Unrelenting Justice

We want to hear from you.

Did you use ‘Unrelenting Justice’ to spark a conversation with your family or community?

Is there some crucial aspect missing that we could build upon as we continue to grow this effort?

Would you like to contribute a story or share a teaching on Islam and the fight to defund the police and defend Black lives?

Learn more about Prison-Industrial Complex (PIC) abolition:

Resource hubs
transformharm.org
8toabolition.com
interruptingcriminalization.com
criticalresistance.org
#BecauseWeveRead Police Abolition Reading List
NAZAR - Independent journalism project covering surveillance
BelieversBailOut.org

Articles & podcasts
“Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police” by Mariame Kaba
“Abolition Cannot Wait: Visions For Transformation and Radical World-Building” by K. Agbebiyi, Sarah T. Hamid, Rachel Kuo, and Mon Mohapatra
“Police “Reforms” You Should Always Oppose” by Mariame Kaba
“Stealing Away In America” by Zoé Samudzi
Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the Case for Abolition Ruth Wilson Gilmore in conversation with Chenjerai Kumanyika for The Intercept podcast

Books
Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis
As Black As Resistance by Zoé Samudzi and William C. Anderson
Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California by Ruth Wilson Gilmore
Carceral Capitalism by Jackie Wang
The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale
Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex by Eric Stanley and Nat Smith
Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement Edited by Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis

We acknowledge that the former title of our digital zine, #PolicingIsHaram, can be viewed as problematic as the word “Haram” has religious implications. To clarify, MPower Change is not a religious institution that issues religious statements. Our use of “Haram” was intended to be used in a colloquial context and open up conversation about the role of law enforcement and police in perpetuating anti-Black racism and upholding white supremacy. After hearing and receiving feedback from our community and MPower Change members, we have renamed the “Policing Is Haram” zine to “Unrelenting Justice.”

As an organization, our political position on the role of the police in perpetuating violence toward Black communities—as well as their role in upholding white supremacy and capitalism—is clear:

We fully align ourselves with the long, rich lineage of Black abolitionist movements in working toward the abolition of policing, the prison-industrial complex, and all drivers of state violence. Read our full statement here.

#UnrelentingJustice is a collaboration between ACRE, Little Sis, and MPower Change devoted to encouraging necessary conversations on police abolition in Muslim communities.

“You're the one that they're protecting white people from.”

WITH HODA KATEBI

Hoda shares what safety means to her, how she seeks safety and protection from threats of violence without calling the police, and how she builds relationships in her communities as a daily abolitionist practice.

LISTEN HERE

“Corner stores are the pillars of every community”

WITH ZUHDI MASRI & NAHID SOLTANZADEH

This piece is a combination of our interview with Zuhdi Masri (a non-Black Palestinian store-owner of Yeatman Market in St. Louis, MO) and Nahid Soltanzadeh’s (Digital Organizer at MPower Change) reflections on the interview. Zuhdi tells us about how his store came to be a peace corner in the neighborhood, how they bring the community members and religious leaders together to work for the neighborhood’s prosperity, and how all of this is based on a reciprocal relationship of love and respect between him and the Black community that welcomed him as a non-Black Muslim immigrant decades ago.

Talking to our Brown Muslim families about police abolition

BY SAQIB BHATTI and REEMA AHMAD

While it’s important for us to show up as allies in movement spaces and support Black-led organizing, that alone is not enough. We also have a responsibility to have conversations with our families about police abolition, and yes, this means directly confronting anti-Blackness in our own communities.

Is Abolition Halal?

A CONVERSATION WITH SIJAL & ABDERHIM NASRALLA and MUNIRA, SAMINA, & ABBASI LOKHANDWALA

As members of the Crescendo project creating this digitial zine, we thought it would be “cute” to have a short conversation with our Muslim families on police violence and abolition—and make it public for #PolicingIsHaram. Munira and Sijal, for some reason, agreed to participate.

Law Enforcement's Secret Weapon

BY CRESCENDO

The problem of policing isn’t limited to the police departments. It’s a system intertwined with so many public and private institutions, and many aspects of our social lives. In this easy-to-digest PDF, Crescendo breaks down the ways in which big tech companies like Amazon, Google, and and participate in and contribute to the surveillance and policing of Black and brown people’s lives.

We are truly living in visionary times:

Over the past few months, the war against Black America has ignited the streets and the hearts of people of conscience throughout the world—”abolition” is on everyone’s lips…but what does it mean? What does it require from us?

LISTEN | WATCH | READ | INDULGE

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Learn more about Prison-Industrial Complex (PIC) abolition:

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