Ryan B, Los Angeles, CA
After hearing reports that Ehsan Ali contracted dysentery, Los Angeles comrades returned from RCA’s Second National Congress ready to do our duty and show solidarity to our unjustly imprisoned comrades from the Awaami Action Committee Gilgit Baltistan (AAC-GB) and the Inqalabi Communist Party.
We mobilized comrades on short notice for an emergency protest at the Pakistani Consulate. We picketed outside the building, chanting slogans and making speeches demanding freedom for the AAC-GB leaders.
We were confronted by a worker from a different office in the building who was disturbed by our noise. We explained that our protest was to save our comrade’s life, that we had help free comrades from Pakistani prisons before with this kind of campaigns. We suggested that complaints should be made to the consulate instead—because the repressive Pakistani state was responsible for the disturbance.
We then went to the consulate office to deliver our statement. Our comrade explained that we were members of the Revolutionary Communist International demanding the release of Ehsan Ali and the other leaders of the AAC-GB. We emphasized that if our demands are not met, we will return again and again until they are.
To make our continued presence known, we wheat-pasted the surrounding area with copies of our statement and posters proclaiming our demands. As we told the consulate staff, we will return if Ehsan Ali is not released! Long live the RCI!