Free Mumia Abu Jamal

'People Power' Pries Abu-Jamal from Punitive Administrative Custody

2012-01-30T20:51:00.003-05:00

by: Linn Washington Jr.

He's out!

Credit `people power' for getting internationally known inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal sprung from his apparently punitive, seven-week placement in `The Hole.'

For the first time since receiving a controversial death sentence in 1982 for killing a Philadelphia policeman, the widely acclaimed author-activist finds himself in general population, a prison housing status far less restrictive than the solitary confinement of death row.

Inmates in general population have full privileges to visitation, telephone and commissary, along with access to all prison programs and services, all things denied or severely limited to convicts on death row waiting to be killed by the state.

In early December 2011, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections officials, after the federal courts had removed his death penalty and the Philadelphia District Attorney opted not to attempt to re-try the penalty phase in hopes of winning a new death sentence, placed Abu-Jamal in Administrative Custody (a/k/a `The Hole').

Administrative Custody is confinement in a Spartan isolation cell where conditions are more draconian than even death row.

The release of Abu-Jamal from Administrative Custody into general population on Friday, January 27, 2012 followed with a multi-layered protest campaign by his supporters worldwide that included flooding Pennsylvania prison authorities with telephone calls, collecting petitions containing over 5,000 signatures and a complaint filed with United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture.

Public pressure to release Mumia Abu-Jamal from the "Hole" trumped the pressure from those trying to keep torturing him.

Supporters condemned the Administrative Custody placement, calling it retaliation for Abu-Jamal's having successfully defeated the state's efforts to execute him. Abu-Jamal, a model prisoner, did not meet any of the 11 specific circumstances listed in Pennsylvania DoC regulations dictating administrative custody placement.

Prison staff evaluations of Abu-Jamal since his December death row removal, sources said, listed him as "polite [and] respectful." Those positive evaluations did not evidence any of the incorrigibility or other serious misbehaviors that usually trigger AC placement.

"When people are united around an issue they have power. This is the power of the people all races in many places," said Pam Africa, director of the Philadelphia-based International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Abu-Jamal, in a statement released through his wife Wadiya Jamal, thanked his supporters for their hard work. "I am no longer on death row, no longer in the hole, I'm in population," Abu-Jamal's statement noted. "This is only Part One and I thank you for the work you've done. But the struggle is for freedom!"

Media reports quoted Pennsylvania DoC spokespersons confirming Abu-Jamal's placement in general population at Mahanoy Prison, a medium security facility about 100 miles from Philadelphia in central Pennsylvania where he was transferred last December from another prison in western Pennsylvania that houses the state's death row.

DoC spokespersons had previously declined comment on Abu-Jamal's Administrative Custody placement, citing regulations covering inmate privacy.

Prison officials advanced ever-changing rationales for keeping Abu-Jamal in AC at Mahanoy, including the curious claim of that they were waiting for legal clarification that the courts had formally replaced Abu-Jamal's death sentence with life in prison.

That Kafkaesque claim contradicted the DoC's own documents specifically acknowledging that federal courts had vacated the death sentence (thus requiring a default life sentence) and Philadelphia's DA having dropped appeals to reinstate the death sentence.

Typical of the way that Abu-Jamal's long-running case has shone a bright light on grievous abuses within the criminal justice system, his AC placement exposed what independent prison monitors have long contended is a dirty secret of Pennsylvania's prison system: authorities using Administrative Custody isolation to maliciously penalize inmates who are not violating prison rules.

Bret Grote, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Human Rights Coalition, said during a media interview that prison authorities misuse Administrative Custody as repression against inmates for their political activism, their complaining about poor conditions in prison, their roles as jailhouse lawyers and often for racist reasons.

Grote said Pennsylvania's DoC holds approximately 2,500 of its fifty-thousand-plus prisoners in solitary confinement on any given day. That's five percent of the total.

"Andre Jacobs and Carrington Keys, two members of a group of prisoners known as the Dallas 6 [Dallas is a Pennsylvania prison] have been held in solitary for approximately 11 and nine years respectively as a result of their speaking out against torture and other human rights violations inside the state's control units," Grote said during an interview with Prison Radio.

Philadelphian Russell "Maroon" Shoats, a former Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army member, has spent 30 of his 40 years in prison inside an isolation cell despite not having any prison infractions, said his daughter Theresa Shoats during a press conference in Philadelphia held one day before Abu-Jamal's release.

"Prison officials keep my Dad in solitary instead of releasing him into general population because they say he is a leader. My Dad turns 70 this year and he has medical problems, some from being in solitary for so long. Keeping him in solitary is unfair," Shoats said about her father, who was convicted of killing a Philadelphia policeman.

"My Dad says he encourages young inmates to read to stay sane. Why does that make him too dangerous for general population? He told me that 15 young men hung themselves in SCI Greene during a one-year period."

King Downing, director of the American Friends Service Center's Healing Justice Program, said prison authorities nationwide misuse solitary confinement to "silence political prisoners." Downing hosted the press conference where Shoats spoke alongside other speakers representing Abu-Jamal.

Last October, Juan Mendez, the UN's Special Rapporteur on Torture, called on all countries worldwide to ban the use of solitary confinement of inmates as punishment and/or an extortion technique, except in very exceptional circumstances.

Mendez cited scientific studies establishing the mental and medical damage arising from prolonged isolation. His report stated that an estimated 20,000-to-25,000 persons regularly occupy solitary confinement cells across America.

Recently a federal jury awarded a New Mexico man $22-million for violations of his constitutional rights arising from his having spent two years in solitary confinement in a county jail in Albuquerque following a drunk driving arrest. Although during that entire time he was never even charged or brought to trial, authorities in Dona Ana County New Mexico vow to appeal that verdict, one of the largest damage judgements in history for illegal incarceration.

Message from Mumia and Wadiya

2012-01-29T20:54:00.002-05:00

Mumia's Message to Supporters in call
from General Population, SCI Mahanoy
to his wife, Wadiya Jamal:

My dear friends, brothers and sisters -- I want to thank you for your real hard work and support. I am no longer on death row, no longer in the hole, I'm in population. This is only part one and I thank you all for the work you've done. But the struggle is for freedom!

From
Mumia and Wadiya
Ona Move. Long Live John Africa!

BREAKING NEWS: Mumia Transferred to General Prison Population

2012-01-27T18:52:00.000-05:00

From freemumia.com

As of 1/27/12, Mumia Abu-Jamal has officially been transferred to General Prison Population after being held in Administrative Custody ("The Hole" or Solitary Confinement) at SCI Mahanoy, Frackville, PA for seven weeks. This is the first time Mumia has been in General Population since his arrest in 1981.

This comes within hours of the of delivery of over 5,500 signed petitions to Department of Corrections headquarters in Camp Hill, PA and a compliant filed with United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez.

PLEASE NOTE that while this is a victory in transferring Mumia out of the torturous Restricted Housing Unit (RHU), we call upon the closure of ALL RHU's! Furthermore, we call upon the IMMEDIATE RELEASE of Mumia Abu-Jamal and are not disillusioned by this transfer. FREE MUMIA NOW!

More at: http://www.freemumia.com/?p=867

Write to Mumia to send him some love!

MAILING ADDRESS FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
#AM8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932

Correction: Rare Admission of Mistake in Mumia Case

2012-01-27T18:50:00.000-05:00

From : http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1021

by Linn Washington Jr.

I made a mistake.

An article I wrote recently for TCBH about the Pennsylvania prison system’s latest punitive assault on now ex-death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal (unnecessarily continuing his solitary confinement) contained a factual misstatement.

Most journalists consider any inaccuracy an error, regardless of how small.

The Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists calls for admitting “mistakes” and correcting them promptly.

This journalist’s inaccuracy-as-error standard contrasts with court systems, where appellate courts too often dismiss mistakes made during trials by prosecutors and judges without correction by using the court-invented legalistic term: harmless error.

The Abu-Jamal case is fraught with such misconduct and mistakes that appellate courts have not only not corrected, but have allowed to fester and get worse. But you won't see the courts or the prosecutors ever admitting those things.

In my article, I inaccurately listed Pennsylvania state prison officials as being the prime movers in keeping Abu-Jamal on death row instead of transferring him into general prison population after a federal judge had voided his death sentence in a December 2001 ruling converting that sentence to a life in prison.

In that article I stated prison authorities kept Abu-Jamal on death row in 2001 “as a courtesy to Philadelphia’s District Attorney’s Office…”

Yes, keeping Abu-Jamal on death row arose from a courtesy…a courtesy that kept him on death row ten years after that 2001 ruling.

And yes, Philly’s DA (and others) did want Abu-Jamal to rot on death row.

But, no, Pennsylvania prison authorities did not extend that "courtesy."

That "courtesy" came from William Yohn, the federal District Court judge who voided Abu-Jamal’s death sentence after finding errors in the 1982 jury deliberations resulting in Abu-Jamal receiving the death penalty.

Yohn granted a request from Philadelphia’s then District Attorney Lynne Abraham, who wanted to keep the outspoken author/activist in solitary death row confinement during her appeal of Yohn’s ruling.

Author J. Patrick O’Connor, in his probative book “The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal, wrote that Abraham, “in a particularly spiteful maneuver,” requested that Yohn stay his order lifting Abu-Jamal’s death sentence and, “incredibly,” Yohn agreed.

With that "courtesy" Yohn allowed Abu-Jamal to suffer death row deprivations despite his judicial determination that Abu-Jamal had unjustly spent nearly twenty-years in solitary confinement due to that legally flawed sentence.

Abraham, in the wake of Yohn’s ruling, had blasted him.

An angry Abraham, in December 2001, said she was “completely dismayed” that Yohn had granted “any relief whatsoever.”

Abraham’s reaction ignored the fact that federal district and appellate courts in Philadelphia had cited penalty phase errors (the same failing Yohn found in Abu-Jamal’s case) in two of the four death sentences those courts voided between May and November 2001.

Maureen Faulkner, the widow of slain Officer Daniel Faulkner, had also blasted Yohn, calling him a “sick and twisted person,” despite Yohn dismissing 28 of the 29 appeal claims raised by Abu-Jamal, including all claims regarding his conviction, which if accepted could have led to a new trial for Abu-Jamal, possibly leading to his release.

While my article inaccurately assigned that "courtesy" off keeping Abu-Jamal on death row to prison authorities instead of Yohn, the article did accurately account for the wasted costs of that "courtesy."

Keeping Abu-Jamal on death row for an additional decade cost Pennsylvania taxpayers at least $100,000 because the state's prison system spends at last an extra ten thousand dollars per year over the cost of incarcerating ordinary prisoners to handle each death row inmate.

In early December 2011, prison authorities finally shifted Abu-Jamal from death row into more harshly restrictive Administrative Custody (a/k/a The Hole) hours after Philadelphia’s DA announced he would not seek reinstatement of a death sentence.

Yohn’s 2001 ruling required the DA to either hold a mini-trial in an effort to obtain a new death sentence from a new jury, or to accept a sentence of life imprisonment. The federal Third Circuit Appeals Court twice upheld Yohn’s ruling and the U.S. Supreme Court finally ended appeals of Yohn’s ruling last fall.

One of the many problems with the Abu-Jamal case is the refusal of police, prosecutors, prison authorities and judges to acknowledge mistakes or worse, misconduct -- both things that are not harmless.

Yohn, for example, made “several” mistakes in that 2001 ruling “on questions of constitutional rights central to commonly held concepts of justice,” as my TCBH colleague Dave Lindorff put it in his seminal book Killing Time: An Investigation Into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Lindorff presented a disturbing, thorough analysis of Yohn’s flawed dismissal of Abu-Jamal’s jury selection discrimination appeal claims in his 2003 book.

The Third Circuit rejected Abu-Jamal’s jury discrimination appeal in 2008 despite the Third Circuit's having granted relief to other death row inmates he had raised identical jury discrimination claims.

In another mistake by Yohn that escaped scrutiny and correction by federal appellate judges, the respected jurist brushed-off Abu-Jamal’s claims that his attorney during the 1982 trial was legally ineffective because that lawyer was inexperienced in death penalty law, undercapitalized and lacked adequate support staff during that 1982 trial.

Yohn seized upon erroneous state court findings that attorney Anthony Jackson “had tried approximately twenty” first-degree murder cases. Pennsylvania state courts had twisted the exact testimony Jackson gave during a 1995 Post-Conviction Relief Actl hearing about his capital case experience.

During three days of testimony in July 1995, Jackson had repeatedly told Abu-Jamal’s appellate attorney Leonard Weinglass that he had tried "one or two" capital murder cases, serving as lead counsel only once.

According to transcripts from 1995, Jackson first told Abu-Jamal’s appeal attorney that he had tried one or two first-degree murder cases. On cross-examination by the prosecutor, Jackson did say he tried twenty murder cases but stressed that only “one or two” of those cases were death penalty cases…testimony the prosecutor did not challenge with contrary evidence. On re-direct from Abu-Jamal’s attorney, Jackson again said he had only handled one or two capital cases.

Jackson, also during that 1995 testimony, said he had received inadequate funding from the courts for his defense efforts, that he had no paralegals and investigators to assist him, that a Philadelphia judge rejected his request for another lawyer to assist him and at the time of Abu-Jamal’s trial he only had a part-time secretary because he had returned to private practice only months earlier.

Yohn and lower Pennsylvania state court judges rejected Jackson’s admission that he was “ineffective” during Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial, arguing that Jackson’s defense effort was legally sufficient.

Yohn asserted that “even were I to assume that Jackson was inexperienced, undercapitalized and lacked adequate support, [Abu-Jamal did not] demonstrate that there is a reasonable probability that but for these [conditions] the result of the proceeding would have been different.”

While Pennsylvania prison officials kept Abu-Jamal in solitary confinement for ten unnecessary years on Judge Yohn’s orders, his current continued solitary confinement is solely the responsibility of those prison officials.

As I reported in my article, the draconian Administrative Custody confinement rammed on Abu-Jamal by prison authorities evidences violations of the prison system’s own written regulations, because that placement does not meet any of the 11 specific circumstances listed in Pennsylvania Department of Corrections regulations used to justify administrative custody placement.

The “current rationales offered by prison officials for [Abu-Jamal’s] placement in solitary confinement do not withstand scrutiny, which lends further support to the inference that he is continuing to be targeted,” said Bret Grote, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Human Rights Coalition, during a recent interview.

Typical of Abu-Jamal’s selflessness, he directs his supporters to fight not just against his unjust confinement but also to assist the scores of other people the state's Department of Corrections unjustly holds in solitary confinement on a daily basis, according to data from HRC, a prison-monitoring organization.

Grote said prison authorities improperly use Administrative Custody to penalize inmates for their political activism, for complaining about conditions, for their roles as jailhouse lawyers and often simply for racist reasons.

Occupy The U.S. Justice Deptartment on Mumia's Birthday - April 24th, 2012

2012-01-23T21:51:00.000-05:00

From Ramona Africa:

ONA MOVE, Everybody! It's time to step up our actions on behalf of our brother freedom fighter, Mumia Abu Jamal. We need to make it crystal clear that we the people won't stand for this vindictive sadistic torturing of Mumia by those that are furious at not being able to legally murder him. You are being strongly urged to demonstrate your outrage at the torture being done to Mumia specifically and to all freedom fighters generally, by participating in an occupy for Mumia and against mass incarceration action.

We (The Occupy For Mumia Committee) are calling on people internationally to occupy The U.S. Justice Dept. on April 24th, 2012.

April 24th is Mumia's birthday, his 58th birthday. There is no better day or place to stand up for Mumia and and against the sadism of this system. There is plenty of time to prepare for it, plenty of time to organize buses, raise money for airfares and train fares, etc. People from France and Germany are already preparing to be here, so let's do this, for ourselves as much as for Mumia.

I need individuals and organizations, worldwide, to respond to this call, this email, and tell me if you are serious about being in Washington DC. on April 24th for this action. I'm looking for strong positive responses from you, ASAP

Ramona
ONAMOVELLJA@aol.com

Sunday, Feb. 5th, Philly: Book Party for Mumia's new book with Marc Lamont Hill

2012-01-23T21:49:00.000-05:00

Sunday, February 5th
5:00-7:30 pm
Dowling’s Palace - 1310 N. Broad St.

Featuring:

Marc Lamont Hill
Ramona Africa
Tony Montero
Michael Coard
Mumia’s daughter, Goldi
A Legal Update
A Movement Report-back

Free jazz begins after this event. If you enter after 7pm the jazz show is $5

Come celebrate this profound work from the brilliant minds of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Marc Lamont Hill. The DA’s office has been lying about Mumia’s character for decades. Come meet the real Mumia in his own words. Join the movement to free this innocent man and oppose the “New Jim Crow” - the Prison Industrial Complex!

To see Marc Lamont Hill's powerful speech at the December 9th Mumia event, go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_dPZk6pfxI

To read a review of "The Classroom and the Cell," go here:
http://truththroughstruggle.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/the-classroom-the-cell-and-the-street/

Sponsored by International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the MOVE Organization, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC), Educators for Mumia, the International Action Center

freemumia.com 267-760-7344 icffmaj@aol.com

Philly Press Conference to Demand an End to Mumia's Torturous Isolation!

2012-01-23T21:47:00.002-05:00

UPDATED

Thursday, January 26, 2012

There will be a press conference this Thursday, January 26, at the AFSC, at 1501 Cherry Street (Philly) at 10 AM (note new time). Our focus will be to call for Mumia's immediate transfer into general population.

There will be a second press conference at Camp Hill, headquarters of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, and where Secretary John Wetzel has his office, at 2 PM. We will be delivering letters from lawyers' organizations and from Mumia supporters to John 0Wetzel at the press conference.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE PRESS CONFERENCE AT CAMP HILL WAS ORGINALLY SCHEDULED FOR FRIDAY, JANUARY 27. BOTH PRESS CONFERENCES ARE NOW SCHEDULED FOR THE SAME DAY, THURSDAY JANUARY 26.

*Please alert your media contacts*

Since Mumia's death sentence was dropped on December 7th he's been held in isolation under conditions far worse than those on death row. On Friday, 1/27 a delegation of supporters and prison rights activists will travel to Camp Hill prison to take our demands directly to the Department of Corrections. We will deliver our letters and petitions to demand an end to these conditions for Mumia and all prisoners being tortured in isolation.

Go here to sign the petition:
https://www.change.org/petitions/transfer-and-assign-mumia-abu-jamal-to-general-population

Mumia was held in solitary confinement on death row for over ten years despite a standing court order declaring his death sentence illegal. He is now being punished because the District Attorney and Fraternal Order of Police are defeated in legally lynching him. Now the state is trying to silence Mumia by other means. He is currently being held in degrading, torturous Adminstrative Custody (AC) at SCI Mahanoy, a medium security prison. The Department of Corrections has bogus excuses for why Mumia is not in general population with contact visits, phone calls, and his legal, reading, and writing materials. Instead Mumia is in "the hole,” shackeled whenever he's outside his cell (even to the shower), glaring lights 24/7, no regular phone calls, restrictive visits, inadequate commissary, no access to his materials and denied his typewriter. The Department of Corrections is subjecting Mumia to daily conditions that are more onerous than death row!

These are the conditions in the Restricted Housing Units called Administrative Custody, Disciplinary Custody, and Special Management Unit. They are designed to torture and we demand that they be shut down!

This issue is critical to the fight to free Mumia from prison. Mumia is innocent. He was framed up by the police, District Attorney, and a racist judge for being a political opponent of the government. Mumia will not be silenced. Stop the torture!

267-760-7344 icffmaj@aol.com freemumia.com

Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Crime of Solitary Confinement

2012-01-22T09:52:00.000-05:00

From Prison Radio Project:

There is no dream too big and no action too small, let's keep at it till the walls crumble.
– Bret Grote, Human Rights Coalition

An interview with Bret Grote by Hans Bennett of Prison Radio
In this interview we speak with Bret Grote from Human Rights Coalition (HRC), who's website describes itself as "a group of predominately prisoners' families, ex-prisoners and some supporters," whose "ultimate goal is to abolish prisons." HRC seeks "to empower prisoners' families to be leaders in prison organizing, while at the same time reduce the shame of having a loved one in prison or being formerly incarcerated," and "to make visible to the public the injustice and abuse that are common practice throughout our judicial and prison systems across the country, and eventually end those abuses." Learn more at www.hrcoalition.org.

Prison Radio:         Supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal argue that his current time in the hole is a form of retaliation for his being a longtime political activist. In his recent article entitled, "Sadism in the Cell: Thanks to a Vindictive Prison System, Abu-Jamal is Still in `The Hole,'" Linn Washington Jr. contextualizes recent events by documenting a long history of repression, ultimately arguing that "while Abu-Jamal detractors indignantly dismiss all claims of his being a political prisoner, his post-arrest ordeals provide a compelling case of a person specifically targeted by authorities for who he is politically more than for the crime he is supposedly serving time for." Why do you think it is that Mumia is currently being held in "Administrative Custody?"

Bret Grote:    In regard to Mumia, the inference should always be that the government is targeting him because of his politics due to the more than forty years that federal agents, Philadelphia police and prosecutors, governors of Pennsylvania, and prison officials have been conspiring to silence him. The current rationales offered by prison officials for his placement in solitary confinement do not withstand scrutiny, which lends further support to the inference that he is continuing to be targeted.

First, they asserted that they were waiting for the filing of paperwork by the District Attorney's office of Philadelphia so that his sentence would be formally changed from death to life without the possibility of parole. According to information available on the DOC's website, however, all death-sentenced prisoners are held on death row at State Correctional Institution (SCI) Greene or SCI Graterford. Abu-Jamal was removed from death row virtually as soon as Philadelphia DA Seth Williams announced he would not seek to re-impose the death penalty. If the prison were in fact waiting for a formal re-sentencing prior to placement in general population, Mumia would still be on death row.

Second, they have recently decided that his hair exceeds the regulatory length and that he needs this cut. It took them five weeks to notify him of this. Obviously, the length of Mumia's hair was not unknown to prison officials. In fact, he was held on disciplinary status while on death row earlier during his confinement for eight years, although he was removed from that status-without cutting his hair-in the early-90s at some point.

The shifting rationales indicate that they are digging their heels in and seem prepared to try to continue subjecting Mumia to solitary confinement torture, which has been his fate for thirty years.

It is important to note that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture has recently declared that, in his opinion, prolonged solitary confinement of more than fifteen days violates article 1 (prohibiting torture) or 16 (prohibiting other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment) of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment. He further stated that the Convention is violated when solitary confinement is imposed as punishment. These standards applied to U.S. prisons renders the overwhelming majority of solitary confinement practices criminal.

PR:     Can you please tell us more about how PA Prisons use solitary confinement and what are called "Restrictive Housing Units." How is it used? Against whom? Are there other examples of solitary confinement punishment being used to retaliate against political activists?

BG:     While the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PA DOC) operates in a seemingly arbitrary nature, there are some factors that place prisoners at high-risk for being kept in long-term solitary confinement: 1) political activism and jailhouse lawyering; 2) race; and 3) mental illness.

To start with, those who file grievances about staff misconduct and abuse, or file lawsuits about civil and human rights violations, are routinely subjected to repressive treatment. Pennsylvania is far from alone in this practice. Professor of Corrections and Correctional Law at Minnesota State University, James Robertson, has stated that "Retaliation is deeply engrained in the correctional office subculture; it may well be in the normative response when an inmate files a grievance, a statutory precondition for filing a civil rights action." He also refers to a survey of Ohio prisoners that found "that 70.1% of inmates who brought grievances indicated that they had suffered retaliation thereafter; moreover, 87% of all respondents and nearly 92% of the inmates using the grievance process agreed with the statement, `I believe staff will retaliate or get back at me if I use the grievance process.' [FN18] Among staff supervisors, only 21% believed that retaliation never happened, with one warden characterizing it as `commonplace' when inmates resort to the grievance process." As Robertson says, guards who retaliate "cannot be regarded as rogue actors. They act within the norm." ("One of the Dirty Secrets of American Corrections": Retaliation, Surplus Power, and Whistleblowing Inmates, 42 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 611 (2009)).

Russell Maroon Shoats, a former Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army member who has been incarcerated in PA prisons for almost 40 years is a prominent example of a political prisoner targeted for repression via placement in long-term solitary. Maroon has been held in the hole for more than twenty years and has not had a misconduct citation during that time. Although it is true that he escaped in the late 70s and early 80s, prison officials have told supporters and family that he is being kept in solitary because he is an organizer and a leader.

Andre Jacobs and Carrington Keys, two members of a group of prisoners known as the Dallas 6, have been held in solitary for approximately 11 and 9 years respectively as a result of their speaking out against torture and other human rights violations inside PA's control units.

Damont Hagan is another who has been continually targeted for his outspokenness, including a recent incident where he was assaulted and placed in a cell with nooses at SCI Huntingdon. He was recently held in the solitary units at SCI Cresson, a prison that the Justice Department has announced an investigation into, in part due to the guard-encouraged suicide of John McClellan in May 2011.

Caine Pelzer, Ravanna Spencer, Rhonshawn Jackson, Michael Edwards, Jerome Coffey, Andre Gay, Kerry Shakaboona Marshall, and countless others have been thrown into solitary for the sole purpose of breaking their spirit. Look them up on the PA DOC inmate locator and send them a letter.

Regarding race, the disparities within the solitary confinement population may be the most extreme in the entire criminal legal system, which is saying a lot. We do not know the exact figures because the demographics are not public, but reports of solitary units overwhelmingly comprised of people of color in PA prisons are common.

Over the last thirty-plus years there has been a national trend of warehousing those with mental health needs inside prisons. These people often end up in prison because of their difficulties in adapting to life outside the walls, often because of experiences of childhood trauma and substance abuse, and their challenges in navigating social life is even more difficult inside the walls. The stresses of prison can lead to them getting in trouble with prison authorities due to an inability to follow the rules, which leads them to solitary, which leads to a worsening of their underlying psychological state. This cycle of dysfunction is a normative feature of prison systems across the U.S.

This nexus of retaliation, racism, and abuse of the mentally ill is widespread in PA prisons, and there is no shortage of examples to be found by reviewing the weekly PA Prison Reports on our website.

PR:     Besides solitary confinement, what other aspects of PA prisons does HRC identify as human rights violations?

BG:     Some of the obvious examples include physical abuse, medical neglect, racial discrimination, and sexual violence, all of which are chronic issues in prisons within Pennsylvania and beyond. In regard to the latter, a guard at SCI Pittsburgh was recently indicted on about 100 counts related to his rape and torture of prisoners at that facility. This is also being investigated by the Justice Department. This story has been suppressed in the national media, a phenomenon commented on by Mumia (1,2), in what can only be understood as yet another example of the corporate media's complicity in enabling torture in U.S. prisons.

Of course, race-based policies of mass incarceration violate the human right of equality under the law and the right to be free from racial discrimination. Michelle Alexander refers to this aspect of the U.S. prison nation as "the new Jim Crow." Under international law it is known as apartheid, and it is prohibited under the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. The United States has never signed or ratified the convention for reasons that should be obvious enough.

Pennsylvania is the world leader in another egregious human rights abuse: sending children to prison for the rest of their lives. There are more than 400 people in PA prisons who were sentenced for crimes allegedly committed when they were younger than 18. In this state, life means life, an utterly despicable practice that makes a cruel mockery of any pretense that the society we inhabit is humane, enlightened, or fair.

Also of great importance in any discussion of the criminal legal system is the series of laws that enable "legal" discrimination against formerly incarcerated people, prohibiting them from obtaining access to food, housing, employment, stripping people of their right to vote in many states (though not PA) and setting them up for a life of poverty that guarantees high recidivism rates. This should be understood as a matter of deliberate policy, as it has been going on so long that it cannot plausibly be an unintended consequence of an otherwise sound system.

The system works to violate human rights in such a comprehensive manner, from the socio-economic conditions that give rise to property and drug crimes and related acts of violence to the damaging and anti-human conditions inside the walls, and then to be released into a life of second-class status, enforced poverty, and political disenfranchisement, that it is hard to see how it is `legal' in anything but pretense.

PR:     How is Human Rights Coalition working with PA prisoners and their families to improve conditions for PA prisoners?

In Pittsburgh and Philly we have weekly letter-writing to prisoners nights. Visit our website (Pittsburgh or Philly) to learn more and email us at hrcfedup@gmail.com or info@hrcoalition.org. We are constantly receiving phone calls and emails from people looking to advocate for their loved ones. In 2011 we initiated a Political Action Committee in order to be better organized through the building of a membership base and engaging in consistent acts of advocacy, education events, and building other campaigns. The PAC is in real need of some committed organizers to help us build momentum.

One of the campaigns we've been increasingly involved with here in Pittsburgh is Decarcerate PA, which was started in Philadelphia. While the broader vision is to push for decarceration – shrinking the prison population, closing prisons, redirecting social resources to programs that care for people and communities – the immediate objective is to push back against planned prison expansion. The state of Pennsylvania is sinking some $685 million into building two new prisons and expanding a host of others. If more people are continually sent into these hellholes, then our efforts to improve conditions in any given situation will be futile.

PR:     What is HRC doing specifically to challenge the use of solitary confinement?

BG:     Aside from public education and advocacy, we are working to develop a legislative campaign with allied organizations such as the American Friends Service Committee, the NationalReligious Campaign Against Torture, and the ACLU. While it is still in the planning stages, this campaign can be useful as a means for furthering political organizing objectives.

Ultimately, any efforts to push back against torture and get people out of prison is contingent upon the wholesale removal from power of both corporate-backed imperial parties, the redistribution and redefinition of political power, and the elimination of an economic system with its roots in the market, replaced by one that has its roots in the earth. Anything less spells certain doom for our specific efforts to abolish solitary confinement, mass incarceration, and prisons, as well as our very survival on this planet.

PR:     HRC is also now starting a campaign to have Russell Shoats transferred out of solitary confinement at SCI-Greene. How can our readers support this?

BG:     Russell Shoats, discussed above, is a co-founder of HRC who has spent 20 years in the hole as a consequence of his principles and resistance to the inhumanity and criminality of this system. He is a 68-year-old revolutionary who has taught and inspired countless other prisoners and activists inside and outside the walls.

Along with HRC, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the National Lawyers Guild have submitted letters to the PA DOC requesting that Maroon be released into general population.

Supporters can visit a recently-created website and click the "Follow" link at the bottom right to receive email updates when new postings are available. There is a sample letter on the site, and soon more material will be added. A new interview was just posted where Maroon discusses his thoughts on the importance of democracy and self-determination to movement building, the power of the feminist movement and matriarchal politics, Occupy Wall Street, and the imperative of centering food security (and square-foot gardening) in our movements.

PR:     Anything else to add?

BG:     It is absolutely critical to the fate of movements for social justice in this country that the situation of prisoners and the function of prisons in the social order take a central role in our analysis and practice. Everybody can correspond with a prisoner, help out a local group, get on email lists, and research the reality of the prison nation. It is not the land of the free, never was, never was intended to be, and the sooner we disabuse those around us of that notion the better chance there is to win some badly-needed victories. There is no dream too big and no action too small, let's keep at it till the walls crumble.

