Meet Niko and Bo, Two RNC 16 Protesters Facing Serious Felony Charges

September 11, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On September 19, Niko and Bo, two of the RNC 16 defendants, are going to trial, facing serious felony charges. The RNC 16 are 16 protesters who were arrested for burning an American flag on July 20, 2016, during a righteous political protest outside the entrance of the Republican National Convention on the very day the RNC selected Donald Trump to be its presidential candidate.

Niko is a member of the Revolution Club. He came forward against the high rise in police murder that happened with Eric Garner and Michael Brown. “I felt compelled to act and do something but didn’t know what that was until I walked into a Revolution Books store and met the comrades who told me there is a whole another way that society could be organized—communism. And I wanted to learn more about it, and did and have been staying on that revolutionary road. Also, I went to the Dialogue [between Bob Avakian and Cornel West] and that concretely made me say I was going to put myself to it because of hearing BA speak at the Dialogue. That helped me and inspired me to make the decision. So when I came back home I said, alright, I’m going to put myself to this, that I really want to do this.” Read more from Niko here.

Bo runs with the Revolution Club and describes himself as an advocate for the new synthesis of communism developed by Bob Avakian. Bo enlisted in the U.S. military and was deployed to Iraq, first as part of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” in 2003 and later in 2007 as part of the U.S. “surge.” He joined the U.S. Marines believing he would be helping the U.S. to spread democracy in parts of the world where democracy was not functioning. These experiences, being a part of and seeing the massive destruction and horrific deaths of the Iraqi people, has had a deep impact on Bo. He began searching for answers as he realized that the U.S. was not there to help the people in Iraq. He was arrested when the authorities shut down the Los Angeles Occupy encampment in 2011. He was arrested during the April 14, 2015 National Day of Protest Against Police Murder and Police Brutality. This is where he met the Revolution Club. Bo volunteered with the Revolution Club and traveled to the RNC and DNC during the summer of 2016. When Bo joined the Marines, he believed it was his patriotic duty to the USA and he was confronted with the brutal reality of what the role of the U.S. has been and continues to be—a brutal imperialist empire that has and continues to plunder and ravage the world. So the burning of the American flag has particular significance to Bo, as part of his transformation from patriot to internationalist standing with the people of the world. He is proud of having been part of this historic political protest at the RNC. In January 2017, he volunteered to go to DC during the Trump inauguration, and was arrested along with 25 others for disrupting the confirmation hearing of Jeff Sessions as attorney general.

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