widow and a mother of two underaged children. They are now taken care of by their grandmother. As per today, Mrs Soy Sros remains in jail. According to CUMW who visited Mrs. Soy Sros on May 8, 2020 her health is rapidly deteriorating and she now receives medical treatment.”

The CCC reminded the brands about the code of ethics listed on their websites, adding, “We assume [you have a] sincere interest in resolving this case as soon as possible. We urge you to take immediate action and will await your response.”
Neither Capri Holdings nor Kate Spade responded to the CCC nor the IndustriAll Global Union. They also did not respond to questions when contacted by BuzzFeed News for this article.

Soy’s arrest is part of a pattern that has plagued fashion brands since the pandemic began. As brands close outlets across North America and Europe, putting unsold stock from these stores on discount sales online, they are also canceling orders from their suppliers and reneging on payments. In the shadow of a looming economic crisis, supply chain partners for major brands across Asia have been accused of union-busting (getting rid of unionized workers who know their rights, or “troublemakers”) to eventually replace them with a younger, more desperate, or more subservient workforce. Garment industry experts say a huge reason manufacturers are able to get away with this: race.

“Apparel supply chains are based on an international division of labor that requires the labor of the global south to not only be cheap, but to be docile so as not to interrupt the legal looting of labor and resources that the global north depends on to maintain its lifestyle,” Thulsi Narayanasamy, senior labor researcher at the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, told BuzzFeed News. “It’s clearly a racial division of labor because as we see more brands move to producing clothes in places like the USA and UK, it’s migrant workers or people of color that are working in the factories.”

Under Narayanasamy, the BHRRC has devised a COVID-19 tracker that monitors brands and their supply chain accountability during the pandemic. They publish the names of the factories that each company uses as well as each brand’s performance for a number of different indicators — including who is offering heavy discounts on their products and the impact this has on garment workers’ salaries around the world.

In June, Narayanasamy also reached out to Superl, warning the factory that local and international unions were calling on it to immediately withdraw the charges filed against Soy. Superl never wrote back.

“If 60 million garment workers worldwide don’t earn enough to feed themselves, while the brands they produce clothes for create billions in profit on the back of their labor, we need to consider whether profit in the apparel industry is effectively wages stolen from exploited women of color,” said Narayanasamy.

In 2015, Kors was chosen as a Global Ambassador Against Hunger for the UN World Food Programme. Soon after, the “Watch Hunger Stop” initiative took Kate Hudson to meet schoolchildren in Cambodia. In the video, a dressed-down Hudson serves food to brown kids, grows food in lush green fields, laughs with brown women, and looks joyful.

“I was so excited because I love Michael Kors so much,” she says. And after a few lines about the World Food Programme, Hudson says, “This whole experience has been so beautiful, so great [that] it makes me want to do more.”



View this video on YouTube Michael Kors/YouTube
Kate Hudson Visits Cambodia | Watch Hunger Stop


While philanthropic efforts like these are important, they can also be a way for big brands to get away with “optical allyship,” ensuring that their messages remain on-brand without a deeper reflection into what the actions of an ally could be — in this case, changing the ways they conduct business.

Last month, as the US erupted in protests against police violence and anti-Black racism, fashion brands have shared similar messages of solidarity with Black protesters.

Michael Kors@MichaelKors
05:47 PM - 31 May 2020
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But according to Narayanasamy, who wrote in 2018 about H&M’s ad campaign featuring a Black boy in a hoodie reading “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle” (while his white counterpart sported one with the title “Survival Expert”), the fashion industry’s racism goes beyond whether campaigns include enough models of color, or how many Black and brown designers and executives a brand employs. Corporate diversity at the top does little to ensure that workers in Asia who perform the less visible and glamorous work of fashion — cutting, making, trimming, and, in Soy’s case, gluing and sewing bags — are treated ethically.

For the past month, Tillett-Saks’ work in Myanmar has focussed on another Western fashion brand, Vera Bradley. It sources its bags from a factory in the country, where six workers have been imprisoned after protesting over their working conditions. On June 4, Tillett-Saks tweeted at the brand in response to a message of solidarity with the Black community from the company’s CEO, Rob Wallstrom.


Andrew Tillett-Saks@AndrewTSaks
.@verabradley is literally refusing to drop charges against the black and brown workers who make its bags in jail for demanding Covid-19 safety measures, then tweet this nonsense. Peak BS corporate ‘anti-racism’. Should we boycott until they put their $ where their mouth is? https://t.co/doIDn4butY08:21 PM - 03 Jun 2020
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.@verabradley is literally refusing to drop charges against the black and brown workers who make its bags in jail for demanding Covid-19 safety measures, then tweet this nonsense. Peak BS corporate ‘anti-racism’. Should we boycott until they put their $ where their mouth is?” Tillett-Saks wrote.

Tillett-Saks was referring to workers from a factory known as Blue Diamond, who said they’d been making bags for Vera Bradley. But when BuzzFeed News contacted Vera Bradley, a representative for the brand said it had never sourced bags from there.

“Blue Diamond is not part of Vera Bradley’s supply chain and never has been. The health and safety of our employees and those in the factories we use are of the utmost importance to Vera Bradley. We currently contract with three factories in Myanmar and they have been through a government health department audit to insure they had adequate controls in place for COVID-19 protection of its workers.”

But the address for the Blue Diamond factory is the same as another factory registered as Rong Son (Myanmar), which, according to import data, has been manufacturing bags for Vera Bradley as recently as 26 April. BuzzFeed News obtained photographs of the wallets workers said they made inside Rong Son (Myanmar)/Blue Diamond, which bear a label for the brand and whose barcode and product description match items sold by Vera Bradley. BuzzFeed News also obtained a copy of a Blue Diamond employee’s contract and their social security card — which names their employer as Rong Son (Myanmar).