KEEP CALLING AND WRITING JOHN WETZEL, PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS SECRETARY

John Wetzel, Secretary Department of Corrections
2520 Lisburn Road
P.O. Box 598, Camp Hill, PA 17001-0598
(717) 975-4928
Email: ra-contactdoc@pa.gov

Urgent Message Regarding Mumia

2012-01-22T09:50:00.000-05:00

As most of you already know, Mumia was transferred to SCI-Mahanoy in upstate PA. more than a month ago, directly after Phila. prosecutor Seth Williams announced that he wasn't pursuing the death penalty in Mumia's case. This meant that Mumia's sentence went from death to life in prison without parole. Since arriving at SCI-Mahanoy, Mumia has been in the hole, on AC (administrative custody) status, solitary confinement, even though there is no valid reason for him to be in the hole. The conditions are tortuous and much worse than the conditions on death row. These conditions have been condemned by the United Nations as tortuous. Since arriving at Mahanoy, Superintendent John Kerestes and his staff have gone from one thing to the next to vent their fury and racism on Mumia. First they claimed to be waiting on paperwork that Mumia's sentence is a life sentence and not death, but Mahanoy has no death chamber so Mumia would never be sent there if he still had a death sentence. When people saw right through that, Kerestes said that Mumia has to cut his hair before going into general population, now he's saying that Mumia has to let them take his blood (something Mumia really doesn't want to do) before he can be in general population. Mumia has been in prison for 30 years so why this sudden demand for his blood now. It is crystal clear that Kerestes and his staff are doing everything they can to keep Mumia in the hole under these tortuous conditions, and it's all rooted in racism and their fury at all the world-wide attention that stays focused on Mumia, after all these years. They're furious that their plan to legally kill Mumia ain't working. They're torturing Mumia for the same reason the Romans tortured Jesus Christ, because he won't go along with the lies of the system and racism. Prison policy has nothing to do with what they're doing to Mumia and everybody should be clear on this. We must be vigilant over Mumia, including organizations that can visit him on an official basis. We must continue to flood Supt. Kerestes with calls and emails. Mumia is up in serious racist KKK territory and we must have his back. We've brought Mumia too far to get lax now. Remember, the power of the people is a force to be reckoned with when the power of the people stays consistent and united.

International Concerned Family And Friends Of Mumia Abu Jamal and

The Move Organization

HOW TO TAKE ACTION:

Write, Phone, and Email the Secretary of Corrections. Demand that Mumia be transferred to General Population! And demand the shutdown of RHU (Restricted Housing Unit) Torture Blocks!

John Wetzl, Secretary Department of Corrections
2520 Lisburn Road, P.O. Box 598 Camp Hill, PA 17001-0598
(717) 975-4928
Email: ra-contactdoc@pa.gov

Write, Phone, and Email the Superintendent:

John Kerestes, Superintendent
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932
(570) 773-2158 - Fax: (570) 783-2008

Write, Phone, and Email the Philadelphia DA. Demand that they petition the court to free Mumia, based on suppression of evidence. They have buried evidence and the truth for 30 years. The police corruption and the frame up of Mumia must be exposed.

Seth Williams, DA Philadelphia
Three South Penn Square
Philadelphia, PA 19107-3499
(215) 686-8000
Email: DA_Central@phila.gov

Finally, send Mumia a note or a card:

Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932

There also is a petition up at: https://www.change.org/petitions/transfer-and-assign-mumia-abu-jamal-to-general-population

Department of Corrections claims Mumia is in solitary because of his dreadlocks

2012-01-22T09:48:00.000-05:00

From Prison Radio Project:

Mumia and supporters renew request to close torture units in PA prisons

In a statement issued late Thursday, January 12, an attorney for Mumia Abu-Jamal reported that he has been given a new reason for his continued solitary confinement - his long dreadlocks.

Prison authorities at SCI Mahanoy claim Abu-Jamal will be held in the Restricted Housing Unit on disciplinary custody until he cuts his hair. This is an old tactic that was used against Mumia when he was a death row prisoner. He spent 8 years on disciplinary status in death row until he was removed from that status--without getting a haircut--in the early 1990s.

It has taken prison officials five weeks to invent this new pretext for continuing the 30-year-long solitary confinement torture of Abu-Jamal. Mumia and his supporters are calling for his immediate release to general population and the shut down of all of the solitary units in PA.

Sign a petition to transfer Mumia out of the hole.

Read and forward this press release from the National Lawyers Guild: "After death row transfer, NLG VP Mumia Abu-Jamal languishes in solitary"

Contact Department of Corrections officials and let them know you are not fooled and will not tolerate efforts to silence and torture Mumia:

1) Write, Phone, and email the Secretary of Corrections: Demand that Mumia be transferred to General Population! And demand the shutdown of RHU (Restricted Housing Unit) Torture Blocks!

John Wetzl, Secretary Department of Corrections
2520 Lisburn Road, P.O. Box 598, Camp Hill, PA 17001-0598
(717) 975-4928 Email: ra-contactdoc@pa.gov

2) Write, Phone, and email the Superintendent:
John Kerestes, Superintendent
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932
(570) 773-2158 Fax: (570) 783-2008

3) Write, Phone, and email the Philadelphia DA. Demand that they petition the court to free Mumia, based on suppression of evidence. They have buried evidence and the truth for 30 years. The police corruption and the frame up of
Mumia must be exposed.

Seth Williams, DA Philadelphia
Three South Penn Square
Philadelphia, PA 19107-3499
(215) 686-8000 Email: DA_Central@phila.gov

and finally, send Mumia a note or a card:

Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932

Visit Prison Radio to listen to Mumia's radio commentaries

Visit HRC's website to learn about the reality of solitary confinement torture in PA.

The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America: A Review

2012-01-22T09:44:00.000-05:00

From: http://www.dominionofnewyork.com/book-review/the-classroom-and-the-cell-conversations-on-black-life-in-america-a-review/#.TxdkFiPRA7A

By Terrenda White

More than 10 years ago, I first heard someone speak of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His name wasn’t spoken really, as much as it was chanted, by a chorus of others who displayed large banners reading, “FREE MUMIA!”

It was 2001 and I was in Durban, South Africa attending the World Conference Against Racism. At the time, I thought it odd that one man had galvanized so many, and on such an international scale—I was literally on the other side of the planet learning about the unjust conviction, incarceration, and looming death of a Philadelphia journalist and former Black Panther, Mumia Abu-Jamal.

But while many supporters continue to speak out, or chant passionately, on behalf of Abu-Jamal’s freedom and the cause he represents, there is nothing more powerful than the words he speaks himself.

In The Classroom and The Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America, Abu-Jamal dialogues with Columbia University Professor Marc Lamont Hill, a scholar-activist and eloquent speaker himself, on matters of politics, culture, love, and black liberation.

Together, the two men seem to vibe on almost every aspect of contemporary life in America—pushing the reader beyond renderings of Abu-Jamal as a slogan or symbol for a single cause, and inviting us to engage with him on matters which extend beyond the prison cell.

There are important chapters on incarceration and the specter of execution which Abu-Jamal has faced until recently. (In December, after 30 years on Death Row, Abu-Jamal’s death sentence was commuted to life without parole.) But, the majority of this book –eight chapters in all—touches on identity, race in the age of Obama, hip-hop and black cultural politics, education, black love, and masculinity.

Despite Abu-Jamal’s more than 30-years of incarceration, he shares with Hill remarkably current, empathetic, and courageous thoughts on life. He also shares hope. In many instances, the older Abu-Jamal affirms the younger Hill, encouraging the professor to work through the unique challenges of being a public intellectual. An interesting exchange occurs, when Abu-Jamal, responding to Hill’s existential question of ‘Who are you?’ responds, ‘I am a free Black man living in captivity.’ With powerful irony, Hill replies:

When I think about myself, all sorts of words come to mind. Depending on the situation, I would say things like “father,” “activist,” “writer,” or “professor.” But “free” is one thing I wouldn’t say for myself. In fact, I would describe you as being far freer than me. I can’t avoid seeing the irony that you’re in prison but somehow still free, while I’m out here feeling profoundly un-free.

Though coming-of-age a generation apart, the two men share a deep knowledge of black revolutionary politics which continues to shape their activism and scholarship today. Both natives of Philadelphia, they are two men whom W.E.B Dubois might call Philadelphia Negroes of the 21st century. Abu-Jamal was influenced by the Black Panthers and the writings of Huey P. Newton, and Hill by the cultural nationalism of black religious groups and later by hip-hop culture. Those experiences enrich their debate over black cultural politics and the changing notion of revolution.

Abu-Jamal reminds us that revolution in the late 60s was more than a metaphor for innovative cultural forms and represented an impending sense of real political change. While Hill agrees that youth culture today,
such as hip-hop, deserves serious critique and that much of its content is commercial, he says its form is revolutionary nonetheless. Hill argues, moreover, that it’s misguided to expect today’s black art forms to bear so much responsibility for change, particularly since real political struggle and black organized revolutionary change (characteristic of Abu-Jamal’s generation) are woefully absent.

One particularly insightful conversation between Abu-Jamal and Hill is their discussion of incarceration and prison reform. They attribute the explosion in incarceration over the past thirty years, for example, not only to problematic public policies such as the war on drugs, but also to postindustrial macroeconomic shifts that have reduced the employment prospects of black men in urban areas.

Though Abu-Jamal and Hill are deeply reflective on racism and its dehumanizing impact on black men and women, they equally share a strong critique of black bourgeoisie society. Indeed, the men ponder the social-spatial and cultural distance of poor blacks (the “lumpen-proleteriat”) from the rest of middle class black community. The eradication of the prison industrial complex, they acknowledge, will require the mobilization of an otherwise complacent professional group of middle class blacks (a point they recognize is highlighted by Michelle Alexander in The New Jim Crow).

As the book moves to its end, both men reveal personal aspects of their individual struggles and limitations, letting down the walls of their public personas, as they discuss issues of love, sex, and masculinity. Hill argues – somewhat to Abu-Jamal’s surprise — that the construct of “masculinity” may be unsalvageable, because it is rooted too deeply in patriarchy and violence.

Throughout the book, the discussion between the two men is constructive, not combative. They seem to genuinely learn from one another and build on each other’s ideas. Through their candid and rigorous conversations, the reader learns a lot. Plus, each chapter ends with a recommended reading list of critical books that have informed their perspectives.

While Jamal will avoid execution, he is experiencing what Desmond Tutu calls “yet another form of death sentence,” life without parole. The movement to free Abu-Jamal wages on, therefore, until his wrongful conviction is overturned completely.

Paradoxically, despite the daunting struggle which lies ahead for Abu-Jamal, the book ends with Hill leaning on him for guidance and hope. Having faced the threat of death for what amounts to my total years living on earth, Abu-Jamal reminds Hill, and thus the reader, of the incredible resilience of our ancestors and their sustaining powers of love and joy.

From his cell, Abu-Jamal reminds us that, “Whether it’s making jokes while sitting on death row, singing sorrow songs while working on a slave plantation, or everyday Black people living under hellish conditions, we’ve always managed to retrieve joy from a pile of misery.” I have no doubt that Abu-Jamal will be legally and physically liberated from his hellish misery one day—hopefully in the near future. Ironically, he is as mentally free in consciousness as any of us are now, perhaps more so.

From Berlin:Mumia and Johanna Fernandez at Rosa Luxemburg Conference

2012-01-22T09:43:00.000-05:00

Letter to Suzanne Ross of Free Mumia Coalition NYC:

Dear Suzanne,

I'm sure you remember the trouble with last year's Rosa Luxemburg Conference. Thanks to your effort and a bit of persistance on our side we managed to have a great event on Mumia this year.

Mumia wrote a speech from A.C., which his daughter and Francis Goldin spoke for him. Johanna Fernandez came over and gave a brilliant speech. On the next day we went with her to the Luxemburg-Liebknecht demonstration and afterwards to the Berlin leg of global action day by the Occupy Movement where she spoke, too. People were delighted.

Mumia Abu-Jamal - Beitrag für die Rosa-Luxemburg-Konferenz,
Berlin am 14.1.2012 (engl)

Johanna Fernandez on Mumia Abu-Jamal (Berlin, January 2012) - Part 1 (engl)

Johanna Fernandez on Mumia Abu-Jamal (Berlin, January 2012) - Part 2 (engl)

Johanna Fernandez in discussion with Berlin audiance on Mumia Abu-Jamal - Jan 2012 (engl and german)

Thank you for "coming to our rescue" last year. That was the foundation for this year's event, which really inspired many people and came just in time to push forward. I'm sure Mumia and the SCI Mahanoy will get a lot of post in the next days. We are mobilizing for a demonstration on April 21 over here - and something other in April, which I will write about later.

Greetings from all of us,

Gregor

London 2/4 All Day Mumia Abu-Jamal Event

2012-01-22T09:37:00.000-05:00

Mumia Abu Jamal All Day event

Sat 4th February 11am to 1pm then 2-5pm

BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road SE1
Tube: Waterloo
www.bfi.org.uk

Admission £5.00 best to book early

A day of films and discussion about Mumia Abu-Jamal, civil rights campaigner currently serving a life sentence in the US

Join part or the whole day - the main film will take place in the afternoon.

Morning:11am-1pm

Welcome / brief intro duction giving background for JUSTICE DENIED documentary, hitherto unseen film featuring last video appearance of Mumia (on Death Row) .

JUSTICE DENIED screening.

Panel discussion featuring Avery Gordon ( Professor of Sociologist UCLA ) , Chair Colin Prescod (Institue of Race Relations ) to respond to questions raised by the film and its wider context in US and UK

Afternoon 2pm :

IN PRISON MY WHOLE LIFE

I was born in London on December 9th 1981. Over 3000 miles away Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Black Panther and radical journalist, was arrested for the murder of a police officer in Philadelphia. He claimed he was innocent but was sentenced to death and has been awaiting execution ever since. Over the years, he has attracted massive international support from organisations like Amnesty International and world leaders like Nelson Mandela amongst others. I'm now 24 years old and in that time Mumia has become the most famous and controversial death row inmate in America".

Despite his situation, and against all odds, Mumia has managed to penetrate the consciousness of people like Will. Through his writings and his web and radio broadcasts from Death Row, he has become known to many as "the Voice of the Voiceless".

"In Prison My Whole Life" takes us to some surprising places and brings us into contact with some of America's most original minds. Never-seen-before footage and brand new evidence create a prevailing case for reasonable doubt while exploring the socio-political climate of America past and present. Angela Davis, Mos Def, Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Snoop Dogg, Steve Earle, Amy Goodman and many others take us through a decades-old struggle for equality, fairness and respect that so many Americans strive for to this day

Followed by panel discussion with Avery Gordon, Colin Prescod , Director Marc Evans, Producer Livia Firth

Focus of the discussion will be
To consider the events subsequent to Mumia coming off Death Row,
The wider history of the Civil Rights movement and its relation to prison system,
UK prison system

Tickets for the morning session are £3.00 and £5.00 for the afternoon session
BOX OFFICE 0207 928 3232

Thanks to a Vindictive Prison System, Mumia's Still in the Hole

2012-01-22T09:35:00.000-05:00

from counterpunch:

January 18, 2012
Sadism in the Cell

by Linn Washington, Jr.

Those intent on tormenting now ex-death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal have done it again, this time perhaps even exceeding their past efforts to painfully harass this man widely perceived as a political prisoner.

The latest punitive slap involves Pennsylvania prison authorities throwing Abu-Jamal into “Administrative Custody,” more commonly known as ‘The Hole.’

The draconian constraints of AC placement surpass the harsh restrictions of the death row isolation Abu-Jamal has endured for over a quarter century.

A jury sentenced Abu-Jamal to death following a controversial July 1982 conviction for killing a Philadelphia policeman.

No surprise that this latest punitive assault against Abu-Jamal has his worldwide support movement in an uproar. Supporters see AC placement as retaliation by those incensed that Abu-Jamal is no longer facing execution.

Energizing supporters is the opposite of what Philadelphia’s District Attorney Seth Williams said he desired when he announced last month that his office would not seek reinstitution of Abu-Jamal’s death sentence. At the time, DA Williams said he hoped avoiding a rehearing on the death sentence would consign Abu-Jamal to obscurity.

Pennsylvania’s governor and the president of Philadelphia’s police union also used the word obscurity when voicing their hopes that the life sentence for Abu-Jamal would decimate his cause célèbre status among death penalty abolitions worldwide.

Prison authorities removed Abu-Jamal from death row mere hours after the Philadelphia DA’s December announcement, transferring him to an Administrative Custody cell block inside the same super-max Greene prison located more than 300-miles from Philadelphia in southwest Pennsylvania.

Prison officials rejected the standard procedure of placing Abu-Jamal in general population, the status for all inmates not sentenced to death.

Significantly, inmates in general population have full privileges to visitation (contact, not conjugal contact), telephone and commissary, along with access to all prison programs and services.

Administrative Custody restrictions, on the other hand, are punitive in nature, including a limited number of visits, no telephone calls (except legal or emergency) and limitations on access to legal materials needed for appeals.

Sue Bensinger, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, declined comment on Abu-Jamal’s case citing the Department’s “security and privacy” regulations.

Bensinger did confirm that authorities now hold Abu-Jamal in Mahanoy, a medium security prison about 100 miles from Philadelphia in central Pennsylvania. Mahanoy, by Department regulation, cannot hold death row prisoners.

DoC personnel moved Abu-Jamal to Mahanoy from Greene prison during an unannounced pre-dawn transfer on December 14, 2011.

Abu-Jamal’s December removal from death row was in belated compliance with federal court rulings voiding Abu-Jamal’s death sentence. That sentence launched Abu-Jamal’s decade’s long grind on Pennsylvania’s death row – an ordeal that a string of federal court rulings since 2001 have declared to have been reached illegally and unconstitutionally.

When a federal District Court judge voided Abu-Jamal’s death sentence in December 2001, converting it to a life sentence, Pennsylvania prison authorities refused to remove him from death row. Authorities justified their refusal to transfer Abu-Jamal into general population from death row in 2001 as extending a “courtesy” to Philadelphia’s District Attorney’s Office, to that city’s police union (the Fraternal Order of Police) and to the widow of the slain officer.

The FOP, the widow and the DA’s Office, including Williams and his predecessor Lynne Abraham, actively lobbied year after year for Abu-Jamal’s continuance on death row during their unsuccessful appeals of that 2001 ruling ending his capital sentence.

Those malicious demands for Abu-Jamal’s continued death row confinement sought to inflict increased suffering through keeping Abu-Jamal mired in the deprivations of death row isolation.

That “courtesy” also cost taxpayers at least $100,000, because it costs Pennsylvania’s prison system an extra ten thousand dollars per year to handle each death row inmate, according to prison system spokespersons.

That “courtesy” cost adds to the enormous expenditures Philadelphia prosecutors have made fighting in courts to block Abu-Jamal’s efforts to win a retrial where a jury could hear what that 1982 jury did not: evidence of innocence withheld by police and prosecutors.

As an example of the addional restrictions administrative custody imposes on Abu-Jamal, the acclaimed prison author/journalist now has no access to books, a radio and a typewriter – all items he utilized on death row for his writings.

A federal appeals court in 1998 stated Abu-Jamal had a First Amendment right to write while imprisoned. That ruling derailed efforts by detractors to bar Abu-Jamal’s writing.

Legal experts familiar with Abu-Jamal’s plight say some of those current Administrative Custody restrictions – particularly those blocking his ability to write – arguably violate that 1998 appeals court ruling.

Under current AC status, authorities force Abu-Jamal to wear shackles during the limited visits he’s permitted. Under administrative custody restrictions, his visits are actually less frequent and of shorter duration than were his highly restrictive death row visitations.

Prison authorities had stopped shackling Abu-Jamal during death row visits a few years ago, following complaints from Noble Peace Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. Tutu, during a visit to the famous inmate, refused to see him until the shackles, which Tutu declared were a gratuitous torture, were removed.

In an interesting twist, Maureen Faulkner, the slain officer’s widow, expressed her desire in December for having Abu-Jamal placed in general population where, she said, he would live among the “criminals that infest” Pennsylvania’s prisons. Faulkner has been at the forefront of past punitive efforts against Abu-Jamal, including the legal rights-robbing onslaught that led to the 1998 federal appeals court ruling.

That 1995 onslaught was retaliation for the publication of Abu-Jamal’s book Live From Death Row, and it substantially sabotaged his pivotal hearing that year appealing his conviction. The book features essays on prison life Abu-Jamal had prepared for an NPR program that detractors successfully intimidated NPR into cancelling before it could air.

This perverse Administrative Custody confinement, the latest link in the chain of injustices lashing Abu-Jamal since his 1981 arrest, is just the latest violation by the Department of Corrections of the Pennsylvania prison system’s own written regulations for placing inmates into that harsh disciplinary status.

Abu-Jamal does not meet any of the 11 specific circumstances listed in Pennsylvania Department of Corrections regulations for justifying administrative custody placement.

A model prisoner, Abu-Jamal does not constitute “a threat” to life, property, himself, staff, other inmates, the public or orderly prison operations as the policy declaration for AC placement states.

Indeed, prison staff evaluations of Abu-Jamal since his December death row removal list him as “polite [and] respectful.” Those positive evaluations hardly offer evidence of incorrigibility or other serious misbehavior which usually triggers AC placement.

Among the ever-changing rationales prison authorities advance for keeping Abu-Jamal in AC is their curious and Kafkaesque claim that they are awaiting legal clarification that the courts have formally replaced Abu-Jamal’s death sentence with life in prison.

That claim contradicts the Department of Corrections’ own documents specifically acknowledging that federal courts have vacated the death sentence (requiring a life sentence) and that the Philadelphia’s DA has dropped appeals to reinstate the death sentence and is accepting the life imprisonment.

Since DoC documents clearly reference a vacated death sentence, how can prison officials also claim they need clarification for what is objectively obvious, unless they are using that need-for-clarification explanation to cover-up continued punitive harassment?

The mammoth legal battles raging around Abu-Jamal’s conviction obscure the smaller little-known skirmishes Abu-Jamal constantly has to fight over mundane matters like the types of food he can eat, what newspapers he can read and the permissible length of his dreadlock hair style.

In 2003 Abu-Jamal and other inmates at Greene prison asked authorities for healthier diets, prompting hundreds of activists from Germany and other countries to send letters to prison authorities supporting that dietary request which arrived containing garlic cloves in the envelopes. Activists used garlic because it is widely recognized for its medicinal properties and it makes a pungent statement.

Abu-Jamal’s current AC status once again limits his ability to obtain food from the prison commissary which he needs for his vegetarian diet.

In the late 1980s Abu-Jamal mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit against prison authorities for barring his death row receipt of a newspaper published by a socialist organization.

Prison authorities barred that newspaper by speciously deeming it a “danger” to prison security, despite their allowing non-isolation-cell inmates to receive white racist hate literature and pornography.

Those racist and pornographic publications approved for general population inmates clearly threatened security by spurring interracial tensions and homosexual rapes – unlike a leftist newspaper sent to one inmate in death row isolation.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, prison authorities disciplined Abu-Jamal for refusing to cut his dreadlocks (citing religious reasons). Authorities ultimately relented, allowing him to leave his locks uncut.

Authorities now cite Abu-Jamal’s hair length as a reason for keeping him in punitive isolation, though suspiciously, they only first offered that excuse five long weeks after his December AC placement.

While Abu-Jamal’s detractors indignantly dismiss all claims of his being a political prisoner, his post-arrest ordeals provide a compelling case of a person specifically targeted by authorities for being who he is politically more than for the crime he is supposedly serving time for.

Linn Washington, Jr. is a founder of This Can’t Be Happening and a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, forthcoming from AK Press. He lives in Philadelphia.

“Free Mumia” – MLK

2012-01-16T15:23:00.000-05:00

From nothing to be gained here:

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

“They don’t just want my death, they want my silence.” – Mumia Abu Jamal
In 1982 while driving a cab to supplement his income in order to support his family, Mumia Abu Jamal came across an altercation that his brother was having with police officer Daniel Faulkner. Mumia got out of his cab and tried to help his brother and in the process someone shot both police officer Daniel Faulkner and Mumia. Not wanting to miss an opportunity, the power elites in Philadelphia moved to frame Mumia for the murder of Daniel Faulkner. They first saw Mumia as a threat when he was 15 and the Minister Of Information for the Black Panther Party. Since then Mumia went on to become an award-winning journalist who often exposed the injustice of the power elites much to their chagrin. To say that Mumia’s case and trial was a travesty of justice is a gross understatement. To give just one example, the judge in Mumia’s case was heard saying ‘let’s fry this nigger’ while the case was still being tried.

Let’s be clear about something. Mumia did not do time on death row (his death sentence was recently commuted to life), and is not doing time in prison for the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner. Mumia has done time on death row, is doing time in prison for his politics. Mumia Abu Jamal is a political prisoner.

Read the full post at
http://nothingtobegainedhere.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/free-mumia-mlk/

"The Sting of Betrayal" by Mumia Abu-Jamal

2012-01-14T16:01:00.001-05:00

from Sis Marpessa:

Mumia's locks are an issue now because the prison is trying to justify keeping him in the hole w/o him having any infractions, so they have come up with a rule for him to violate cuz they know he will never cut his locks ... a tried and true method of sick harassment suffered by many Bros./Sis. w/locks in these prisons, and this is not the first time they've done this to Mumia during his captivity. But even before his years of torment in the belly of the prison system, his locks were an issue among those of his own people!

The following was written by Mumia in 1981 to Philly WDAS General Manager Cody Anderson, after he was fired from that radio station allegedly because he no longer fit the "image" of the station.

AN OPEN LETTER TO WDAS GENERAL MANAGER, CODY ANDERSON
- Submitted by Mumia Abu-Jamal

Several years ago, in late 1978, while working to prepare a newscast on my weekend shift at WDAS news, I turned around to see two men: then-General Manager Bob Klein and you, then-assistant G.M., Cody Anderson, standing in the doorway of the newsroom. I recall clearly that both of you had warm words of praise for me, like ``I just want to say I really like the way you do news!'', and one added, ``You really sound good!''... the words were warm, and welcoming. I smiled, thanked the both of you, and prepared the next hour's newscast.

Several days ago, you, Cody, now General Manager, remarked during a phone conversation with me, ``I respect you, and your work, Mumia, but I believe you have a problem working within the established framework...'' Sound familiar, Cody? Soon thereafter you were quoted by a 'DAS news-staffer as saying, ``He's good, but he doesn't fit the image of the station . . . it's not the image we here at 'DAS want to project.'' Is that a true, honest quotation? IMAGE? ARE WE TALKING ABOUT A RADIO STATION, OR A T.V. STATION? AND WHO'S IMAGE CAN I PROJECT, BUT MY VERY OWN?

In the past 3 years, my hair has grown long, in a form some people call `dreadlocks'. Also in that time, I have worked in `white' radio, producing pieces good enough to garner a 1980 Major Armstrong Award (1st place NEWS) along with other staffers at WUHY's 91 Report. 91 Report whipped KYW for the prize, a coveted one in the broadcast industry. In that time, members of the local Association of Black Journalists elected me President of the group. Although I worked at a so-called `white' radio station, I produced shows dealing with the depth of the African experience in America, repeated prison interviews with members of the MOVE Organization (a group largely ignored by the so-called Black media in Philadelphia since their August 8th, 1978 imprisonment), concise, sensitive coverage of their murder trial, many pieces on the housing problems of both Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey, City Council, the Republic of New Afrika, the Yoruba community in the city, the visit of Rastafarian Bob Marley, Nigerian ex-President Nnamdi Azikiwe, and countless others . . . Hugh Masakela, the Pointers, etc. WHAT IS THIS IMAGE NONSENSE?

Because a man's hair grows long, does that hamper his ability to write, report, broadcast, THINK? Why are so-called `dreadlocks' so objectionable, at a so-called `BLACK' Radio station, when it was a non-issue at a white one? Was it objectionable when, for almost 10 years, Georgie Woods wore a conk, a process? Was it objectionable when jocks at 'DAS began to sport the new fad, California Curls, another process? What about a jock who gets a hair transplant, goes under a surgical knife, to `regrow' hair? Any objection to the projection of those images? I didn't think so. When a Black man stops combing his OWN hair, which grows out of his OWN head, in the form of his fathers, and PROJECTS HIS OWN IMAGE, one as African as the African seed that produced him ANOTHER `BLACK' MAN OBJECTS! (YOU KNOW, THAT'S SOME CRAZY SHIT WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, AIN'T IT?)

Long have Blacks in Philadelphia waited for a black-owned, and black-operated radio station ... is THAT IT? IS THIS THE FUTURE THAT BLACKS LONG-AWAITED, DREAMED OF AND PRAYED FOR? BLACKS ARE IN POSITIONS OF SO-CALLED `POWER', BUT IN WHAT CONDITIONS ARE THEIR MINDS, CODY? ARE THEY STILL `WHITER THAN SNOW'? IS THIS THE NEW DAY THAT BLACKS IN THE BROADCASTING BUSINESS LONGED FOR? WHAT A SAD, PITIABLE DAY. WHAT PETTINESS!! WHAT NIGGERISM!!!!

I have been offered several jobs in TV, both here in Philadelphia and across the nation, both paying nearly $35-thousand a year. Was that enough money for me to shave my head, and slip into a 3-piece suit? Not even! And my family continues it's struggle to survive to make ends meet, like most of our people. THERE IS WORK TO BE DONE, CODY, AND AS THIS IS MY HOME, THERE IS WORK TO BE DONE RIGHT HERE AT HOME. IT IS JUST SUCH NONSENSE AS IMAGE THAT KEEPS US SEPARATED AND WEAK ... WHILE WE FIGHT EACH OTHER, WHILE SILLY-ASS POLITICIANS FIGHT EACH OTHER, WHILE MUSLIMS FIGHT BAPTISTS, BUDDHISTS OPPOSE MUSLIMS, DEMOCRATS FIGHT REPUBLICANS, NIGGERS FIGHT NIGGERS, BABIES ARE BEING MURDERED AND BURIED IN SHALLOW GRAVES BY THE SCORE! IS MY IMAGE, MY ESSENCE, CODY? IS THAT SHIT REALLY IMPORTANT AS WE, AFRICANS EVERYWHERE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL? Is it important to the people who listen to WDAS, at 29th & Dauphin, Germantown & Chelten, or 11th & Kater Sts., whether I comb my hair, or not, or whether I wear a neck-chocker, or not? Aren't they concerned about the world around them NEWS NEWINFORMATION ABOUT OUR LIVES? And who can do it better, Cody? When I worked at 'DAS, I also worked at WUHY which means I worked 7 days a week, 2 days on the weekend for WDAS, and 5 days a week for WUHY. For a measly $100 dollars a week I hustled, worked, time over over-time, newscasts, and anything else ... FOR WHAT? So News Director, Charles Harmon could come up to me, and tell me he needed ``someone more flexible''? HAVE you found it yet? Out of the countless many who have come, and gone thru that newsroom, has someone more FLEXIBLE been found? Has someone more committed, more able, been FOUND? IT WAS WRONG THEN, FORHARMON TO FIRE ME, A BULLSHIT, EMPTY REASON HE KNEW, YOU KNEW, AND I STILL KNOW, IT'S STILL WRONG! But, this time, the wrong will not be borne in silence.

