Nearly five dozen people indicted on racketeering (Rico) charges related to protests against a planned police and firefighter training facility near Atlanta appeared in court on Monday as their supporters rallied outside the courthouse.

Protests against the proposed training center – dubbed “Cop City” by opponents – have been going on for more than two years.

The Georgia attorney general, Chris Carr, obtained a sweeping indictment in August, using the state’s anti-racketeering law to target the protesters and characterizing them as “militant anarchists”.

Demonstrators and civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have condemned the indictment and accused Carr, a Republican, of levying heavy-handed charges to try to silence a movement that has galvanized environmentalists and anti-police protesters across the country.

All 61 people indicted were scheduled to be arraigned on Monday, that is to have the charges against them formally read in court. Fifty-seven of them appeared, called in small groups before the Fulton county superior court judge Kimberly Esmond Adams over a three-hour period, and each waived arraignment.

A couple of hundred supporters of the “Stop Cop City” effort rallied outside the courthouse in downtown Atlanta on Monday morning singing, chanting and waving signs.

The Atlanta mayor, Andre Dickens, and other supporters say the 85-acre, $90m facility would replace inadequate training facilities, and would help address difficulties in hiring and retaining police officers.

Opponents have expressed concern that that it could lead to greater police militarization and that its construction in the South River Forest will worsen environmental damage in a poor, majority-Black area.

Protests against the project, which have at times resulted in violence and vandalism, escalated after the fatal shooting in January of a 26-year-old protester, Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, known as Tortuguita.

A prosecutor last month said…