OAK LAWN, ILLINOIS, June 7–The international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) once again joined forces with several community organizations tonight to protest at the monthly Oak Lawn Police & Fire Board meeting. We are keeping firm in our demand that the three KKKops who beat Arab teenager Hadi Abuatelah be fired and prosecuted for their vicious assault which resulted in his hospitalization and lingering trauma. One kkkop, Patrick O’Donnell, has been indicted, but we demand all three be fired and prosecuted for this racist attack.  

Under capitalism, racist kkkops are the rule, not the exception. Their role within class society is to harass and intimidate, especially Black and brown workers and youth. They also are tasked with protecting the bosses’ private property. In order to get rid of the police, we must destroy the capitalist system that profits by keeping workers oppressed through unemployment, low wages, and systemic racism and sexism. We need to build a multiracial, revolutionary movement that fights for communism, a worker’s state. And to do all this, we need a mass PLP!

Justice for Hadi, justice for all workers
We are nearing the one-year anniversary of Hadi’s beating (see CHALLENGE, 8/5/22). At the last board meeting, protesters marched out when anti-racist fighters were kicked out by the kkkops. We chanted loudly that we will continue fighting for justice and expose the cozy relationship between the Police Board and the kkkops. Many community members related stories of how the Oak Lawn kkkops have for years targeted Arab workers in the area, particularly workers and families from Palestine.                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
At the end of the rally, a comrade grabbed the attention of more than thirty protesters with a rousing speech. He linked the mass antiracist movement sparked by the police murder of George Floyd with the current struggle for justice in Oak Lawn. He said capitalism and racist kkkops go together, and that’s why we need a communist revolution. Everyone was invited to the upcoming PLP summer activities, and several people gave us their contact information to follow-up.

We are pushing to remain consistent in our efforts to fight for justice for Hadi and all other victims of racist police terror and capitalist oppression. We are also working to connect with other plans to protest outside the courthouse where child assaulter O’Donnell is facing charges. With every action that we take part in, we are fighting to win more workers and youth to the need to build the communist movement that connects all these struggles to capitalism and the need to destroy this rotten profit system!