I WILL NOT GRIN, AND BEAR IT, AND WAIT FOR A BETTER OFFER. I WILL NOT PRODUCE WORK MEANT FOR BLACK MINDS AND BLACK EARS, FOR A WHITE RADIO STATION. I WILL STRUGGLE, AND BATTLE, UNTIL THIS ONE WRONG, HAS BEEN RIGHTED. AS FOR MY IMAGE ... LIKE ALL LIFE FORMS, IT WILL CHANGE FOR NOTHING IN LIFE STAYS THE SAME. BUT, I WILL NOT GO UNDER THE BLADE FOR A PAYCHECK FROM YOU! I WILL BE JUDGED, ON MY WORK, MY RECORD AMONG MY PEOPLE, MY COMMITMENT TO THE RIGHTNESS OF THE STRUGGLE OF THE AFRICAN TO FIND DIGNITY WHEREVER HE WALKS, NOT ON THE SMALLNESS OF OTHERS, AND THEIR LACK OF SIGHT. IT IS IRONIC, IS IT NOT, THAT A BLACK MAN SHOULD BLOCK ANOTHER BLACK MAN, FROM PERFORMING WORKS IN THE INTEREST OF BLACK PEOPLE? IT IS A STATEMENT OF OUR TIMES, AND A STATEMENT OF A MENTALITY THAT MUST BE ERASED IF WE ARE EVER TO SURVIVE!

``...HE CAME UNTO HIS OWN, AND HIS OWN RECEIVED HIM NOT...''

Mumia Abu-JamalPresident/Association of Black Journalists

--------------------

BLACKGROUND INFO:

The frame-up of Mumia for the murder of Daniel Faulkner was NOT the first time that this system had attempted to frame him:

From the moment Mumia joined the Black Panther Party at the age of 14, he became one of the chief targets of Hoover's notorious "Counter-Intelligence Program" (COINTELPRO). Over 700 pages of FBI files were obtained after almost three years of fighting for them, which illustrate wide-ranging collusion between the FBI and the Philadelphia Police Department--particularly its Civil Disobedience Unit (CDU) and Intelligence Division "red squads"-- extending to at least four other security agencies, including the Naval Investigative Service Office, Military Intelligence, Office of Special Investigation and the Secret Service. The files prove that years before Mumia was framed in the death of a Philadelphia cop, the feds repeatedly tried to set him up on serious felony charges--including murder-- without any basis. This was S.O.P. (standard operating procedure) in the government's COINTELPRO war on black militants. The lies range from the absurd--the photo appended to the files is not of Mumia--to the outlandishly sinister.

When the governor of Bermuda was assassinated in 1973, the feds tried to link the killing to Jamal, who had never been anywhere near Bermuda. They also falsely sought to paint him as an "urban guerrilla" associated with the Black Liberation Army, marking him to be assassinated by the cops the way BLA leader Zayd Shakur was.

The files repeatedly noted that Mumia was an effective and articulate spokesman and writer for the Black Panther newspaper, who "made the BPP look good because his approach was very positive." Indeed, not one among the steady stream of reports to FBI headquarters on Jamal's Panther activities, which were compiled at the rate of virtually one a week, indicated that he was ever engaged in anything other than public speaking and writing.

Yet despite the FBI's acknowledgement that Jamal "has not displayed a propensity for violence" and was not once found with a gun throughout this period of intense surveillance, the files regularly labeled him "Armed and Dangerous"--a license for the cops and G-men to shoot first and ask questions later.

"They believe what you write, what you say. And it's got to stop. And one day, and I hope it's in my career, that you're going to have to be held responsible and accountable for what you do." -- Frank Rizzo, then Mayor of Philadelphia, a statement which is included as part of Mumia's COINTELPRO files.

National Lawyers Guild and the Human Rights Research Fund Call For Mumia To Be Moved Out of Solitary

2012-01-14T15:12:00.000-05:00

January 11, 2012

Mr. John Wetzel, Secretary, Department of Corrections
2520 Lisburn Road
P.O. Box 598
Camp Hill, PA 17001-0598
Fax: 717-703-2621

Dear Mr. Wetzel,

The National Lawyers Guild and the Human Rights Research Fund call on you to move Mumia Abu-Jamal from Administrative Custody (AC) in the Restrictive Housing Unit at SCI Mahanoy into general population. While we understand that capital inmates in Pennsylvania who have had sentence reductions may be transferred to and held in AC for a brief transition period, Mr. Abu-Jamal has now been in AC for four weeks.

Since Mr. Abu-Jamal's transfer on December 7, 2011, he has been held in conditions far more restrictive than at SCI Greene. He is now shackled and handcuffed whenever outside his cell, his number of weekly visits has been reduced to one (for one hour), his phone call privileges have been reduced, the number of stamps and envelopes he can use is greatly limited, and his commissary privileges have been revoked. He is also barred from having a television, typewriter or radio in his cell, and access to personal possessions such as books is also severely limited. There is no ethical or rational basis justifying Mr. Abu-Jamal's confinement in AC under conditions significantly harsher than those on death row. Once the District Attorney announced that its office would not seek a new sentencing trial, Mr. Abu-Jamal should have been transferred into general population. Such a transfer is not dependent on a judge's formal resentencing to life imprisonment. Given that, and given his exemplary disciplinary record, we can only conclude that Mr. Abu-Jamal's prolonged detainment in solitary confinement is in retaliation for his highly publicized and internationally-supported efforts to secure a new trial and intended to placate those who have been demanding his execution.

As you may know, for over a century, the United States Supreme Court has recognized the psychological harm caused by solitary confinement (In re Medley, 134 U.S. 160 (1890)). The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America in 2006 found that the increasing use of such segregation is counter-productive and frequently results in violence inside facilities while also contributing to post-release recidivism. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, recently called for a ban on solitary confinement longer than 15 days, reiterating that it can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The treatment currently afforded to Mr. Abu-Jamal violates the United States' obligations under the Convention Against Torture.

We urge you to immediately transfer and assign Mr. Abu-Jamal to general population with full visitation, phone and commissary privileges and access to all programs and services.

Sincerely,

National Lawyers Guild
Human Rights Research Fund

Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director
Kathleen Cleaver, Co-Director

cc:
John Kerestes, Superintendent, SCI Mahanoy
Fax: 570-783-2008

Seth Williams, DA, Philadelphia
Fax: 215-686-8024

Sign the petition to transfer Mumia out of the hole into general population

2012-01-14T15:10:00.000-05:00

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL IS CURRENTLY BEING HELD IN ADMINISTRATIVE CUSTODY ("THE HOLE" or SOLITARY CONFINEMENT) AT SCI MAHANOY.

Mumia is shackled and handcuffed whenever outside his cell, his number of weekly visits has been reduced to one (for one hour), his phone call privileges have been reduced, the number of stamps and envelopes he can use is greatly limited, and his commissary privileges have been revoked. He is also barred from having a television, typewriter or radio in his cell, and access to personal possessions such as books is also severely limited.

International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and International Action Center fully support the NLG and HRS call for transferring Mumia to general population immediately. We additionally call for the shutting down of all the torturous Restricted Housing Units (RHU's) across the US prisons!

Sign the petition at https://www.change.org/petitions/transfer-and-assign-mumia-abu-jamal-to-general-population

Mumia Still in Solitary Confinement - A Legal Update

2012-01-08T15:02:00.000-05:00

From International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal:
Mumia is still in Administrative Custody (AC)—the hole—at SCI Mahanoy. The confinement conditions in all the Restricted Housing Units (RHU) are degrading and tortuous.

Mumia is on a cellblock that houses AC as well as disciplinary custody inmates. He is in solitary confinement, with lights glaring 24/7, without adequate food, or the opportunity to buy food to supplement his diet. He is shackled and handcuffed whenever outside his solitary cell—including when he goes to shower. And he is isolated without regular phone calls, or access to his property, including legal materials, books and typewriter. His visiting hours are limited. In short, Mumia is being subjected to conditions in AC that are more onerous than those on death row.

There is no legal basis for Mumia to be confined in AC. At the point he was no longer under a death sentence, he should have been transferred into general population. This is not dependent on a court date for Mumia to be formally resentenced to life imprisonment.

On January 3 and January 6, 2012 I submitted demand letters on Mumia’s behalf to John Wetzel, Secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC), and to John Kerestes, Superintendent SCI Mahanoy, to immediately transfer and assign Mumia to general population with full visitation, phone and commissary privileges and access to all programs and services. The stated legal grounds are the following: The degrading, dehumanizing, tortuous conditions of Mumia Abu- Jamal’s confinement in administrative custody at SCI Mahanoy are an abuse of authority, counter to DOC regulations, punitive, discriminatory, in violation of his protected liberty interests and his civil rights, including First Amendment rights.

The DOC regulations allow only two permanent categories of imprisonment, death row and general population. AC is by law only a temporary placement. It must be based on defined grounds, justified and implemented subject to procedural due process. None of the grounds listed in the DOC regulations for placement in AC apply to Mumia. In fact, on December 8, 2011 the DOC transferred Mumia from death row at SCI Greene and onto a cellblock that does not house capital inmates. On December 14, the DOC ordered Mumia moved to a medium security facility, SCI Mahanoy, which by regulation cannot hold death row prisoners.

The response by the DOC via telephone by Chief Counsel Suzanne Hueston was that Mumia is in AC pending resentencing and further evaluations. These are bogus explanations. The December 2001 federal court ruling that Mumia’s death sentence is illegal has been upheld on appeal. The District Attorney has stated there will be no trial to obtain a new death sentence. Therefore Mumia should be in general population.

Nor is there a reason or basis for “further evaluation.” Mumia has been confined in Pennsylvania prisons for some thirty years. The DOC unquestionably knows his history, conduct and behavior. There is nothing in Mumia’s personal record to justify holding him in Administrative Custody.

The DOC’s treatment of Mumia is punishment for depriving the FOP and Philadelphia District Attorney of his execution. This is the latest attempt by this frame-up system to silence Mumia, an innocent man, and to subject him to tortuous, punitive conditions in the hole.

Rachel Wolkenstein, Attorney
January 7, 2012

1) Write Call Phone and email the Secretary of Corrections

Tell them that Mumia must be immediately transferred to General Population.

John Wetzl, Secretary Department of Corrections
2520 Lisburn Road,
P.O. Box 598
Camp Hill, PA 17001-0598
717) 975-4928 Email: ra-contactdoc@pa.gov

2) Write, Call, Phone and Email the Secretary of Corrections

John Kerestes, Superintendent
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932
(570) 773-2158
fax 570-783-2008
3) Write Call Phone and email the Philadelphia DA

Seth Williams, DA Philadelphia
Three South Penn Square
Philadelphia, PA 19107-3499
(215) 686-8000
Email: DA_Central@phila.gov
and finally if you can send Mumia a note or a card.

Write to Mumia

Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932

New Poem For Mumia by Alice Walker

2012-01-07T16:19:00.002-05:00

From http://www.freemumia.com/?p=935
Courtesy of prisonradio

Occupying Mumia’s Cell

I Sing of Mumia
brilliant and strong
and of the captivity
that
few black men escape
if they are as free
as he has become.

What a teacher he is for all of us.

Nearly thirty years in solitary
and still,
Himself.

He will die himself.
A black man;
whom many consider to be
a Muslim, though this is not
how he narrows down
the criss-crossing paths of
his soul’s journey.
Perhaps it is simpler
to call him
a lover of truth
who refuses
to be silenced.
Is anything more persecuted
in this land?

No boots will be allowed
of course
so he will not
die with them on;
but there will always be
boots
of the mind and spirit
and of the heart and soul.

His will be black and shining
(or maybe the color of rainbows)
and they will sprout wings.

Mumia
they have decided
finally
not to kill you
hoping no blood will
stain their hands
at the tribunal
of the people;
but to let you continue
to die slowly
creating and singing
your own songs
as you pace
alone, sometimes terrorized,
for decades of long nights
in your small cage
of a cell.

We lament our impotence: that we have failed
to get you out of there.

Your regal mane may have thinned
as our locks too, those flags of our self sovereignty, may even have
disappeared;
waiting out this unjust sentence,
until we, like you, have become old.
Still,
if you will: accept our gratitude
that you stand, even bootless,
on your feet. We see
that few of those around us,
well shod and walking, even owning, the streets
are freed.

Somehow you have been.

Enough to remind us
of freedom’s devout
internal and
ineradicable seed.

What a magnificent Lion
you have been all these
disastrous years
and still are,
indeed.

Copyright©2011 by Alice Walker

Sistah Q's Riveting Interview w/William Singletary, Courageous Witness for Mumia

2012-01-02T22:33:00.002-05:00

AUDIO LINK: http://www.whattheproblemis.com/media/audio/maj-int/1.mp3

Asante sana to Sistah Q for bringing forward this amazing Digital Underground February, 2008 interview with Bro. William Singletary, recently transitioned courageous witness for Mumia Abu-Jamal. This interview is chockfull of information as Bro. Bill leaves no stone unturned in giving up the truth on the shocking terrorism he experienced and the FOP plot to frame Mumia.

Qaraandin - also called Sistah Q - is the author of the book “Maintaining Our Temples" and publisher editor of “Maintaining Our Temples Healthzine.” Her research on the legal and economic issues behind the way the US dis-ease management system is run helps her clarify how and why food, medicine and personal care products are used as Domestic Weapons of Mass Destruction against Black folk. Sistah Q and Del Jones co-founded D & Q Communications, Inc. Since his death, she has worked to fulfill their vision of making it the top publisher of Pan-Afrikan books, magazines, and other communications materials.

The poetry/music within the interview are from none other than our esteemed ancestor, Bro. Del Jones.

William Dale Singletary, Witness of Mumia's Innocence, Dies

2012-01-02T15:06:00.000-05:00

December 31, 2011

Introductory note: I learned from William Singletary's wife, Jeannette, that he died this morning. Bill was a courageous man who lived fighting to make the truth known —that Mumia is innocent in the shooting death of police officer Daniel Faulkner. For that Bill suffered severe personal and financial consequences. I've known Bill since June 1990 when he came forward with his eyewitness testimony for Mumia and as a witness at the PCRA hearing in 1995, when I was co-counsel for Mumia.

Please circulate this as widely as possible.

In the struggle for Mumia's freedom,

Rachel Wolkenstein

William Dale Singletary, Witness of Mumia's Innocence
(February 3, 1950 – December 31, 2011)

William Dale Singletary died on December 31, 2011 at the age of sixty-one. Being an eyewitness to the murder of Daniel Faulkner, and his unwavering insistence that Mumia was not the shooter, forever changed his life.

His wife Jeannette had a final message from Bill to Mumia and all his supporters: "I didn't know Mumia personally, but love him like a brother. I know what he's gone through and he is innocent. I would give up everything for Mumia to be free."

William Singletary was one of the first victims of the police vendetta against Mumia. At the Round House immediately following the December 9, 1981 shooting, homicide detectives interrogated Bill for hours and threatened him with bodily harm and the end of his business unless he either said he saw Mumia shot Daniel Faulkner or that he didn't witness the shooting at all. He wasn't allowed to leave the Round House until he wrote what the police wanted. Bill, a Vietnam veteran, was the owner of a car repair and towing company. In the months before Mumia's trial police officers appeared at Bill's business with drawn guns, hassled his drivers and trashed his workplace. This harassment forced him to close his business and Bill was driven from Philadelphia out of fear for his life and the safety of his family.

In 1995 William Singletary testified at Mumia's PCRA hearing to his true eyewitness account. The Philadelphia's Daily News front-page story after Bill's August 11, 1995 testimony was headlined, "For Mumia … Best Comes Last. Final defense witness claims another man murdered Officer Faulkner. Witness: Mumia Innocent."

On the stand under oath, Bill described that Mumia did not shoot police officer Faulkner and arrived after Faulkner was shot. He said a tall passenger in Bill Cook's VW wearing a green army jacket shot Faulkner. Cynthia White, the prosecution's star witness, was not on the scene, but came up to Bill afterwards. He testified that numbers of police, including "white shirts" appeared within moments of the shooting. Bill also graphically described how the police viciously beat and kicked Mumia, who was shot and critically wounded, before throwing him into the police wagon.

Bill testified that detectives tore up his witness statements at the Round House. "A Detective Green told me to write what he wanted me to write or they would take me in the elevator and beat me up." The prosecution aided the suppression of the truth that Mumia was not the shooter, and fabricated a statement from a police office that Bill was not on the scene during the shooting.

William Singletary's testimony was a key component of the evidence produced at the three PCRA hearings in 1995, 1996 and 1997 that the prosecution's case for Mumia's conviction had no basis in reality. The purported eyewitness statements, ballistics evidence and supposed confession resulted from police and prosecutorial coercion, suppression, favors and outright fabrication. "Hanging judge" Albert Sabo dismissed William Singletary's testimony as incredible.

It is a testament to the integrity and courage of William Singletary that he came forward to testify in Mumia's defense. He gave much of his life to the fight for the truth in Mumia's case—that Mumia is innocent in the shooting death of police officer Daniel Faulkner and that Mumia's arrest, conviction and death sentence resulted from a police and prosecutorial frame-up.

William Singletary was living in North Carolina when he died. He is survived by his wife Jeannette and daughter Sheadale.

Major British Trade Union Supports Mumia

2011-12-26T13:40:00.002-05:00

In a demonstration of international solidarity, a major British union, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, recently made a substantial contribution to the struggle to free Mumia Abu-Jamal. We are posting a typescript of its letter below, and apologize for the technical errors which omitted it in previous posts:

"The plight of Mumia Abu-Jamal is one that has touched many people around the world. RMT is a British Transport Union representing people employed mainly on the railways, shipping and road transport."

We are a proud union that firmly believes in striving to achieve justice in the workplace and in the wider society. We also firmly believe that international boundaries should not be a barrier to demonstrating our solidarity with others in their fight for justice. The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal is one such instance of this.

Earlier this year Mumia's plight was the subject of debate at our Annual General Meeting after first being raised at our Black & Minority Ethnic Members' Conference. It was decided that we could assist the campaign for justice by donating 250 Pounds to the cause. I am therefore pleased to enclose a cheque for this amount. I do sincerely hope that this donation will in some way assist the fight for Mumia's freedom."

This letter was written by the General Secretary, Robert Crow.

Mumia's Case Symbolic to Blacks in the U.S.

2011-12-18T10:39:00.000-05:00

From dreadtimes.com:

by Tagni John Bogle

Some people are celebrating the recent decision of the Philadelphia DA's Office, not to seek a new trial, thereby placing Mumia in general population for life with no chance of parole. Nonetheless, that was a clear political move by city who feared a new trial for Mumia would prove his innocence, indict and embarrass certain individuals who claim to have an iron clad case against him, like DA Williams and the FOP. They are liars and deceivers. If it was so definitive that Mumia was guilty then they would have no hesitation in supporting the launch of a new death penalty trial. Life in prison with no chance of parole is still a death sentence. Furthermore, it puts Mumia in a similar position as General George Jackson. The prison officials killed George Jackson because of his relentless pursuit of teaching the people about this foul and rotten system and his organizing ability. They feared George as they fear Mumia. I have no misunderstanding of history in this country or its methodology of exacting brutal attacks and preemptive murder of our people based on their fear. In the final analysis, I stand far from concluding that this is a victory for Mumia which would exonerate him (and by that, proving his innocence as he has been trying to show for now thirty years of his life).

Mumia is legally not guilty and factually innocent. Mumia's case is symbolic to all Black people in the u.s., all Black people in the u.s. are potentially targets of this unjust and rotten system whether those Black folks know it, acknowledge it or deny it; we are not politically free nor do we have real political power nor do we control our resources or have any in this country to control. Until we organize around the common issues that effect our lives here, state mechanisms of repression, will continue to maintain the strangle hold on us all. Since early colonial periods in this country our people have remained under colonial subjectivity in different forms. First with direct chattel enslavement, to Black Codes, to Vagrancy Laws and Convict leasing (new forms of Chattel Slavery through the instrument of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution), to Sharecropping, to Omnibus Crime Bill to The Anti-Riot Bill to The McCarran Act of 1950, to The War On Drugs, which lead to our current new Jim Crow and Mass incarceration and the War on Terror and all the various acts done nationally and locally to repress our people, like operation safe streets, and operation pressure point here in Philadelphia, etc.. (all used through the court systems of this country to ensure and maintain a relationship of subjectivity, colonial domination and slavery of our people).

This is bigger than Mumia, it is about the way the system handles our people. Both revolutionaries and reformist know that the system they call justice, for us is 'just-this,' same old boy slavery politics. And for all those Negroes, kissing master's rear-end only makes your lips browner and affirms to him his ability to be able to manipulate our people for some promise of material gain thrown from his plate. This is apropos for all those Negro politicians playing their poly-tricks.

Live Stream and Footage from Dec. 9 at Constitution Center

2011-12-17T23:20:00.000-05:00

For those of you who could not attend last Friday's historic gathering at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia but attempted to view the stream live online, we would like to apologize for any difficulties in connecting. Especially to those overseas who planned on viewing this stream, we apologize if you experienced any viewing problems. Due to a number of reasons there were compatibility and connectivity issues which made our stream cut out at times. We were well aware of these issues and worked hours on end through the night to attend to them. We apologize to all who had difficulties in viewing and thank you for sticking with it.

During the event, our official Facebook and Twitter profiles were active, posting updates, information and pictures the entire night. We received a high volume of shares, likes and tweets. Our website, www.freemumia.com also received record high hits during the event, where updated information was present.

Since the event, video and photo footage from the evening has been posted to www.freemumia.com. This building collection of footage (including the speeches of Cornel West, Amiri Baraka, Ramona Africa, Marc Lamont Hill, Immortal Technique, Goldii and others) can be viewed at
http://www.freemumia.com/?p=627

Also, a DVD of the entire evening will soon be available. When it is, this will be announced on freemumia.com

Thank you for your continued support.

Jeremy
www.freemumia.com

Report on Mumia's Status and Call to the DA

2011-12-17T23:18:00.000-05:00

From Sis. Johanna Fernandez:

Dear Friends:

I visited Mumia yesterday, December 15, in the new prison that houses him, SCI Mahanoy. Even though he has been released from death row, he remains in Administrative Custody while he awaits transfer to general population. Because he is still in Administrative Custody and not yet in general population, visits still take place behind the plexiglass barrier characteristic of the no-contact visits to prisoners on death row.

Mumia boarded a vehicle to SCI- Mahanoy in the early morning hours of December 14th at 4AM. Despite the dehumanizing character of the heavily armored vehicle that transported him from SCI Greene to SCI Mahanoy, Mumia delighted in the opportunity to see cows, horses, and Pennsylvania's beautiful landscape during the 7 hour ride to Frackville, PA.

He described the last number of days as a "crazy whirlwind." Last Friday alone, he spent 6 hours packing up books, letters, and other belongings in preparation for what he believed was a move into general population at SCI Greene. But the Department of Corrections had other plans in mind. As you know, that same day, December 9, his call came through at the National Constitution Center. At the prompting of Pam Africa, the last 30 seconds of that call turned into a rousing ovation to Mumia by the 1,100 people in attendance. This is was he wrote in a letter about his experience that very same night on December 9, "It's been minutes since I've hung up the phone, and I'm still buzzing from the loving vibes zapping through the phone. It's really electric!"

While in Administrative Custody at Mahanoy, Mumia is technically in "the hole." This means that he has absolutely no human contact; absolutely no belongings in his cell other than a rubber pen, 8 sheets of paper and 8 envelopes (4 of which he has used to write letters to family and friends); he gets only one hour in the yard and one visitor a week; and at night the lights in his small cell are dimmed only slightly, and otherwise remain on all day.

Mumia noted that he missed the knock of his next door neighbor on the Row at SCI Greene, Sugarbear, who called for him through a knocked on the wall "at least 20 times a day."

Mumia noted that as he was being escorted to his cell at Mahanoy, the majority of prisoners he saw in "the hole" were black and he immediately thought of Michelle Alexander's evocative analysis and descriptions of mass black imprisonment nationwide.

Mumia is committed to remaining mindful of the challenges of this new period. He remains strong and hopeful about the possibilities of this next phase of struggle, both in his personal day-to-day life, and in the movement. He welcomes and is prepared for the change. Below please also note a special note he dictated to OWS.

Mumia reiterated that despite his isolation and the alienating character of his transfer to Mahanoy, he feels vibrations of love around him.

We await, impatiently, Mumia's transfer to general population and call on the DA's office to complete the transfer immediately. PLEASE NOTE: The DA's number and address below.

Let us remind the DA that Mumia should have been in general population since 2001 when Judge Yohn overturned the death penalty in his case; but the DA's office held him on death row for a decade while it filed losing appeals. By law, Mumia should be in general population, not in "the hole." We demand his immediate transfer.

With love and solidarity,

Johanna Fernandez

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
SETH WILLIAMS, Philadelphia DA

Three South Penn Square
Corner of Juniper and South Penn Square
Philadelphia, PA 19107-3499
215-686-8000

http://www.phila.gov/districtattorney/contact.html

Hear Mumia Speak about his Removal from Death Row

2011-12-17T23:16:00.000-05:00

Listen to the audio at http://www.prisonradio.org/media/audio/mumia-democracy-now-12-12-2011

Mumia on Democracy Now! 12-12-2011

Mumia Abu-Jamal Speaks About His Removal From Death Row
Hundreds of supporters of the imprisoned journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal gathered on Friday in Philadelphia to mark the 30th anniversary of his arrest for the killing of a white police officer. The event occurred just two days after Philadelphia prosecutors announced they will no longer seek the death penalty for Abu-Jamal. On Friday, Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther, called it to the event to make his first public remarks since the prosecutor’s decision was announced.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: “I am for the first time, in almost 30 years, I’m not on death row physically. I’m in a new block, called an AC block. The cells are somewhat identical to death row but no one on this block is on death row, including myself. It takes some getting used to, you see, I’m still acclimating myself.”

Abu-Jamal was also asked about his reaction to having his death sentence converted to life without parole.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: “I must admit to some surprise because I was expecting the hearing–by that I mean a sentencing hearing–even though many friends and supporters and even lawyers said there probably wouldn’t be one. I believed there would be one. And I continued to feel this way until I heard the news. I will be talking to my lawyers in a matter of days and we will be going over precisely those kinds of questions. Because there will not be a hearing there is some disappointment because we thought we could make some things happen in that hearing and really give a good fight, but we’ll have to fight in other ways. I want to thank everybody that really supported us for so many years.”

Mumia Events in Mexico + Vienna

2011-12-17T23:14:00.000-05:00

Dear activists for the freedom of Mumia Abu Jamal!

On December 9th, 2011 the Committee for the Freedom of Mumia Abu Jamal/Vienna organized a rally on the busy Mariahilfer Street. In the Christmas hurly-burly we announced our message that we are pleased with the repurchase of the death penalty on the one hand but we vehemently fight "against the creeping death" of Mumia Abu Jamal (Desmond Tutu) of life imprisonment" on the other hand. So we demanded again and again the freedom for Mumia Abu Jamal! 75 persons signed our petition for freedom for Mumia Abu Jamal. Three of them want to cooperate with our committee!

Please add our video report to your other reports on the international actions on December 9th, 2011:

http://www.labournetaustria.at/MumiaKundgebung%209.12.11b.htm

In solidarity

Free Mumia

Karl
http://www.labournetaustria.at/mumia.htm

Mexico City Activists and Musicians say "Bring Mumia Home"

From Amig@s de Mumia de México:

On December 9, 30 years after Mumia Abu-Jamal was kidnapped by the Philadelphia police gang and railroaded for the homicide of Daniel Faulkner, around 200 activists and musicians held an 8 hour event in his support outside the US Embassy in Mexico City. With love for a free spirit who has always had the courage to tell the truth even while spending all this time in the clutches of the enemy, we celebrated the setback suffered by the Philadelphia DA's office in their drive to murder Mumia under cover of law, and made it perfectly clear that we will not stand for his slow death in prison or any attempt on his life once he has been moved into general population.

Among us were people who have supported Mumia since the 90's and were arrested and beaten for marching for his freedom in December, 1999. Many more know who he his and what he stands for because they've read his writings in the independent news media, and dozens have only recently learned of his struggle and the high price he's paid for being true to his commitment to Black Liberation and worldwide revolutionary changes for all. In any case, we hope our rebellious, high-energy vibes have floated through to Mumia. And we also want authorities in the United States to know that there are people in far parts of the world who say ¡NO! to their crimes of State against Mumia and the political prisoners of MOVE, Leonard Peltier, Sundiata Acoli, Jalil Muntaqim, Herman Bell, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Sekou Odinga, Marshall Eddie Conway, Albert Woodfox, Herman Wallace, Veronza Bowers, David Gilbert, Oscar López Rivera, the Cuban 5, Daniel McGowan, Bradley Manning and dozens more.

The statement read by Amig@s de Mumia de México said, in part:

"On Wednesday, December 7, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office gave up on its 20 year campaign to murder Mumia Abu-Jamal through the court system. At a press conference, DA Seth Williams said that he will no longer seek a death sentence. We celebrate his defeat in this terrain… brought about by the pressure from a worldwide movement of which Mumia himself is very much a part… and hope it will be one step forward towards his freedom.

But this does not mean that Philadelphia officials no longer want Mumia's death. ICFFMAJ and the MOVE Organization have sounded the alert that his enemies have never stopped hating him and are furious about the international support he has. They suspect that authorities will try to kill him in prison, just as they murdered George Jackson and tried to use other prisoners to kill Leonard Peltier.

The tone of an anti-Mumia event held last night at the Keswick Theatre in Philadelphia was threatening…. Maureen Faulkner, who has functioned as a spokesperson for the Fraternal Order of Police for years, emphasized that she will tolerate no "special treatment" for Mumia once he is moved to general population and that she longs for the day when "Abu-Jamal stands before his ultimate judge", which now "doesn't seem so far off."

Seth Williams has said that Mumia will stay in prison for the rest of his life and would have us believe that this sentence is infallible. Yet we remember a constant theme in Mumia's writings ––that no empire lasts forever––, and we might say the same about court decisions. When there are enough organized people in the streets, Mumia will walk free. Let's bring him home."

Our joy over a possible advance in Mumia's case was tinged with the anger and pain we feel over the recent murders of Mexican activists Trinidad de la Cruz Crisóstomo just days ago, and Pedro Leyva two months before ––two courageous comrades with a total commitment to the recovery and defense of Nahua lands in Xayakalan, Ostula, Michoacán. We hold the United States government responsible for their deaths due to their financing and training of police, military, and paramilitary forces that operate with impunity in Mexico.

We felt honored by the presence of two relatives of political prisoner Alberto Patishtán, who has been locked up for eleven years for struggling for a decent life for the indigenous peoples of Chiapas and for organizing La Voz del Amate and other prisoner groups inside the prisons of his state. His cousin Beatriz detailed the numerous transfers of Alberto from one prison to another to block his educational, social and organizing efforts, including his most recent transfer to the Guasave prison in the state of Sinaloa, 1,200 miles from home. We are happy to join in the struggle to make sure this comrade with an unbreakable commitment to his people walks free in his own lands once again.

