dramatic tense music
We're in Atlanta, where over 40 activists have been charged with
domestic terrorism.
When I first got arrested, [chuckling] I was just like,
"There's no fucking way; this has to be a joke."
[crowd chanting]
Setting fire to a police car and flying a plane into the
World Trade Center -- they don't seem equal.
Do you feel like there's some sort of political motivation
-behind it all? -Absolutely.
Hundred percent.
[Belkis VO] He was a terrorist?!
He deserved his death?!
Somebody answer to me.
[Isobel VO] According to Ukrainian government figures,
as many as 19,000 Ukrainian children have been illegally
deported to Russia.
[Isobel] And you?
[Isobel VO] The people running this camp are saying that this
is not about brainwashing kids.
[Isobel] This is you wearing a military uniform.
[Isobel VO] There are reasonably grounds to believe
that you bear criminal responsibility.
Are you a war criminal?
[laughs]
dramatic theme music
[shouting]
Hoorah!
[blasts]
sparse tense music
[softly] Fuck, there's cop cars everywhere!
We're in Atlanta, where, over the last six months,
over 40 activists have been arrested and charged with
domestic terrorism while protesting the development
of a large police training facility here in the woods.
[Vegas VO] In 2021, activists descended on the site of a
newly-announced police training facility they argued would
destroy a critical city forest.
The protests were initially peaceful,
but soon grew confrontational.
Police identified protestors in the encampment as
"domestic terrorist suspects" and "extremely violent."
During a raid in January, police alleged one activist shot at
them, and they responded with overwhelming force.
[gunfire]
26-year-old activist Manuel Esteban Páez Terán,
who went by the name "Tortuguita,"
died from 57 gunshot wounds.
An independent autopsy suggested that the activist was killed
sitting cross-legged, with their hands in the air.
[crowd] [chanting] Viva, viva, Tortuguita!
[Belkis] He was a terrorist?!
He deserved his death?!
Somebody answer to me.
[Vegas VO] After Tortuguita's death,
clashes with police led to dozens of protestors being
charged with domestic terrorism,
fueling a debate over what separates political dissent
from terrorism in the eyes of the law.
tense music
For Vienna Forrest, the charges appeared to indiscriminate.
At that time, they were just grabbing anyone they could and
charged us all with the same thing.
What is it that they're alleging that you did?
They are alleging I threw fireworks and rocks
at EMS workers with the fire station,
as well as threw a heavy object at a moving police cruiser,
causing visible damage.
soft tense music
When I first got arrested, [chuckling] I was just like,
"There's no fucking way; this has to be a joke."
I was just...
You were expecting trespassing, and then it said...
-[Vienna] Yeah. -"Terrorism?"
What has your attorney been telling you about
what you're facing?
It's a lot to take in, 'cause if you look at all my charges'
max sentencing, I'm looking at most 60 years in prison.
-60 years? -[Vienna] 60 years.
We've never harmed anyone, we've never killed anyone.
They're accusing us of violence against property.
[Vegas VO] In 2017, Georgia expanded its domestic terrorism
law after the Dylann Roof shooting in neighboring
South Carolina.
This resulted in one of the broadest statutes of its kind
in the country.
Now, anyone can be considered a terrorist for the destruction of
critical infrastructure during a protest,
which can include anything from the national power grid
to a bulldozer used by the government.
These terrorism charges enhance sentences,
and can come with up to 35 years in prison.
curious music
We're on our way to talk to the District Attorney
of DeKalb County.
Now, if Vienna and the other forest protestors do get
indicted on charges of domestic terrorism,
it'll be the DA's job to convince the jury that they
deserve as much as 35 years in prison for what they've done.
This law has been criticized by several civil rights
organizations throughout the country who are concerned
that it can limit First Amendment rights and it can have
a chilling effect on activism and protests.
What would you say to that?
We're not talking about people holding signs,
we're talking about potentially people
throwing incendiary devices, rocks, setting things on fire...
There's a huge distinction between those two.
Do you have to actually cause harm?
I'm just trying to figure out where this line that delineates
where something crosses over into terrorism.