Striking workers confirmed to BuzzFeed News that both factories were in the same compound, and that workers from Rong Son were moved to Blue Diamond at the beginning of this year. Zin Mar Khaing, a worker from Blue Diamond told BuzzFeed News: “Vera Bradley may try to just cut their orders from our factory when our dispute becomes public, but they need to stay and take responsibility for the situation they’ve helped create. We make their bags and their profits with our hands, they can’t just walk away as though it’s not their problem. We demand they stay and help correct this injustice.”

When presented with these details, the representative for Vera Bradley first asked for photographic evidence, then said that a team would look into the matter and respond once they had an update. “We want to ensure [these products] are genuine Vera Bradley products and not counterfeit,” said the spokesperson.

Tillet-Saks said public statements about racism and sexism from brands were “a shimmering facade that covers up the industry’s rotten foundation. This facade hides that the industry is built on treating Black and brown women workers as subhuman, with working and living conditions no brand owner would consider humane for themselves or even for workers in their home countries.”

At a moment when police violence against Black Americans is the most urgent issue in the US, Soy’s imprisonment is a reminder that racism does not end at the country’s border. It leaches into war, reproductive healthcare in impoverished nations, and work — including the way fashion supply chain workers are treated in countries thousands of miles away.

Nishita Jha is a global women's rights reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in India.

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How The Antifa Fantasy Spread In Small Towns Across The U.S.

Rumors of roving bands of Antifa have followed small protests all over the United States. Why are people so ready to believe them?

Anne Helen Petersen BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on June 9, 2020

BuzzFeed News; Getty Images

The rumor that shadowy leftists planned to start trouble in Great Falls, Montana, first appeared on the Facebook group of the Montana Liberty Coalition late last Wednesday afternoon.

“Heads up,” a man named Wayne Ebersole, who owns a local cover crop business, wrote. “Rumor has it that Antifa has scheduled a protest in Great Falls Friday evening at 5 p.m. in front of the Civic Center.” He asked the group if anyone had any more information, or if anyone was available to “protect businesses.”

“It has been confirmed through the police department,” one commenter replied. “They have a permit for tomorrow night and are in town now.”

They weren’t. Police later said they had been “working to quell the rumor.” But that didn’t stop it from sweeping across various right-wing groups. Within 24 hours, a screenshot of Ebersole’s post had been posted to the Facebook Group for the Montana Militia, whose members have recently dedicated themselves to tracking the perceived threat of antifa all over the state, including coordinating armed responses to “protect” their towns. (Ebersole did not respond to a request for comment.)

And by Friday at 5 p.m., as about 500 protesters gathered to protest systemic racism and police brutality, a handful of armed men had massed at the edge of the demonstration.“We heard that a little group called Antifa wanted to show up and not in our town,” one man, who declined to be named, told the Great Falls Tribune. “All it takes is a word and a whisper.”

As protests against police brutality and in support of Black Lives Matter continue to proliferate across the small towns and rural communities, so, too, have rumors of white vans of masked antifa driving from town to town, reportedly intent on destruction. In Hood River, Oregon, antifa were, according to screenshot of a fake Instagram story, calling on followers to “root loot do anything in your power.” In Spring Hill, Tennessee, there was a “busload” staying at the Holiday Inn, prepping to loot Walgreens at noon. In Wenatchee, Washington, bands of men dressed in black were surveilling potential targets. In Payette, Idaho, a plane full of protesters was circling overhead. In Honolulu, antifa had been flown in from the mainland. In Billings, Montana, some claimed agitators had been spotted by the National Guard. In Nebraska, they were creating Craigslist ads offering to pay people $25 a day to “cause as much chaos and destruction as possible.” In Sisters, Oregon, they were planning to show up at the local Bi-Mart.


To be clear: All of these rumors were false. They were all, as the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office put it, “fourth-hand information.” To combat them, police departments in dozens of towns are holding press conferences, posting announcements on social media, and telling anyone who calls the station that there has been no indication of a planned presence from antifa or any other outside agitators, whether “from Chicago” (code, in many parts of the Midwest, for black people) or “from Seattle” (code for liberals).

Yet these rumors continue to spread. That spread is facilitated by Facebook — where they thrive in groups whose previous focus was protesting pandemic-related shutdowns and circulating conspiracy theories about COVID-19 — and fanned by President Donald Trump, who recently declared his intention to label antifa a terrorist group. This morning, the president raised the antifa menace yet again, tweeting that the protester violently shoved by police in Buffalo, New York, “could be an ANTIFA.” (He was not.)

But the persistence of these rumors suggests a deeper fear of outside incursion, and the necessity of an ever-alert, armed response. As encapsulated in a Reddit thread out of Hood River, Oregon: “I’ll say this much: The people out here are armed to the teeth. If you want to bring mayhem to this area, the end result will likely have you begging for police protection.”


Stephanie Keith / Getty Images
An antifa member passes a fountain during an alt-right rally on Aug. 17, 2019, in Portland, Oregon.

Antifa has become the right’s face of violent leftist protest in the United States, sloppily aligned with, as the president put it on June 1, “professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters.” In a tweet, Trump claimed the national guard had “shut down” the “ANTIFA led anarchists, among others.” (The DC field office of the FBI reported no antifa involvement in protests, according to the Nation.)

It’s difficult to talk about antifa with any sort of precision. It’s “leftist” insomuch as it’s against, well, fascism, authoritarianism, and white supremacists. There are some local groups, but there’s no national leadership structure. Many antifa dedicate themselves to finding white supremacists in their communities and outing them. Most people within those groups are for violent protest only as a last resort, but a handful are for more forceful displays and destruction. Here in Montana, I encountered a very small handful in January 2017, when they showed up in Whitefish to counter a planned march by the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website.

