NJ CAIR Statehouse Presser on Islamophobia and IHRA 3/17/2025: GPNJ Candidates Join / Support Free Speech NJ Efforts
About a half dozen members and supporters of the NJ Green Party came out to attend and show support for the NJ CAIR press conference on the topics of Islamophobia and NJ’s proposed repressive IHRA laws. The GPNj participatants circulated a letter to the event participants talking about leveraging the 2025 as a means to pressure against the Democratic Party effort to criminalize pro-Palestine advocacy. While the NJ Democratic Party is in a lead role on this matter they are in perfect harmony with their Trump partners on the proposed bills. As Trump disappears Palestine advocating students, starts a false smearing investigation of student activism under the false accusation of terrorism,, hires contractors to investigate social network crticism of ICE, says he wants to make CNN and NBC illegal because they do not pretend that Trump fantastical exhortations are facts and also to make protests of Tesla illegal – it is not a good time to frivolously associate legitimate criticism of Israel with “antisemitism” and support laws that will bring legal harm to community organizers on the forefront of efforts to challenge the excesses of teh Trump Administration.
According to the flier:
“If the IHRA laws are not voted on in the NJ legislature by November 4, 2025 election day we can help defeat the bills by voting for and electing candidates who will vote no. If the issue has been decided and the bills already passed, we can use our votes to hold accountable those officials who voted FOR IHRA and the end of free speech in New Jersey. “
‘The flier listed candidates in the Gubernatorial race, Democrats, independents and Green Party, committed to defending free speech in NJ. Fight Back Better caught up with Stephen Zielinski, GPNJ candidate for Governor and Lily Benavides, GPNJ Assembly candidate for LD26. The following is the interview that occurred.
The following is a message to the Democratic Party from Assembly candidate Lily Benavides issued the morning of this event:
“Nationwide, and Statewide, people are worried about losing their rights. if the IHRA proposed laws are enacted it sets a dangerous precedent of what’s to come. If this becomes a law it opens the door for US citizens to continue losing our rights day by day. Freedom of speech is one of the most important rights a human being can have and this country has always stood out for defending this right. Up until now we have been able to raise our voice against any injustices, against our own government or politicians, and even against other countries and their governments.
When we express our discomfort against our own administration, whiever it is, to a foreign entity, or another country, it is not directed to its population but to the government in charge, in this case in particular Israel, Netanyahu and his accomplices. Why would that be classified as antisemitic when in reality Palestinians are semitic? We are not attacking Jews. We have many Jews that have joined our protests. We don’t understand how this country which is supposed to be the country of liberty is now trying to shut us up. It’s even less understandable that now Democrats vote alike with Republicans.
I am not personally in support duopoly but if you want to find someone to blame for losing the elections, here it is. No one can understand how the Democratic Party became so evil that has enabled a genocide by giving away billions of (OUR) money to another country to kill innocent people. We are well aware that the main reason for allowing this to happen is because of the oil and other natural resources, and the influence of pro-Israel lobby groups like AIPAC and the lobbyists of the arms industry that sells Israel the weapons purchased with our taxes.
This is the way the USA has always conducted its foreign policies, by invading and stealing other countries’ resources and displacing their populations. We should think that this way of acting was in the time of the conquistadores but here we are in 2025 and still doing the same thing.
Have you ever thought about the repercussions of this? Have you thought of the effect this is going to have on our new generations? As I mentioned before, we are losing our rights day by day. I am an immigrant naturalized in this country but as such I am afraid that one day any family member, or me, get stopped by ICE and end up in jail or even worse, in Guantánamo Bay, without a reason. It seems like your party agrees with the current administration with all the chaos they are creating. In the end if you don’t stand up for us this country is going down and you all will go down as well.
Why don’t you do the job you are “hired” to do? We are paying you with our taxes to protect our communities and we can “fire” you as well. Elections are coming soon!”
