U.S. Army Veteran Arrested for Speaking Out on Gaza Genocide in Senate Hearing: A Stand for Free Speech

On September 3, 2025, Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Aguilar, a retired U.S. Army Green Beret, was forcibly removed from a Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., and arrested alongside former Army intelligence officer Captain Josephine Guilbeau.

Their crime? Disrupting the hearing to denounce what they described as U.S. complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Aguilar, a whistleblower who exposed alleged war crimes at U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution sites, faces charges likely related to disorderly conduct. However, as the incident occurred on public property, Aguilar’s actions raise critical questions about free speech, the right to protest, and the suppression of dissent in the face of grave human rights allegations.