Coverage of protest was unfair

We're writing regarding Russell Lissau's latest article about the Naperville Congressional Forum. We are some of the constituents featured, and we’re disturbed by his biased coverage.

At the forum, we witnessed how our Congressmen Sean Casten and Bill Foster shamefully ignored constituents asking them to save lives, as Israel kills another Palestinian child in Gaza every 10 minutes.

The coverage was fundamentally flawed in its framing, calling this genocide a “war” or “conflict,” and using negative descriptors such as “argumentative,” “haranguing” and “hurling insults” to smear our rightful protests. We stand for the preservation of human rights and international law, against oppression of any people. We have contacted Lissau to share our views in the past. He refused and asked we remove him from our mailing list. There is no excuse for misinformation in reporting when we have been available for comment.

Foster and Casten are misaligned with their voters, refusing to move on this issue when some surveys say 76% of Democratic voters support a permanent ceasefire. They have both received hundreds of thousands in funding from pro-Israel PACs, likely buying their silence on the issue. As their constituents, we practiced our democratic duty to hold them accountable for their actions. To boil down our calls to "haranguing" is biased, editorialized, and sloppy journalism.

Finally, Lissau made his leanings clear when he wrote that Qasim Rashid "bragged" about his people-funded campaign.

This March, we must reject genocide and corruption by voting for people of conscience. In the meantime, we must pressure our current representatives to do the right thing.

Cat Knarr, Bolingbrook; Hanna Hernandez, Bolingbrook; and ten others.