FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 25, 2014
Reference: Valerie Francisco, Chair, GABRIELA-USA, gabrielawomen@gmail.com
Two weeks have passed since the people of Ferguson have taken to the streets to protest the brutal murder of Michael Brown at the hands of the Ferguson Police Department. GABRIELA-USA, a Filipino women’s alliance with member chapters in Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles, stands in solidarity with the citizens of Ferguson, Missouri, asserting their constitutional right to assemble in protest against this injustice.
As mothers, grandmothers, daughters and sisters, we send our deepest sympathies and unanimous support to Ferguson communities voicing their outrage in response to the institutionalized racism that targets the lives of Black people daily. We denounce the state-sponsored police violence that systematically criminalizes, de-values, de-humanizes and violates the safety and lives of Black families. We mourn the lives of Black children, particularly young Black men, murdered by militarized police states.
We raise our fists and take to the streets in our own communities to protest state repression. While fighting for rights of immigrants and working-class people of color in the U.S., as militant Filipina women, we understand all too well the connection between our struggles for liberation and self-determination, from our homeland of the Philippines, to Palestine, to Ferguson.
It as our duty to fight for the collective liberation of all our people; we continually link our struggles for national liberation in our homeland with the liberation of people throughout the world. We stand in solidarity with Ferguson, Missouri. We stand in solidarity with the family of Michael Brown and the families of other young Black and Brown people who unjustly fall victim to violence in the hands of the state.
We Stand in Solidarity with the People of Ferguson, Missouri!
Justice for Michael Brown!
End State-Sponsored Police & Military Brutality!
#BlackLivesMatter
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