The most important thing to understand about antifa is that there are very, very few of them: According to the Washington Post, when the group tried to gather nationally, they topped out at a few hundred.

Nevertheless, Trump has been building up the menace of antifa for years. He first began evoking antifa following the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, when he famously claimed that there were “very good people, on both sides.” “Since then Trump has returned to the term often in speeches,” Ben Zimmer writes in the Atlantic, always “with an air of alien menace.”

Lifted by Trump’s rhetoric, that “alien menace” has accumulated around antifa in the public imagination, making it all the easier to believe posts in which fake antifa accounts promise to act in the exact ways Trump has described. On Sunday, May 31, a newly made Twitter account — since linked to the white nationalist group Identity Evorpa — posted: “Tonight’s the night, Comrades,” with a brown raised-fist emoji and “Tonight we say 'F--- The City' and we move into the residential areas... the white hoods.... and we take what's ours …”

The antifa threat has also been co-opted by QAnon, the nation’s most powerful and influential conspiracy theory and movement. At Concordia University, Marc-André Argentino researches the way extremist groups use social media as a tool to recruit, spread propaganda, and incite acts of violence. Last week, he began tracking the uptick in mentions of antifa within QAnon social media forums, which began to rise when “Q” (the anonymous poster who guides the site) began mentioning it on May 30. At least for the moment, QAnon is celebrating the protests (and antifa’s presence) for their potential to spark the apocalyptic “storm” central to the QAnon theology. “Antifa is a nebulous enemy, one that serves as a rallying cry for keyboard warriors and on-the-ground militiamen,” Argentino told me.

Argentino has been noticing something else, too: a growing cross-pollination between QAnon, which is often referred to simply as a conspiracy group, and more far-right extremist groups, from the so-called Boogaloo Bois and Proud Boys to more straightforward militias.

This intermingling was on display at the Reopen Michigan protests, where American flags waved alongside Confederate ones. And you can see it now all over the West, where the groups that advocated for reopening — often attracting a motley mix of constitutionalists, “patriots,” anti-vaxxers, Second Amendment advocates, anti-government advocates, and just straight up pissed off business people — have shifted their focus to “protection.” In the Tri-Cities area of Central Washington, the shift is so explicit that the Facebook group “Reopen Tri-Cities” has shifted, wholescale, to a second group called “Protect the Tri.”

Aurora Simpson Photography
Armed men gather on Main Street in the historic downtown of Klamath Falls, Oregon, on May 31.

In Montana, most of the rumors of antifa presence in the state can be traced back to state Sen. Jennifer Fielder, who warned her followers on June 1 of “multiple reports from credible witnesses” that five white panel vans of antifa were on their way to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and would then proceed to Missoula, Montana. Fielder, who lives in Northwest Montana, is known across the state for ultra-right, “liberty-minded” views on everything from public lands (they should be sold) to contact tracing (a form of governmental overreach).

But Fielder didn’t start the antifa rumor. She just brought it to Montana. On Sunday, June 1, over in Klamath Falls, Oregon, the rumors were so compelling that hundreds of armed people showed up to line the Main Street during a planned protest. The next night, in downtown Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, a man with an AR-12, an AR-15, two 9 mm handguns, and a .38 special told reporter Bill Buley that he was there, along with hundreds of others, because he’d heard “there were some people who shouldn’t be here.”

In some cases, the people with guns showing up at these rallies are “supportive” of the groups protesting — at least in so far as they’re supportive of the right to freely assemble. They don’t actually believe the protesters, in many cases local high school students, would turn to violence. Instead, they believe antifa is plotting to infiltrate the otherwise peaceful protests and turn them violent — or, as was suspected in Lewiston, Idaho, use the protest as a decoy in order to ransack the business district.

Which is why, as over a thousand people gathered to march along the Snake River in Lewiston, dozens of others, many heavily armed, lined the streets downtown. One wore a Hawaiian shirt (the “uniform” of the Boogaloo Bois) and held a sign with the name of a III% militia member who had been shot by the police. Another wore a vest covered in Nazi paraphernalia. Others were decked out in flak jackets, in camo, and Clinton Conspiracy shirts. Similar scenes have played out this week in Bozeman, Kalispell, Billings, Sandpoint, and Coeur d’Alene.

Travis McAdam, who’s tracked anti-government and hate groups for 15 years with the Montana Human Rights Network, calls it the “Antifa Fantasy.” A version of this fantasy has long existed, in some form, in militia circles: “An outside, shadowy entity is going to come in,” McAdam recounted, “and whether it’s to disarm the community or attack it, these folks are going to mobilize and fight it off. Antifa is just the bogeyman that they’ve stuck in this narrative.”

Put differently: Militia members get to plan, anticipate, and enact the idea at the foundation of their existence. And they get to do it in a way that positions them as “the good guys,” fighting a cowardly bogeyman easily vanquished by show of force alone. As a popular meme circulating in North Idaho put it, “Remember that time when Antifa said they were coming to Coeur d’Alene / And everyone grabbed their guns and they didn’t come? That was awesome!” It doesn’t matter if antifa was never coming in the first place. They didn’t come, and that’s evidence of victory.

And that victory can then be leveraged into further action — and a means to extend the fantasy. On the Montana Militia page, a man named Tom Allen, whose home is listed on Facebook as Wibaux, Montana, posted that he’d spent the night in Dickenson, North Dakota, “protecting” the veterans monument during a planned protest. A group of bikers showed up to guard the nearby mall, protecting “all of Antifa’s usual targets.” There was no incident. (Allen did not respond to request for comment.)

