The U.S. Justice Department has charged the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) with financial crimes, alleging it improperly paid informants within extremist groups.

The SPLC is a nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1971, known for investigating and exposing hate groups and extremist networks across the United States. Its work has included tracking organizations tied to white supremacy and providing information that has supported public awareness and law enforcement efforts.

The SPLC says those informants were used to infiltrate and monitor violent extremist organizations, work it argues has helped expose threats and save lives.

Now, the organization faces serious criminal charges — despite the fact that the indictment itself acknowledges informants were embedded in groups tied to events like the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally.

This raises serious concerns about:

Criminalizing investigative work into extremist groups
The potential chilling effect on civil rights organizations
Whether this case is politically motivated
We call on:

U.S. Department of Justice
to drop the charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center and protect the ability of civil rights groups to investigate extremism.

Sign this petition to say: don’t criminalize civil rights work—drop the charges now.

The Washington Post