The cops and the district attorneys want people to see what we are going through — the conditions of our arrests, our experiences in jail, and our legal battle — and to think that this is what you risk when you stand up against them. – Lillian House, Aurora Activist and Defendant
by Alan Macleod
Part 4 - Radio silence
While the national media are happy to cover the persecution of political actors, such as Russia’s Alexey Navalny or the leaders of the Hong Kong protest movement, in enemy nations halfway around the world, there has been near silence on this case far closer to home.
A search for “Lillian House” elicits zero relevant results on the websites of The New York Times, CBS News, CNN, MSNBC, or USA Today. There is also no mention of House’s case from Fox News, although one article from last summer described her as part of an “anti-cop mob,” full of “tyrannical, left-wing anarchists [who] hate free speech,” according to the then-Acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary. Thus, it is unlikely she will be receiving any coverage — sympathetic or otherwise — from them.
Virtually the only coverage of the Aurora case comes either from local Colorado sources or small independent websites such as Liberation, the outlet of the Party of Socialism and Liberation, a party with which the defendants are affiliated. It appears that big media outlets, many of which supported the Movement for Black Lives in the summer, have deemed House, Northam, and Lucero unworthy of attention or sympathy, despite the implications for freedom of speech and association their cases bring up.
House understands her predicament as less about her and more about sending a message to other, would-be troublemakers:
Police in Aurora are not used to being held under a spotlight, and when they are, they have a lot to lose. And so when we led these mass protests, when we brought together thousands of people in the streets, when we forced the city to start making reforms, they began to target us. They want people to see what we are going through — the conditions of our arrests, our experiences in jail, and our legal battle — and they want them to be afraid to protest. The cops and the district attorneys want people to see what we are going through, and to think that this is what you risk when you stand up against them.
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