Tampa, Florida - Green Party presidential nominee Dr. Jill Stein on Tuesday joined activists outside the federal courthouse in Tampa for the first day of a trial on alleged Russian conspiracy charges targeting the "Uhuru Three."

"I'm here to help sound the alarm because that violent, pre-dawn raid on Chairman Omali Yeshitela's home and the draconian prosecution being conducted here today are a frontal assault on our democracy," Stein said during a press conference outside the courthouse.

On July 29, 2022, the FBI – with the cooperation of local law enforcement – violently raided seven properties of the African People's Socialist Party (APSP) and the associated Uhuru Movement in St. Louis, Missouri, and St. Petersburg, Florida.

It wasn't until nine months later that the US Department of Justice announced indictments in the case targeting APSP Chairman Yeshitela (82) and leading white solidarity organizers Penny Hess (78) and Jesse Nevel (34).

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The Uhuru Three were accused of working as agents of the Russian government in "a multi-year foreign malign influence campaign in the United States" seeking to influence domestic elections – charges they have flatly denied. If convicted, they face up to 15 years in prison each.

Ahead of the federal court trial, Stein once again pushed back against the allegations.

"The attack on the Uhuru Three is fundamentally an attack on free speech, on our right to oppose endless wars and economic oppression abroad – a.k.a. colonialism," she said. "It is an attack on our right to oppose the cost of these endless wars at home, namely economic austerity and the war on democracy."

"This is a sequel to the attack on Julian Assange, and the empire does not want you to know about it."

Stein said the case against the Uhuru Three felt remarkably familiar.

The physician and activist was herself subject to what she called a "bogus" three-year Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into alleged ties to Russia during her 2016 White House campaign.

The probe appeared to largely concern the candidate's media appearances and correspondence with Russia's RT news network as well as a December 2015 RT anniversary gala Stein went to in Moscow – which Russian President Vladimir Putin also happened to attend. The committee found no evidence of wrongdoing on Stein's part.

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Stein described the accusations as "an effort to silence and intimidate the opponents of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee."

"If the DOJ is looking for an illegal foreign agent, they need look no further than AIPAC, which is throwing real money – $100 million in this election alone – into buying favors for a foreign government," she argued, referencing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobby group.

"We need to fight for the Uhuru Three together. Democracy is on the line for all of us, and together, we are unstoppable," Stein insisted.

Racial justice advocates gathered in Tampa warned that the Uhuru Three trial has not only serious implications for free speech rights but also for the centuries-long struggle for Black liberation.

For decades, Chairman Omali Yeshitela has been a leading advocate of reparations – a policy priority Stein has also endorsed in her 2024 presidential campaign.

"Although this is the opening day of the trial of the Uhuru Three, in actuality, this is a continuing day of a 400-year-old trial against the United States government for the genocide of African people," Reparations United founder Kamm Howard said.

"We see it now with the Republican Party as they try to ban books written by true dissidents of this country," he continued. "They want to force us to assimilate into this rotten state called the United States of America. We see it now in this trial of the Uhuru Three, where the Democratic Party wants to ban free speech – again, speech by true dissidents that refuse to assimilate into this burning house."

"That is genocide, and we charge this country with genocide."

Activists and advocates slammed the charges against the Uhuru Three as a direct continuation of the COINTELPRO tactics deployed against Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and more.

"Black people have been resisting mind control in this country since the first African was snatched off the continent and slammed down in North America," said Efia Nwangaza, executive director of the Malcolm X Center for Self Determination and a former Green Party Senate nominee from South Carolina.

"Today, we stand on our own agency, we stand on our right, to not only form independent third parties but to run our own candidates and to highlight our own issues, the United States government be damned."