It's not just about an event and people,
it's about "Is this felonious act aimed
specifically to cause economic loss,
or destroy a government facility or critical infrastructure?"
And we're seeing that happen in various place over the country.
[blast]
[Vegas VO] But this law wasn't intended to address
property damage.
What it was designed to do is combat ideologically-motivated
violence, which is on the rise in the US,
especially from the Far-Right.
[gunfire]
A shooter opened fire at a mall in Allen, Texas.
[woman VO] At least eight to ten people are dead
in a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue.
[man VO] The suspect allegedly posted a 180-page manifesto
online, filled with white supremacist ideology.
[Vegas VO] More and more states are now coming up with their own
terrorism statutes.
25 states and DC now have domestic terrorism laws.
But the ACLU is sounding the alarm about potential government
overreach in the use of these statutes.
Don't we need laws for the things that are so definitely,
so clearly terrorism?
Every single one of those laws contains fairly
problematic language with respect to what counts
as "terrorism,"
and I think what's happening in Georgia
is a real example of how these laws can go wrong.
Terrorism is essentially a political crime.
9/11 happens, and all of a sudden,
the threat becomes brown Muslim people.
So terrorism can reflect what exists at the time,
and it's subject to manipulation.
And I think that's what we're seeing today.
[Vegas VO] While there are plenty of examples of extreme
violence, the label "terrorism" often gets used
as a political tool.
No part of the country has seen more politically-charged anger
than the Pacific Northwest.
The Washington legislature introduced a bill that would
create a domestic violence extremism commission
to strengthen the state's ability to respond
to domestic terror.
So we've traveled to the Pacific Northwest.
We're here to meet a patriot group that's concerned that
these new laws might get them labeled as
"domestic terrorists."
[Vegas VO] Matt Marshall is the founder of the Washington State
Three Percenters, who have a history of showing up at
protests with guns.
He took us around the group's weekend camp.
Who here is medically trained?
We've got a handful.
All right.
If I'm gonna sew up my own daughter right here --
she's got these wounds laying everywhere,
looking awful right now --
first thing you do, tourniquet,
as far up as you can get.
This is gonna bleed everywhere,
as is the fact she's missing a leg.
You can go lie down.
[Vegas] So tell me about your group.
What are you guys doing here this weekend?
Well, this weekend's just kind of a get-together,
but we're also doing some basic prepping classes.
To prepare to overthrow the government?
No.
No, that's not quite what we're doing at all.
[chuckling] What is it? What are you doing?
No, we're just...
You know, our pillars are "Prepare, support, unite,"
and then "defend."
"Defend" is our last of our pillars.
"Prepare" -- that's really what we're working on.
I wouldn't drink the first amount that came through there,
'cause you're gonna have some charcoal come through it.
[Vegas VO] The vibes here were a bit more summer camp
than commando.
[man] See that gold?
Tiny little flake right here.
These enhanced charges like domestic terrorism,
do you feel like there's some sort of political motivation
-behind it all? -Absolutely.
-Hundred percent.
House Bill 1333 was a Washington State domestic terrorism bill,
where they said that we are domestic extremists,
and our ability to influence people and raise money
was a concern to the government.
The domestic terrorist laws are...
being used as a way to go after political...
rivals.
They're gonna be used to put a magnifying glass over one
political side and ignore the other one,
as they've already done.
Well, this is interesting, because the people in Atlanta,
of course, are pretty far on the left,
and they've told us the same thing,
just the opposite.
Does it make you at all uncomfortable that large groups
of protestors can be rounded up and charged with
domestic terrorism?
That's what's scary about these laws is they've already been
doing this going after their opponents,
and I think that's the case of what's happening in Georgia.
So if these laws go through,
it's just gonna be amplified that much more,
and it's gonna be worse for everybody.
[Vegas VO] The rise of extremist violence within the US
demands a forceful response.
But when we use the word "terrorist" about ideological
or political opponents, the impact is profound,
and the environmental movement around Cop City
is feeling the weight of that.
[raining pouring]
melancholy music
They attack the forest time and time again!
Then, a loved one was killed:
Manuel "Tortuguita" Páez Terán.
