Statement on the NYPD’s Arrests of Anna Owens, Sarah Schaff, and Alexa Wilkinson
On Sunday, the NYPD conducted three arrests and at least three raids as part of an investigation into an action that took place at The New York Times headquarters in late July. Anna Owens and Sarah Schaff were arrested and charged for allegedly participating in the action. Alexa Wilkinson was arrested and charged for photographing its aftermath as a photojournalist and for posting the photographs on social media, alongside their own political speech and a link to a published political analysis of the Times’s institutional anti-Palestinian racism. Owens and Schaff face felony criminal mischief charges that carry up to seven years in state prison; Wilkinson’s charge of aggravated harassment with a “hate crime” enhancement carries up to four years.
At each of the three separate arraignments, a judge read aloud from a complaint about what the action entailed: “NYT LIES, GAZA DIES” spray-painted in white onto the exterior glass of the Times building. Red paint poured and sprayed, from buckets and from fire extinguishers, onto the façade. Leaflets left on the ground, spelling out the action’s rationale: “THE NYT IS AN ACTIVE ACCOMPLICE TO THE ONGOING GENOCIDE.” Even in the captious language of the prosecution, the image produced was one of truth.
History has already absolved the actionists. It will not absolve the Times. We in the Palestine solidarity movement must once again insist on the Western media’s role as machinery for imperialist war and domestic repression. Our obligation is to do everything in our power to stop Israel’s genocide and the mass slaughter, torture, and displacement of the Palestinian people. The action on July 30 must be understood as a proactive effort to extract consequences — in this case, reputational and financial consequences — from the people and institutions enabling the crime of all crimes.
As evident in its coverage, editorial standards, and hiring practices, The New York Times is an accomplice to the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The editors of the Times allow openly Islamophobic writers to debate this designation of Israel’s annihilatory campaign in its Opinion pages, as if the genocide were a hypothesis. They bar reporters from using “slaughter” to describe Israel’s war crimes, “ethnic cleansing” to describe its mass displacement efforts, and “refugee camps” to describe refugee camps where Palestinians live. They employ journalists who have served as spies for the Israeli military, promote columnists that maintain ties to AIPAC, and — reportedly — house their Jerusalem bureau chiefs in a stolen Palestinian home.
But The New York Times would rather decry fake blood than an actual holocaust. In collaboration with the NYPD, the Times helped exercise the full powers of the panopticon to track down and punish two of the accused in order to criminalize political expression and seek maximum penalties for property damage. In Wilkinson’s case, the NYT is aiding the ironic prosecution of a photojournalist for using their camera and platform to document and critique evidence of the Times’s journalistic malpractice. Following the moral panic it has stoked for two years to justify the criminalization of the student movement, the NYT is attempting to leverage the claim of antisemitism as a screen to protect its fealty to the Zionist project.
These falsified claims will no longer work to cover up institutional complicity, just as Israel’s assassinations of over 270 journalists in Gaza since October 7, 2023 have not prevented the truth of Zionism from reaching the world. As our movement grows, this repressive apparatus strains against the popular tide, which it seeks to contain: Witness the sentencing of Casey Goonan to 19 years in prison for allegedly setting an empty campus police car on fire, the raiding and arrest of Jakhi McCray for allegedly setting fire to police vehicles, the arrest of Tarek Bazrouk and the attempt to stick him with federal “hate crime” charges, the thousands of arrests made during the Gaza solidarity encampments of 2024, and last year’s charging of independent journalist Samuel Seligson with a felony “hate crime” after he documented actions against the board of the Brooklyn Museum.
We cannot allow our institutions to quietly revise their histories of support for Israel while the Occupation’s army besieges and destroys Gaza, its government plots the annexation of the West Bank, and its diplomats broker a Palestinian statehood proposal contingent on demilitarization and continued colonial control. Allegiance to Zionism is breaking every pillar of the liberal order, from constitutional protections, to the norms of journalistic integrity, to the foundational principles of international law. Gaza has revealed these principles to be contradictory or fictive.
The NYPD, the District Attorney’s office, and The New York Times are colluding to intimidate, isolate, and silence anyone who stands against the U.S.-Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people. We unequivocally support all acts in service of liberation. The movement stands undeterred.
Signed,
Writers Against the War on Gaza
Endorsed as of October 1,
National Students for Justice in Palestine
PAL-Awda NY/NJ
Palestine Solidarity Working Group
Palestinian Feminist Collective
CUNY for Palestine
Healthcare Workers for Palestine
NYC Labor for Palestine
CWA for Palestine
Jews Against White Supremacy
Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP)
Al-Fid’ai Media Network