DOJ Indictment Against The APSP Is An Old Tactic

Federal indictments against the African People’s Socialist Party are part of a long history of attacks on Black leftists.  In the recently-announced Department of Justice indictment against members of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) the United States Department of Justice claims that the Russia foreign intelligence service “weaponized” the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by instructing members of the APSP to advance the perspective and interests of the Russian Federation. The objective? To “divide Americans and interfere in the elections in the United States.  What exactly does that mean? The legacy of the WWII Nazi sympathizer and war criminal Stepan Bandera has been a point of political and social contention. Euronews reported in 2021 that “In 2010, Bandera was named a ‘Hero of Ukraine’ by the outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko, sparking anger in Europe, Poland and Israel. He was stripped of the title in 2011 under Yushchenko’s replacement, President Viktor Yanukovych, but when Yanukovych was ousted in 2014, Kyiv’s City Council renamed the city’s Moscow Avenue Stepan Bandera Avenue.” Then in 2018, the Ukrainian government declared a national holiday for Ukrainian Bandera. Volodymyr Zelensky responded by ignoring protests from Poland and Israel about their glorification of the Nazi collaborator whose organization massacred over 130,000 Jews and Poles during WWII. So, when the DOJ asserts in the indictment that “…the APSP repeatedly hosted Ionov via video conference to discuss the war, during which Ionov falsely stated that anyone who supported Ukraine also supported Naziism and white supremacy…” [emphasis added] It expresses not only the position that the facts in Ukraine are irrelevant, but also that it is a criminal offense – a federal offense specifically – to formulate and express an opinion based on those facts.