We also felt stronger due to the presence of a contingent from the Peoples' Front in Defense of the Land of San Salvador Atenco, who came to the event with a message of solidarity for Mumia: "Freedom knows no color, respects no borders, and has no limits. It angers us to know that yet another comrade is being held prisoner because he wants to change the future. We are with him all the way. We deeply appreciate his solidarity with us and today we are here in solidarity with him…"

We will never forget that the Mexican government planned to subject Felipe Álvarez and Nacho del Valle to slow death in prison with sentences of 67 ½ and 112 ½ years respectively, but they couldn't do it, and they couldn't break down their spirit of struggle either. Last Friday, Felipe Álvarez said that "as members of the Peoples' Front, we keep on struggling after we were set free by the support of national and international organizations and so many people, so many activists, including compañero Mumia, who is still held in captivity. We send our brotherly greetings to this freedom fighter and want him to know that we will keep on fighting for his freedom. ¡Zapata vive. La lucha sigue!"

Nacho del Valle said: "Mumia is an example of dignity, an example of integrity. Today he's been in prison for 30 years. How long did it take me to say 30 years? Three seconds. Two seconds. Thirty years of indomitable consciousness! When we were in prison, we heard that he was supporting us. Somebody told me, "This man is struggling for you from a long way away". That tells us that he is not bound by prison walls even though he is locked up in a stinking dungeon. His freedom lies in his consciousness, in his love for others….Comrades, we know what repression is…It's true we may feel fear because fear is part of our existence. But that kind of fear is different than the kind that makes a person subservient, that makes one a slave of the powerful…Here in our Mexico we are living through some of the most perverse atrocities ever wreaked by human hands, and the figures don't even begin to tell the story. More than 50,000 deaths in recent years. That's more deaths than in many wars fought by armies! How is such a thing possible? But, well, we know that's what's happening. But even though it may seem like our numbers are small, we have here today the best this country has to offer, people with the consciousness it takes to produce hopes and expectations. And from this very spot, we must construct hopes and expectations of the freedom we want for our brothers and sisters who are struggling behind bars…We know that repression is mainly and selectively aimed at people struggling for freedom and justice, at those who dare to say enough is enough! But that shouldn't intimidate us. There are thousands of us. There are millions of hearts and souls, millions of people of conscience demanding freedom for this man who is a living example of integrity, freedom, and above all, dignity. We know they have not beaten him down in 30 years and that we have a struggle ahead…¡Mumia vive! ¡La lucha sigue! Free all political prisoners!"

The Other Culture presented a performance that brought out the history of Mumia with the Black Panthers and fashioned several installations, including one to the memory of baby Life Africa who was trampled to death by the Filadelfia police in 1976; his parents are Janine and Phil África of the MOVE 9 who have been held behind bars for 33 years for defending life in all its forms.

Rappers, sonideros, reggae bands and acoustic musicians made beautiful music straight from the heart. Thanks to the Mexikan Sound System, ARH Al Intifadah, Jorge Salinas, MC Xozulu, La Otra Acústica, Youalli, Van-T, Nehualyome Dub, Lírika Podrida, el Indio Sin Dios, Sangre Maíz, Luna Negra, Ollin Roots, y los Dub Riders de Reggae AmbulanT Sonidero Cultural Sin Fronteras, our event had a lively beat and songs of struggle, ranging from "Corrido de Gabino Barrera" to "No voto y no me callo", "Alta Resistencia", "Sata Massagana" "Libertad a Mumia Abu-Jamal" and "Wirikuta", among many others.

Ever since she got out of prison, Edith Rosales, ex Atenco prisoner and plaintiff against the impunity for sexual torture that she and others experienced on May 4, 2006, has been present at each and every event in support of Mumia. In her message she reminded us that "Political prisoners never shut up…Mumia keeps on denouncing government crimes from his cell. It's part of his struggle. And it's really admirable, compañeros, because you can't imagine how hard it is to write when you're locked up, how hard it is to coordinate your thoughts. We must keep on struggling for him. All political prisoners must be freed from those dungeons."

Jaime spoke for Anarchist Black Cross: "Once again we're here in front of this embassy that represents an empire that massacres and murders people all over the world. Once again we're here to demand freedom for the revolutionary activist Mumia Abu-Jamal. Now they've been forced to back down on the death penalty due to international solidarity. And it's a beautiful thing to see the energy here today and know that solidarity is being stepped up to get him out of prison. We have to free all the political prisoners in Mexico, too, like Alberto Patishtán and the prisoners of the Voz del Amate who were on hunger strike in Chiapas for more than a month. From his small cell, Mumia never has stopped denouncing the U.S. prison system, a control mechanism of one class over another charged with hatred and racism, a mechanism used to publish all who rebel… We're with Mumia and all the prisoners in this country and in the world. Prisoners to the streets!

Hilda spoke about the need to oppose the militarization of the country and to demand the live appearance of the thousands of disappeared people in the country. She also spoke of the threat that autonomous indigenous communities pose for capitalism and invited everyone to participate in a march in solidarity with the Trique people displaced from the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, from Huajuapan de León to the Zócalo of the City of Oaxaca next December 19.

A preliminary analysis begun by Tania and Miguel of the privatization of prisons in Mexico was read. It brings out that the large majority of people in Mexican prisoners are "poor youth, who in most cases are there for stealing less than five thousand pesos, or are effectively kidnapped because they can't pay the ransom called "bail"… The privatization of prisons should put us on alert that corporations profit from people who are deprived of their freedom and turn justice into big business… Once this is done, it's necessary to keep the prisons full, which necessarily implies a constant inflow of captives…"

A message from Nodo Solidale was read, which says in part, "One of the tasks we have as a social movement is to never forget our prisoners, not a single one. And much less those who continue to speak out and set an example, like Mumia Abu Jamal on death row in the United States or Alberto Patishtán Gómez in Mexico… Let's keep on weaving organization, constructing alliances, looking for new freedom roads in the name of Mumia, Alberto, the Mapuches locked up in Chile, the 5,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, the anarchists pursued by every State, the insubordinate Arabs in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and women like Rosa Díaz López in Chiapas, who from their jail cells, denounce the injustices they experience and witness. We must grow stronger in the name of a world where there will be no prisons because there will no longer be rich people getting richer and poor people punished."

This December 9, there were also marches, rallies and events in other parts of the world, including a big event in the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, with music, dance, theatre, and speeches, as the para-police motorcycle gang Centurions shouted slogans of hate outside. Among many other messages, arguments were made that Seth Williams has the obligation to free Mumia Abu-Jamal now. The question was raised: If the Supreme Court declared the death sentence unconstitutional, why is there reason to believe that the same judge, the same DA and the same jury didn't violate Mumia's constitutional rights when they found him guilty of murder? And it was further argued that for 30 years Mumia Abu-Jama has been subjected to the cruel and unusual punishment of isolation, now recognized by many psychologists and human rights defenders as torture, and for this reason must be immediately released from prison with credit for time served.

In one place after another, the struggle continues, now with fresh energy, to bring Mumia Abu-Jamal home.

See more photos and audios of portions of the event by Multimedios Cronopios:
http://www.multimedioscronopios.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1433:evento-pot-la-libertad-de-mumia-abu-jamal&catid=36:mumia-abu-jamal&Itemid=11

Important Presentation by Sis. Ramona Africa December 9, 2011

2011-12-17T23:11:00.000-05:00

Thousands Rally in Phila. to Demand Mumia's Release

2011-12-17T23:10:00.000-05:00

From info@freemumia.com
Mon, 12 Dec 2011

The Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition of New York wishes to thank and congratulate the thousand people who turned out Friday night in Philadelphia to give substance to the demand that Mumia be freed. This pathbreaking event was held at the National Constitution Center, located directly across the mall from Independence Hall.

For more coverage, please go to our website, www.freemumia.com. Below is an article on the rally by Philadelphia journalist Dave Lindorff.

No Execution for Mumia: 30 Years After a Police Shooting, Abu-Jamal Backers Vow to Free Him from Life in Prison

By Dave Lindorff

The mood was both celebratory and angry among a 1000-plus overflow audience packed into the balcony space of the Constitution Center in Philadelphia on the evening of Dec. 9.

The crowd of supporters of Philadelphia journalist and black political activist Mumia Abu-Jamal had come to denounce the over 29 years that he has spent locked in solitary confinement on Pennsylvania's grim death row since his conviction for the shooting of a white police officer, Daniel Faulkner. But they were also there to celebrate the surprise decision, announced two days earlier by Philadelphia DA Seth Williams, not to seek to reinstate Abu-Jamal's death sentence, which had been permanently vacated by a recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Technically, the Supreme Court, last Oct. 11, had decided not to review a decision by a Third Circuit Court panel that had upheld a 2001 Federal Judge's ruling declaring his 1982 death sentence to have been unconstitutional. The Federal Court and Appeals Court decisions had been appealed by the district attorney's office for years, all the way to the Supreme Court.

The event at the Constitution Center had initially been planned to mark the 30th anniversary of the shooting incident that had led to Abu-Jamal's arrest and to his trial and conviction. But only two days before, Williams, who had 180 days from the Supreme Court's ruling to decide whether to request a new jury trial to attempt to win a new death sentence, had held a press conference to announce that he would not take that step, and would instead allow Abu-Jamal's penalty to revert automatically to life in prison without parole.

Read the full article at NationofChange

ALERT: Mumia Transferred to SCI-Mahanoy

2011-12-17T23:08:00.000-05:00

From Ramona Africa:

ONA MOVE, Everybody! We've received news that Mumia has now been transferred to SCI-Mahanoy, another prison in Pennsylvania. He is in "Administrative Segregation", he is not in general population yet. We need to let those administrators know, immediately, that we know Mumia is there and that the WORLD is watching. People need to flood the prison with calls and flood Mumia with postcards (Mumia needs to know that we have his back). ----Ramona

Mumia Abu Jamal
AM-8335
SCI-Mahanoy
301 Morea Rd.
Frackville, PA. 17932

Superintendent John Kerestes
Deputy Superintendent Bernadette Mason
570 773-2158

This is no time to relax, we must be ever-vigilent!!!

Report on The Free Mumia Abu Jamal Protest in London on 9th December 2011. Free Mumia Now !

2011-12-17T23:07:00.000-05:00

From www.dreadtimes.com
From Sis. Emma Lewis:

Action called by Free Mumia Abu Jamal Defense Campaign UK: Sixty people protested outside the US Embassy 5- 7 pm, to demand the immediate and unconditional release on Mumia Abu Jamal.

A sizeable number of the protesters marched from Speakers Corner, along Oxford Street calling for freedom for Mumia and for all political prisoners, before joining others at the US Embassy, Grosvenor Square.

Initiallly we shared the space immediately outside the Embassy with other activists who were calling for action to tackle climate change.

Speakers from the Irish Political Prisoners, FRFI, Pan African, UHURU, and others brought support from their organisations. Linn Washington from Philadelphia campaign joined us.

The campaign is delighted with the news that the state will not be seeking to reimpose the death penalty. But a message from MOVE reminded us this does not mean they do not want Mumia dead. The Police Federation and other reactionary forces are already threatening his rights and his safety in prison. Russia Today TV was there to record the protest and interview participants about why Mumia's case is important and why we believe he must be released immediately.

Members of the campaign then went on to a public meeting in support of Mumia held at Metrolpolitan University where comrade Togogara was speaking on behalf of the campaign.

Article from:
http://libcom.org/news/report-free-mumia-abu-jamal-protest-london-december-9th-2011-10122011

Mumia Abu-Jamal: "To My Friends of OWS"

2011-12-17T23:05:00.000-05:00

Thursday, December 15, 2011
Message to OWS dictated today while in Administrative Custody at SCI Mahanoy in Frackville, PA.

My Friends of OWS,

My message will have to be brief. But let not this brevity take from it, its strength.

You are the central movement of the hour. You're raising questions that are in the hearts of millions. Your motto, "We are the 99%," has been heard, heeded, and responded to by millions. You can be certain that the 1% have heard you clearest of all.

Your work, however, is just beginning. You must deepen, strengthen, and further your work until it truly reaches the 99%, almost all of us: workers, black folk, Latinos and Latinas, LGBTs, immigrants, Asians, artists, all of us, for we are integral parts of the 99%. I salute you and hope fervently that you will grow beyond number.

Though I speak to you today by proxy, I'm confident that you will here my voice soon.

Love, fun and music,

Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia's address to the USHRN 2011 National Human Rights Conference

2011-12-17T23:04:00.000-05:00

December 15, 2011
From Kali Akumo:

Greetings All,

Enclosed is a messaged delivered by Mumia Abu Jamal to the US Human Rights Network 2011 National Human Rights Conference and Membership Meeting on Friday, December 9th. December 9th marked Mumia's 30th year on Death Row (even despite the partial victory of December 8th).

Please listen and pass along:

http://www.ushrnetwork.org/MumiaAddress

In Unity and Struggle,
Kali

Prof. Mark Taylor Op-Ed for Mumia's Release in Philly News

2011-12-11T15:28:00.000-05:00

from dreadtimes.com

Why freedom for Abu-Jamal makes even more sense nowBy Mark Lewis Taylor

'Free Mumia" is more than a chant heard at rallies in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal. There's a renewed logic to the refrain. After almost 30 years on Pennsylvania's death row, and after Philadelphia prosecutors last week backed away from pursuing a death sentence and seek now to leave Abu-Jamal in prison for life, it makes good sense to release him.

Read more:
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20111211_Why_freedom_makes_even_more_sense_now_.html

Cornell West Video + More - Over 1000 come out for MUMIA

2011-12-11T15:25:00.002-05:00

from dreadtimes.com

Photos & Videos (including Cornell West speech)

GO TO: http://www.freemumia.com/?p=627

Mainstream Media + Videos on Jam-packed Mumia Event

2011-12-11T15:24:00.000-05:00

from dreadtimes.com

CBS Philly
Supporters Of Mumia Abu-Jamal Mark 30th Anniversary Of His Conviction With Rally At NCC

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/12/09/supporters-of-mumia-abu-jamal-mark-30th-anniversary-of-his-conviction-with-rally-at-ncc/

By Dan Wing and Natasha Brown

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Nearly 1,000 people gathered at the National Constitution Center on Friday night to mark the 30th anniversary of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s incarceration, and to continue to fight for his release from Pennsylvania’s death row.

Supporters came together to call for the release of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and to discuss basic human equality issues. In addition to a number of speakers such as Professor Cornell West and Poet Laureate Amiri Baraka, the crowd also listened in to a live phone conference with Mumia Abu-Jamal himself, who offered advice for youth trying to fight for equality and justice.

“I would say follow your heart, and do the right thing. Because 9 times out of 10, you’re doing the right thing.”

The event also took time to discuss the next steps in fighting for Mumia’s release from prison altogether.

Earlier in the day, a memorial service was held to honor the memory of slain officer Daniel Faulkner.

Outside the constitution center a small number of police and bikers gathered to show their support for the family of Officer Faulkner, the man that Abu-Jamal was convicted of killing.

WPVI-TV Philadelphia
Mumia-Faulkner 30th anniversary spark protests

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=8462130

PHILADELPHIA - December 9, 2011 (WPVI) -- The controversial case of Mumia Abu Jamal has caused some demonstrations and some tense moments Friday evening, on this, the 30th anniversary of the fatal shooting of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.

Two opposing protests converged in Center City Friday night. It is one case that has divided and angered so many.

Friday night, the National Constitution Center was standing room only as hundreds marked the 30th anniversary of Mumia Abu Jamal's arrest for the killing of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.

"The fact that he's behind bars for so long without the proper conviction process being held," said Candice Benford.

"I believe in the cause, and I believe in fighting injustices," said Tarisse Iriarte.

Inside the room, Abu Jamal's supporters who have called his incarceration racial injustice reinvigorated their movement by listening to speakers.

Motorcyclists from different biker groups roared and revved their engines outside as they rallied for the slain officer and against the man they believe should die for killing him.

A federal appeals court found Abu Jamal's death sentence unconstitutional and District Attorney Seth Williams decided not to pursue a new death penalty phase trial.

"We're just showing our support to an officer that was killed in cold blood by a murderer, who is still alive today, who shouldn't be on this earth anymore," said Brian Thomas.

More than 100 bikers could be seen from Chopper 6 circling the block; outraged that they event was held at the Constitution Center.

"These people are anarchist. They don't believe in the rule of law," said Bill Walls.

Those inside turned their backs to the protest.

"Those people out there kind of made me laugh," said Sue Kelly. "I think they thought that they were making so much noise, they would disrupt our program. But they didn't realize that this place is pretty sound proof."

Free Mumia Event in the Oakland - December 11th

2011-12-09T21:49:00.000-05:00

Audio Stream + Report from WE THE PEOPLE MUMIA Event Streaming Live RIGHT NOW

2011-12-09T21:40:00.003-05:00

If the video stream down, the audio stream is at http://bit.ly/vuSzMR -- The Event is truly historic!

One reporter states:

At the Mumia event in Philly. Cops attempting to intimidate by flying their helicopter around in circles with the lights on the building. Several off duty ones and assorted white supremacist sympathizers rode their motorcycles in front of the building revving their engines. But the huge crowd inside couldn't hear it and didn't notice it cause the youth of the Impact Dance Theater Ensemble was bringing down the roof. Mumia just called in and Amiri Baraka is on now. Goto freemumia.com to watch the live stream right now. 30 years of unjust imprisonment. Folks stay on the lookout for footage and news from this event. The energy is amazing. Babylon got no juice.

Urgent! Call PA Governor and US :Attorney General!

2011-12-09T21:39:00.000-05:00

From the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)
Fri, 09 Dec 2011 6:27

Last night, Maureen Faulkner (widow of policeman Mumia is falsely accused of murdering) called on the governor of Pennsylvania to stop Mumia's call to the event tonight. This follows her vicious and threatening comments at the Thursday press conference where she came very close to demanding for Mumia to be subjected to the criminality of prisoners in general population.

Last night, she gave this number for people to call: 717 783-1116.

If we get a new number we will send it out to you. You can also try to locate some alternative numbers for the governor on the internet if this one does not work.

Also call the US Attorney General's Office:

202 514-2001 Attorney General Eric Holder
202-514-2151 US Civil Rights Divisio

Protest the threatening nature of Maureen Faulkner's statement on December 7, the fact that her call was tantamount to encouraging other prisoners to hurt Mumia.

Demand of that governor that Mumia's phone call not be blocked, that a vigilante atmosphere is something he must stop as governor and not encourage and feed further by conceding to her demand.

Call on the Attorney General to intervene in this bloodthirsty atmosphere and to guarantee that Mumia not be hurt or denied his rights.

Suzanne Ross, for the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition

Dec 10: Post-Event Fundraiser

2011-12-09T20:44:00.002-05:00

After the event held at the Constitution Center on December 9 there will be a post-event fundraiser.

WE THE PEOPLE PART II

DECEMBER 10: Germantown Event Center
5245 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, PA

Tickets are $8.00/ $5.00 w/ school ID

12:00pm-3:30pm- Youth Activities
3:30-4:30pm- (Film) Justice On Trial: The Case Of Mumia Abu-Jamal
4:30-6:00pm- Mumia Abu-Jamal Case Panal Discussion
6:00-6:30pm- Intermission
6:30-8:00pm- Abuse Of Women & Peace Org. Jobs Forum
8:00-10:00pm- Hip Hop Poetry, Spoken Word, Open Mic
10:00pm-1:00am- Showcase Performances

FEATURING: Pam Africa, C-Rayz Walz, Rebel Diaz, Maria Africa, Sandra Jones, Dr. Muhammad Ahmad aka Maxwell Stanford, Dr. Monteiro, Professor Griff, Mujahid The Real, ASAP, Jasiri X, Paradise (X-Clan), Shalowe Bey and many more.

Freedom song to Mumia from Samuel Legitimus in France

2011-12-09T20:43:00.000-05:00

Dear Friends.

Just before the great event of Decembrer 9 (and the good news - after all - of wednesday) :

Here is the video of FREEDOM ROAD a tribute song (or a letter) I wrote to honor the 30th anniversary of Mumia's incarceration ( which displays pictures of the 5th anniversary of Mumias Street in Saint-Denis last April:

http://youtu.be/M4HB5r99YcM

The song will soon be freely downloadable on this myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/parissydney

I hope you'll enjoy.

Take care,

Samuel

Mumia Interview at 'Life + Times'

2011-12-09T20:40:00.000-05:00

From DREAD TIMES - Dedicated to the free flow of information - http://www.dreadtimes.com

Excerpt: ‎"MAJ: Black love itself, in a profoundly Negrophobic nation such as ours, is a radical thing, for it opposes the mainstream trajectory of U.S. life, policy and culture. We need to deepen and expand that ethos, so that it becomes a social force that has the power to attract, and with it, build. As in the discussion on church, social movements – especially radical and revolutionary movements – changes social reality in other spheres of life. It changes consciousness. Deep, caring, holistic love among our People can therefore make us more whole in all our relationships in our community. That’s because love is inclusive; while hatred is exclusive. There is power in love, which knows no limitations. That, I’m convinced, is our greatest treasure"

Read the full interview at: http://lifeandtimes.com/lock-my-body-cant-trap-my-mind

New Book by Mumia Abu-Jamal and Marc Lamont Hill

2011-12-09T20:37:00.001-05:00

The Classroom and The Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America
By Mumia Abu-Jamal and Marc Lamont Hill
The Classroom and The Cell is the latest future bestseller from Third World Press. This book delves into the problems of Black life in America and offers real, concrete solutions.

“This poignant volume gives voice to what is rarely heard: African American men speaking for themselves, without barriers or filters, about the many forces impacting their lives. From their discussions about love to those about the state of emergency of our educational is in, Marc Lamont Hill and Mumia Abu-Jamal offer us an important gift of insight and analysis and we must treasure it.”

- Susan L. Taylor
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, Essence Magazine; Founder, National CARES Mentoring Movement

“Mumia Abu-Jamal and Marc Lamont Hill have consistently challenged and inspired me. Now, with this book of conversations, the entire world can see their brilliance, courage and deep love for Black people. This book will change your life!”

- Talib Kweli

For more info, go to http://www.freemumia.com/?p=684

1Hood Media's Jasiri X Interviews Marc Lamont Hill About The Classroom And The Cell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ppma6nN6vws

Excellent WURD Radio Interview w/Mumia, Pam Africa, Johanna Fernandez

2011-12-09T20:31:00.000-05:00

From DREAD TIMES - Dedicated to the free flow of information - http://www.dreadtimes.com

TalkingDrum on WURD: Barbara Grant, Mumia (call's into the radio station), Pam Africa and Dr. Johanna Fernandez, calls up to WURD to discuss his current outlook on life, the case, and his future pertaining to Mumia. The fight to free Mumia and to get him a new trial is not over. Speaking about the up and coming event on December 9th 2011 at The Constitution Center in Philadelphia broadcast around the world hat will include Michelle Alexander, Amiri Baraka, Cornell West, Johanna Fernandez, Marc Lamont-Hill, Pam Africa, Ramona Africa, Michael Coard and others. Oppose the death penalty in the u.s., and free all political prisoners like Mumia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY6DKucb4K0

Rebel Diaz Tribute to Mumia -- Free Download

2011-12-09T20:28:00.000-05:00

Check out Rebel Diaz' Tribute to Mumia - "Never a Prisoner"at

http://soundcloud.com/agentofchange/free-download-rebel-diaz-never

Analysis/background on Mumia decision by D.A.

2011-12-09T20:21:00.001-05:00

From Jeff Mackler, Coordinator of the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (Bay Area, Cal.):

Pennyslvania DA Will NOT Seek Mumia Execution

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced today, Wednesday, December 7, 2011, that he would NOT seek a new sentencing hearing to execute innocent death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal. On October 11, 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court, affirming two federal court decisions in the same case, effectively ruled that the sentencing portion of Mumia's 1982 trial was a violation of the U.S. Constitution. This mandated that Williams either conduct a new sentencing hearing OR place Mumia Abu-Jamal in the general prison population to serve a life term without possibility of parole. Williams and Pennsylvania officials chose the latter, thus eliminating the possibility of Mumia's being executed.

Mumia's attorneys and supporters are now focused on the fight for a new trial before a new jury where evidence of Mumia's innocence can for the first time be presented in full public view. Mumia's 1982 racist frame-up trial has been widely condemned, with organizations ranging from Amnesty International, the European Parliament and the NAACP to heads of state in France and South Africa demanding a new trial.

Winning a new trial for anyone convicted of murder is no easy task. Mumia's legal team must meet an extremely high legal standard. This includes presenting "compelling and not been previously litigated new evidence" that could not have been "previously discovered through due diligence." A special investigator and associated team has been hired to begin this difficult and arduous process.

We have reached the end of one struggle and the beginning of another. But, better to fight on for Mumia's freedom in the context of a threat of execution NOT hanging over his head.

In truth, the recent Supreme Court action, essentially affirming previous decisions of the Federal District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that Mumia's death sentence was unconstitutional, was a political decision as well as an affirmation of the "letter of the law," one that was 30 years in coming and one that never would have come had it not been for a massive national and international effort on Mumia's behalf.

A Philadelphia, if not national decision, was obviously made at the highest levels to avoid a new sentencing hearing where evidence of innocence could have been presented that would have exposed the entire racist and frame-up nature of Mumia's 1982 trial.

Such a hearing, the DA likely judged, might have led to a level of public outrage and exposure of the criminal "justice" system sufficient in itself to force a new trial despite formal legal restrictions to the contrary. The risk to an institution where the racism inherent in U.S. society, expressed in the actions and mentality of corrupt police officers, judges, prosecutors and reactionary laws, makes justice for the poor and oppressed an impossibility, was too great to contemplate. Mumia's trial and "conviction" classically revealed all of the elements of a rigged racist and classist judicial system. Philadelphia officials chose to avoid any further risk to its credibility.

One fact is certain. After 30 years of insisting that justice has been done - that Mumia's rights were fully protected - the State of Pennsylvania has been proven, through state institutions of its own choosing, to have violated the U.S. Constitution. Mumia has been unconstitutionally held in a tiny death row cell, in virtual isolation from all family and friends - all physical contact barred - for thirty years

This constitutional violation was scored by Mumia's legal team almost three decades ago when Mumia's first appeal included the simple assertion that the presiding Judge Albert Sabo violated the law by falsely instructing the jury regarding their deliberation. This is the same "hanging judge" Sabo who stated before two witnesses in his private antechambers that he was "going to help 'em fry the n****r."

Sabo falsely told the jury that in order to not execute Mumia and instead arrive at a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole, they had to be unanimous with regard to considering any and all mitigating circumstances. Contrary to Judge Sabo the law states clearly in the Supreme Court's 1988 Mills v. Maryland case, that a single juror is sufficient to place any mitigating circumstance sufficient to negate a death penalty decision, before the jury for its consideration.
Sunday, December 11 at 2:00 pm is set for a mass meeting to open a new phase in the struggle for Mumia's freedom. Join us at the Laney College Forum, Oakland, CA at 2 pm. (one block from the Lake Merritt BART station). Speakers include: Angela Davis, Ramona Africa, Barbara Becnel, Jeff Mackler, Boots Riley, Crystal Bybee, Bishop Desmond Tutu (via video) and Michelle Alexander (via video). Admission free for Peralta students. All others $10 sliding scale. See attached flyer.

In Philadelphia, a parallel meeting featuring Cornel West is set for Friday, Dec. 9, 7:30 PM at the National Constitution Center.

On the West Coast contact Jeff Mackler for further information: 510-268-9429 jmackler@lmi.net In Philadelphia contact: 267-760-7344

DA Will Not Seek Retrial in Mumia's case

2011-12-07T23:14:00.000-05:00

From freemumia.com

PRESS RELEASE

RESPONSE TO DA SETH WILLIAMS DECISION ON THE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL CASE

For Interview Contact
Dr. Johanna Fernandez, 917.930.0804
Dr. Suzanne Ross, 917.584.2135
Dr. Mark Taylor, 609.638.0806

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Calls for Mumia Abu-Jamal's Release
"Now that it is clear that Mumia should never have been on death row in the first place, justice will not be served by relegating him to prison for the rest of his lifeâ€"yet another form of death sentence. Based on even a minimal following of international human rights standards, Mumia must now be released. I therefore join the call, and ask others to follow, asking District Attorney Seth Williams to rise to the challenge of reconciliation, human rights, and justice: drop this case now, and allow Mumia Abu-Jamal to be immediately released, with full time served."

The news that the DA's Office of Philadelphia is no longer seeking the death penalty for Mumia is no news to supporters of the nearly 30 year Pennsylvania Death Row prisoner. However, because Mumia has for thirty years been subjected to torture on death row and because he is innocent, justice for Mumia will not be served by life imprisonment, but by his release from prison.

Mumia's case is like thousands of other cases in Philadelphia in which the prosecutor, the judge, and the police conspired to obtain a conviction. One of the most important and least known facts of this case is the existence of a fourth person at the crime scene, Kenneth Freeman. Within hours of the shooting, a driver's license application found in Officer Faulkner's shirt pocket led the police to Freeman, who was identified as the shooter in a line-up. Yet Freeman's presence at the scene was concealed, first by Inspector Alfonso Giordano and later, at trial, by Prosecutor Joe McGill. Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice asserted that withholding evidence of innocence by the prosecutor warrants the overturning of a conviction.

The police investigation that led to Mumia's conviction was also riddled with corruption and tampering with evidence. The recently discovered Polokoff photographs that were taken at the crime scene, reveal that officer James Forbes, who testified in court that he had properly handled the guns allegedly retrieved at the crime scene, appears holding the guns with his bare hands. The photos also discredit cabdriver Robert Chobert as a witness; his taxi, contrary to his testimony, is pictured facing away from the fallen officer's car. This evidence hasn't been reviewed by any court.

Our call to Seth Williams is that he honor DA Lynn Abraham's 1995 promise to the city of Philadelphia that she would discard any cases where evidence surfaces that even one of the officers involved in an investigation lied in court or in written reports.

The D.A. may think that the case can be laid to rest by sending Mumia off to life in prison. But an aroused public, with the Supreme Court ruling the death sentence to be unconstitutional, is ready to challenge anew the entire trial. The same judge, jury, and DA that were involved in the unlawful sentencing process committed equally egregious violations in the conviction. This is not an ending, it is a new beginning for the movement supporting Abu-Jamal's quest for release.

The December 9 forum at the National Constitutional Center, featuring Prof. Cornel West, will be preceded by an 11:30 a.m. Press Conference, at the American Friends Service Committee building, 1501 Cherry Street. Then the following day there will be a full-day of organizing and fundraising activities, Saturday December 10, at the Germantown Event Center, 5245 Germantown Avenue, beginning at 12 Noon.

From NAACP Legal Defense Fund

(New York, NY) -- Today, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office announced that it will not seek another death sentence for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Pennsylvania law now requires Mr. Abu-Jamal to be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for his controversial 1982 murder conviction in the shooting death of a police officer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), along with Widener Law Professor Judith Ritter, represents Mr. Abu-Jamal in his appeals of the murder conviction and death sentence. John Payton, Director-Counsel of LDF stated, "The District Attorney did the right thing. After three long decades, it was time to bring the quest for a death sentence for Mr. Abu-Jamal to an end." Prof. Ritter added, "There is no question that justice is served when a death sentence from a misinformed jury is overturned. Thirty years later, the District Attorney' s decision not to seek a new death sentence also furthers the interests of justice."