Afterward, Allen wrote, a man who had helped coordinate the defense followed a group of perceived antifa to an Applebee’s, where he said he overheard them talking about “the waitress and how they wanted to rape her,” “killing cops” and “other violence,” and their future plans: “They’re saying there’s going to be a ‘firestorm’ in Billings this weekend.” The post was shared more than 1,800 times.

Like Argentino, the online researcher, McAdam sees this current “protect” movement as an extension and consolidation of anti-government movements that have been percolating for years. Back in 2008, when tea party rallies began sprouting up all over the United States, many of them were attended and organized by people authentically upset about economic policies. But those protests, like the reopen protests, also drew in anti-government agitators and militia members, who then began to influence and, in some cases, take over the leadership in the tea party groups.

“That dynamic is very similar to what’s happening now,” McAdam said. “A core group of people coming from the anti-government movement are always looking for a crisis, where you have a divisive issue in the community that they can tap into and exploit. The COVID pandemic was one thing, and now we’ve got another avenue.” And people who might not ever consider themselves “militia” or even anti-government, who might have joined a reopen group in frustration, are now exposed, and perhaps more receptive, to rumors of roaming antifa in need of rebuke.

Aurora Simpson Photography
Armed men and women show up in Klamath Falls, Oregon, after rumors of an outside antifa presence at a Black Lives Matter protest.

“You can really see that in the Facebook groups,” dozens of which McAdam monitors. “I would see people posting early on a Tuesday morning, saying, ‘I don’t know if this Antifa rumor is real,’ and then later in the day, they’d be like, ‘Well, I dunno if I believe this, but I’m going to go drive around Missoula and look for these Antifa vans.’”

When someone in your Facebook feed posts a warning to be on the lookout for antifa in your small town, it might seem like low-stakes nonsense. But beneath such a seemingly silly rumor lurks a larger ideological iceberg: the idea that radical leftists are out to defile and destroy, and the only recourse against them is an armed, unrestricted militia. QAnon theory builds on this, suggesting that all of it — the protests, the police reaction, the presence of antifa — has been preordained as part of a coming mass destruction

And QAnon isn’t just a niche conspiracy theory. Tweets from its proponents are regularly retweeted by the president. At least 50 current or former candidates for Congress, plus the Republican nominee for the US Senate in Oregon, are public QAnon supporters. And that doesn’t even include candidates running on the state or local level.

As Adrienne LaFrance argued in the Atlantic, QAnon has become a religion, with clearly defined sides of good and evil, hungry for converts. The antifa fantasy functions similarly. Whether you’re in Lewiston, Idaho, or Klamath Falls, Oregon, it’s so, so easy to believe.

And as QAnon continues to cross-pollinate ideas with violent, extremist groups, “keyboard warriors” may bring their conspiracies into the real world. As Argentino put it, “If you’re in QAnon, and you see your messianic leader, Trump, at risk of losing the election, and the mass arrests that Q has promised is not coming, at some point people are going to question: If the Q team and Q can’t do this themselves, maybe they need the digital patriots to become offline patriots.”


Logan Cyrus / Getty Images
A member of the far-right militia Boogaloo Bois walks next to protesters demonstrating outside Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Metro Division 2 just outside of downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, on May 29.

On June 2, Trump sent out a blast to his email list. The subject line: ANTIFA. “Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups are running through our streets and causing absolute mayhem,” the email said. “They are DESTROYING our cities and rioting — it’s absolute madness.”

That night, in Forks, Washington, a multiracial family from across the state in Spokane pulled up to a local outdoors store. They were in a decommissioned school bus and picking up supplies on their way to go camping. In the parking lot, a group of people from seven to eight cars surrounded them and accused them of being antifa. According to a statement from the sheriff’s office, the family then drove off to their camping site, trailed by a handful of cars. In two of the cars, people were holding semi-automatic weapons. As the family was setting up camp, they heard the sound of chainsaws and gunshots in the distance. When they attempted to leave, they found that trees had been felled onto the road, trapping them on site.

“For lots of folks, it’s much easier to accept the idea that the only people who could be protesting the local police would be from outside the area,” McAdam explained. “It couldn’t possibly be that people of color in our community could have bad experiences with local law enforcement.” Or, for that matter, with locals in general.

“The ‘outsiders’ part of this narrative is just so important,” McAdam said. “It allows people to say, and to believe: ‘We don’t have problems in our community.’”

Anne Helen Petersen is a senior culture writer for BuzzFeed News and is based in Missoula, Montana.

Young Black Protesters Know Exactly What They Want: Radical Anti-Racism

Looking at their parents’ struggles and enraged by George Floyd’s death, a younger generation is fired up for change.

Posted on June 9, 2020

Chandan Khanna / Getty Images

MINNEAPOLIS — The effects of the global pandemic rolled out like a series of gut punches for Brianna Phillips, 16, and her family.

When Minnesota’s governor shut down the state on March 27 to curb the spread of the coronavirus, Brianna couldn’t see her friends and was no longer able to do the things she’s most passionate about — like campaigning for an organization that spreads awareness about sexual health.

She also saw how the coronavirus hurt one family member after another: Brianna’s aunt’s father contracted it and is on a ventilator. The same aunt and her grandmother both lost their jobs due to the ensuing economic crisis. Her mother, Victoria, who is a manager at a local Lowe’s store, told Brianna stories of staff pleading for more hours after losing their other jobs, and of having to keep everyone calm while herself being worried about the virus.

And then came George Floyd. The 46-year-old’s killing in police custody was just the latest reminder of the racism faced by Black people — and exposed the Twin Cities’ inequalities to the world.

In Minneapolis, Black people own fewer homes, earn less, and are less likely to graduate high school than their white counterparts, as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was forced to admit in the days following protests in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

“We rank near the top on personal incomes, on homeownership, on life expectancies,” Walz said. “But if you take a deeper look … all of those statistics are true if you’re white. If you’re not, we ranked near the bottom.

