Women affiliated with CODEPINK protest during a confirmation hearing for Sen. Jeff Sessions, on Capitol Hill in New York, January 10, 2017. Desiree Fairooz, at center behind sign, is now on trial for giggling when a senator praised Sessions record of “treating all Americans equally under the law.” (Photo: Al Drago / The New York Times)
A year in jail for laughing.
That’s not a scenario from a dystopian movie set in some far-off future under a repressive government. It’s the sentence that Code Pink activist Desiree Fairooz is facing after being convicted in early May of disorderly conduct for — yes — laughing during the confirmation hearing of new Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
The 61-year-old Fairooz, along with fellow Code Pink activists Tighe Barry and Lenny Bianchi, were arrested while attending a January 10 Senate hearing. Fairooz laughed out loud when Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) had the gall to state that Sessions’ record of “treating all Americans equally under the law is clear and well-documented.”
In fact, Sessions’ racist record is so well documented that Shelby himself ran a campaign ad in 1986 suggesting that Sessions had called the Ku Klux Klan “good ole boys.”
No wonder Fairooz couldn’t help laughing.
As she explained in an interview with Jezebel, she laughed because “I found that statement ridiculous. It was absurd, because his history shows otherwise. At that point, I could not hold in my chortle.”
According to reports, her laughter didn’t prevent Shelby from continuing his praise of Sessions. The only “disorder” was caused when several officers moved in to arrest her. As she was being taken away, Fairooz reportedly shouted, “Do not vote for Jeff Sessions!” and waved a sign that read, “Support Civil Rights, Stop Sessions.”
As she explained, “[The police] created disturbance by bringing over other police officers. I was charged with parading, but they paraded me. It was maddening.”
Bizarrely, according to the Huffington Post testimony at Fairooz’s…