The Michigan 8 Are Now the Michigan 12
Federal Government Releases New Indictment of Four Additional Palestine Solidarity Activists and Attempts to Jail Co-Defendant Through Duration of Trial – And We Fight Back
November 3, 2026
FBI agent stopping and searching a vehicle in Ann Arbor, MI as part of the crackdown on new defendants, October 29, 2026.
The federal government has again escalated its attack on Palestine solidarity movement in Michigan, adding four additional defendants to the Michigan 8 case. The Michigan 8 have now become the Michigan 12.
On October 29, 2026, FBI agents arrested Drin Shapiro as he left the Detroit public school where he teaches. He was stopped by agents pointing rifles at him, with over six FBI cars present. About an hour after his arrest, more than 15 FBI agents searched Drin’s home in Detroit, seizing his car and multiple devices. While Drin was in police custody, the remaining residents, including Zainab Hakim, one of the original eight defendants, were prevented from recording the search despite their legal right to do so.
The same afternoon in Ann Arbor, FBI agents racially profiled, detained, and searched Eric Ming VonBargen, mistaking them for their sibling, Aaron VonBargen. Agents only asked for Eric’s identification after handcuffing them, putting them in a cop car and searching their belongings and vehicle. “As I was walking to my car after class, multiple unmarked vehicles cornered me and about a dozen FBI agents proceeded to search and detain me. It wasn’t until minutes in that they asked for my name, and only then did they realized I was not my sibling, who is several years older,” Eric said. “By the time I was released, my car and backpack were already thrown apart. This was not a simple accident, but a combination of racial profiling and the general incompetence of the FBI, who despite possessing the surveillance needed to track me down in the street were unable to correctly identify me. While the FBI continues to issue political charges to repress my sibling and others fighting for justice in Michigan, the University of Michigan continues to remain complicit in the ongoing genocide in Palestine.” After learning that there was an arrest warrant for them, Eric’s sibling, Aaron VonBargen, turned themselves in to the court on the morning of Friday, October 30, 2026.
The remaining two newly indicted defendants are currently out of the country and seeking legal counsel.
On October 30, 2026, the Justice Department unsealed a superseding indictment laying out charges against the four additional individuals. All are recent University of Michigan graduates. They are charged with the same “conspiracy” charges as the first eight defendants. The new indictment repeats the same bogus rhetoric of “terrorism” as the first indictment. Similarly to the Minnesota 15 and Praireland cases, it considers use of encrypted messaging as evidence for criminal activity.
In the press release announcing the indictment, the Justice Department described their allegations as “a Sprawling Conspiracy Terrorizing [the] Jewish Community” and compared the defendants to the biblical Pharaoh and to Hitler. Judge Judith E. Levy herself has countered such sensational claims from the government in the past, as in Zainab’s September bond hearing where she remarked, “it was said [by US Attorney] at the detention hearing that [Zainab] hates Jewish or Israeli people. There’s nothing that’s happened over the last two months or maybe last year or anytime I’ve seen, there’s nothing in the indictment, there’s nothing in any of this material that would indicate that that’s the case.”
The DOJ’s press release also reiterates that the FBI is receiving assistance from “many local, state, and federal agencies” in the effort to criminalize Palestine solidarity activism. Once again, this confirms that local and state police, including the University of Michigan Police Department, are collaborating with the Trump administration to carry out this repression.
On October 30, friends, family, and community members packed the Detroit federal court for the bond hearing of two of the four new defendants. Both were released on $10,000 unsecured bond, with restrictive conditions similar to those of the Michigan 8. The bond conditions include travel restrictions, being prohibited from communicating with co-defendants or alleged victims in the case, and wearing a GPS ankle monitor. These two co-defendants are scheduled to complete their arraignment on Wednesday in Detroit federal court.
On November 2, 2026, two days after the arrests, US Attorney Maggie Smith filed an emergency motion to revoke Zainab’s bond and hold her in detention based on the claim that she tampered with evidence during the raid on Drin’s home. Zainab will have a hearing on this motion on November 18 in Ann Arbor.
We will not be intimidated. We will hold the line. We will continue to defend Palestine solidarity activists criminalized by this genocidal government. And we will continue to fight for a free Palestine.