Mr. Abu-Jamal will be formally resentenced to life without parole in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas. The final sentencing hearing has not been scheduled.

An Important Message from International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)

2011-11-28T23:32:00.000-05:00

Sisters and Brothers,

We're sure you were relieved on October 11, 2011, as were we, when the US Supreme Court affirmed several lower court rulings since 2001 that Mumia should never have been sentenced to death. That decision is a tribute to the amazing international movement that has fought all these years for justice for Mumia. But we write to you now calling on you to help in this critical next stage of the struggle to gain Mumia's final release from prison.

Instructions given to the jury, in violation of US law, that biased the jury toward a death sentence provided the basis for both the lower court and US Supreme Court rulings. Mumia has, in other words, spent the last 30 years on Death Row despite the fact that he should never have even been there for one day! The Philadelphia DA's office has been relentless in pursuing the death sentence, insisting that Mumia remain on Death Row these last 10 years despite the lower court ruling in 2001 that he should not have been sentenced to death, filing appeal after appeal to overturn that lower court decision. It appears that they will now stop fighting this consistent judgment of the courts, because that battle at this point would require a new sentencing hearing that might expose the rampant police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct in this case. And this might possibly open the door for a new trial on the issue of guilt and innocence, potentially leading to Mumia's release. The forces that have fought for Mumia's execution, "Fry Mumia" they screamed, with such viciousness for 30 years are seemingly resigned to cutting their losses and having Mumia remain in prison for the rest of his life.

NEEDLESS TO SAY, FOR US, AND WE'RE SURE FOR YOU AS WELL, HAVING MUMIA ROT IN PRISON FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.

Mumia has been subjected to torture, as defined by international law, for these past 30 years by being kept in isolation in a small, bathroom-sized, windowless cell and not being able to touch his mother, wife, children, or grandchildren, let alone anyone else other than the guards who handcuff and shackle him. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture recently asserted that solitary confinement beyond 15 days (!) constitutes torture. This on top of the fact that Mumia's imprisonment on Death Row was unconstitutional.

Given this picture, Mumia should not have to spend any more time in prison. Putting Mumia in general population can hardly be considered compensation for what he has had to endure all these years. He should be released. In most countries, even if he were guilty of the crime for which he was convicted, and he is innocent, he would have been released by now given his outstanding record of accomplishments and service to the community while in prison. Our campaign must now be to demand that Mumia serve no more time in prison, having been subjected to 30 years of unjust placement on Death Row and having been a victim of torture as defined by international standards of human rights.

December 9, 2011, marks the beginning of a campaign to finally free Mumia. We must now wage a much-reinvigorated battle for justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal. On the eve of International Human Rights Day, a major event marking the 30th year of Mumia's incarceration and his subsequent unconstitutional sentence to Death Row for almost three decades, will be taking place at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center. Speakers and performers will include: CORNEL WEST, IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE, VIJAY PRASHAD, RAMONA AFRICA, MICHELLE ALEXANDER (by video), AMINA AND AMIRI BARAKA, ATTORNEYS MICHAEL COARD AND LENNOX HINDS, THE IMPACT REPERTORY THEATRE AND THE AFRICAN DANCE AND DRUM ENSEMBLE.

To make this high-profile event – well-known personalities in a very prestigious government venue – a success and to launch the campaign that is essential in its aftermath, WE NEED YOUR HELP NOW. We need significant financial help for NYC to Philly buses to provide reduced rate seats for those who cannot afford to pay (and today that includes a very large number of people); for transporting speakers and performers to Philadelphia; for flyers and palm cards; for producing educational literature for the event; and for so many unexpected costs. We know these are hard times and that most of us are struggling simply to survive. But for those of you who can help, we would truly appreciate as large a contribution as you can make.

Tax-deductible checks should be made out to: FMAJC/IFCO, PO Box 16, College Station, New York, NY 10030. Or go to www.freemumia.com, click the "Donate" link at the top of the home page. That will lead you to a paypal section where you can contribute with a credit card.

Join us in making December 9th at the Constitution Center a success so that we can effectively launch this final stage of the struggle. Mumia has touched the hearts of millions of people around the world. His case represents so much of what we the 99% stand for versus what the 1% stand for. Get your bus ticket! Come to Philadelphia! Send your contributions in TODAY!

With the deepest appreciation for your past support and help, and in solidarity in our common struggle for justice, let us free Mumia and all our political prisoners!

Pam Africa, Chairperson, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal

Suzanne Ross, Co-chair, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)

Greetings from Mexico for December 9th

2011-11-17T19:58:00.002-05:00

From sis Carolina in Mexico

Hi all,

I'm sending a poster for our event in Mexico City to demand immediate freedom for Mumia this coming December 9. We will be out in front of the US Embassy for about 8 hours with a lot of music, street theatre and messages of support for Mumia and other political prisoners, especially MOVE 9, Leonard Peltier, Angola 3, Sundiata Acoli, Mutulu Shakur, Jalil Muntaqim and more in the US and Alberto Patishtán in México; calls for the abolition of the US criminal justice / prison system and its implementation in Mexico; and support for the demands of recent prison hunger strikes in California, Chiapas, Chile and occupied Palestine.

We are also calling for an end to the militarization of Mexico and the adoption of ever more fascist national security laws, the US training of Mexican military and police forces, and the overall war against the Mexican people (supposedly a war on drugs) unleashed by the Mexican government and directed and backed by the US government through the Merida Initiative and other programs, which has resulted in 40,000 people killed, 60,000 disappeared and 120,000 displaced during the Calderón administration. Furthermore, we will be denouncing the recent murders of university student activist Carlos Cuevas and one of the leaders of the recovery and defense of Nahua lands in Xayakalan, Ostula, Michoacán --Pedro Leyva.

We hope it will be a great day.

OnaMOVE,

Carolina
Amig@s de Mumia de México

Message from Germany

2011-11-17T19:57:00.000-05:00

Dear all,
On Saturday, December 10 will be a demonstration for the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the abolition of the death penalty in Nüremberg, Germany (start 4pm).

The night before - Dec. 9. - will be numerous info events on Mumia all around the country, eg. in Berlin, Heidelberg, Dresden, Kaiserslautern among others. In December is an info-tour including ten dates on Mumia in Switzerland, too.

There is a new german website to coordinate activities in support of Mumia in Germany: http://www.freiheit-fuer-mumia.de

For the last 2 months there have been events around the the country on a weekly basis: http://www.freiheit-fuer-mumia.de/termine.htm

Here is a video from a recent "Act In" infront of the International Bookfair in Frankfurt: http://www.freiheit-fuer-mumia.de/actin.htm

We wish you a huge success on Dec. 9 in Philadelphia!

International Solidarity - FREE MUMIA!

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now: 30 Unconstitutional Years on Death Row are Enough!

2011-11-08T18:15:00.000-05:00

From thiscantbehappening.net
Sun, 10/23/2011
by: Dave Lindorff and Linn Washington, Jr.

With Mumia Abu-Jamal’s sentence of death now formally vacated, thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision last week not to consider an appeal by the Philadelphia District Attorney of a Third Circuit Court panel’s ruling that that sentence had been unconstitutional thanks to flawed jury instructions from the trial judge and a flawed jury ballot form, many of those who have long called for his execution are now saying, fine, let him rot in prison for the rest of his life.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, the leading newspaper in his hometown of Philadelphia, in more genteel language, said essentially the same thing in an unsigned October 13 editorial, opining that with the death penalty vacated, the default sentence of life in prison without parole was “appropriate” and “in the best interest of justice.”

The editorial urged DA Seth Williams not to exercise his right within the next 180 days to seek to obtain a new death sentence by asking for a new jury trial on the penalty only. The paper made this plea not because the editors felt such an effort to re-sentence him would be unseemly, but because of the cost to the struggling city of Philadelphia.

But hold on here. Putting aside for a moment the matter of whether Abu-Jamal was even fairly convicted in a trial that was viewed as a shameful farce at the time in 1982 even by the editors of the Inquirer, is it really “in the best interest of justice” or in any way “appropriate” for Abu-Jamal to simply be switched over from a death sentence to a sentence of life in prison without parole, now that, as the Inquirer correctly noted in its editorial, “four federal judges have ruled that Abu-Jamal’s 1982 death sentence was unconstitutional,” and that “he was denied a fair sentencing at his original trial.”

No. It is manifestly not just or appropriate!
Abu-Jamal no longer has a death sentence, but remains on solitary on death row thanks to a vengeful or gutless DAAbu-Jamal no longer has a death sentence, but remains in solitary on death row thanks to a vengeful, or gutless, DA and supine judges

The unconstitutional sentence of death voted out by confused jurors back in 1982 has meant that Abu-Jamal, for nearly 30 years, has been held in a Super Max death row prison called SCI-Greene in western Pennsylvania, where he is confined in a tiny windowless cell in solitary confinement, separated at all times form even other inmates. It means that unlike other prisoners, as a death row inmate he has for all those years been unable to have any physical contact with friends and loved ones -- even his little grandchildren, or his late mother, whose funeral he was barred from attending. Death row prisoners, on the rare occasions when they are allowed to see visitors, are brought, cuffed and manacled dispite the impossibility of escape, to a “visiting room,” and must communicate through a thick plexiglass window. Abu-Jamal was even kept in this hellish condition during the last 10 years, after Federal District Judge William Yohn, in December 2001, initially overturned his death sentence, because the vindictive and sadistic then DA Lynn Abraham asked the court to keep him there for the duration of the appeal process on that issue. Yohn’s decision was never overturned in all that time, yet even now that Yohn’s ruling has been finally confirmed by the Supreme Court and can no longer be challenged, Abu-Jamal remains in that death row cell, thanks to the continued vindictiveness or political cowardice of Abraham’s successor.

But Abu-Jamal should never have been there in the first place! The federal courts, since 2001, have established, over and over, and now with finality, that the jury back in 1982 was misinformed by trial Judge Albert Sabo about the absoluteness of the “life without possibility of parole” alternative to death. They were further confused by the jury ballot form he gave them, which a series of federal courts has established likely confused them about the rules on “mitigating circumstances” that they might consider would argue against voting for a death sentence.

In order for someone to be sentenced to death, it is not enough that someone simply kills another person. Rather, a jury must unanimously find at least one “aggravating circumstance” in the commission of that murder. But for there to be at least that one “aggravating” factor, the law says all 12 jurors must agree to it. They cannot say it exists if there is a single dissenting vote. But in the case of mitigating factors, which might lead a juror to decide against death and for life without parole, the rule is that any single juror can find one, and can then apply it to his or her own decision. The jury form, the courts found, improperly made it sound like they had to also agree unanimously about the existence of any mitigating circumstance before any one of them could consider it. The likelihood is that at least one of those 12 jurors could have felt there was a mitigating circumstance, such as that Abu-Jamal had no prior convictions, or that witnesses testified that he was a good father to his small children, etc. But thanks to the flawed jury form, and flawed instructions from Sabo, they did not feel they could legally take any of that into consideration because others didn’t agree.

So because of these unconstitutional flaws in the penalty phase of his trial, Abu-Jamal spent not a month, not a year, not two years, but 30 years on death row, all the time waiting for the state to kill him. That is a heavy punishment for any man.

It might be one thing if this error had been corrected in a short time following his trial, but instead, the D.A.’s office has fought tooth and nail every step of the way over three decades and right up to the Supreme Court against the finding of error, and has even fought to keep him on death row after a federal judge had rendered his decision overturning the sentence.

It’s not “appropriate” at this point, now that the error has been confirmed, to just say, “So what?” and to convert the sentence to life in an ordinary prison without the possibility of parole, as though nothing worse had happened.

Justice demands that there be some kind of recognition of the fact that Abu-Jamal has been put through 30 years of a true hell that he did not deserve, and that, moreover, his death sentence was unconstitutional.

Many convicted murderers in the United States have been released after far less than 30 years in jail. It would be appropriate at this point for the D.A. to admit that this particular prisoner has suffered not just enough, but more than was constitutionally appropriate, and to ask the court to release him on time served.

Meanwhile, if he is not released and is instead “left to rot” in jail for life, his new legal team, headed up by Christina Swarns of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, would have to discover new avenues for further challenges to his conviction. The difficulty for Abu-Jamal is that all the constitutional challenges to his original trial, and to the corrupted appeals process to which he was subjected, have already been rejected by the federal courts. In order to win a new trial at this point, then, he and his legal team would have to discover evidence of innocence which he “could not reasonably have been expected to have discovered earlier through due diligence.” Such evidence might include recanting witnesses, newly discovered witnesses, or perhaps more crime scene photos that raise questions about the original evidence. But they all would face that high hurdle of being either new, or not earlier discoverable, if they are to be grounds for a possible new trial.

On the other hand, as I wrote earlier, if D.A. Williams is brash enough or pressured enought by groups like the Fraternal Order of Police to attempt to retry the penalty phase, there is a much easier route for Abu-Jamal to bring in new evidence of innocence. Since many of the alleged witnesses to the shooting incident that led to Faulkner’s death were also used by the prosecution to portray the crime as a kind of a cold-blooded execution, those witnesses -- at least the ones who are still alive -- could be subpoenaed to appear at a penalty hearing by the defense, where their veracity could be challenged. At that point evidence such as ballistics tests to show that it would have been impossible for Abu-Jamal to have fired directly downward four times at Officer Daniel Faulkner while straddling him, hitting him only once, without there being any bullet marks in the surrounding sidewalk. Or evidence--photographic and otherwise--that there was never any taxi cab parked directly behind Faulkner’s squad car, where purported eye-witness Robert Chobert said he was parked when the shooting occurred. Or perhaps a new witness decisively claiming that there was never a confession shouted out by Abu-Jamal in the Jefferson Hospital ER, or that the prosecutor hid exculpatory evidence at trial.

Should any of these things happen during a new penalty phase trial it could be a whole new ballgame in terms of the conviction itself.

That would be the best outcome at this point. It is what Amnesty International, in a Feb. 17, 2000 report on the case which only merited a one-paragraph notice in the Inquirer at the time, concluded when it called for a new trial, saying that the first one has been “in violation of minimum international standards that govern fair trial procedures.” Clearly the Inquirer’s current editorial writers don’t bother to check their paper’s own morgue. If they had, they’d have seen that back on July 16, 1995, their predecessors had editorialized during a Post Conviction Relief Act hearing on the case that was being held before the original trial judge Albert Sabo, that the “whole truth” of the case may “never be found.” Those same editorial writers wrote back then that the behavior of the Judge Sabo at the 1982 trial was “disturbing,” and in the 1995 fact-finding PCRA appeal Sabo “did not give the impression to those in the courtroom of fair-mindedness.” How one gets from there to saying his current fate is in any way “appropriate” or “in the best interest of justice” we cannot fathom.

If DA Williams wants to do the right thing here, but does not have the political courage to just release Abu-Jamal on time served, given the huge political power of the FOP, which has been unethically lobbying for, and even bribing judges to execute him for years, he could short-circuit all of this, as Linn Washington wrote earlier in ThisCantBeHappening!, by offering Abu-Jamal an Alford Plea deal.

Under the terms of an Alford Plea, a convicted person may continue to claim her or his innocence, while conceding that the prosecutor probably has the evidence to convict. Upon being freed, the individual remains a convicted murderer, but both sides can claim to have won on some level.

It would be a messy end to a very messy case, but it would be far more “appropriate” and would be far more “in the interest of justice,” than just throwing Abu-Jamal into Graterford Prison for life without possibility for parole after he has already unconstitutionally endured 30 agonizing years on death row.

http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/866

December 9: All Out For Mumia at Philly Constitution Center

2011-10-21T20:10:00.000-05:00

No Life in Prison!

Free Mumia Now!

On the 30th anniversary of Mumia Abu Jamal's incarceration and on the eve of International Human Rights Day, we say NO to life in prison for this innocent, revolutionary, and celebrated journalist.

Honor Troy Davis
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal

December 9, 2011
7:30-10:30 pm
Constitution Center,
Philadelphia

SPEAKERS:
Cornel West
Michelle Alexander (by video)
Ramona Africa
Michael Coard
Vijay Prashad
Louisa Hanoune
Mark Lamont Hill
Immortal Technique
And more

INVITED GUEST:
Arundhati Roy

No to the racist death penalty!
Stop the massive incarceration of the poor and oppressed!
End torture and police terrorism!
Free all political prisoners!
Free Mumia!

PERFORMERS:
IMPACT Youth Repertory Theatre, African Dance Ensemble, others T.B.A.

Info and bus reservations:
PHILA: 267-760-7344
NYC: 212 -330-8029.

www.freemumia.com
www.emajonline

Lydia Barashango Reception

2011-10-17T14:17:00.000-05:00

From Noelle Hanrahan:
Lydia Barashango Reception

October 22 -- noon to 4:00 pm
at
H and H Catering
2036 E. Haines Street
Philadelphia, PA 19138
215.424.2703

Listen to Mumia's tribute to his sister at www.prisonradio.org:
Lydia Barashango - Presente!
http://www.prisonradio.org/10-9-11LydiaBarashangoPresente.html

Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial
Lydia Barashango, 64; nurse, sister of Mumia Abu Jamal

September 29, 2011

Lydia Barashango, 64, a nurse and social worker who was the sister of Mumia Abu Jamal, died Wednesday, Sept. 29, in Maryland after a long battle with breast cancer.
Mrs. Barashango was a strong defender of her younger brother, Mumia Abu-Jamal, 57. The former Philadelphia radio reporter and Black Panther who was born, Wesley Cook, was convicted and sentenced to death by a jury in 1982 for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.

On Dec. 9, 1981, Officer Faulkner was conducting a traffic stop on a vehicle belonging to William Cook, Abu-Jamal's younger brother. During the traffic stop, Abu-Jamal's taxi was parked across the street. Shots were fired and both Abu-Jamal and Faulkner were wounded. Faulkner died. Police arrived on the scene and arrested Abu-Jamal, who was found with a shoulder holster, a revolver and spent cartridges in his revolver. He was later charged with first degree murder.

Supporters and opponents disagree on the appropriateness of the death penalty, whether Abu-Jamal was guilty or whether he received a fair trial.

Mrs. Barashango was interviewed in 2000 for an A&E documentary about the case. She said the day after the shooting she didn't recognize Abu-Jamal at the hospital because he had been "brutalized" by police. When she him if he was all right, he told her, "I'm innocent. I'm innocent."

In 1999, Mrs. Barashango participated in a march around City Hall in Philadelphia with 10,000 of her brother's supporters, many waving "Free Mumia" signs.

She told the crowd, "This rally takes our struggle to a whole new level." We aren't playing anymore. We are demanding a new trial."

Mrs. Barashango was married to Ishakamusa Barashango, a minister and African American scholar. He died in 2004.

According to friends, she had recently been living in Baltimore. Arrangements for services in Baltimore and Philadelphia are pending.

Video of Linn Washington/Judith Ritter on Mumia's recent appeals court ruling

2011-10-13T21:56:00.000-05:00

DemocracyNow.org video of Linn Washington and Judith Ritter on appeals court decision on Mumia Abu-Jamal at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odt7EZ8y7UM

The case of Pennsylvania death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal took a surprising turn Tuesday when the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously declared his death sentence unconstitutional—it is the second time the court has agreed with a lower judge who set aside Abu-Jamal's death sentence after finding jurors were given confusing instructions that encouraged them to choose death rather than a life sentence. Now Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther and journalist, could get a new sentencing hearing in court. Democracy Now! interviews Abu-Jamal's co-counsel, Judith Ritter, and Linn Washington, an award-winning journalist with the Philadelphia Tribune who has followed Abu-Jamal's case for almost three decades.

For the video/audio podcast, transcript, to sign up for the daily news digest, and for today's entire show, visit http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/27/court_rules_mumia_abu_jamals_death

EMAJ: US Supreme Court Rejects D.A.’s Appeal in Mumia Case

2011-10-12T13:10:00.000-05:00

From Educators For Mumia Abu-Jamal:

US Supreme Court Rejects D.A.’s Appeal in Mumia Case

For the news freshly announced, consult the report from the Legal Defense Fund here. An excellent analysis of the meaning of this is provided in Dave Lindorff’s new column.

In addition, Johanna Fernandez, EMAJ Co-Coordinator and historian at Baruch College/CUNY, sent in these words, reminding us all of the December 9 event at Constitution Center:

Today, the Supreme Court refused to hear arguments presented by the Philadelphia DA’s Office that would have challenged the Mills claim in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. That the Supreme Court refused to hear the DA’s arguments means that the high court has upheld Mumia’s Mills claim, a claim that was twice upheld previously by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. What is important about the Mills claim is that it calls for a new penalty-phase trial if defendants can prove that at trial jurors were poorly instructed on the rules governing the weighing of evidence mitigating against the death penalty, as in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

What this all means for the Abu-Jamal case is that the Philadelphia DA’s office has a limited amount of time to either call for a new penalty-phase trial or place Mumia, who is currently on death row, in general population to serve a life sentence of imprisonment without parole.

While this is confirmation on the part of the Supreme Court that Mumia’s trial was corrupt to the core and riddled with constitutional rights violations, the possibility of serving life in prison without parole is no victory for Mumia.

DECEMBER 9, 2011 is the next step in the struggle to release Mumia Abu-Jamal.

December 9th marks the 30th year-to-the-day of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s incarceration.

An innocent man, and an important humanist and revolutionary voice of our time, has been wrongfully imprisoned for 30 YEARS!

So in the words of Joe Hill, let us “raise less corn and more hell;” and let us take Occupy Wall Street and the struggle against the New Jim Crow to the City of Brotherly Love.

Join us at

The National Constitution Center, Philadelphia
December 9th at 7 pm

Speakers:
Cornel West
Arandhati Roy (via Video)
Michelle Alexander (via Video)
Ramona Africa
Vijay Prashad
Immortal Technique
Michael Coard
IMPACT YOUTH THEATRE OF HARLEM
and many others.

In Struggle,

Johanna Fernandez, Ph.D.
Department of History
Baruch College, City University of New York
Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Writer/Producer, Justice on Trial: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal

No New Penalty Trial Likely: Dave Lindorff article

2011-10-12T13:04:00.000-05:00

From the Free Mumia Coalition, NYC: Michael Schiffman of Heidelberg, Germany, Pam Africa, and the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition all agree that this is an excellent article. For more discussion and building toward December 9th in Philadelphia, come to a meeting this Friday night, October 14, 7 pm at St. Mary's Church, 521 West 126 Street in Harlem

No New Penalty Trial Likely:
US Supreme Court Confirms 3rd Circuit Ruling Lifting Mumia Abu-Jamal's Death Penalty

by: Dave Lindorff
10/11/2011

Here's a prediction: Seth Williams, the district attorney of Philadelphia, will decide not to seek to reimpose the death penalty on Mumia Abu-Jamal, the world-famous journalist, former Black Panther and condemned prisoner who has spent the last almost 30 years of his life on Pennsylvania's overcrowded death row.

The choice belongs to Williams, now that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided, on its second time dealing with the issue, not to overturn the decision of a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which had, on orders of the Supreme Court, reheard, reconsidered and reaffirmed its earlier decision upholding the tossing out of Abu-Jamal's death sentence by a lower federal district court.

For years since the dramatic 2001 decision by Federal District Judge William Yohn overturning Abu-Jamal's death sentence on grounds that the trial judge's instructions to the jury had been faulty and that the jury verdict form was dangerously misleading, Abu-Jamal has remained in brutal solitary confinement at SCI-Green. That's the super-max facility that houses Pennsylvania's condemned prisoners, where Abu-Jamal and the others who are actually facing death are denied any human contact either with each other or with close relatives and friends (visits are conducted through heavy bullet-proof plexiglass, with the inmate in chains, for no good reason beyond simple gratuitous cruelty, since escape is impossible). He was kept there for the last decade through the machinations
of a vindictive DA's office, which argued that as long as the lifting of his death sentence was on appeal, he should have to stay put as if he were facing imminent death.

Now there is no reason or excuse to keep him in that hell hole.

The only way he could face a death penalty at this point would be if the DA were to order up a new trial on the penalty phase of his case, with a new jury hearing arguments for and against sentencing Abu-Jamal to death all over again for the crime he was convicted of back in 1982: the shooting death of white Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. (There is no easy avenue for appeal of Abu-
Jamal's conviction at this point, as all his habeas claims of constitutional violations and trial errors have been rejected by the highest federal courts.)

Already, the wheels are turning against a penalty retrial.

Maureen Faulkner, the widow of Daniel Faulkner, who has been a tireless campaigner for Abu-Jamal's execution, has reportedly told a reporter from Associated Press, following word of the Supreme Court's decision, that she "wondered whether it was time to end the long-running drama." She is quoted as saying she worries about the cost of a rehearing of the penalty issue to the city of Philadelphia, and notes that "many of the relevant witnesses are dead." Plus she doesn't want to afford Abu-Jamal any more publicity, she says.

What she doesn't say, but what DA Williams surely knows, is that if there were a re-hearing of the penalty phase of this sorry case, there is virtually no way that a modern Philadelphia jury would vote to execute Abu-Jamal. First of all, it would not be possible for the DA, who in any case is himself an African-American for the first time in the city's history, to pack the jury with white people the way the prosecutor did in 1982 (and the way the DA's office routinely did in felony and especially murder trials until 1986, when the despicable practice, tantamount to lynching, was outlawed by the Supreme Court). Furthermore, Abu-Jamal has been a model prisoner for 30 years, earning a Bachelor's and a Master's degree while on death row, writing a number of highly-regarded books, including Live from
Death Row, exposing the horrors of a life waiting for death, and of the nation's whole prison industrial complex. And of course, he has served those 30 years in prison, and still faces a future of life without possibility of parole even if he doesn't face execution. That is bound to seem punishment enough to at least one juror in a panel of 12 honestly selected individuals of the city of Philadelphia, making a unanimous death penalty sentence almost impossible to imagine.

But there is another reason I seriously doubt Williams will not retry Abu-Jamal to get the death penalty reimposed: the fear that such a court hearing could lead to a new trial on the conviction itself, which was the result of a trial process which was even more of a travesty, if that is possible, than the portion that led to his death penalty.

This is because in a penalty phase hearing, in order to refute prosecution claims to a jury that Abu-Jamal didn't just kill Officer Faulkner, but killed him in a way that was wanton and deliberate and even pre-meditated, Abu-Jamal's defense attorneys would certainly bring in witnesses, some from the original trial, and some discovered since that trial, who would raise serious questions about the veracity of the original trial's prosecution witnesses. They could do this because those witnesses were used at the trial to describe not just the supposed shooting, but the vicious manner in which it was supposedly carried out.

Just take the matter of the prosecution's depiction of an "execution-style" slaying of Faulkner, with witnesses describing Abu-Jamal standing astride the prone Faulkner, who was supposedly lying "on his back," and firing four shots downward almost point blank, hitting the officer once between the eyes.

As my colleague Linn Washington and I prove convincingly in a gun test we ran last year (see the film of our test by scanning down to the bottom of our homepage or go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hedfNPt6UQQ&feature=player_embedded [1]), this story had to have been a fabrication, because three of those shots missed Faulkner, and there is no sign of bullet impacts anywhere in the concrete sidewalk around the bloodstained spot where Faulkner's body was lying. That lack of evidence would raise questions about whether the prime witness describing that certainly brutal slaying story could actually have seen what he said he saw.

The witness in question, a young white taxi driver named Robert Chobert, claimed at the trial that he had parked his taxi directly behind Faulkner's parked squad car. The shooting was said to have occurred on the sidewalk two cars forward of Chobert's taxi, meaning he would have been viewing it from his seat at the wheel, through both the parked squad car and a parked VW Beetle belonging to Abu-Jamal's brother Billie Cook -- this at night and with Faulkner's dome lights and tail lights flashing in his eyes. But on top of this, there is no crime scene photo showing Chobert's taxi cab parked behind Faulkner at all, and the likelihood is that he was not even a witness.

It would also certainly be presented by the defense at any penalty hearing that contrary to the trial prosecutor's assertion to the jury that "this man" (Chobert) had "no reason to lie," he actually had plenty of reason to do so. The original jury, thanks to a biased and clearly ludicrous decision by the trial judge, Albert Sabo, never was informed that Chobert at the time he allegedly parked behind Faulkner's vehicle, and at the time of the trial, was driving on a drivers and a hack license suspended for a DWI conviction, and that he was on probation for felony arson, for the fire-bombing of an elementary school! Furthermore, it only became known to the defense in 1995 that Chobert had also asked the prosecutor if he might be able to "fix" his driver's license problem (a request that the prosecutor should by law have immediately made known to the defense, and to the court, since even if he did nothing to help Chobert, it meant that Chobert was likely to have been hoping for a reward for testifying favorably for the prosecution).

Of course, this is only one example of the peril posed to the state's case against Abu-Jamal by any public rehearing on his death penalty. There are many, many more such perils, too.

While on the one hand, it is surely a relief that this atrocity of a case will almost certainly not result in Abu-Jamal's execution, thanks to the Supreme Court's decision to stay out of it, in a perverse way it is unfortunate. This is because once Abu-Jamal is sentenced to life without parole rather than to death, and is transferred to a general prison population, where he will have freer access to his loved ones and to the public, as well as to the state's huge prison population, the national and global movement to free him will likely weaken, for he will no longer be the icon of the anti-death penalty movement that he has been.

He will of course be able to combat this thanks to his journalistic skills, which will be easier to apply once he's sprung from SCI-Green and has at least occasional access to a computer and to a library. But let's face it: remaining a leading symbol of the nation's death penalty madness will be harder once the threat of execution is finally lifted.

This means that those of us who believe that Abu-Jamal's original trial was a scandal of the worse proportions, and that his guilt was never proven thanks to the epic misconduct by the prosecution, the lying by prosecution witnesses, the clear pro-prosecution bias of the judge, the ineptness of the defense attorney, the packing of the jury, the lack of funding for any defense experts, and myriad other flaws, will have to work all the harder at trying to win this long-suffering victim of the American injustice system a new trial, not on the penalty, but on his original conviction.

DAVE LINDORFF is the author of Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal [2] (Common Courage Press, 2006).
Source URL: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/827

Links:
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hedfNPt6UQQ&feature=player_embedded
[2] http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781567512281-6

US Supreme Court Affirms That Mumia's Death Sentence is Unconstitutional

2011-10-12T12:59:00.000-05:00

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Media Contact: Mel Gagarin; (212) 965-2783 mgagarin@naacpldf.org

October 11, 2011

United States Supreme Court Rejects Appeal from Philadelphia DA's Office
Mumia Abu-Jamal's Death Sentence is Unconstitutional

(New York, NY) -- Today the United States Supreme Court rejected a request from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office to overturn the most recent federal appeals court decision declaring Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence unconstitutional. The Court's decision brings to an end nearly thirty years of litigation over the fairness of the sentencing hearing that resulted in Mr. Abu-Jamal's being condemned to death. Mr. Abu-Jamal will be automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole unless the District Attorney elects to seek another death sentence from a new jury.

