Peace Arch Border Crossing by Clive on Flickr

Today at 10:30am Eastern Standard Time, Paul and Leann DeHart, parents of imprisoned Anon and ex-US-soldier Matt DeHart, will cross back over the Peace Bridge from Canada, the land in which they’d hoped to build a new life free of FBI raids and a miasma of unspeakable suspicions, to the country in which their son is once again imprisoned. Because this is 2015, they are accompanied by their lawyer, Tor Ekeland, and the event will be livestreamed, on the principle that more eyeballs mean less legerdemain with human lives.

The DeHarts have had bad experiences at border crossings before.

Yesterday, the #FreeMattDeHart supporters sent a flyer around social media, calling for witnesses to come out and accompany them on the crossing. Given that the last time their son tried to cross a border under his own steam he spent the rest of his life (to date) behind bars, it’s not an illogical precaution. Their son preceded them exactly one month ago, but that border crossing was a prisoner handoff between the Canadian prison authorities and the American FBI.

The next day, DeHart was named a beneficiary of the Courage Foundation, along with Jeremy Hammond and Edward Snowden.

Paul and Leann DeHart April 1 2015 via Free Matt DeHart on Facebook

The Livestream can be watched here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/peace4deharts and an album of photographs is in the process of being uploaded to Facebook by supporters. So far, so good for the DeHarts.

The DeHart’s truck features a portrait of their son by famed activist artist Molly Crabapple, who has also created a portrait of Hammond.

As they leave Canada and head towards Bowling Green, Kentucky where their son is being held (and, according to Leann, being held in inhumane conditions, and being fed food unfit for human consumption) they also leave behind questions for both nations: questions about the extent to which each government’s “courtesies” towards the other might diminish its own nationhood, and to which said courtesies towards governments may represent a diminishment of rights for citizens of each.

The future for Matt DeHart, at least, is certain: continued custody, facing child porn charges he claims are merely a trumped up excuse to black-bag an inconveniently activist WikiLeaks and Anonymous supporter.

Brethren Dwelling Together in Unity by Hayley Bouchard on Flickr

Categories: Activism, Anonymous, Canada, Defectors, FBI, Hackers, Matt DeHart, News, Politics, Prisoners