Brianna couldn’t escape mentions of Floyd on Facebook. The video of his death spread like wildfire online, sparking heated debates. As part of the generation that grew up seeing footage of Black deaths going viral, Brianna knew there were going to be massive protests fueled by people who had grown tired of seeing yet another man killed by police.

Brianna’s mother, Victoria, was at work on May 25 when her own mother called her about “that guy from your neighborhood in the news,” and took a short break to watch the video. She immediately thought about her kids. How would she talk to them about this without traumatizing them? How could she teach them what this moment meant? How could she help them navigate the news and what it meant to be Black in America? But she kept her feelings to herself, pretending “like I’m not hurting.” For a long time, Victoria had learned to “dim” herself and “blend in” when she’s one of a few Black people at work. This moment was no different.


Lam Thuy Vo / BuzzFeed News
From left: Parents Montez and Victoria Phillips with two of their children, Jonathan and Brianna.
Brianna, her mother, her father, Montez, and her other two siblings came together that night the video went viral. Brianna and her 12-year-old sister, Alecia, were scrolling through Facebook, sharing the latest news reports with each other while their mother told them she was sorry she couldn’t shield them from this reality. Alecia felt physically ill from the stress. Brianna’s 16-year-old brother, Jonathan, was frustrated but mostly said it made him “so tired.” And while Brianna’s father was clearly passionate about Floyd’s death, he hadn't yet told them how he feels about it, she said.

They were all in shock, Brianna said, and hadn't worked out what they felt and thought. But they knew instinctively it was going to be different from the deaths of other Black men, like Philando Castile in Falcon Heights or Jamar Clark in Minneapolis.

The more the family of five learned about George Floyd, a man who was active in his community and was known as a “gentle giant,” the more they felt like his death would be the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Victoria. There was going to be an “explosion of anger,” Brianna said.

To Brianna and her mother, Floyd’s death was significant far beyond the details of the case: It immediately invoked the injustices the family had seen through the generations that have only been amplified in recent weeks.

Lam Thuy Vo / BuzzFeed News
Brianna Phillips (left) and her mother, Victoria.


There were the numbers showing that Black people were dying of COVID-19 at outsize rates across the US. There were the stories about minority-owned small businesses not receiving the government loans they needed to stay afloat. There was the fact that in coronavirus epicenters, like New York City, essential workers are disproportionately Black and people of color. And the long-standing issues, such as Black workers making less than their white counterparts, having much less wealth to their name than white households, and having a history of being mistreated by the healthcare system.

Add to these inequities the recent killings of Black people: Ahmaud Arbery who was killed by white men while jogging, Breonna Taylor who was shot by police in her home, and then Floyd who was killed in police custody after someone reported that he was using a counterfeit $20 bill. Meanwhile, white protesters disobey national lockdown rules in Michigan without being harmed by police.

While the president and many media outlets have looked at the protests in the Twin Cities as violent spectacles, local residents who marched for days after Floyd’s death have repeatedly made it clear that what they want is for lawmakers to hear this message: Systemic inequalities have plagued Black Americans for way too long, and radical change is needed.

Lam Thuy Vo / BuzzFeed New
Victoria Phillips holds up a photo of her daughter, Brianna, in front of their home in Minneapolis.


Victoria has had to swim against these currents long before the governor publicly acknowledged them. As a child, her parents depended heavily on free school meals, and she remembers growing up with very little. But she wanted more for her daughter and worked hard to afford Brianna the kinds of opportunities she had been denied. Victoria became the first member of her family to go to college and fought her way into the kind of managerial position at Lowe’s that few Black women hold.

For the past few years, she thought her work would pay off, that her daughter would be fine, but Floyd’s death crushed that hope.

“I felt at ease and almost relaxed,” Victoria said about Brianna’s future. “And now I almost regret that.”

While these recent events have made Brianna and her siblings anxious, it has also given them some kind of resolve. “My generation is definitely more aggressive” about these issues, Brianna said. “I’m going to fight this, not just for me, but also for my parents. They have gone through this for years and things should be better now.”


Lam Thuy Vo / BuzzFeed News
Alejandro Anderson (right) with his family in front of their home in Minneapolis.

These teens think in isms

When Alejandro Anderson, 17, saw the video of Floyd, his reaction was similar to Brianna’s. He didn't just see police brutality, he also saw the racial inequalities that have long plagued Black communities in the Twin Cities.

And Alejandro isn’t wrong. A recent study of census data ranked the Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Bloomington metropolitan area as the fourth-worst place in the country for Black people to live in. The NAACP published a report last year detailing how Minnesota is home to “some of the greatest racial disparities for African Americans people in the Country.” Homeownership among Black people was 25.4% versus 75.3% for white residents, nationwide those figures are 44% versus 73% respectively. The median income of Black residents was just 43.4% of that of white residents, nationally that that number is about 61%. At the statewide level in 2019, 70% of Black students in Minnesota graduated from high school compared to 89% of their white counterparts.

A study of 100 metropolitan areas in the US by the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program found that the Twin Cities ranked 92 when it came to racial inclusion.

This is in stark contrast to the narrative touted by several publications that the Twin Cities is one of the best places to live, making it particularly popular among “techies” in recent years. The Brookings study also found the cities’ track record on racial inclusion to be one of the worst in the country — while also ranking it the 26th best-performing metropolitan area when it came to economic growth.

This is a harsh reality that elected Minnesota officials have now had to confront after years of painting a rosy picture.

“You cannot continue to say you’re a great place to live if your neighbor, because of the color of their skin, doesn’t have that same opportunity. And that will manifest itself in things that are the small hidden racisms,” Gov. Walz said. “The ultimate end of that type of behavior is the ability to believe that you can murder a Black man in public.”

