ABBY MARTIN WINS HER COURT CASE

 
A US federal court has agreed that Abby Martin's right to free speech, protected under the First Amendment, was violated by the State of Georgia.

IN JANUARY last year journalist and documentary maker Abby Martin was prevented from speaking at the University of Georgia because she refused to sign a contractual pledge 'to not boycott Israel'. Since 2014 twenty eight US states have adopted anti-boycott laws. The laws are all part of a campaign, much of it funded by the Israeli Government itself, to smear any criticism or protest against Israel as 'anti-semitic'. It is also an attempt to suppress the growing Boycott, Divestment  and Sanctions movement directed at Israel and its continued oppression of the Palestinian people.

Abby Martin, of the popular documentary series The Empire Files, subsequently filed a lawsuit challenging Georgia's anti-boycott law. She was assisted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCIF).

In  a statement CAIR said: 'By cancelling a journalist's speaking engagement on a college campus because she refused to pledge support for a foreign government, the State of Georgia has blatantly violated the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech.'
 

District Court Judge Mark Cohen agreed with Abby Martin's lawsuit that the State of Georgia had violated her rights under the First Amendment.

In a twenty nine page ruling Judge Cohen wrote that the law: 'prohibits inherently expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment, burdens Martin's right to free speech, and is not narrowly tailored to further a substantial state interest.

'Even assuming that Georgia's interest in furthering foreign policy goals regarding relations with Israel is a substantial state interest, Defendants fail to explain how Martin's advocacy of a boycott of Israel has any bearing on Georgia's ability to advance foreign policy goals with Israel.'

Cohen has yet to rule whether the state law itself should be struck out.

Martin said she was 'thrilled' by the ruling.

'My First Amendment rights were restricted on behalf of a foreign government, which flies in the face of the principles of freedom and democracy. The government of Israel has pushed state legislatures to enact these laws only because they know that sympathy and support for the population they brutalise, occupy, ethnically cleanse and subject to apartheid, is finally growing in popular consciousness — they want to hold back the tide of justice by preemptively restricting the right of American citizens to peacefully take a stand against their crimes.'