The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) and Professor Judith Ritter of Widener Law School represent Mr. Abu-Jamal in the appeal of his conviction and death sentence for the 1981 murder of a police officer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Supreme Court's decision marks the fourth time that the federal courts have found that Mr. Abu-Jamal's sentencing jury was misled about the constitutionally mandated process for considering evidence supporting a life sentence.

"At long last, the profoundly troubling prospect of Mr. Abu-Jamal facing an execution that was produced by an unfair and unreliable penalty phase has been eliminated," said John Payton, Director-Counsel of LDF. "Like all Americans, Mr. Abu-Jamal was entitled to a proper proceeding that takes into account the many substantial reasons why death was an inappropriate sentence." Professor Ritter stated, "Our system should never condone an execution that stems from a trial in which the jury was improperly instructed on the law."

Mr. Abu-Jamal's case will now return to the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas for final sentencing.

Mumia Stamp Published by French Postal Service

2011-07-15T20:00:00.000-05:00

Mumia's Lawyers' Statement on the DA's Appeal to the US Supreme Court

2011-07-15T19:43:00.001-05:00

From
International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
and
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition

"Four federal judges have reviewed Mr. Abu-Jamal's case and found his death sentence to be unconstitutional. The Third Circuit's recent opinion reflects a detailed analysis demonstrating that their unanimous decision is well-supported by Supreme Court precedent. LDF believes that this carefully reasoned analysis will stand."

Judy Ritter
Christina Swarns
(Mumia's lead attorneys)

Philadelphia DA asks for US Supreme Court to review issue of death penalty v. life

2011-07-12T14:55:00.000-05:00

from Suzanne Ross at www.freemumia.com:

Attorney Judy Ritter, who has argued the issue of Mills (whether Mumia should be given life in prison v. death) before the Third Circuit twice, just informed us that the Philadelphia DA is appealing to the US Supreme Court to review the Third Circuit's recent decision supporting Judge William Yohn 2001. The Yohn ruling was that the judge's instructions to the jury on the sentencing were incorrect and therefore could not allow the death sentence to stand.

We will put the appeals document on our website as soon as possible.
www.freemumia.com

Interview w/Suzanne Ross: For the Liberation of Mumia Abu-Jamal

2011-07-08T21:24:00.001-05:00

Following is an interview with Suzanne Ross, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, William E. Bachmann, US Labor activist involved in Mumia's defense, and Omowale Rupert-em-Hru, of the Pan-Afrikan Society, which is part of the Free Mumia Abu- Jamal campaign in Great Britain. The interview was published in the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples (ILC) Newsletter, Issue No. 36 (No. 405 Old Series) on May 27, 2011.

In November the ILC, a broad regroupment of political and trade union organizations, came together in Algiers for the Open World Conference Against War and Exploitation. Fifty-two countries, including the United States, were represented at the conference. Suzanne Ross, representing the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, addressed the plenary on the case of Mumia.

The interview below was conducted in Paris on May 2, 2011, almost six months after the conference. It is a follow up of the report that Suzanne Ross presented in Algiers. It accompanied a meeting the three Mumia activists had with Daniel Gluckstein, Co-coordinator of the International Liaison Committee, and Gerard Bauvert, Director, International Committee Against Repression.

We Absolutely Will Not Stop Until Mumia Is Free!

Question: The Mumia question was one of the cases at the center of our conference against war and exploitation in Algiers. The comrades who came to the conference in Algiers in November would like to know about the important recent developments in Mumia's case in these past almost six months. Could you give these comrades as well as all the other labor activists who are concerned about this issue some concrete and precise information about what these developments are?

Suzanne Ross: Okay. But first I want to communicate to our dear, dear comrades around the world who in Algiers showed such love and solidarity for Mumia. I was quite overwhelmed by the strong feelings for Mumia that people expressed. "We're so happy to hear about Mumia after these years where we haven't heard much", "How is he?" "Please give him my love". It was very moving and also very encouraging to experience that.

I reported on that to my comrades in the US and also to Mumia. So we owe all those people the opportunity to have up-to-date information of what has transpired since the conference.

The comrades will recall that that we were very concerned at the time about the possible execution of Mumia since the prosecutor and the State of Pennsylvania, where Mumia comes from and where he is situated on Death Row, were aggressively demanding that the question of Mumia's execution be reconsidered more seriously. That had not happened since 2001, when a federal judge ruled that Mumia should be sentenced to life in prison without any chance of parole rather than to an execution because of faulty instructions to the jury in the original trial.

We immediately became very concerned given the move toward the right in the United States, and especially with a right wing Supreme Court. We took it extremely seriously and spent from January 2010 until just this last month fighting this process, both in the courts and in the streets.

I am happy to report that there we had something like a legal victory in the sense that the courts had to admit that there was no new basis for reinstating the death penalty; that, in fact, the 2001 decision of life in prison without parole was affirmed. The original 2001 decision was made on a very technical basis and not given out of any humane consideration, or any consideration for a profound sense of justice. And still where it now stands legally, even if this decision is not overturned on appeal, is that Mumia will never get out.

So, it's not a decision that we ever wanted, in the sense of a final decision. The final decision has to be Mumia's freedom. And I repeat that: the final solution of the struggle - we do not stop, let me repeat this, we absolutely will not stop until Mumia is free, in fact until all political prisoners are free.

But the struggle for Mumia does not end once they remove the immediate threat of execution, and we want friends of Mumia around the world to know that, that we will fight to the very end on this issue. Mumia has never fought for life imprisonment without parole; that's not what he is fighting for. In fact, just to report, the lawyer who called him, to give him the news, -- you know, the lawyer of course was very happy. She said Mumia didn't react that strongly. She heard him, she spoke to him and he said very little. Okay, how could Mumia be happy after thirty years? "Oh, yes, life in prison without parole? That's great."

No, Mumia was not ecstatically happy, we're not ecstatically happy. We are glad the enemy was defeated and had a set-back; they could not move ahead with execution. That doesn't mean they won't try again. They have the legal possibility of trying again. But this was definitely a set back for them. This defeat for the enemy means that Mumia no longer has an immediate threat of execution.

The other big thing I want people around the world to know is Mumia's legal is now under the leadership of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The two keys lawyers, Christina Swarns and Judith Ritter, were both involved before but they are now in charge. This is the organization (now completely separate from the NAACP, a more centrist organization not focused primarily on the legal front) that led the struggle for racial justice in the courts in the 1950's during the Civil Rights Movement. It won the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education that desegregated (officially at least) the schools. The Legal Defense Fund specializes in legal struggles on the issue of race.

They have taken on this case precisely because they feel it is very much defined by race and racial issues. I don't mean personal prejudice alone but rather powerful racial institutional forces in the legal system. In Mumia's case, this included the original judge who is known infamously for having said, outside his own courtroom but in an adjacent courtroom, "I'm going to help them fry the nigger" -- to the selection of a jury that was extremely biased, and selected purposefully to be disproportionately white -- to a police force that is known for its racism which has fought tooth and nail for Mumia's execution.

The NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund's moving into this case is wonderful. It's a big victory for Mumia. After nearly 30 years of this case, the most prestigious and most effective civil rights legal institute takes on his case in a major way, not just participating, but leading the team.

Those are the two major things that have happened since the conference, the Third Circuit ruling and the new legal team.

Question: You spoke about cruel and inhumane treatment in the prisons at the very moment when we hear about the US government speaking about democracy and human rights all over the world. Can you explain to our readers, even after the end of the immediate threat of execution, what are the conditions of Mumia's imprisonment?

SR: Mumia has been in prison and on Death Row for almost thirty years. He was twenty-seven years old when his case came up. He was a widely respected radio journalist, known as a radical critic of the corruption, racism, and brutality of city officials and government, brilliant, a peace-maker with children, a very involved and loving father. He was even known outside of Philadelphia because he was head of communications for the Black Panther Party in Philadelphia and as an emerging leader traveled for the Party. He wrote, he spoke. He has the kind of voice that actors have; people stop to listen to him. Also, he is a very clear thinker.

The prosecutor's office and the police took a charismatic young Black leader like that and presented him as a monster. They created a monster, a cop- killer, someone who wanting nothing more than to kill a cop. In a recent film the prosecution, police, and even the mayor of Philadelphia supported, Mumia was portrayed as someone who dreamed of killing cops, who was obsessed with fantasies of killing cops, almost from his mother's womb, someone who was born that way.

And that is how they justify denying Mumia all human rights. He's been living in this isolated cell that is the size of a small bathroom, he can make maybe two phone calls a week, and he is allowed out of his cell for an hour a day on weekdays, when it's not raining or snowing, to exercise within a small caged area with one other prisoner. He can never touch another human being, his wife, his children, his grandchildren: he sees them all behind the plexiglas barrier.

Until recently, every visit he went to, he had to undergo not only a strip search, but also to come in shackles, his legs shackled, his hands hand-cuffed. It was not until Archbishop Tutu came to visit him and protested that this man is no threat behind glass and that this is just too degrading to a human being, that the shackles were removed and he comes to his visits now without the shackles and the handcuffs.

But the lack of freedom and the intrusiveness is impossible for us to imagine. And this man, in the face of all that indignity, in the face of that brutality, maintains a spirit of humanity. He shows respect for all human beings and remains concerned about others, whether in the prison or death row area he is at or 7,000 miles away from where he is. I mean, you know from his articles and when people visit him, the first thing he asks is "How are you?", and he wants to know how you are. He asks about all the conditions people he knows or knows about are facing.

So this inhumane capitalist society, talking about human rights, trying to justify isolating or invading any country in the world it needs to defeat, in the name of defending the people's "human rights". Please! There is nothing that any country could do that would match - I mean, I should never say "never", but I can't imagine any country that would violate the human rights of people all over the world more than the United States.

I can't imagine any country whose violation of human rights -- and not that there aren't violations of human rights in too many other parts of the world -- would ever, ever justify the US having the right to say something about it. The US has no right to speak on the issue of human rights when it does what it does to its own citizens like Mumia Abu Jamal, the other political prisoners, and all those in prison -- and to people around the world with its invasions, occupations, wars, and the constant stealing of the world's resources.

As far as I'm concerned there is no reason to ever take seriously what Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton or Obama say about human rights anywhere in the world. The US hasn't earned the right to be taken seriously about its supposed concern for human rights. It has stood for the very opposite, the denial and trampling of human rights whenever US economic, political, or military concerns are at stake.

Question: You explained in Algiers that Mumia is still alive today because of international solidarity. Maybe you could develop this question?

SR: Yes, Mumia is still alive today because of international solidarity, because of millions of people around the world, including in the US of course, who have cared about what he represents, who he is, and how much is at stake in his survival and liberation from prison. Those people have fought for him to be alive and free and have succeeded in keeping alive, though not yet free.

The US government wanted to and still wants to kill him. Every arm of the government has participated in this conspiracy: the police hierarchy in Philadelphia, the courts all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Department of Justice and President of the US in refusing to review the case. Additionally, the media has played a very large role in propagating the lies created by the police and prosecution. This despite the fact that it is obvious to millions of people that there has been a conspiracy to kill Mumia so as to silence him.

Yes, the only reason Mumia is alive today and they haven't been able to kill him is because people around the world have made it clear that they will not accept that. And the US government and the powers know that they are being watched by the whole world. This last time, when they had the hearing in the Pennsylvania court, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, the courtroom was packed with supporters, including representatives from Germany and France.

The streets outside the court room were covered with loud and determined supporters, even in the face of dozens of police and dogs in the area, especially at the entrance to the court, meant to intimidate and discourage people from attending the hearing. And almost three decades after this case began there were demonstrations in many parts of the world. Messages came in saying,"We're with you", "We stand with you". "Free Mumia".

Immediately after that was the strong solidarity the Algiers Conference represented by providing the opportunity for the body to hear about Mumia's situation, and thus reinvigorating the support of those present. That kind of international solidarity has kept Mumia alive.

We end by calling on the world progressive forces to continue to be vigilant and watchful about Mumia, the other political prisoners in the US dungeons, and the 2.3 million person prison population in the "land of the free". We extend our reciprocal solidarity for the critical people's struggles going on in so many different parts of the world at this moment, but perhaps most dramatically in North Africa.

Mumia's Message to the 6/11 Venezuelan Conference of African Descendants

2011-07-08T21:21:00.001-05:00

This was an International Conference of African Descendants hosted by Venezuela in June in the 2011 UN International Year for People of African Descent. Hundreds of delegates gathered in Caracas, including Sabrina Green, representing the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Sabrina addressed the conference on Mumia. Mumia's message was read at the conference.

To Our Friends in Venezuela

Hola, mis hermanos y hermanas de Venezuela Afro descendencias!

Congratulations on the official and national celebrations of the month of May for the Venezuelan Afro-descendant community.

The struggle for Black liberty, dignity and power is a global struggle, one which runs through almost every country on earth.

That's because, of course, the world's first globalist system was the international slave industry, where millions of Africans were transferred to the America, north and south, as well as to North Africa, and throughout the Middle East, to enrich others.

We, therefore, are part of each other, and have been for centuries; and hopefully will be for centuries to come!

We celebrate, with you, the advances of the Bolivarian Revolution, which has expanded the areas of public and civil life for many Afro-Descendents, and furthers the struggle against racism, and marginalism.

We know , from our study of history, that many Latin countries have centuries of racism and negrophobia in its past, and some have tried to create a new future for all their people, whether white, African or Indian.

We look at Venezuela and see it taking significant strides in that direction, not just in word, but in deed as well.

We therefore stand with and salute our brothers and sisters in Venezuela, as they try to build a space of freedom, dignity, independence, and progress outside of the U.S. Empire!

Ona Move!
With my best wishes,

Mumia Abu-Jamal
(Death Row/USA)

signed Ona MOVE! Mumia

[speech 5/31/11] ® Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia's book, Jailhouse Lawyer, launch event on June 30 in UK House of Lords

2011-06-07T22:49:00.000-05:00

From death row in Pennsylvania, the launch of a new book in the UK

JAILHOUSE LAWYERS
Prisoners Defending Prisoners v the USA
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
Foreword by
Angela Y. Davis,

Introduction by
Selma James

Published by
Crossroads Books

30 June 2011
4:00 - 5:00 pm
House of Lords, Committee Room 4

Hosted by Lord Ramsbotham
Former HM Chief Inspector of Prisons

Speakers:

Selma James, Crossroads Books editor, Introduction to Jailhouse Lawyers
John Hirst, Ex-prisoner, won European Court decision for prisoners’ right to vote.
Flo Krause, Barrister who represented John Hirst in the European Court
Ian Macdonald, QC Wrote letter to US court on racism in Abu-Jamal’s trial, signed by over 100 UK lawyers
Emmanuel De Silva, Jailhouse lawyer
Benjamin Zephaniah, Poet, ex-prisoner
Niki Adams, Legal Action for Women

New Play on Mumia in Philly

2011-06-07T22:42:00.000-05:00

The Free Mumia Coalition is joining Pam and will be driving down to Philadelphia together. If you want to travel with us, please call our hotline -- 212.330.8029 -- by Wednesday, June 12, and leave your home number. Please state it clearly and say it twice. Also, contact Pam to let her know you want her to save you a ticket (for which you'll pay her on the 12th).

The Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition

From Sis. Pam Africa:

Ona Move! Concerning the play "In a Daughter's Eyes" -- the first preview was on Friday May 27th. When I heard about it I went to the first preview nite. From what I read I wanted to be sure that this was not a sneaky hit pieces on our brother Mumia Abu Jamal and the Panther organization. I will not tell you anything about the play other than that I stood and gave it a standing ovation. I met the playwrite, a young 24 year old Black man and all who were involved with the play -- the two young women in the play, one who played the daughter of Mumia Abu Jamal and the other who played the part of copy Daniel Faulkner's daughter. This is, as described, a truly intense drama inspired by the true story of Mumia Abu Jamal. Oh, yes -- I was seated by a journalist from the Philadelphia Tribune who, after the play, did a short interview with me, asking me what I thought of the play. I said I was the first to stand and give a long standing ovation. I had come to see whether I will tell family and friends to demonstrate or tell them to come see this play for themselves.

Since that viewing, on Sunday May 29th I accomanied Mumia's daughter Goldi and a friend. At the end of the play we decided, after taking pictures with the director, producer and playwrite, the two outstanding actresses Lynette R. Freeman and Krista Apple, whose dramatization of this play ket us intense as it took you on an emotional roller coaster ride. The third time I saw the play I accompanied Mumia's wife, Wadiya Jamal, one of Mumia's former attorneys and truly good friend of the family, Rachael Wolkinstein, and one of Mumia's former investigators. Rachael had her granddaughter with her. Also present was two trusted members of the original Black Panthers (this is important because we are serious about our movements and organizations). The 2 Panthers were Barbara Easley Cox, wife of D.C. Cox, and our sister Gladys from Chicago, now in Philadelphia -- two serious sistas, dat's right, and Professor Robert Zeller and a friend, both long time fighters for justice. And a very good friend, a serious activist for human rights and justice, Sister Omi Rahim. At the end of the play we all stood for a well-deserved standing ovation and to do one on one with everyone involved in the play, and I also want to thank the Inter Act Theater Comapny who treated us all with the utmost respect and saw to it that all who came for the play were treated with respect...

Now I will be going back on Thursday June 9th with other activists coming from out of town, with Professor Sandra Jones, human rights activist and anti-death penalty advocate, to attend an academic conference. If you want to join us, please email me before you get your tickets so we can get the cheaper tickets available with the group rate. We also will be having a Family and Friends day on June 12 at 2 pm.

So contact me soon. When we went on Wednesday June 1st it was sold out!!!! So if you plan on going, get with me ASAP. You will not be disappointed. On the 12th, following the play, there will be time for discussion.

Thank you for your continued support.

Pam Africa
(icffmaj@aol.com)
Minister of Confrontation for the MOVE Organization and
Chairwoman of the Uncompromising
International Concerned Family and Friend of Mumia Abu Jamal

This play is 1 hour and a half long, so we should be finished by 3:30 or 4 pm. Then join us at the African celebration odunde, a few blocks away, at the Main Stage at 23rd and South, and several blocks of vendors starting at 16th and South to 23rd and 23rd to 25th and Grays Ferry. Odunde is another event you do not want to miss, so join us for a full day of conscious upliftment and edutainment!

Rise up, everybody and get ready to work!!!!!

The National Conference of Black Lawyers Calls on Obama Administration to Free All U.S. Political Prisoners

2011-05-22T18:30:00.000-05:00

The National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL) urges the U.S. to apply international human rights standards to protect, and ensure the rights of political prisoners. NCBL presented the plight of the political prisoners in the United States to the United Nations' Human Rights Council in a cluster report as well as an individual report documenting the human rights violations related to U.S. political prisoners. NCBL welcomed the U.S. participation in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process as an important step toward protecting human rights at home. In addition to human rights violations of the political prisoners, there are many areas that need significant improvement in the U.S. As part of the UPR process, dozens of human rights groups submitted reports documenting the scale and extent of human rights violations in the U.S. In preparation for a November meeting before the HRC, the U.S. submitted a report in August to the Human Rights Council ("HRC") on its efforts to strengthen human rights commitments and to comply with international human rights standards. The U.S. failed to mention the plight of political prisoners who have languished in U.S. prisons for decades. In the compilation of civil society reports submitted to the HRC in October, the U.S. was urged to free its political prisoners.

On November 5, 2010, the U.S. appeared before the HRC and engaged in an interactive dialogue with other countries of the HRC, as well as other member states in a review of the United States' human rights compliance. During this interactive review the political prisoner issue was raised by member states. After the review the HRC adopted a report with 228 recommendations, including recommendations concerning political prisoners, for the U.S. government to improve the status of human rights in the country. On November 9, 2010, the U.S. published its "Response to Recommendations" of the HRC. Again, the U.S. neglected to address the human rights violations committed by its FBI that resulted in the wrongful imprisonment of dozens of African-American political activists and others.

While the United States consistently denies the existence of political prisoners, these individuals were ensnared in the grips of the United States' repressive Counter-intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) operation as activists who dared to challenge the status quo of America's harsh treatment of black people. Many of these activists were members of organizations such as the Black Panther Party, and were not content to remain silent in a system of de facto slavery, but demanded human rights in many areas, including quality education, healthcare, and an end to rampant police violence against black people. Groups such as the Black Panther Party were targets of government surveillance under COINTELPRO and members were harassed, beaten,
falsely arrested and prosecuted in a system bloated with contempt for them and their righteous causes. They were sentenced to unreasonably lengthy prison terms. In cases where death sentences were not imposed, the parole boards, through their actions in repeatedly denying parole, are making certain that they will die in prison. Hence this well-oiled machine continues to operate against political prisoners in America.

A Congressional subcommittee, popularly known as the "Church Committee", was formed to investigate and study the FBI's covert action programs. In its report, the Church Committee concluded that the FBI had "conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence."

Even if one were to grant credibility to the FBI's stated reason for its violations of these prisoners' constitutional and human rights, there exists no justification for their continued incarceration.

These political prisoners are now elderly. There is overwhelming statistical support for the fact that the rate of recidivism for elderly prisoners is virtually nonexistent. Also, several have died while incarcerated due to lack of health care. Governors across this country are unwilling to grant clemency to political prisoners. Parole boards reserve "special treatment" for them, no matter how exemplary their institutional adjustment and impressive the evidence is for successful re-entry into society once released. The United States' failure to recognize them does not make their existence any less real. The United States' continued refusal to acknowledge the evidence of their existence is itself a violation of their human rights. These prisoners' human rights were not only violated by the operations of COINTELPRO and their subsequent arrests and convictions. Their human rights continue to be violated as prisoners with convictions for crimes of the same or less seriousness are released on parole. Given this evidence coupled with their exemplary records while incarcerated, it is absolutely beyond dispute that their treatment stems from the fact of their past political association. This treatment of political prisoners is prohibited by the Convention to End All Forms of Racism and Discrimination (CERD).

The United States has no moral authority to chastise other governments for human rights violations until it addresses its human rights violations including the atrocious treatment of political prisoners. In March, 2011, the HRC will hold its regular session for the formal adoption of the U.S. outcome document. Thus, the U.S. still has an opportunity to address this critical issue.

The National Conference of Black Lawyers in coalition with other organizations will continue to expose this national shame until the United States acknowledges it and takes steps to address it.

5/13 & 14 Take Action to Free the MOVE 9 - Events in Philadelphia & London

2011-05-07T14:37:00.000-05:00

Ona MOVE for the MOVE Organization

“...it is time to put what I have learned into practice; freedom will only be won by the sweat on our brows” —Safiya Bukhari

Four years ago, as a junior in college in Virginia, I met this Elder named Leroy who was the janitor at the school library. After about five minutes of conversation, he asked of my origins. I replied “home of the moonshine, Franklin, Virginia”. After turning the question back on him, he responded―”I am from Philly, home of a Black mayor throwing a bomb on some Black folks house.”

That was my first piece of information about MOVE.

Three Years ago, I moved to Philly and I was surprised to see the light being dimmed on the MOVE 9’s case. It was one of the biggest cases of injustice in Philadelphia, and people had seem to forget that not only one, but nine of their own political prisoners were doing a 30-100 year bid in prison.

I remember watching the gritty, Black and White, documentary, “MOVE: Confrontation in Philadelphia” and feeling the outrage of the community after the August 8, 1978 incident. People were in the streets cursing and exposing the corruption of Philadelphia police and rallying together for the MOVE 9. Fast Forward thirty years later and while engaging in dialogue with people around the MOVE 9 case, I hear time and time again, ―”they are still incarcerated?”, “Hold up, you mean to tell me there are people in prison right now who are apart of MOVE?”

This type of brain drain is very devastating to an important case such as this one that needs support in the form of people power in demanding the MOVE 9’s freedom!

Everyday, I am making more of a personal commitment to the MOVE 9, while working towards enlightening my community about this case and putting out the information in order to ensure that our brothers and sisters of the MOVE 9 will make it back to us as well.

Even if you do not agree with the principles of the MOVE organization, or support their stance, we can agree on as a community that our political prisoners must come home! We must take the initiative to enlighten one another about the MOVE 9 and strategize on how we can get Chuck, Mike, Janet, Janine, Debbie, Delbert, Phil, and Eddie home (and justice for Sis Merle as well). Along the way, hopefully we can enlighten others to find it in their conscience to make a MOVE for the MOVE 9!

Ona MOVE,

Iresha Picot, MOVE Supporter

Never forget 1985! Now is the time to free the MOVE 9!

PHILADELPHIA

Friday May 13

Watch “August 8, 1978” to understand the unjust incarceration of the MOVE 9 and how the battle for their release lead to the bombing of MOVE in 1985.

6:00 - 9:00 pm
L-13 Gladfelter Hall, Temple University
1115 W. Berks Street, Philadelphia

Saturday May 14

Join us for a rally
at Broad & Chestnut Street, Philadelphia
12:00 - 3:00 pm

From Ramona Africa:

To this day no official has been held accountable for the murder of our MOVE family which the whole world witnessed. Meanwhile,the MOVE 9 still sit in prison 33 years after being falsely accused of a murder officials know they didn't commit and nobody can say they saw anyone of them commit. In fact, at the end of the trial the trial judge stated publicly that he didn't have the faintest idea who killed Officer Ramp on August 8,1978. Officials can't give us back our family that they murdered on May 13th 26 years ago but they can give us back our innocent family members that they have behind their prison walls despite their innocence.

Ona MOVE!
LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA!

LONDON

Friday 13 May

MOVE Demo Outside London US Embassy
5:00 - 7:00 pm

From Emma Lewis:

Demonstrate Outside the US Embassy
Grosvenor Square, London

For Justice for the MOVE family

Murdered by the criminal US state by bombing their commune and killing 11 people including five children

CELEBRATE THE LIVES OF OUR MARTYRS

Down with US Imperialism
Justice for the MOVE 9

FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS
FREE MUMIA

3rd Circuit Court Appeal Ruling Declairs Mumia's Sentending Unconstitutional

2011-04-27T14:04:00.001-05:00

3rd Circuit Appeal Ruling Favoring Abu-Jamal Smacks Down US Supreme Court
Tue, 04/26/2011
Linn Washington Jr.
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/579

The federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, in a stunning smack at the U.S. Supreme Court, has issued a ruling upholding its earlier decision backing a new sentencing hearing in the controversial case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted killer of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.

The latest ruling, issued on Tuesday April 26, 2011, upholds a ruling the Third Circuit issued over two years ago siding with a federal district court judge who, back in 2001, had set aside Abu-Jamal’s death penalty after determining that death penalty instructions provided to the jury, and a flawed jury ballot document used during Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial, had been unclear.

The U.S. Supreme Court had ordered the Third Circuit to re-examine its 2009 ruling upholding the lifting of Abu-Jamal’s death sentence.

The nation’s top court had cited a new legal precedent in that directive to the Third Circuit, a strange order given the fact that the Supreme Court had earlier consistently declined to apply its own precedents to Abu-Jamal’s case.

The Associated Press was the first to report the Third Circuit’s latest dramatic ruling and in fact, as of the morning of the ruling’s release, the decision had still not been posted on the appeals court’s website.

Abu-Jamal’s current lead attorney, Prof Judith Ritter of the Widener Law School, could not be reached for comment.

The Third Circuit’s ruling, if left standing, requires Philadelphia prosecutors to call for a whole new sentencing hearing if they want to try and reinstate the death penalty. That would require the impaneling of a whole new jury, to hear and consider evidence regarding mitigating circumstances and aggravating circumstances in the case, and then to decide for either execution of life-without-possibility of parole--the only two options legally available. Abu-Jamal has exhausted his avenues of appeal of his conviction, absent new evidence in the case.

If prosecutors opted against holding new hearing then Abu-Jamal’s sentence would be converted automatically to a life sentence, which in Pennsylvania means no chance of parole. Abu-Jamal would have to spending the remainder of his life behind bars, though not on death row.

Experts contend a new sentencing hearing would be problematic for prosecutors. Although the issue of guilt or innocence would not be on trial, the defense could bring in witnesses to explain exactly what they saw happen the night of the shooting--witnesses whose testimony could ultimately raise new questions about the validity of the underlying conviction.

It is almost a certainty that prosecutors will appeal the Third Circuit’s latest ruling back up to the Supreme Court. Furthermore, prosecutors concede that current and yet unresolved legal issues in this case, which continues to attract unprecedented international scrutiny, will keep it in courts for years. For example, there are several avenues of appeal of Abu-Jamal's death sentence which were never adjudicated by the Federal District court, which mooted them after the Judge, William Yohn, found in favor of one argument and tossed out the death sentence.

In early April 2011 the NAACP Legal Defense Fund publicly announced it was joining the Abu-Jamal defense team and working with Professor Ritter. NAACP lawyers had joined Ritter last fall during the hearing where she argued the legal point just upheld by the Third Circuit in its latest ruling.

Recently Abu-Jamal recorded yet another birthday (4/24) inside a death row isolation cell. Abu-Jamal and the 222 other Pennsylvania death row inmates spend 23-hours per day every day isolated inside minimalist cells.

Since 1983 Abu-Jamal has languished in the confinement of death row, following his controversial July 1982 conviction for the murder of Officerl Faulkner.

Now 57, Abu-Jamal has spent nearly 29 years of his life in prison for a crime he has consistently denied committing--a crime that ample evidence conclusively proves could not have occurred as police and prosecutors have proclaimed.

Authorities, for example, claim Abu-Jamal fired four shots at the policeman, while straddling the officer as he lay defenseless on a sidewalk, striking him only once with a fatal shot in the face.

However, police crime scene photos and police reports make no reference of any bullet marks in that sidewalk around the fallen officer--marks that should have been clearly visible if Abu-Jamal fired three shots at almost point-blank range into the sidewalk as witnesses and the prosecutor claimed.

As detailed in an thorough investigative ballistic test released in September 2010 by This Can’t Be Happening! (See our film at the bottom of the home page), it is impossible to fire high-velocity bullets into a sidewalk without leaving any marks. TCBH! test-fired each kind of .38-caliber bullets referenced in police reports about the 1981 crime scene into a slab of old city sidewalk, and each of those bullets left easily visible marks…marks totally contradicting claims by authorities that Abu-Jamal wildly fired into the sidewalk without leaving bullet marks.

Rulings by federal and state courts denying Abu-Jamal the legal relief routinely granted other inmates who had raised the same appeals claims are the least-examined element of this internationally-condemned injustice.

The same Philadelphia and Pennsylvania courts that found major flaws by either defense attorneys, police, prosecutors and/or trial judges in 86 Philadelphia death penalty convictions during a 28-year period after Abu-Jamal’s December 1981 arrest declare no errors exist anywhere in the Abu-Jamal case – an assertion critics call statistically improbable.

The federal Third Circuit, for example, declined to grant Abu-Jamal a new trial based on solid legal issues from racial discrimination by prosecutors in jury selection to documented errors by trial judge Albert Sabo, the late jurist who relished his infamous reputation for pro-prosecution bias.

The Third Circuit’s 2008 ruling faulting Sabo for his inability to provide the jury with simple death penalty deliberation instructions included the contradictory conclusion that Sabo had adequately provided the jury with instructions about a highly complicated legal issue involving misconduct by the trial prosecutor.

