This reportback was shared with us from the A15 defendants and we were asked to share it. 

On January 23rd, two defendants, one Palestinian-american and one Lebanese-american, were acquitted from charges leveled against them by the state of Oregon for protesting the use of american tax dollars to enact genocide in Gaza. This comes after months of pressure from defendants and community supporters to drop the charges of Palestinian student, Salem Younes, who was singled out by the Eugene District Attorney for harsher punishment.

“Today, we witnessed something none of us thought could happen. In a place where justice and humanity is actively repressed and punished, we collectively triumphed over it. We showed the state and the imperial core that we are stronger than their attempts to repress us. Solidarity and truth won in a place, and against a system that actively preys on it. With love and rage. Free Palestine,” said Salem Y, one of the co-defendants. 

Following the closing arguments, the jury took their lunch, deliberated for less than an hour, and voted unanimously to find both defendants innocent.
Note: the defendants and all of their co-defendants that have already undergone trial want to thank the jury members profusely, and hope that all juries in the future understand the power they have to be in solidarity with principled action. 

On the morning of Monday, April 15th, 2024 the defendants joined a collective effort to blockade Interstate 5 in solidarity with an international call to action to shut down economic trade for Palestine. In following the long legacy of blockades to halt state violence, the goal of this global solidarity effort was to interrupt the transport of weapons and funds going from the US to Israel.

After the April 15th mass arrest of 62 Palestine solidarity protesters, the Lane County DA offered plea deals to all but a few, including Younes.  For the past nine months since the mass arrest, the defendants and community had been urging the District Attorney’s office to drop the charges against Salem, promising that all other defendants would then accept the offered plea deals and give up their rights to a jury trial. The city did not respond to offers from the defendants, and instead went forward with a dozen tax-payer funded trials.  The public resources that Lane County has funneled into prosecuting the cases so far are immense; at a time when the city is making budget cuts for needed social and public services.

“Fuck the state for not giving us what we wanted, cuz we got it anyways,” said another arrestee who’s trial has already concluded.

Since October 2023, people of conscience, in Eugene and around the world, have been calling for an end to the colonial violence and demanding that the U.S. end all military support to Israel. When testimonies at City Council meetings, thousands of phone calls and letters to elected officials, and months of marching through the streets of Eugene failed to move politicians to end the genocide, A15 defendants felt an obligation to do more. This is why protesters stepped onto the I-5 that day.

Statement from the second defendant who was acquitted, who asked to be cited only as A: 

“This victory wasn’t won through the court system; it was won through uncompromising solidarity and love. I don’t believe this would have happened if it weren’t for the support of our co-defendants and comrades.

Throughout my whole life, I have struggled to find a place in this world that seems so hellbent on destruction— but I have found community with others who realize that if there is no place for us in this world, we’ll have to build a new one, a world that recognizes that to be alive on this earth is a sacred and beautiful thing. This new world lives in the action in solidarity with Gaza on April 15, in the solidarity we’ve shown each other throughout the legal process, in the streets, in resistance everywhere.

My codefendants who were convicted for their actions on April 15th were found guilty of “inconvenience.” Tens of thousands of lives have been cut short in Gaza in the last year alone. Resistance against genocide is a matter of life and death, not convenience. We owe it to the people of Gaza to stop this genocide—we also owe it to ourselves. The land we stand on today is shaped by ongoing colonial violence. If we really open our eyes and take an honest look around us, we will see that we’re enmeshed in an economic system fuelled by destruction, a system that profits from stolen lives, labor, and Indigenous land, here and across the world. What does it look like to stand in defense of life in the face of this ongoing destruction?

We are tasked with remaking the world, and this will not be convenient.”

As of December, 2024, Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed at least an estimated 46,707 Palestinians -18,000 of which are children- since the war began on October 7, 2023. These numbers are a direct consequence of U.S. tax dollars funding Israel’s military operations.