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Jailed African American Webmaster Sherman Austin Moved Into Isolation After Receiving White Supremacist Death Threats

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Austin began a yearlong prison term last week. Federal officials charged that he had illegally distributed information about how to build Molotov cocktails on his website. We speak with his mother Jennifer Martin.

Sherman Austin–the 20 year-old Webmaster of a California-based site called raisethefist.com who began a yearlong prison term last week has been moved into protective custody at the San Bernardino Central Detention Center. The guards moved Sherman into isolation because of death threats against him by white supremacists.

Austin was arrested over 18 months ago. Federal officials charged that he had illegally distributed information about how to build Molotov cocktails and “Drano bombs” on his web site.

He was charged under a 1997 law that made it illegal to publish such instructions with the intent that readers commit “a federal crime of violence.”

  • Jennifer Martin, mother of Sherman Austin, the 20-year-old African American webmaster of the site raisethefist.com who began serving a one-year jail sentence last week. Martin is a leading a campaign for Sherman to be moved from a county detention center to federal detention immediately because he has been receiving death threats from several white supremacists groups.

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