Faulting Sabo for that flawed instruction on prosecutorial misconduct would have required the Third Circuit to give Abu-Jamal a whole new trial. Unwilling to do that, the court sidestepped its duty to ensure justice, by deciding to just eliminate Abu-Jamal’s death sentence, instead.

Pennsylvania state courts have released three Philadelphians from death row (half of Pa’s death row exonerations to date) citing misconduct by police and prosecutors…misconduct that was less egregious than that documented in the Abu-Jamal case. One of those Philadelphia exonerations involved a man framed by police for a mob-related killing, who was arrested six months before Abu-Jamal.

While many people in Philadelphia may feel Abu-Jamal is guilty as charged, millions around the world question every aspect of this conviction, citing facts that proponents of Abu-Jamal’s conviction deliberately dismiss as irrelevant.

This widespread questioning of Abu-Jamal’s guilt is the reason why pro-Abu-Jamal activities occurred around the world commemorating Abu-Jamal’s 4/24 birthday, including people in San Francisco attending a screening of the “Justice on Trial” movie examining ignored aspects in the case, and people marching for Abu-Jamal’s freedom in the Brixton section of London.

Officials in the French city of Saint-Denis will stage a ceremony rededicating a street they named for Abu-Jamal during the last weekend in April.

The ire erupting over Abu-Jamal’s prominence on the part of advocates of his execution contains contradictions that are as clear as the proverbial black-&-white.

The U.S. Congress engaged in color-coded contradiction approving a May 2006 resolution condemning far off Saint-Denis for its honoring Abu-Jamal by placing his name on a small one block long street.

Over a decade before that anti-Saint-Denis outrage, over 100 members of Congress had battled to block the U.S. government from deporting a white fugitive convicted of killing a British Army officer in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

That officer’s killing had occurred during an investigation into the murder of another Belfast policeman.

Incidentally, the U.S. Congress did not erupt angrily when the City Council of New York City voted to place the name of that fugitive – Joseph Doherty – on the street corner outside the federal detention center then housing him.

In 1988 – six years after Abu-Jamal’s conviction – more than 3,000 Philadelphians signed petitions asking federal authorities to grant Doherty special permission to leave his federal detention cell for one day to allow Doherty to serve as Grand Marshall of Philadelphia’s St Patrick’s Day Parade.

One Philly supporter of suspected convicted cop killer Doherty was the then-President Judge of Philadelphia’s trial courts, Edward J. Bradley.

Judge Bradley told a reporter in 1988 that he had no problems as a jurist reconciling his support for a convicted felon because he questioned the “fair treatment” Irish nationals received in English courts.

Judge Bradley’s concern about fairness for IRA fighters in English courts is not paralleled by any concern about fairness in Philadelphia courts with regard to the case of former Black Panther Party member Abu-Jamal. Judge Bradley's double standard highlights the gross unfairness of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania state court judges.

Critics who castigate those who contribute to Abu-Jamal’s defense fund, especially by Hollywood stars, did not object to fund-raising on behalf of one of the white Los Angeles policemen convicted in federal court for the 1991 beating of Rodney King. That criminal cop was allowed to keep nearly $10-million in sales from his book and from a fund-raising campaign on his behalf – monies generated mainly after that the former police sergeant's imprisonment following a civil rights violation conviction.

One reason the decades-old Abu-Jamal case continues to generate support and rage is Abu-Jamal himself.

A charismatic figure who is articulate, with a level of education and intelligence atypical of the mainly illiterate denizens of death row, Abu-Jamal is able to explain his case, as well as to expose the horrors of the nation's prison system and its death rows.

While on death row Abu-Jamal has written six critically acclaimed books (including one on jailhouse lawyers), produced thousands of commentaries, learned two foreign languages, earned two college degrees, including a masters, and developed a loyal support network comprising millions worldwide.

Even the prosecutor at Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial – Joseph McGill – described him during that trial as the most “intelligent” defendant he'd ever faced.

And another prosecutor, during Abu-Jamal’s tainted 1995 appeals hearing, said he didn’t think “the shooting of Officer Faulkner is characteristic of this defendant.” (Abu-Jamal had no record of violence or criminal acts before his 1981 arrest.)

Supporters applaud Abu-Jamal’s defense of the downtrodden, particularly his poignant criticisms of America’s prison-industrial complex, that incarcerates more people per capita than any other country on earth.

Abu-Jamal’s stance highlighting the deprivations of the have-nots, predated his arrest, and had earned him the title of “Voice of the Voiceless” during his professional broadcast reporting career, which ran from 1975 till his December 1981 arrest.

Abu-Jamal rarely uses his world-wide platform to speak about his own plight, preferring to focus instead on the injustices endured by others.

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Download the full text of the court's ruling:
http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/019014p2.pdf http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/019014p2.pdf

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From Journalists for Mumia on the Court's Decision
http://www.abu-jamal-news.com

On April 26, 2011 the US Third Circuit Court upheld earlier rulings from 2001 (by US District Court Judge William Yohn) and 2008 (by the same 3rd Circuit panel of three judges) that 'overturned'* the death sentence and stated that if the DA wants to re-instate the death penalty, then Mumia must first be given a new sentencing phase jury trial where Mumia can present evidence of innocence but the jury can only decide between execution or life in prison without parole. (View full ruling)

According to the ruling, the DA has 180 days to decide whether or not to have a new sentencing trial. However, the DA is now appealing this ruling to the US Supreme Court, further postponing the 180 day deadline.

*The word 'overturned' must be qualified because following the 2001 ruling, at the DA's request, Mumia has never left his death row cell or been given general population 'privileges' such as contact visits with family.

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NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund Press Release on 3rd Circuit Court Decision

NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.

For Immediate Release

April 26, 2011
Contact: Melquiades Gagarin, mgagarin@naacpldf.org, 212-965-2783

Mumia Abu-Jamal's 1982 Death Sentence is Again Declared Unconstitutional
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has unanimously declared that Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence is unconstitutional. In today's decision, the Court of Appeals reaffirmed its 2008 finding that Mr. Abu-Jamal's sentencing jury was misled about the process for considering evidence supporting a life sentence. The Court found that, in violation of the United States Supreme Court's 1988 decision in Mills v. Maryland, the jury was improperly led to believe that that it could only consider unanimously agreed upon evidence favoring a life verdict. This mistake rendered Mr. Abu-Jamal's death sentence fundamentally unfair. The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) and Professor Judy Ritter of Widener Law School represent Mr. Abu-Jamal in this appeal of his 1982 conviction and death sentence for the murder of a police officer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

"This decision marks an important step forward in the struggle to correct the mistakes of an unfortunate chapter in Pennsylvania history," said John Payton, Director-Counsel of LDF. "Again acknowledging the existence of clear constitutional error in Mr. Abu-Jamal's trial, the Court of Appeals' decision enhances confidence in the criminal justice system and helps to relegate the kind of unfairness on which this death sentence rested to the distant past."

Prof. Ritter noted that, "Pennsylvania long ago abandoned the confusing and misleading instructions and verdict slip that were relied on in Mr. Abu-Jamal's trial in order to prevent unfair and unjust death sentences. Courts now use clear and unambiguous language to advise sentencing juries about their ability to consider evidence that favors a life verdict. Mr. Abu-Jamal is entitled to no less constitutional protection."

Mr. Abu-Jamal he has been on death row in Pennsylvania for 29 years.
To speak with counsel for Mr. Abu-Jamal, please contact Melquiades Gagarin, mgagarin@naacpldf.org, 212-965-2783.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/27/mumia-abujamal-capital-punishment

Capital punishment: America's worst crime

Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on death row for 29 years. Now, a court rules his sentencing unconstitutional. When will we learn?

Wednesday, April 27 2011 Amy Goodman

Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther party member, has spent 29 years on death row, convicted for the 1981 killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner
The death penalty case of Mumia Abu-Jamal took a surprising turn this week, as a federal appeals court declared, for the second time, that Abu-Jamal's death sentence was unconstitutional. The third US circuit court of appeals, in Philadelphia, found that the sentencing instructions the jury received, and the verdict form they had to use in the sentencing, were unclear. While the disputes surrounding Abu-Jamal's guilt or innocence were not addressed, the case highlights inherent problems with the death penalty and the criminal justice system, especially the role played by race.

Early on 9 December 1981, Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner pulled over a car driven by William Cook, Abu-Jamal's brother. What happened next is in dispute. Shots were fired, and both Officer Faulkner and Abu-Jamal were shot. Faulkner died, and Abu-Jamal was found guilty of his murder in a court case presided over by Judge Albert Sabo, who was widely considered to be a racist. In just one of too many painful examples, a court stenographer said in an affidavit that she heard Sabo say, in the courtroom antechamber, "I'm going to help them fry the n****r."

This latest decision by the court of appeals relates directly to Sabo's conduct of the sentencing phase of Abu-Jamal's court case. The Pennsylvania supreme court is considering separate arguments surrounding whether or not Abu-Jamal received a fair trial at all. What the court of appeals unanimously found this week is that he did not receive a fair sentencing. Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams has decided to appeal the decision to the US supreme court, saying:

"The right thing for us to do is to ask the US supreme court to hear this and to make a ruling on it."

As a result of this ruling, Abu-Jamal could get a new, full sentencing hearing, in court, before a jury. In such a hearing, the jury would be given clear instructions on how to decide between applying a sentence of life in prison as opposed to the death penalty – something the court found he did not receive back in 1982. At best, Abu-Jamal would be removed from the cruel confines of solitary confinement on Pennsylvania's death row at SCI Greene. John Payton, director counsel of the NAACP legal defence fund, which is representing Abu-Jamal in court, said:

"This decision marks an important step forward in the struggle to correct the mistakes of an unfortunate chapter in Pennsylvania history ... and helps to relegate the kind of unfairness on which this death sentence rested to the distant past."

His other attorney, Judith Ritter, a law professor at Widener University school of law, told me: "This is extremely significant. It's a life or death decision." I asked her if she had spoken to Abu-Jamal yet, and she told me that the prison failed to approve her request for an emergency legal phone call. I was not surprised, given my many years of covering his case.

He has faced multiple obstacles as he has tried to have his voice heard. On 12 August 1999, as I was hosting Democracy Now!, Abu-Jamal called into our news hour, mid-broadcast, to be interviewed. As he began to speak, a prison guard yanked the phone out of the wall. Abu-Jamal called back a month later and recounted that:

"Another guard appeared at the cell hollering at the top of his lungs, 'This call is terminated!' I immediately called to the sergeant standing by and looking on and said, 'Sergeant, where did this order come from?' He shrugged his shoulders and said: 'I don't know. We just got a call to cut you off.'"

Abu-Jamal sued over the violation of his rights, and won.

Despite his solitary confinement, Abu-Jamal has continued his work as a journalist. His weekly radio commentaries are broadcast from coast to coast. He is the author of six books. He was recently invited to present to a conference on racial imprisonment at Princeton University. He said (through a cellphone held up to a microphone):

"Vast numbers of men, women and juveniles … populate the prison industrial complex here in America. As many of you know, the US, with barely 5% of the world's population, imprisons 25% of the world's prisoners … the numbers of imprisoned blacks here rivals and exceeds South Africa's hated apartheid system during its height."

The United States clings to the death penalty, alone in the industrialised world. In fact, it stands with China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Yemen as the world's most frequent executioners. This week's decision in Mumia Abu-Jamal's case stands as one more clear reason why the death penalty should be abolished.

• Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Berlin report: Mumia's "Message For Anti-War Rallies"

2011-04-25T18:46:00.000-05:00

Dear all in the USA Free Mumia Movement,

Today appr. 4000 people took to the streets in Berlin, Germany to protest war and nuclear power. 25 years after the desaster of Tschernobyl, a few weeks after Fukushima and in the light of the latest war on Libya as well as Irak and Afghanistan people demanded a stop to all of this.

All major energy corporations as well as the British, French, European and US Embassies were visited by a loud march in the city center of Berlin.

At the closing rally on the central Potsdamer Place Mumia's message was played and people were asked to write prepared birthday cards to him, as has his 57th birthday the following day - Mumia will get a lot of post soon.

You can listen to Mumia's original message at Prison Radio:
http://www.prisonradio.org/4-10-11MessageForAntiWarRallies.htm

[ed. you can also sign up for the podcast of Mumia's commentaries at http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com. The direct link to this message is http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/the-method-of-their-madness. To sign up at iTunes, go to http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/mumia-abu-jamals-radio-essays/id197112445]

You can listen to a german recording of Mumia's speech in translation and the audience's response at:
"Berlin, Ostermarsch 2011: Redebeitrag von Mumia Abu-Jamal" http://www.freie-radios.net/40611

The Berlin demonstration was part of a nationwide mobilisation against the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. For the last 50 years the peace movement has been mobilizing against nuclear arms and wars around weekend of eastern. This year there are rallies in 83 cities and regions in Germany.

Mumia's message was played on other rallies, e.g. in Hamburg, where several hundred listened to Mumia's message on the same afternoon, too.

In solidarity

AMSTERDAM NEWS.........MUMIA ABU-JAMAL CELEBRATES 58YRS

2011-04-21T22:41:00.000-05:00

Mumia's supporters call his birthday a day of resurrection

By Saeed Shabazz
Special to the AmNews, April 21, 2011

On Sunday, April 24, political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal celebrates his 58th birthday. Suzanne Ross, co-chair of the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC), told the AmNews that "this is a day of resurrection for Mumia's case," referring to the fact that April 24 of this year is also being celebrated as Easter Sunday.

Before getting any deeper into the details surrounding the Philadelphia activist's case, the AmNews must share an exclusive email from Julia Wright, daughter of famed writer Richard Wright, who lives in Paris, France. Five years ago, a small town called Saint-Denis defied the Fraternal Order of Police and a U.S. Congressional Resolution by naming a street after Mumia, known as rue Mumia Abu-Jamal. Julia Wright recalled a phone call she received:

"Five years ago, on a premature spring afternoon, I received a phone call in my Paris apartment (my family and I have continued to live in exile after Richard Wright's death in 1960). An official-sounding voice asked me if I was the spokesperson in France for International Concerned Family and Friends for Mumia Abu Jamal.

"Puzzled, I concurred," Wright said.

"The voice then identified itself as speaking for the cultural Department of the City Hall of the town of Saint-Denis, better known for its church, where all the kings and queens of France are buried—some beheaded. `Would you kindly get in touch with Mr. Jamal on death row and ask him for his written permission to enable our municipality to name a street for him?'

"I blinked in amazement and finally managed to say, `I was under the impression streets could only be named after dead people.'"

She continued, "The official voice softened as it answered: `That is just why we want to name a street after him; so that we can keep him alive.'

"Today, five years later, Mumia is still alive and rue Mumia Abu-Jamal is still alive and kicking."

According to Ross, what is really significant is that he still is alive some 30 years after being sent to a Pennsylvania death row cell. Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death row in 1983, after his 1982 conviction in the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. The man known as "the voice of the people" has always maintained his innocence.

Abu-Jamal was a radio journalist, activist with the Black Panther Party and part-time cab driver at the time of Faulkner's murder. He was also active in defending MOVE, the naturalist organization residing in the West Philadelphia section of the "City of Brotherly Love."

In 2001, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania upheld the original conviction but voided the death sentence, citing irregularities in the original sentencing procedure, according to Wikipedia.

In December of 2005, the Third Circuit Court allowed for an appeal of the ruling of the District Court on four issues: that the jury form had been flawed, that there had potentially been a racial bias in jury selection, that the prosecutor's instructions to the jury were misleading and that the presiding judge demonstrated unacceptable bias.

According to reports, the presiding judge stated at the time, "Yeah, and I'm going to help them fry the nigger."

On March 27, 2008, a three-judge panel issued a majority 2-1 opinion that upheld the 2001 opinion but rejected the bias issue. They said that if the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania chose not to hold a new hearing, Abu-Jamal would automatically be sentenced to life in prison.

In July of 2008, Abu-Jamal's petition seeking a reconsideration of the decision by the full Third Circuit panel of 12 judges was denied. On April 6, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal, and on Jan. 19, 2010, the Supreme Court ordered the appeals court to reconsider the decision to rescind the death penalty, also ordering them to hear submissions for that purpose. That is where the case stands now.

Abu-Jamal addressed a standing-room only gathering of his supporters at Riverside Church on April 3. When a questioner asked him what has kept him going for the past 30 years, he said, "It has been a long, hard struggle. I have been blessed with a loving family. I am inspired when I see people organize against neo-colonial imperialism."

So, one might ask, what does Ross mean by a resurrection? The purpose for the gathering at Riverside Church was to introduce Abu-Jamal's new legal team to his supporters: attorney Christine Swarms, director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund's Criminal Justice Project, and attorney Judith Ritter, professor at Widener Law School in Wilmington, Del.

"No question, the criminal justice system has failed him and that has everything to do with race," Swarms said, adding, "That is why the LDF is in this case."

The spirit in the room on April 3 showed the significance of the "Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Movement" 30 years later, said Ross. In her exclusive interview with the AmNews she noted that the support for Abu-Jamal in France was very significant moment.

Ross said that the two attorneys are going for the April 30 street-renaming celebration along with Bill Bachmann, a union activist with the American Postal Workers Union and member of the NYC Free Mumia Coalition; a two-member delegation from Germany's "Free Mumia Movement"; and a 12-member delegation from the Pan-African Society in London, England.

Last but not least, Ramona Africa and Pam Africa from the International Coalition out of Philadelphia will be in attendance. "We have to agitate and make people stay on the move," Pam Africa said. "The fact of it is we are all on death row."

Chokwe Lumumba, the Scott Sisters, and more Sat April 23

2011-04-20T16:13:00.000-05:00

Mississippi, Goddam! The Scott Sisters Speak in Brooklyn

A community forum regarding the case of the Scott Sisters (see background note below). Attorney Chokwe Lumumba will give updates about the current state of affairs of this case and will provide information about the campaign for their full release. Jamie and Gladys Scott will be teleconferenced in live to share their experiences as well as their ongoing commitment to help others with similar cases. This forum is free and open to the public.

April 23 from 1:00 pm – 3:00 pmat Restoration Plaza
Restoration Plaza, First Floor – Multi-Purpose Room
Located at 1368 Fulton St Brooklyn, NY 11216

Featured Guests: Jamie and Gladys Scott (aka the Scott Sisters) will be featured guests via teleconference.

Panelists: Chokwe Lumumba (legal counsel to the Scott Sisters); Michael Tarif Warren (lawyer activist), Marc Lamont Hill (activist, author, scholar), and Rukia Lumumba (activist); April R. Silver (activist, writer), moderator.

Organized by The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the National Conference of Black Lawyers.

For more information, contact Lalit Clarkson at 917.468.7348 or info@mxgm.org

freethescottsisters.blogspot.com

BACKGROUND

In 1993 in Mississippi two young Black women, Jamie and Gladys Scott were each sentenced to double life sentences for an $11 robbery. The trail and conviction of the then 19 and 22 year old women wreaks of the blatant race, gender and class oppression that is rampant throughout the criminal justice system in America. Their defense attorney, who was later disbarred for unrelated incompetency, never called a single witness in the sister's defense. One of the witnesses who testified against them has since recanted his testimony saying he was threatened by police. Ultimately, two of the three men who indeed committed the robbery served 2 years in prison in exchange for testifying against the Scott sisters. Jamie and Gladys maintain their innocence

While in prison, Jamie and Gladys suffered all of the usually physical and psychological abuses of incarceration. The lack of decent health care and nutrition put Jamie Scott in critical need of a kidney transplant. Support for their release grew over the decade and a half of their incarceration, ultimately leading to a suspension of sentence in January of this year - conditional on Gladys donating a kidney to her ailing sister.

Today, the Scott family and their supports urge the governor of Mississippi for a full pardon. Under the suspended sentence they must pay $52 a month for parole, abide by a strict curfew, and live with the constant fear of a parole violation - which would land them back in prison to serve their double-life sentences. Furthermore, without a full pardon, they still live with the stigma of being convicted felons. As felons, they are unable to get jobs, decent housing, and other critical services.

New lawyers committed to new trial for Mumia Abu Jamal

2011-04-20T16:08:00.000-05:00

By Saeed Shabazz -Staff Writer
April 19, 2011
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_7741.shtml

NEW YORK (FinalCall.com) - Mumia Abu-Jamal, 58, often called the “world's most famous death-row prisoner” penned a letter from his cell in Pennsylvania's SCI Greene prison last November telling supporters about changes to his legal team.

“They are experienced intelligent and well-motivated lawyers, who know what they are doing,” he wrote.

On April 3, his supporters, grassroots activists representing anti-death penalty organizations, Pan-Africanists, nationalists, organized labor activists, the Million Worker March and anti-war organizations gathered on the ninth floor in Riverside Church to meet the two lead co-counselors.

Attorney Christine Swarms, director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund's Criminal Justice Project, and Judith Ritter, professor at Widener Law School in Wilmington, Del., were greeted with a rousing ovation from the standing-room only crowd. The applause came with the announcement from event moderator Suzzanne Ross, chairperson of the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition of New York City, that the Legal Defense Fund had taken on Mr. Abu Jamal's case. “Mumia is very relieved that his case is in the hands of the new team,” Ms. Ross said, before turning the podium over to the two attorneys.

The event co-sponsors were the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Riverside Church Prison Ministry.

The journalist, former Black Panther and supporter of the police-targeted back to the earth MOVE organization was sentenced to death in 1982 after being found guilty of the Dec. 9, 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Mr. Abu-Jamal has always maintained his innocence.

During his 30-year imprisonment, Mr. Abu-Jamal has published several books, the most notable being “Letters from Death Row” (1995), written newspaper columns and created commentary for radio airplay.

In 2001, the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Pa. found constitutional error in the jury instruction and verdict form used in the 1982 penalty phase of his case. The finding was affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2008, but was sent back to the Third Circuit Court by the U.S. Supreme Court last year for further review.

Mr. Abu-Jamal's appeal is still pending before the Third Circuit Court. “We do not know when the decision will be made,” Ms. Ritter told the gathering. The legal team's ultimate goal remains a new trial, which has been rejected by many courts, she said.

Ms. Ritter, who has represented the man called the “voice of the people” since 2002, noted Philadelphia's first Black district attorney, Seth Williams, may seek a new penalty trial with a new jury. Ms. Ritter has argued questions over instructions given to the jury before Mr. Abu-Jamal was sentenced to the death penalty in appeals before federal courts in 2007 and 2010.

“It is absolutely an honor to represent Mumia Abu-Jamal,” said Ms. Swarms. “No question the criminal justice system has failed him and that has everything to do with race. That is why the LDF is in this case.”

The activist attorney said the Legal Defense Fund is committed to eliminating racism in the criminal justice system nationally.

“The death penalty is the child of this country, which is a direct descendant of slavery, a violent way of controlling and maintaining slavery,” Attorney Swarms said.

The death sentence became a form of legal lynching by 1930 and 89 percent of those in America sentenced to death for rape between 1930 and 1972 were Black, she noted.

“So you can see that race is the most significant factor in giving the death penalty as a sentence,” Ms. Swarms concluded.

The gathering at Riverside Church received a surprise when Mr. Abu-Jamal called. He thanked everyone for coming out, saying there are so many problems in the country it would seem difficult to get people motivated to deal with his 30-year-old case.

Several people lined up to ask the popular political prisoner questions via telephone. “What has kept your spirit up?” asked one questioner.

“It has been a long, hard struggle. I have been blessed with a loving family. I am inspired when I see people organize against neo-colonial imperialism,” Mr. Abu-Jamal.

Ms. Ross told The Final Call, “The spirit in that room showed the significance of this movement 30 years later. Having the LDF is a major turning point, a lot of lawyers would not touch this case LDF wants to win,” she said.

Pam Africa, the tireless driver of the International Coalition out of Philadelphia, told The Final Call her job is “to agitate and make people stay on the move. The fact of it is we are all on death-row.”

“Support is again growing for Mumia. It's good seeing people come out asking what can collectively be done to free him,” said Ralph Poynter, husband of jailed activist attorney Lynne Stewart. “Lynne says that Mumia is the point person. His life is on the line now her life is on the line tomorrow,” Mr. Poynter added.

4/23 Philly -- Political Prisoners on War Resisters & Honoring Mumia's Birthday

2011-04-13T22:30:00.000-05:00

Saturday, April 23 · 7:30pm - 10:30pm
at
Sanctuary Wholistic Arts
2737 Cambridge Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Created By: Iresha Picot

More Info: April 23rd, at 7:30pm, the "Questioning Incarceration Coalition" would like to invite everyone to join us for a cultural event, with art, music, and poetry, that will focus on solidarity between US Political Prisoners, and War Resistors.

Statements will be read from the writings of political prisoners and former political prisoners such as:
Marshall Eddie Conway
Maroon Shoatz
David Gilbert
Mumia Abu Jamal
Safiya Bukhari
Lynne Stewart
Women of the MOVE 9

Special Guests: Pam Africa from the ICFFMAJ and the MOVE organization, and Russell Maroon Shoatz III, speaking about his father, Political Prisoner Russell Maroon Shoatz

Also, Performances by Kevin Price, Bohiti, I Abdul Jon, Joseph Xavier Mack

**We will be honoring the birthday of death row political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal. Mumia is on deathrow facing imminent execution and continues to report on international social justice issues. Mumia has been been writing in opposition to US led wars and occupations throughout and prior to his 1981 conviction.

Saturday April 23rd
Sanctuary Wholistic Arts
2737 Cambridge Street
Philadelphia, PA

donations will be collected to help pay for the venue

Presented by: Questioning Incarceration - 215-687-1147, icffmaj@aol.com

CA Federation of Teachers Passes Resolution in Support of Mumia!

2011-04-13T22:27:00.001-05:00

Hats off to the California Federation of Teachers!! Despite the spin the media and the Fraternal Order of Police will try to put on this powerful move on the part of the California Federation of Teachers, this is a very important breakthrough for this period. Resolutions of this sort were passed in huge numbers back in 1995 and 1999, when Mumia was threatened with immediate execution as death warrants had been signed by the Governor. We need to revive that kind of grassroots activism. Folks, try to get your union or your local legislative body to pass such a resolution in support of Mumia! We need to revive those kinds of initiatives now!!

International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu- Jamal and
the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)

CA Federation of Teachers Passes Resolution in Support of Mumia
Caroline May - The Daily Caller – Mon Apr 11, 4:36 pm ET

Between negotiating for more benefits and teaching their students, the California Federation of Teachers has adopted a resolution of support for convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

At the CFT's 2011 Convention in late March, the delegates passed 30 resolutions, from solidifying support for anti-bullying legislation to supporting transitional kindergarten. Among the resolutions largely pertaining to education and collective bargaining rights was Resolution 19 – to "Reaffirm support for death row journalist."

"Therefore, be it resolved, that the California Federation of Teachers reaffirm its support and demand that the courts consider the evidence of innocence of Mumia Abu-Jamal," the Committee Report reads.

Mumia Abu-Jamal was a former member of the Black Panthers who was found guilty of murdering Philadelphia police officer Daniel J. Faulkner during a routine traffic stop in 1981. Abu-Jamal was subsequently sentenced to death.

His supporters, such as the California Federation of Teachers, argue that his trial was unfair and that he is a civil rights hero.

"Mumia Abu-Jamal has for decades as a journalist fought courageously against racism and police brutality and for the human rights of all people and has taken strong stands in support of working people involved in labor struggles and in support of well-funded, quality, public education," the resolution reads.

Daniel Flynn, author of "Cop killer: How Mumia Abu-Jamal conned millions into believing he was framed" told The Daily Caller that Abu-Jamal was the poster-child for ending the death penalty…20 – 30 years ago.

"Somebody should tell the California Teachers Federation that this is over, he is in jail, he is going to stay there," Flynn said. "You have numerous eyewitnesses saying Mumia did it. You had ballistic evidence – Mumia's gun at the scene was consistent with the bullet used to kill Faulkner. Mumia admitted after the fact that he did it."

Fred Glass, CFT spokesman, told TheDC that the even though the case is 30 years old, since Abu-Jamal is still going through appeals, the issue remains relevant.

"The delegates decided it was time to reiterate that they supported him due to the irregularities that they felt had taken place during his case," said Glass. "They see this as a civil liberties issue, it is quite common for the CFT to take positions on broad social matters like this."

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) spokesman Tom Lansworth, said that this is an issue the national union has never before considered, however, it likely will appear before the AFT at their next convention.

"It appears that one of the intents of the California resolution is to present this issue to the next AFT convention, which will be next year. Our national convention is held every two years. So the California action is part of the normal process of proposing resolutions for debate by the national convention. This does not appear to be an issue that we have acted on before," he told TheDC, adding he had no idea whether the AFT would adopt the resolution.

Either way, Flynn sees the action as the CFT showing their liberal stripes.

"The California Federation of Teachers is reacting to that long tradition on the left that takes murders and makes heroes out of them," said Flynn.

"WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT" BERLIN FREE MUMIA COALITION

2011-04-13T22:23:00.000-05:00

Dear Friends in the USA,

we have an important request for your support.

As you may have heard, Georgia joins the nationwide scramble for Danish lethal injection drugs
http://www.reprieve.org.uk/2011_04_13_georgia_turns_to_lundbeck

The company in question is called Lundbeck and has the sole license for pentobarbital on the US pharmacy market which has been used in executions in Ohio and lately in one attempt in Texas, too.

This danish company is clearly breaking european law in order to profit from the death penalty. So far they were able to conduct their business with Ohio and Texas. Last week Tuesday the US Supreme Court stopped an execution in Texas because it wasn't clear, if the danish chemicals are "safe" to execute american citizens.

Today an Online Petition against the use of european products in the US death penalty started: "Keine Lundbeck-Praeparate fuer Hinrichtungen in den USA"
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/keine-lundbeck-prparate-fr-hinrichtungen-in-den-usa/Additionally european politicians are requested to act on this.

Troy Davis is a death row prisoner in Georgia. The US Supreme Court denied his last appeal last week. If Georgia manages to gain pentobarbital from Lundbeck it will likely resume to publish execution dates again.

Please get the word around in the US and help us by promoting the european online petition as well as writing directely to Lundbeck in order protest their business policies.
http://www.lundbeck.de/kontakt/

If the anti-death penalty movement in the US could consider to call for a boycott of Lundbeck that might help, too.

After european policies helped to force the company Hospira to pull out of the death penalty in the US death penalty together we might be able to stop another profiteer from the "machinery of death".

In solidarity,

the Berlin Free Mumia Coalition
www.mumia-hoerbuch.de

Interview with Mumia in Mexican virtual mag "des informemonos"

2011-04-05T19:17:00.000-05:00

From icffmaj@aol.com:

Interview with Mumia

'It takes many to make revolution… and many to preserve it'

'About the idea of organizing outside of political parties and the political class —I’m with it. In fact, it may be the only thing that keeps social movements fresh and free from the snares of political corruption.'

Gloria Muñoz Ramírez

A year ago we began trying to arrange an interview with Mumia, one of the best known political prisoners in the world. We sent him letters and requests through all available contacts (including Amigos de Mumia of Mexico) who kindly offered to help get in touch with him on death row in the prison at Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, the state where he’s been imprisoned for 29 years. One fine day an envelope appeared beneath our door with the name of M. A. Jamal as the sender. This is the first interview the African-American activist and ex Black Panther has given to a Mexican news media.

