STATEMENT Central Committee Communist Party of Switzerland
ON THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF COMRADE RASHID, MINISTER OF DEFENCE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY INTERCOMMUNAL BLACK PANTHER PARTY
Central Committee
Communist Party of Switzerland
July 2026
[...] Wherever it is branded in black skin, labour [...] cannot emancipate itself. [...]
-- Karl Marx: Volume 1 of Capital (September 1867)
[...] The
evil system of colonialism and imperialism arose and thrived with the
enslavement of Africans and the trade in Africans, and it will surely
come to its end with the complete emancipation of the black people.
-- Mao Zedong: Support the African-American People in Their Righteous Struggle Against Racial Discrimination by US Imperialism! (8th of August, 1963)
On the 24th
of June, 2026, the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party
[RIBPP] in the USA announced that Comrade Rashid, alias Kevin Johnson,
the Minister of Defence of the RIBPP, a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist
communist party, had been returned to Virginia after spending over a
year in a prison in South Carolina in an attempt to break his
revolutionary will and morale and isolate him from the masses of the
prisoners in the Yankee system of capitalist prison slavery.
Comrade
Rashid describes himself as a prisoner of war of the RIBPP. Imprisoned
for life on false charges since 1990 -- a fate shared by countless
thousands upon thousands of members of the oppressed African-American
nationality within the US empire -- he educated himself politically
while in prison, embraced Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and began to
mobilize, educate, and organize the masses of the slaves in the
razor-wire plantations that the Yankee state cynically refers to as
‹prisons›. Thus, he became a political prisoner with no possibility of
parole, since political work in prison itself is a reason for denying
parole according to the logic of the fascist slaveowners who run the US
prison-industrial complex. By helping to reorganize the prison section
of the original Black Panther Party for Self-Defence -- a section
organized by Comrade George Jackson before his murder in a prison
massacre -- into the New African Black Panther Party in 2005, which has
since been reorganized into the RIBPP in 2020, Comrade Rashid became the
most important political prisoner in the USA today.
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
is the only ideology capable of guiding a genuine social revolution
today, but in order to become a guide to revolutionary action, it must
be creatively integrated with the concrete practice of revolution at
each time and place. In the USA, one of the most important experiences
that must be taken into account in elaborating an independent
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist guiding thought is the experience of the Black
Panthers. This experience -- which contained both positive and negative
aspects, but was primarily positive -- must be analysed, lessons must be
synthesized from it under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and a
guiding thought for the revolution in the USA must thus be produced.
Without a doubt, Comrade Rashid is playing the main role in this process
of analysis and synthesis of the experience of the Black Panthers
today, and it is impossible for anyone to understand or make the
revolution in the USA without studying his theoretical and practical
work.
Among Comrade Rashid's most outstanding specifications of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the concrete reality of the USA, we should
emphasize his work concerning the road of dual power as the road of
people's war in that country, the political economy of US prison
slavery, the transformation of the lumpen mentality into the proletarian
mentality, and so on. Undoubtedly, in elaborating these specific
theories, Comrade Rashid has also contributed to the universally valid
truth of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and to its inevitable fourth stage of
development. When our Party says that we adhere to
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the contributions of Comrade Gonzalo and
other prominent leaders of the international revolutionary proletariat
to the inevitable fourth stage of development of this ideology, we count
Comrade Rashid among those other prominent leaders who have made such
contributions.
For his communist work among the masses of the
modern slaves of US capital, Comrade Rashid has been repeatedly beaten,
physically tortured, imprisoned under solitary confinement, denied
medical treatment, denied access to literature, and prevented from
speaking to legal representation, among countless other fascist crimes
intended to break his resistance. However, nothing has been able to
break his exemplary communist spirit. Comrade Rashid is one of the
foremost political representatives of our international revolutionary
proletariat and one of the foremost revolutionaries in the USA today --
and that is why the class of new capitalist slaveowners in the USA has now tried to assassinate him by means of chemical weapons. In a recent statement smuggled out from prison, Comrade Rashid writes:
I
was moved to a different solitary cellblock where all occupants were
banned from using the telephone or tablets to communicate with the
outside. I observed that a thick white powder had been spread all around
the base of the walls, toilet and window, and in and around the sink,
in the new cell.
Although I didn’t know what the powder was nor
suspect that it was harmful, I did try several times to clean it away.
These efforts failed because applying water made it stick to surfaces
and fill into cracks and crevices.