There are places around the city that display these chasms between minority neighborhoods and more affluent whiter ones.

Lam Thuy Vo / BuzzFeed News
Vue's bullet-riddled home (right) in Minneapolis.

There’s a house riddled with bullet holes and broken windows in a neighborhood near Alejandro’s home where Minneapolis police killed Chiasher Fong Vue, a man from the Hmong ethnic minority, firing more than 100 rounds after responding to a domestic disturbance incident. The home sits in a predominantly Black neighborhood in north Minneapolis where a lot of minority homeowners lost generations of wealth due to the 2006 housing bust. Alejandro’s mother, Stephanie Gasca, bought a foreclosed home down the street in 2009.

Next door to Vue’s former home is one that was built in 2020, currently listed for $269,900 on Zillow. That’s roughly $100,000 more than what Vue’s home sold for in 2018. Zillow estimates the average home value in the neighborhood to be about $185,000.

Then there’s the 4th Precinct in Minneapolis, which sits on the grounds of what was once a community center for Black activists called The Way. Verlena Matey-Keke, 76, one of the center’s cofounders, told BuzzFeed News The Way was created in 1966 at the height of the civil rights movement as an effort to “address the oppression and it came about as a relief for the pent up rage” felt by Black people in Minneapolis. The center’s organizers provided classes in African American history, a theater, and free practice rooms where musicians like Prince once rehearsed.

Lam Thuy Vo / BuzzFeed News
The 4th Precinct in Minneapolis, barricaded with concrete dividers and barbed wires on a recent Thursday. The site used to be a community center.

But The Way was shuttered in the mid-1980s and a few years later was replaced by the police precinct, which now stands tall amid other Black institutions like the Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and the north branch of the NAACP. Matey-Keke said the precinct’s choice of location felt like “their attempt ... to erase us.”

“Even as of today, the issues have not been addressed and it is white supremacy,” said Matey-Keke. “We don’t talk about the historical trauma that Black people have gone through. We’re not just beginning in the ‘60s, and it’s what’s set it off last week. And it wasn’t new in the 1960s.”

She said she’s waiting to see what will happen after the protests die down because “we’ve been here before.”

“I’m waiting to see what the outcome is. I’m waiting for the follow-up,” she said. But she was also heartened by the international outpouring of support for the Black community. “If our existence tells us nothing else, it tells us that you cannot kill the human spirit.”

All of these inequalities play a role in how poor Black communities are seen and treated by law enforcement, Alejandro said.

“Everything for people of color takes more steps, so that leads to poverty, which leads to more crime,” Alejandro said. “Then the police come here and they feel like it’s more important to stop crimes than it is to protect people. They would rather have law and order than real peace.”

For young adults like Alejandro, these inequalities are deeply felt. He attended a school with mostly white instructors in the suburbs where a teacher kicked him in front of other students for laughing in class. It wasn’t the first time the teacher had done it, and it was always to students of color, Alejandro said. The teacher wasn’t removed from the class or investigated until his mother pushed the school to address the issue. Alejandro later went to a mostly Black school where he remembers the school menu consisting of chicken sandwiches and burgers for several months.

Closing the education gap is key to ending racial disparities, said Alejandro. In the state of Minnesota, Black children graduate at a rate of 69.9%, while white children graduate at 88.65%. But Alejandro believes it’s not a priority for people in positions of power, who are mostly white. It’s easier to convince uneducated people that there’s nothing wrong, or hope people of color don't realize there’s something amiss, he said.

Alejandro’s view is reflected in some of the local government’s spending. The city of Minneapolis, for instance, spends 11.8% of its entire budget on the police department, more than it does on departments that provide public housing or training for low-income workers.


Lam Thuy Vo / BuzzFeed News
A 2017 study found that the city spent 35% of its general fund — meaning the part of a city’s overall budget that leaders can spend at their discretion — on police.

These are the kinds of decisions that have left young people having to fight for their rights while also trying to figure out who they are as an adult. For a generation that was born around 9/11 and formed its first memories during the 2008 economic crisis, fear of imminent doom seems to be the norm. But it’s also made some of them proactive and vocal.

During a recent march from the governor’s residence to the Minnesota state capitol, the crowds were filled with young folks, chanting Floyd’s name. 21-year-old Sierra Winge said: “We were all traumatized by the video of George Floyd’s death but we’re all still here [protesting]. That says something.”

Mayah Varnado, 21, of St. Paul marched alongside Winge on June 1, as she had for days after Floyd’s death. Varnado said she had been coming out to protest police brutality since she was 15 with her sister.


Lam Thuy Vo / BuzzFeed News
Sierra Winge, 21, attending a protest in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd.


“It’s just ridiculous. Why am I still out here protesting the same thing?” Varnado said. “This has been happening and will continue to happen if we don't keep chipping away at the iceberg.”

Alejandro himself was no stranger to protest — his mother would regularly take them to demonstrations when she worked as an organizer for the Center for Workers United in the Struggle, down the block from where Floyd was killed. They also attended protests against police and vigilante violence, starting at the University of Minnesota following the 2012 death of Trayvon Martin.

But last week was the first time Alejandro told his parents he wanted to go.

“There was no way I wasn’t going to go,” Alejandro said. “I wasn’t going to sit on the sidelines.”

Lam Thuy Vo / BuzzFeed News
Alejandro (right) and his sister, Kennedy (left), both of whom have participated in Black Lives Matter protests in Minneapolis.

