Kat Abughazaleh, a progressive candidate for Congress, has been indicted on federal charges related to her participation in protests outside an ICE processing facility near Chicago in September.
The indictment, filed last week, alleges that the 26-year old Palestinian American candidate and five other individuals “physically hindered and impeded” a federal agent who was “forced to drive at an extremely slow rate of speed to avoid injuring any of the conspirators”.
Abughazaleh, who is running for Illinois’s ninth congressional district to replace the outgoing Democrat Jan Schakowsky, was charged with conspiracy to forcibly impede or injure a federal agent, and assaulting or impeding the agent while they were performing official duties.
According to the indictment, the group “conspired with one another and others, known and unknown, to prevent by force, intimidation, and threat, Agent A, a United States law enforcement officer, from discharging the duties of his office”.
Three Democratic members of Congress from Minnesota, including House representative Ilhan Omar, were blocked from entering...