In the new cell I immediately
became severely ill, developing acute chest congestion with rattling
fluid in my lungs and deadly infections, including an abscessed tooth
which the prison’s dental staff refused to treat. With the help of
outside supporters and a lawyer, I had to arrange to pay to a private
dentist for treatment, which officials delayed for months.
[...]
Months
later I learned from an inmate grounds worker that the white powder in
the solitary cell was a commercial insecticide called Bengal UltraDust
2x FireAnt Killer, that officials had it put in the cell, and that it
was the cause of my illnesses. I informed members of UPROAR, who
researched and compiled a detailed report on this substance.
The
report revealed that the substance is a deadly synthetic neurotoxin that
attacks the immune and central nervous systems of mammals. It is also a
high grade carcinogen that causes silicosis and lung cancer and enters
the body through skin contact and inhalation. It has the highest of all
toxic classifications and no safe levels of exposure.
I could not clean it from the cell because it is hydrophobic (water repellent).
Water
causes the powder to stick to surfaces. In fact, its manufacturers
boast that upon application to outside fire ant nests, it kills them for
eight months, which means it’s not washed away and its toxic effects
persist even after nearly a year of exposure to outside elements.
The
report also showed that my illnesses matched the safety data sheet
exactly: namely respiratory infection causing rattling fluid in the
lungs and compromised immune system. Also, the placement of the powder
inside a cell directly violated the label warnings which forbid indoors
use. The safety protocols recommend that an inhalation victim be
immediately removed to fresh air, and immediate washing of skin and
clothing upon contact with the substance. I was however trapped in a
closed-in cell for months constantly breathing and touching the toxin
[...].
[...]
My exposure to the neurotoxin constituted
chemical assault, torture in violation of the UN Convention Against
Torture, unconstitutional deliberate indifference to serious medical and
dental needs, and retaliation based upon the media threats made by
Fergeli in conspiracy with SC HQ prison officials and Perry’s prison
staff. Not to mention the blatant attempt to take my life by prolonged
toxic poisoning.
While UPROAR and others have demanded my return
to Va, I remain in SC custody subject to further abuses aimed to stop my
involvement in exposing and challenging prison abuses. Nonetheless, I
remain committed to this work and serving the oppressed.
Dare to Struggle Dare to Win!
All Power to the People![1]
The Communist Party of Switzerland resolutely
condemns the Yankee slaveowners for their attempt to assassinate
Comrade Rashid. Additionally, we condemn the fascist Trump regime for
allowing such crimes to be committed with impunity and inspiring the
slaveowners to commit such crimes in the first place. Although fascism
is coming to the USA, such abuses are nothing new; rather, they have
been systematized, refined, and generalized under the fascist regime. We
emphasize that the Republican and Democratic Parties alike are
political parties of the Yankee big bourgeoisie, including its
slaveowning section, and that the entire system of globalized monopoly
capitalism is the root cause of prison slavery and the countless abuses
accompanying it. The day will surely come sooner rather than later when
the fascist Yankee regime and the entire imperialist system that it
represents will be drowned in its own blood by new generations of Nat
Turners within the razor-wire plantations and new generations of John
Browns outside of them in a combined onslaught.
All communists,
proletarian revolutionaries, progressives, and genuine democrats
throughout the world have a duty to defend the life, health, and dignity
of Comrade Rashid -- not just in his capacity as a revolutionary
political prisoner, but also because of his status as one of the
foremost fighters for the emancipation of all exploited and oppressed
people throughout the world today.
We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Comrade Rashid.
Likewise, we demand the immediate and unconditional release of all other revolutionary political prisoners in the USA.
Moreover,
we demand the immediate abolition of the entire system of capitalist
prison slavery in the USA and the recognition of the human and
democratic rights of all prisoners.
Finally, we demand that the
Swiss government take a stand against this modern slavery, prohibit
Swiss businesses from profiting from it in any way, impose sanctions on
the US imperialist slaveowners for their innumerable crimes, and
ruthlessly punish all of their Swiss partners-in-crime.
Those who
refuse to take a stand against this barbarism find themselves on the
wrong side of history, and they will eventually be crushed by it.
Death to Yankee imperialism and its collaborators!
Free Comrade Rashid and all other revolutionary political prisoners!
Abolish the system of capitalist prison slavery by any means necessary!
Central Committee
Communist Party of Switzerland
July 2026
