Twin lawsuits filed in federal court in Atlanta say the city of Statham in Barrow County illegally targeted city critics by jailing two of them for criminally trespassing on public property and banning another from council meetings for life.

The plaintiffs “have done what citizens do: They’ve attended meetings, they’ve wanted to speak at those meetings, they’ve made public record requests,” said constitutional law specialist Gerald Weber, who filed the complaints with Zack Greenamyre of Mitchell & Shapiro.