His 11-year-old sister, Kennedy, is similarly drawn to the worldwide debate sparked by Floyd’s death. Unwilling to wait for her parents to bring up the issue, Kennedy demanded they hold a family meeting last week after she saw people on the news discussing the looting and fires in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

“This morning I heard my 11-year-old having a conversation with one of her teachers who was asking if they think violence is necessary,” Stephanie Gasca told BuzzFeed News. “She said, ‘Well, Black people have been peaceful for a long time and it's not working.’”

In Minneapolis’s north side, students are leading the fight to rename a local school that was named after Patrick Henry, an enslaver. The Midwest Center for School Transformation and the Twin Cities Innovation Alliance raised more than $26,000 in less than 10 days to help a youth-led program for “healing conversations about the murder of George Floyd and the compounding conditions of race, white supremacy and injustice in the Twin Cities.”

“Our young people are like, ‘We want to look forward,’” said Marika Pfefferkorn, an organizer who has been working with young people in the Twin Cities for years. “We don’t want to react to this moment because that is what has been happening.”

One of the blessings of being young is you're not as jaded, Alejandro said.

“Once you get older and things have always been that way, you lose hope — like it is what it is,” Alejandro said. “But kids always look for the bright spots. They always think of how things can get better, and kids are the reason people still have hope.”



Lam Thuy Vo / BuzzFeed News
Christian McCleary, a local activist for equal rights, stands in front of a mural of Angela Davis in Minneapolis. AND HUEY NEWTON (BLACK PANTHERS)

A potential for change

Some of these students grow into local leaders at an early age, like Christian McCleary, 24, who works to bring GED and ESL classes to refugees, and to educate young Black men. He’s been an activist since he was 15 and is now hoping to run for city council in the town of Apple Valley.

For him, the issue is not about the police in isolation — it’s about having too many police officers while less money is spent on other services.

This moment is bigger than just George Floyd, he said: He wants the attention Floyd’s death brought to Minnesota to lead to more cultural competency training for officers and bring about important conversations.

On Sunday, a veto-proof majority of the city council vowed to disband the Minneapolis Police Department and redirect funds to a new public safety system.

Wynfred Russell, 46, a council member in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, echoed these sentiments. The former professor, who is an immigrant from Liberia, was part of the “blue wave” during the 2018 midterm elections, when many government seats were filled with first-time Democratic politicians.

“The opportunity that I see is for us to come to the table. It’s not the time to come and say, ‘I’m not racist, I have Black friends,’ but it’s the time for us to come here and boldly make people uncomfortable,” said.

“Let’s look at what it means to be in a ‘safe city’? Does that mean that we have to have more police officers than teachers or nurses? What does it mean to have a ‘safe community’?”


Lam Thuy Vo / BuzzFeed News
A mural in Minneapolis.

Lam Thuy Vo is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.


Adolfo Flores is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in McAllen, Texas..

Facebook Contractors Wanted Better Working Conditions. They Lost Their Jobs Instead. 

The contingent Facebook workers in Austin have been organizing to pressure their direct employer, Wipro, for better treatment. 

Caroline O'Donovan BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on June 6, 2020

Contract workers for Facebook in Austin, Texas, say they have been retaliated against for union organizing, resulting in two workers’ departure in recent weeks. The workers, who help Facebook find and triage internal bugs, are unhappy with their employer, the India-based firm WiPro, and have been organizing in the workplace to pressure both companies for improvements.

In recent months, the workers have petitioned management over issues including sexism and verbal abuse from WiPro management, issues with parking, and “consistent issues with folks not getting paid,” according to a contingent Facebook worker who requested anonymity to protect his job.

Recently, two people involved in the organizing campaign who were vocal about these issues departed the company. Both had posted heated messages on an internal message board about the need to improve conditions for the contingent workers and encouraging remaining staff to support a union drive, and say their departures followed retaliation from WiPro.

One of those workers quit due to harassment by management, according to a source familiar with the situation. The other individual’s contract was not renewed by WiPro.

“Management is definitely not happy about folks that are trying to speak out and advocate for the issues we have going on here,” the current Facebook contractor said.

Facebook declined to comment on WiPro employees. WiPro denied allegations that it retaliates against employees involved in labor organizing and said it “complies with all applicable rules and regulations wherever it operates.”

Since January, the Communication Workers of America (CWA) labor union has been promoting its Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE). The organization is especially interested in organizing workers who, like the Austin-based contingent Facebook workers, perform work for major tech firms but aren’t directly employed by them. Sources with knowledge of the situation said CWA has been assisting in the Wipro contractors’ efforts.

“Wage theft and worker abuse are completely unacceptable,” said a spokesperson for CWA. “Facebook and its contractor Wipro need to do better. CWA through our Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA) is committed to holding big tech accountable, standing in solidarity with workers organizing for dignity and a voice, and challenging a broken system of labor laws that prop up the invented fictions of endless layers of TVC employment relationships in the industry.”

The contingent Facebook workers in Texas are paid less than full-time Facebook employees, don’t receive the same benefits, and prior to the coronavirus shelter-in-place orders, worked in a different building from Facebook’s regular employees. The contractors’ day-to-day jobs, however, require that they be in regular contact with full-time Facebook employees and use internal Facebook software. The contractors can’t be hired by Facebook directly for at least six months after their WiPro contracts terminate due to a noncompete clause.

“We do a pretty important function, but it’s not valid enough for Facebook to hire us or take care of us,” the Austin-based contractor said.

Facebook hires hundreds of content moderators and other hourly contract workers through firms like WiPro. In mid-March, the Intercept reported that some of those Austin-based employees were being required to report to the office despite shelter-in-place orders, which created health concerns during the coronavirus pandemic.

Previously, Facebook content moderators who worked for another Indian firm, Cognizant, reported that their low-paying, traumatic nature of their jobs was causing rampant mental health issues among the staff, according to the Verge.