We've occupied, called in and marched,
wrote letters and shouted in the streets!
No Copy City here and anywhere!
[cheers]
Over there is the camp,
and it was the place that he was killed.
Over there.
[Daniel VO] There's a reason why they use
"domestic terrorism;" it's because they can't
prove anything.
So in order to incite fear, they have to...
disregard the rules.
And that's why it's so scary.
tense theme music
eerie tense music
So this is what is left of the boarding school.
Whoa.
It feels very eerie in here now.
We're here in the town of Kupyansk in Ukraine,
which was occupied early on by the Russians,
since been taken back by the Ukrainians.
And we're inside a boarding school,
which you can see has just been bombed to pieces.
Back in September, when the school year started,
over a dozen Ukrainian kids were taken from here
to Russian-held territory.
[Isobel VO] Mykola Syzonov was here on September 8th,
when at 1:35 PM, around a dozen armed soldiers turned up
in buses.
tense strings
[Isobel VO] What happened here in Kupyansk is no
freak incident.
Moscow has been accused of stealing 19,000 Ukrainian
children from war-torn areas
and illegally deporting them to Russia.
It's part of what could be one of the most egregious war crimes
committed to date.
President Vladimir Putin and his Children's Commissioner
Maria Lvova-Belova are accused of attempting to ethnically
cleanse a generation of young Ukrainians.
The International Criminal Court has now issued an arrest
warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin,
accusing him of committing war crimes.
[man] The court alleges Putin bears individual
responsibility for the unlawful transfer of children from
occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.
[Isobel VO] CCTV from an orphanage in occupied Southern
Ukraine shows chilling footage of Russian soldiers searching
the building for Ukrainian kids.
But that's not what the Russian public are seeing.
On Russian state media, smiling, joyful Ukrainian children
are seen thanking Russian soldiers for saving their lives.
[Isobel VO] To find out what's really happening to these
children, we gained unprecedented access to both
sides of this conflict.
We are actually in Russia right now,
and to our massive surprise, when we requested to come and
meet these Ukrainian children for ourselves,
the Russian government approved it.
eerie ominous music
[Isobel] How many of these kids are from Ukraine?
[Isobel] Wow.
[Isobel VO] Veda Livadonova is a Russian foster mother.
Six of the 25 children in her care are recent arrivals
from Ukraine.
The kids appeared in this report on Russian state TV channel 1,
when they were brought all the way from an orphanage in
Russian-occupied Donetsk to Nizhny Novgorod,
seven hours east of Moscow.
How do you have the resources for all this?
Does the government help you?
[Isobel VO] Livadonova receives 1,000 dollars a month for each
child she fosters.
She's also receiving government contributions to build
her new home.
[Isobel] So what's your name and how old are you?
[Isobel] And you?
[Isobel] Do you like it here?
I saw the video of you coming here on the train.
It seemed like a really long journey.
[Isobel] You must have been very brave to come all that way.
Do you remember anything about the place that you came from?
deep ominous music
How do you see the conflict at the moment
between Ukraine and Russia impacting children's lives
right now?
Some of these kids must have been through very traumatic
experiences.
Do they not belong in Ukraine?
Is it not fair to say that these kids have essentially been
stolen from a country?
[Isobel VO] Though Livadonova claims to be acting in their
best interests, the kids in her care have been illegally
deported, just like the thousands of other Ukrainian
children who are being brought to repurposed summer camps.
These stretch from Russian-occupied Crimea
all the way to far-eastern Siberia.
According to a report by Yale University,
many children have been forced to spend months in these
facilities, without their parents' consent.
This is the first time a Western crew has been allowed inside one
of these camps.
Several hundred Ukrainian children have been brought here
from newly-occupied areas for what Russia says is three weeks'
respite from the war.
[Isobel] It's a real mix of people from all different areas.
How does it feel being all together?
[Isobel VO] Although they seemed to be having a good time,
we were only allowed to speak with kids who were pre-approved
by camp managers.
It's interesting 'cause, you know,
the people running this camp are saying that this is not about
brainwashing kids at all,
but it's about rehabilitating them and helping them.