The social media giant is also facing blowback from some of its Silicon Valley employees this week, who are frustrated by the company’s refusal to remove posts written by President Trump that call for violence. Some Facebook employees announced they would resign in protest of the company’s policy this week. 

Caroline O'Donovan is a senior technology reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.

 

Trump's Conspiratorial Tweet About The 75-Year-Old Protester Injured By Buffalo Police Has Provoked Anger Among Friends And Activists

Martin Gugino is the "epitome of a nonviolent person," friends and fellow activists told BuzzFeed News.

Tasneem NashrullaBuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on June 9, 2020, 

Twitter: @WBFO

Martin Gugino is known as a singularly gentle and nonviolent person. So when President Donald Trump used his Facebook and Twitter accounts to spread a baseless conspiracy theory accusing the 75-year-old activist of staging his own fall after being pushed by two police officers in Buffalo, New York, his friends and fellow activists have been rallying to his defense.

"The ludicrousness of the lie...just a nonsensical accusation," Victoria Ross, an activist who has known Gugino for around 10 years, said about Trump's tweet.

Trump tweeted that Gugino "could be an ANTIFA provocateur" and that the encounter with police "Could be a set up?"

Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump

Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?

12:34 PM - 09 Jun 2020

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Ross, the executive director of the Western New York Peace Center (WNYPC), where Gugino has volunteered for years, told BuzzFeed News that a lot of "lying and fabricated misinformation" was going around about her friend.

"When people are allowed to make things up based on nothing, there's a problem," she said.

Keith Giles, who met Gugino in California several years ago, told BuzzFeed News it was all "just ridiculous."

"We know the president will never back down and will never apologize for this," Giles, the program director for Peace Catalyst International in Texas, said.

Andy Worthington, a British journalist and activist, told BuzzFeed News in an email that Trump’s words were insulting.

"Martin is an implacable peace protester, but a very gentle man," he added.

Andy Worthington / Close Guantanamo

Martin Gugino at a January 2019 rally in Washington, DC, calling for the closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility.

Terrence Bisson, chair of the Latin American Solidarity Committee at WNYPC who met Gugino at a rally in 2011, said his friends had also spent the weekend trying to counter the suggestion from Buffalo's mayor that Gugino was an "agitator of some kind."

"To have this [tweet] land on our head today is terrible," Bisson said, adding that his friend was frail and "completely down."

"At the moment, he can't move his head very well," he added. "To have something that is based on nothing but the most crazy kind of conspiracy ideas, it's horrifying."

Trump's suggestion on Tuesday that Gugino was an "ANTIFA provocateur" was inspired from a segment by the little-watched cable channel One America News Network, which claimed without proof that his injury was the result of a "false flag provocation by far-left group Antifa," and that he was using a "police tracker" on his phone, BuzzFeed News reported.

"It's absolutely ridiculous," Gugino's attorney, Kelly Zarcone, told BuzzFeed News.

She said that Gugino "totally denies" that he is part of antifa and that no one from law enforcement had ever suggested he was anything but a "peaceful protester."

"We are at a loss to understand why the President of the United States would make such dark, dangerous, and untrue accusations against him," Zarcone said in a statement.

She added that while Gugino is still in serious condition, he had been moved from the ICU to his own room. He had hit his head on the ground in an incident captured in graphic video footage that sparked national outrage.

The video, captured by local NPR station WBFO, shows two Buffalo police officers pushing Gugino while enforcing curfew, causing him to hit his head on the sidewalk and bleed from his ear. The two officers have since pleaded not guilty to second-degree assault charges.

WBFO@WBFO

Just about an hour ago, police officers shove man in Niagara Square to the ground (WARNING: Graphic). Video from: @MikeDesmondWBFO

01:13 AM - 05 Jun 2020

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"All these things that people are making up are not helpful," Zarcone said. "[Martin] is just trying to recover and he's even too tired to form words most of the time."

Gugino's friends described him as a longtime activist and a gentle, genuine, and patient man "devoted to the principles of nonviolence."

He is also involved in a range of political issues, including immigration, climate justice, prisoners' rights, economic justice, and homelessness.

Kathy Kelly, 67, met Gugino in 2010 when they were fasting as part of a rally in Washington, DC, to close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility.

"I remember him as someone who listened very patiently and always had a benevolent attitude towards people," Kelly said.

She also wasn't surprised to see Gugino in the viral video walk toward "a group of armed people."

"It didn't surprise me anymore than Gandhi walking towards armed British soldiers," she said. "It was something he would do, believing that he was approaching another human being."

She also laughed away any suggestion that Gugino would be part of antifa, pointing out that she has been involved in protest activism since the 1980s.

"We would know if there was some big, threatening, coherent group called antifa," Kelly said, "and Martin wouldn't be part of it."

Bill Jungels / Courtesy of Victoria Ross

Martin Gugino (third from left) with his fellow organizers from the Latin American Solidarity Committee in April 2018.

Gugino's friends also dismissed the idea that he would stage his own fall, noting how frail he is while coping with other health challenges.

"Would he stage something in a crafty way to accomplish a photo op? I greatly doubt that," Kelly said. "That blood...forming a pool on the pavement represented a great deal of wisdom accrued by one individual who earnestly studied ways to create a better world."

MORE ON THIS

• Donald Trump Amplified A Conspiracy Theory That Buffalo Protester Martin Gugino Was Trying To "Scan" The Police Before He Was InjuredCraig Silverman · June 9, 2020
• The Buffalo Cops Who Pushed Over A 75-Year-Old Protester Have Been Charged With AssaultJulia Reinstein · June 6, 2020
• Buffalo Police Pushed Over A 75-Year-Old Man In A Graphic VideoSalvador Hernandez · June 4, 2020

• 
  Tasneem Nashrulla is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.