But at the same time, you know, there is a Russification going
on here, and you can see that with,
you know, kids talking very enthusiastically about Russia,
clearly we're only allowed to speak to certain people,
we are getting very heavily monitored.
[Isobel VO] We were taken to the gym,
where 17-year-old kids from areas that were occupied by
Russia last year were waiting for us,
as well as a government minder, who filmed everything.
Around the world, you know, camps like this are very
contentious and there's a lot of accusations that the Russians
have been stealing Ukrainian children.
Is there anything you've learned since being here
about Russia?
Do you consider yourself Ukrainian or Russian?
Can't answer?
Okay.
Okay, I understand.
Mariupol is where you were born, right?
I mean, did seeing it get razed to the ground,
did that...
make you think differently about Ukraine or about Russia?
[man clears throat]
So I can't ask anything about the conflict?
[Isobel] Okay.
Um...
Okay, thank you.
Thank you very much for talking with us.
Thank you, guys, we appreciate it.
[Isobel VO] Clearly, any questioning of Moscow's version
of events was off-limits.
The woman determining the fate of Ukrainian children in Russia
is Maria Lvova-Belova,
Putin's trusted official in charge of children's rights.
She's slammed as a child-snatcher by the
international community.
Last year, she lobbied Putin for a change in the Russian law,
making it easier for Ukrainian children to be given
Russian passports.
This has complicated the process for Ukrainian family members
to claim their kids back.
But in Russia, she's hailed as an angelic hero,
rescuing abandoned children.
She says she's fostered a child from Mariupol,
a city brutally destroyed by the Russian army.
Now, he makes regular appearances on pro-Kremlin TV,
like this report on patriotic channel Tsargrad.
We managed to secure an exclusive sit-down interview
with Maria Lvova-Belova.
tense music
Are these children being used as propaganda tools
by the Russian state?
But can you understand, you know,
the argument that getting these kids Russian citizenship could
be seen as a form of wiping out their identity and as a form of
ethnic cleansing?
Well, I-- I would say it's a different situation--
I would say it's a slightly different situation when it
comes to Russia and Ukraine given that there's a very active
conflict going on right now.
You are accused of some very serious war crimes.
There are reasonable grounds to believe that you bear criminal
responsibility for illegally deporting and transferring
children from Ukraine to Russia.
Are you a war criminal?
[laughs]
But the Convention also goes on to say that if they need to be
evacuated for safety reasons, they should be held in a
third-party country.
Why wasn't that done?
[Isobel VO] But this is not true.
Just one example is the 13 children who were taken
from Kupyansk.
They were unaccompanied when they were illegally transferred,
without their parents' permission.
But the charity Save Ukraine was able to locate them at a school
in Perevalsk, in Russian-occupied territory.
To get them back, parents have to obtain travel documents and
approvals from both sides, before making a long and arduous
journey via Poland and Belarus into Russia
and eventually to Perevalsk.
[Isobel VO] The Russian-occupied school they
were sent to has a website, which seems to show a curriculum
focused on providing a hyper-patriotic education --
far more than what we saw in Litvinovo.
[Isobel VO] Four of the children are still waiting to be
taken home.
But Natalia Zhornyk brought back her son Artyom
in April.
[Isobel] It must have felt like such a relief after
all those months.
How did you feel while you were there?
We actually visited a children's camp in Russia,
and the government officials who were showing us around,
you know, showed us kids that were singing and dancing,
and kids who were seeming to have a very good time.
That doesn't sound like that was your experience.
-[Isobel] This is Artyom? -[Natalia] Da.
Oh, wow, so this is you wearing a military uniform...
-with a Russian... -[Natalia] Mm-hm.
[Isobel] "Z" on it.
And what was it you were studying here when you were
wearing this, Artyom?
[Isobel VO] Of the thousands of Ukrainian children Kyiv says
have been taken to Russian camps, schools, and families,
only 371 have returned.
Those are the ones lucky enough to have parents who can come
get them.
Given that, you know, he'd been gone for six months,
did you notice any changes in him?
eerie ominous music
dark moody music