In a two-page, typewritten letter, Mumia speaks of the need for social organization; of political parties as 'servants of capital'; of the relevance of autonomous movements and the proposals of the EZLN; of the African-American movement in the United States; of the teachings of Franz Fanon; and of the expectations aroused by Obama when he became President in a country where 'Blacks hold offices but have little power.'

The way Mumia sees it, 'the struggle continues.'

The interview with Mumia follows in the format of his choice:

Hola! I’ll try to address some of your concerns in this format. Here we go!

How to organize

There is no single, one way nor one event that sparks such things. Because people are complex, and, of course, conditions change. Organizing begins, according to the great C.L.R. James, when 2 people agree to work together. Mao said that ‘a single spark can start a prairie fire’, and that certainly seems to be the case when you look at Egypt and Tunisia of the past few weeks. But it’s also true that organizing has been talking place (especially in Egypt) for some time now, and it appears many people just reached a breaking point.

Political parties

Many, indeed, most political parties, especially in the metropolis, have become open servants of capital, and thus compete, not even pretending to represent the people, but in service to Weath. The French historian De Tocqueville famously said, 'Than politics the American citizen knows no higher profession – for it is the most lucrative.' He wrote this over 150 years ago! They are actually impediments to the needs and the interests of the people. This is especially clear in the so-called developed world, where we see politicians promise one thing to get elected and then, once in office renege on the very things they promised. They never fall, however, to service their 'friends' on Wall St., or in The City, or of the Bourse. They get the lion’s share – of the people’s wealth!

Autonomy

If I understand what you are saying (there being little autonomous movements in the US), you mean movements which are ‘autonomous’ of political parties. If that understanding is correct, than I’m all for it. Political parties, in addition to being mechanisms to amass personal wealth, are machines to give people the illusion of democracy.

EZLN plans

I’m with that. In fact, that may the only thing that keeps social movements fresh from the snares of corruption that is so common in political life around the world. An older friend and I have been discussing this very thing for several years now (he too, is a student of the EZLN). I think it should be explored, tried out, and then utilized if it can be done.

African-Americans

The situation, to be quite honest, is quite dire. For millions of children in US ghettoes, in cities all across America, the drop-out rate is 50%. In some cities, like Baltimore, I’m told that the figure approaches 75%. And even for those that graduate, many of them are unable to enter college, because they’ve received a substandard education. That’s for children! While the official unemployment rate is about 7% nationally, In Black America it is nearer to 35% – and 60%+ for young people! In addition, young Blacks are subject to police violence that is overt, brutal and deadly – and rarely are they punished for such acts.

The Obama election has awakened and emboldened rightwing, racist forces, many of whom have found a home in the so-called ‘Tea Party’ movement. Politicians now speak openly in praise of the Civil War (1860-1865), on behalf of the South. Indeed, several days ago, the governor of Mississippi was set to honour one of the founders of the Ku Klux Klan with a license plate: Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was responsible for the torture and massacres of hundreds of Black Union soldiers at a piece called Fort Pillow.

The Black Panther Party

That movement has significant interest among the Black young, but few know historical details. That’s because they are told by teachers and media of the Civil Rights triumph that enabled the elections of Black politicians. The nationalist movement is at an ebb. What the movement accomplished was the separation of working class Blacks from bourgeois-oriented Blacks, and the resultant alienation of the well-to-do Blacks from their poorer, inner city cousins. This is reflected at almost every level of Black life in America. That explains how (and why) schools for millions of Black and Latin@ kids can be so poor, in so many communities.

Blacks & Indigenes

The differences are real, for we rarely share living space (most indigenous communities are in rural or Western areas; most Blacks live in urban areas). That said, there is certainly ideological interaction between the two, as the AIM was clearly influenced by the BPP, and the Black power movement. The struggles for independence and freedom reinforced and influenced each other.

Migrants

As capitalism reaches a crisis, it forces people to think less holistically, and more selfishly. This Impulse, stoked by fear (and spread by corporate media) reinforces the feeling of separation among people, and dissipates commonality, community and indeed, social cohesiveness. Unless activists can build that feeling of solidarity among peoples, these impulses will lead to real social and perhaps historical disasters.

The EZLN and the Black Panther Party

I think what unites both formations is (was) the insistence that people, from all walks of life, can play important roles in social movements of change. Many Black Nationalist movements of the ’60s were quite critical of the BPP for working with white people (it also worked with Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Japanese, and Chinese activists). The Zapatista call has always been to the world: the entire world, of colour, of gender, of class, etc. I think that inclusive quality is, at base, its most humanistic, and that which appeals to the broad stretch of the human family. For it takes many to make revolution – and many to preserve it.

Contradictions between discourse and practice in the United States

Your reading of contradictions between the US as an avatar of human rights end being the Prison house of nations is perceptive. That contradiction is stark, and irrefutable. We have many things in America, but democracy certainly isn’t one of them. We have democratic forms; but no true democratic norms. When millions of Americans took to the streets in the Spring of 2002, demanding that the US not go to war, the ‘democracy’ ignored the people – and the result has been a social, humanitarian, ecological, archaeological and military disaster. George Bush called the millions in the streets a ‘pressure group’ – that he promptly ignored. How is it that the country that speaks so sweetly of freedom has more prisoners than any other nation in the world-and most of them are Black? The U.S. has about 5% of the world’s population – yet almost 25% of the world’s prisoners. So much for human rights.

Franz Fanon and Obama

African-Americans didn’t take power in the Obama election, although I can understand why some think they did. That’s because a certain kind of history was made. For the first time in U.S. history, a Black person was elected president (interesting, it comes almost a century and a ½ after a Black man became president of Mexico!). But, as Fanon taught in the African continental context, colonialism was succeeded by neo-colonialism. Blacks hold offices, but, the truth of the matter is, they hold little power. They are beholden to the same interests as white politicians are. Indeed, the sad fact is, Blacks may hold less power than before, for Black politicians are less able to address Black issues, for fear of being projected by the corporate media as ‘racist’ (recall the example of when Obama called the cop who harassed and arrested his friend and old college professor, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ‘stupid’). The media went crazy. The incident proved also that the Black ‘elite’ (if a Harvard prof. isn’t elite, no one is), Prof. Gates was treated like a poor Black in the ghetto, arrested in his own home, humiliated, and jailed for daring to speak boldly to a white cop. The media rode Obama into silence.

About me

As the Mozambicans used to say, ‘a luta continua’: the struggle continues. We must build and widen, and deepen and strengthen our struggle, wherever it is, for, to quote Frederick Douglass, 'Without struggle there is no progress.' It may not be easy; but it is necessary.

Adios, mis amigos! Y gracias por todo!

Mumia

Links:
http://desinformemonos.org/2011/04/hace-falta-mucha-gente-para-hacer-una-revolucion%E2%80%A6-y-mucha-gente-para-sostenerla/

http://desinformemonos.org/2011/04/deseos-de-libertad-para-mumia-abu-jamal-en-su-cumpleanos-57/

Celebrate Mumia's birthday in Philly this year!

2011-04-04T19:53:00.000-05:00

Celebrate Mumia's April 24th birthday by organizing for his release!!!

Given that his birthday falls on Easter, we're holding an event the night before on Saturday April 23rd

Questioning Incarceration:

Saturday April 23
Doors open at 7:30 pm
at
Sanctuary Wholistic Arts
2737 Cambridge Street
Philadelphia, PA

(a donation will be collected to cover the costs of the space)

...............................................
Help us organize this event:

A coalition representing activists from Jericho, Human Rights Coaliiton, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia, and more will meet to plan an event on April 23 connecting advocacy and support of political prisoners and war resisters. Work with us to create a cultural event strategically pointing towards unity and release!

This event is also in honor of Mumia's April 24 birthday. If you can't join us, consider holding an event in Mumia's honor and share the details with ICFFMAJ@aol.com!

Planning meeting at
A Space, 4722 Baltimore Avenue
Thursday April 7
6-7 pm

Contact: maigamilbourne@yahoo.com
215 687 1147

Updates posted by our A Space friends at http://the-aspace.org/

Letter Writing to Mumia, "Black and Blue" Film Showing & Political Discussions

2011-04-04T19:47:00.003-05:00

The PSP Black/New Afrikan History & Culture Class: Updates & Support For Our Exiles-PP/POWs Presents Its Monthly:

George L. Jackson - Mumia Abu Jamal:
Political Prisoner Harlem Letter Writing Dinner

Wednesday, April 6th In Harlem
6:00pm - 9:00pm
at
The Guillermo Morales- Assata Shakur Center at
City College Of New York
NAC - Building: Room 3-201
W.138th Street (Bet. Amsterdam & Convent Avenues)

Info. Contact- Bro. Shep: (212) 650-5008 or Panthershepcat@aol.com

Program Schedule

6:00pm-7:00pm:
Political Prisoner Film Screening & Discussion Of
"Black & Blue: The MOVE 9"

7:00pm-7:30pm:
A Collective Reading Of The Individual PP/POW Responses To Our Cards & Letters

7:30pm-9:00pm:

Collective Letter writing to the "MOVE 9" political prisoners
April & Belated March Birthday Card collective signings for US Captured PP/POWs
PP/POW Updates & Event Announcements
Traditional Southern, Caribbean, Afrikan "Pot Luck" Meal (Please bring a dish or beverage to share)

Sponsored By: The Peoples Survival Program (PSP) and The Guillermo Morales-Assata Shakur Community & Student Center @ CCNY

From our German comrades re the "Meet and Greet the Lawyers",

2011-04-04T19:41:00.000-05:00

What a brilliant evening that was - congratulations.

Some of us stayed up til late at night to watch the event. Here is what they wrote in english for a german indymedia website:

An evening with Mumia's new legal team

(Harlem, NYC) Mumia Abu-Jamal's legal defense gained strength a couple of weeks ago, when the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) officially joined his defense. Although lawyers of the LDF have been members of the team for several years already they now take on the leading role in the legal struggle to free Mumia Abu-Jamal. On April 3 the newly formed defense team presented themselves to an audience of 150 in Riverside Church in New York.

The LDF looks back on a long history of successful legal litigations in the civil rights campaign in the US. The new legal team for Mumia involves Johanna Steinberg, Vincent Southerland, Judith Ritter and Christina Swarns. They are accompanied by two speakers who will speak publically for them in the future, too.

The event took off with speeches by activists of the US Free Mumia movement. Greetings went out to many people who sometimes had traveled far to join the event.

Attorney Judith Ritter spoke on Mumia Abu-Jamal's long case history and pointing out the renewed danger of the death penalty against him.

Mumia himself called from death row and answering questions from the audience. Listeners were very enthusiatic about being able to direct contact with Mumia and he seemed clearly moved himself.

Attorney Christina Swarns gave an historic overview on racism in society and the justice system up until today in connection to the way, Mumia has been treated by the system.

She started by explaining the historic roots of legal executions. The death penalty in the US is a direct descendant of slavery and the following practice of lynching, especially in the south of the country. This became notorious in the era of "reconstruction". As the criticism of these racist murders increased, the death penalty then "legally" replaced mob lynchings. Looking at the numbers of executions in the US today it is obvious, that they mostly take place in the former strongholds of lynching.

The purpose of the death penalty is the same as the klan lynchings of the past: to keep millions of African Americans in their place and force them to accept segregtion and expolitation. It is a method of social control which clearly demonstrates, that it is predominantly race, that dictates in court who is going to live and who is going to die. Christina Swarns: "The death penalty is a weapon of social control".

Another aspect is the different treatment of black and white murder victims. While half or all murder victims in the country are black, the offenders are not executed very often. If there is a white murder victim, executions take place very often, though.

Swarns went on to describe legal procedures and the endemic manipulations of juries all around the country, describing how African Americans are regulary manoeuvered out of juries by deliberate tactics on the part of district Attourneys. But judges and federal courts also systematically legalize such practices, as every one can see in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

The media also played an important part in racist legal procedures. Prior to the Abu-Jamal trial in 1982 Philadelphia's media covered extensively Mumia's previous affiliations with the Black Panther Party and with the Association of Black Journalists, mentioning his sympathetic coverage of MOVE or commenting on his dread lock hair style. They made sure that race played a role in this case from the outset and diverted public observation away from the facts of what actually happened on December 9, 1981.

Christina Swarns concluded, that Mumia's case is one the most important ones in the fight against the death penalty in the US today. Thus, the LDF is committed in saving him from execution and winning his freedom.

Afterwards $1500 in donations were collected for the legal defense team of Mumia.

Appr. 150 people joined the event in the Harlem Riverside Church in NYC. You can watch the recording of the live stream on http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13759567# The event then starts from 1:02.25

The event was organized by the New York Free Mumia coalition together with Mumia's legal defense.

http://de.indymedia.org/2011/04/304029.shtml

SUNDAY 4/3: LIVE VIDEO STREAM:: Meet Mumia Abu Jamal's New Legal Team

2011-04-03T10:30:00.003-05:00

This event will be streaming live on the web for those who cannot make it. It can be watched all over the world!

Just go to the following URL at 4pm Eastern Time on Sunday, April 3rd. If you don't see us precisely at 4pm, please be patient. We might not actually get started until shortly after that time.

https://www.ustream.tv/channel/on-a-move.mumia

INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY & FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
and
FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC)

In conjunction with THE RIVERSIDE CHURCH PRISON MINISTRY

CORDIALLY INVITE YOU TO

MEET AND HEAR FROM MUMIA'S NEW LEGAL TEAM

Christina Swarns, Esq.,
Director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund LDF) Criminal Justice Project

Judith Ritter, Esq.,
Professor, Widener Law School in Wilmington, Delaware

SUNDAY, APRIL 3
4:00 – 7:00 P.M.
RIVERSIDE CHURCH ROOM 9T

Private reception
$10 advance purchase of tickets required

Call 212 330-8029 to order tickets
5:30–7:00 pm

Presentations by attorneys

FREE ADMISSION

It is with great excitement that we announce the formation of Mumia's new legal team. Both Christina Swarns and Judith Ritter have argued before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals for Mumia. They are now formal co-counsel representing him in the ongoing appeal of his murder conviction and death sentence. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), as the premier legal organization in this country fighting for racial justice, has committed itself to "sweep the grave injustices embodied in this case into the dustbin of history."

MEET AND HEAR FROM MUMIAS NEW LEGAL TEAM: April 3 in NYC

2011-03-08T20:17:00.002-05:00

INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY & FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC)

In conjunction with

THE RIVERSIDE CHURCH PRISON MINISTRY

CORDIALLY INVITE YOU TO MEET AND HEAR FROM MUMIA'S NEW LEGAL TEAM

Christina Swarns, Esq., Director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) Criminal Justice Project

Judith Ritter, Esq., Professor, Widener Law School in Wilmington, Delaware

SUNDAY, APRIL 3, 4 – 7 pm

THE RIVERSIDE CHURCH ROOM 9T

4:00 – 5:00 P.M.
Private reception
$10 advance purchase of tickets required
Call 212 330-8029 to order tickets

5:30 – 7:00 pm    Presentations by attorneys

FREE ADMISSION

It is with great excitement that we announce the formation of Mumia's new legal team. Both Christina Swarns and Judith Ritter have argued before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals for Mumia. They are now formal co-counsel representing him in the ongoing appeal of his murder conviction and death sentence. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), as the premier legal organization in this country fighting for racial justice, has committed itself to "sweep the grave injustices embodied in this case into the dustbin of history."

Limited space is available for reception. We suggest you order your tickets now.

NYC :: The Great Debate: Thurs, Feb 24 @ 7 pm

2011-02-08T21:19:00.000-05:00

A free screening presented by the
NY Coalition to Free Mumia

Thursday, February 24 @ 7 pm

at the
Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th Street - 5th Floor, New York, NY

Johanna Fernandez, Professor, Baruch College in NY and filmmaker of Justice on Trial": The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal
and
Michael Coard, Esq, Philadelphia attorney and host of a radio show on WURD in Philadelphia.

vs

Tigre Hill, filmmaker of Barrel of the Gun, a hit piece on Mumia Abu-Jamal supported by the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police
and
Seth Williams, first Black District Attorney in Philadelphia history, who campaigned to support Mumia's execution

Refreshments served.

Plus, exclusive video test showing missing evidence and fake testimony by the prosecution!!
For more information call 212.330.8029.
www.freemumia.com

LDF Joins Mumia Abu-Jamal Defense Team

2011-02-07T20:47:00.002-05:00

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ldf-joins-mumia-abu-jamal-defense-team-115514004.html

NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On January 28, 2011, Mumia Abu-Jamal retained the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) to represent him in the ongoing appeal of his capital murder conviction and death sentence. LDF will serve as co-counsel in the case with Judy Ritter, Esq., of Widener Law School in Wilmington, Delaware, who has represented Mr. Abu-Jamal since 2003.

Mr. Abu-Jamal is the world's best known death-row prisoner. His case has attracted attention from around the world and he is widely viewed as a symbol of the racial injustices of the death penalty.

"Mumia Abu-Jamal's conviction and death sentence are relics of a time and place that was notorious for police abuse and racial discrimination," said John Payton, Director-Counsel of LDF. "Unless and until courts acknowledge and correct these historic injustices, death sentences like Mr. Abu-Jamal's will invite continued skepticism of the criminal justice system by the African American community."

Mr. Abu-Jamal is on death row in Pennsylvania for the 1981 murder of a police officer in Philadelphia. His death sentence was vacated in 2001 after the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania found constitutional error in the jury instructions and verdict form used in his 1982 penalty phase. That decision was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 2008 but then sent back to the Third Circuit by the United States Supreme Court in 2010 for further review.

Christina Swarns, Director of LDF's Criminal Justice Project explained that, "LDF seeks to sweep the grave injustices embodied in this case into the dustbin of history and, in so doing, give communities of color reason to believe that they can and will receive equal justice in Pennsylvania courtrooms."

Mr. Abu-Jamal's appeal is currently pending before the Third Circuit.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. is America's premier legal organization fighting for racial justice. Through litigation, advocacy, and public education, LDF seeks structural changes to expand democracy, eliminate disparities, and achieve racial justice in a society that fulfills the promise of equality for all Americans. LDF also defends the gains and protections won over the past 70 years of civil rights struggle and works to improve the quality and diversity of judicial and executive appointments.

CONTACT: Mel Gagarin, LDF, 212-965-2783

SOURCE NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

http://www.naacpldf.org

STATEMENT FROM MUMIA ON CHANGE IN LEGAL DEFENSE

2011-01-19T15:36:00.000-05:00

From Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition:

Robert Bryan no longer represents Mumia and does not speak for him in court or out. The statement by him at the Rosa Luxemburg Conference (erroneously sent out) does not represent what Mumia or ICFFMAJ or FMAJC thinks about what transpired between Bryan and Mumia or Bryan and the Movement.

Text of Mumia's letter:

11/23/10 07:45 pm EST

Dear Bros, Sistas & Friends,

Ona Move!

As you may know, there has been a change in my representation; but what you may NOT know is that the team that remains has been involved for years -- and you've read their work if you've read the briefs.

So, relax -- they are experienced, intelligent and well-motivated lawyers, who know what they are doing. *

Guess what? In real life, change happens - and this is real life.

I thank y'all for respecting my decision in this matter.

Sometimes, change isn't just good: it's necessary.

Thanx,
Your brother,

Mumia

(*Some of you may wish to access the audiofile of the oral arguments had in this case earlier this month, and several years ago; you decide) MAJ

Pam Africa at 1/19 Philly MOVE Doc Screening

2011-01-18T19:01:00.000-05:00

From ICFFMAJ:
Philadelphia's War on MOVE is a War on the Black Community!

International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement invites the community out to the film screening of MOVE: A Documentary with Post-Discussion from Pam Africa, minister of confrontation of the MOVE organization and chairwoman of the International Concern Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

MOVE: A Documentary goes behind the 1978 and 1985 attack on the Philadelphia revolutionary organization MOVE and the repression they suffered from the racist and brutal policies of the Philadelphia police department and the US justice system.

January 19th, 2010 - 6:00 pm
at
Uhuru Solidarity Center
3733 Lancaster Ave
Philadelphia, PA 19104

$3-$5 suggested donation

For more information contact Iresha.Picot@gmail.com

Report-back and video from Berlin Free Mumia Demo

2010-12-15T08:12:00.000-05:00

From Mumia NYC
Dear all,

a first impression of the Berlin FREE MUMIA demonstration yesterday:

The weather was extremely cold and wet. Even though, 200 people took to the streets. The spirit was really upbeat.

The march was loud and extremely self confident. 1000s of flyers about Mumia and the 29 years he has been spending on death row were distributed along the way to the US Embassy. Many onlookers expressed their consent, especially against the death penalty. Some people joined spontaniously.

Police tried their best to block us from adressing the Embassy and prepared a cage with police busses which would have blocked us off visually from the embassy. But people were not falling for that and occupied the traffic island in the middle of the square. Eventually police had to accept that. Speeches were deliverd in support of Mumia, Leonard Peltier and the Cuban 5.

Solidarity messages from Pam Africa and comrades from London were read out.

There were loud chants against the death penalty and the prison slavery exercised in the prison industrial complex.

At the end an Open Letter to the US Ambassador Philip D. Murphy was read out which is attached. Murphy has been scandalized by the German media because he secretely characterized leading german politicians as stupid and incompetent (which is about the only point we do agree with Mr. Murphy). His letters to Washington were pubished by Wikileaks a couple of days ago and caused an outcry within the german ruling class.

During the whole event no arrests were made by the otherwise notoriously brutal Berlin police force. Finally participants went home knowing that we will carry on fighting until Mumia and all other political prisoners are free.

In solidarity,

--
Berliner Bündnis Freiheit für Mumia Abu-Jamal!

im HdD
Greifswalderstr.4
10405 Berlin

http://mumia-hoerbuch.de
Social networks des Berliner Free Mumia Bündnis:

http://myspace.com/FreiheitfrMumia
http://twitter.com/Free_Mumia
http://de-de.facebook.com/people/Anton-Mestin/100001505521584

GMX DSL Doppel-Flat ab 19,99 €/mtl.! Jetzt auch mit
gratis Notebook-Flat! http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/dsl

Holiday Cheer from Prisoner's Families

2010-12-15T08:06:00.000-05:00

12/11 Black Germany and Brazil for Mumia!

2010-12-09T21:08:00.000-05:00

Berlin, Germany

From Black Nation Germany (blacknation.germany@googlemail.com):

Demonstration in Berlin:
Saturday, December 11, 2010 at 14:00
Manifestation à Berlin: Samedi, 11 Décembre 2010, à 14:00h

Hotep, Nubian Sisters, Kemetic Brothers

WE WILL RALLY AT THE HEINRICHPLATZ IN KREUZBERG AND
MARCH TO THE UNITED SNAKES EMBASSY, AT THE PARISER PLATZ

Saturday, December 11, 2010 at 14:00, in Berlin

NB: This demonstration is also an act of solidarity with and support to Leonard PELTIER, THE CUBAN FIVE and ALL THE OTHER POLITICAL PRISONERS who, like Brother Mumia, are held hostage in US Jails by the Babylon System.

If you live in or near Hamburg and you would like to join a group, please contact Brother Senfo for the travel arrangement: blacknation.senfotonkam@googlemail.com; phone: 0176-27795192,

FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL IMMEDIATELY!

Please, visit these sites to learn more about the actions planned in your area, the USA and all over the world:

www.freemumia.com & www.Abu-Jamal-News.com

May the Ancestors continue to protect and bless Mumia, the MOVE 9, and All Our Other Political Prisoners.

Sao Paolo, Brazil

É nesta sexta-feira a manifestação em prol de Mumia Abu-Jamal em São Paulo

Faltam poucos dias para a manifestação em prol de Mumia Abu-Jamal, que ocorrerá nesta sexta-feira, 10, em frente ao consulado dos Estados Unidos de São Paulo, que fica na Rua Henri Dunant, 500, Santo Amaro.

Vídeos no Ay Carmela!

No sábado, 11, rola o vídeo “In Prison My Whole Life” (Na Prisão Minha Vida Toda), a partir das 16 horas. E no domingo, 12, o vídeo “MOVE”, também a partir das 16 horas.

O espaço Ay Carmela! fica na rua dos Carmelitas, 140 – Metrô Sé – São Paulo.

Mais infos: www.anarcopunk.org/mumialivre

Contato: mumialivreja@riseup.net

Se possível, passe adiante este comunicado.

“Eles não querem a minha morte. Eles querem o meu silêncio”
-- Mumia Abu-Jamal

“Necessitamos a Mumia desesperadamente. Nos tempos que correm não podemos permitir que nos arrebatem uma voz como a sua sem lutar até o último alento”
-- Ossie Davis

12/16 Operation Small Axe and Justice on Trial for Mumia!

2010-12-09T21:01:00.000-05:00

Block Report Radio Double Header Against Police and Gov't Violence

Thursday, December 16 · 6:30pm - 9:30pm
Solidarity Center
55 W.17th Street - 5th Floor
Manhattan, NY

Featuring a screening of the award winning documentary Operation Small Axe, which looks at police terrorism in Oakland surrounding Oscar Grant

and

a screening of Justice on Trial, the new Mumia documentary

also featuring film-makers Minister of Info JR of Operation Small Axe of blockreportradio.com and Johanna Fernandez, the director of Justice on Trial

Film Showing Wed December 8 at City College, NYC

2010-12-07T10:29:00.000-05:00

The Prisoner Justice Club at City College, in affiliation with the Campaign to End the death Penalty, is proud to present:

"Justice on Trial"
A Documentary on Mumia Abu-Jamal by Johanna Fernandez and Kouross Esmaeli.

December 8th, 2010
7:00 PM

The City College of New York; NAC Building, 1st floor; Room 1/202
Special guest Speaker: Producer Johanna Fernandez

Tried and convicted of the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner, Mumia Abu-Jamal is the most recognized death row inmate in the world today.

His case is one of the most contested cases in modern American history, and one of the most important civil rights cases of our time.

Judicial Bias. Prosecutorial misconduct. Racial discrimination in jury selection. Police corruption. Tampering with evidence to obtain a conviction.

These are characteristics that affect the ENTIRE criminal justice system. Learn how these flaws have affected Mumia FOR THREE DECADES. New evidence is revealed in the documentary that the courts refuse to review. Learn why this is one of the most important cases of our generation!!

Co-sponsored by The City College Political Science Department, The Black Student Union, The African Student Union, and the International Socialist Organization.

Pam Africa to receive Peace and Progress Award

2010-12-06T17:00:00.000-05:00

From Mumia NYC:

2010 JERSCY CITY PEACE MOVEMENT PEACE AND PROGRESS HONORS AWARDS

Saturday, December 18th, 2010

7pm - 10pm
DOORS OPEN AT 6:30

107 HUTTON St.
Jersey City, NJ07307

JERSEY CITY PEACE MOVEMENT will hold its 4th Annual 2010 'Peace and Progress Honors Award' ceremony on Saturday, December 18th from 7pm - 10pm at NJ Action 21's NEW space - 107 HUTTON St. in Jersey City, New Jersey.

This public awards ceremony is to honor progressive community activists, leaders, organizations and artists who have contributed to make our local and global societies a little better.

The event is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

2010 HONOREES

FEMALE LOCAL ACTIVIST of the Year
JENNIFER FASULO
Feminist, peace activist, and filmmaker
(honored posthumously)

MALE LOCAL ACTIVIST of the Year-
RIAZ WAHID
Community activist, homeless advocate

MORE AWARDEES:

ALERO TETEVI
Progressive local business proprietor - Raph's Plaza an African Market and Internet Cafe

PAM AFRICA
Revolutionary activist for worldwide political prisoner justice

DANIEL AGUILAR
Local activist for soccer and other youth programs

BETHE SCHWARTZ
Progressive community advocate (Hilltop Neighborhood Assoc. organizer)

KRISTINA NILSSON
Donated thousands of dollars worth of new and used clothing to JCPM for needy / homeless over the years

ESTHER WINTNER
Jersey City activist fighting to lower taxes and corruption

GAVRIELLE GEMMA
Progressive activist, national and international anti-war organizer

IRIS HADDAD
Donated thousands of dollars worth of clothing to JCPM for needy / homeless over the years

TSEHAI HIWOT
Jersey City anti-war and community activist

HASAN SALAAM
Progressive, political hip-hop artist and local community activist

The SARGONITES
Political hip-hop brother duo

FURKAN DOGAN
19 year-old American who was murdered on Peace Flotilla trying to bring aid to Gaza, Palestine
(honored posthumously)

RAMSEY CLARK
Former U.S. Attorney General, Progressive lawyer and founder of the International Action Center in NYC

EDWIN (ED) RAMIREZ
Progressive community merchant, helps with local 'school uniform exchange' and 1ForAll.org

MONICA AGUILAR
Organizer and activist with NJ Action 21

JOANN DALTON
Progressive community activist and is a member of Veterans For Peace / Chapter 021 (Northern New Jersey)

PATTI SMITH
International poet, singer, rocker, peace and justice activist

BREAKING NEWS:
A special presentation added to JCPM's "2010 Peace and Progress Honors Awards" program.
'Artists and Activists United for Peace' will present internationally renowned musician, author and revolutionary FRED HO with an award honoring his creative and political contributions to justice in our society.

PLEASE CONTACT US HERE AT THIS EMAIL or on our FACE BOOK PAGE:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/JCPeaceMovement

Unfortunately, the venue is not wheelchair friendly. There is one long flight of stairs up. JCPM and NJ Action 21 volunteers can assist with persons who need help entering and exiting.

December 9 in NYC: International Solidarity for Mumia!!

2010-12-06T14:34:00.000-05:00

AN EVENING OF INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL

Celebrate 29 years of resistance against a legal lynching of our brother Mumia
Thursday, December 9, 2010, 7 PM

St. Mary's Church, 521 West 126 St (between Amsterdam & B'way)

Hear reports and messages of solidarity

See Videos of the Interational Mumia Solidarity Movement

Report from Sundiata Sadiq on his and Suzanne Ross' visit to London, hosted by the Pan-African Society and the Free Mumia Campaign
Report from Suzanne Ross on her participation in the Open World Conference Against Exploitation in Algiers

There has definitely been a revitalization of the international movement to free Mumia since the announcement of the Supreme Court that Mumia's execution should be reconsidered (after that issue had been taken off the table in 2001)!
And honor Mumia for his uncompromising resistance fram death row, in the belly of the beast, for almost three decades!!!

For more information call: 212 330-8029, or go to www.freemumia.com

(wear warm clothes)

11/27 Philly Mumia Organizing Mtg./Great Debate Showing + Discussion

2010-11-23T20:44:00.000-05:00

International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal (ICFFMAJ)

Presents

The Great Debate

&

Post 11/09: Organizers Meeting for Mumia Abu Jamal

Come Out to Watch the 11/08 “Great Debate” between Johanna Fernandez, Michael Cords, D.A. Seth Williams & Tigre Hill
Post-Discussion with Chairwoman of ICFFMAJ & Minister of Confrontation of MOVE Pam Africa

&

Organizers Meeting on “Where do we go from Here for Mumia, Post 11/09?”
5700 Washington Avenue (Abiding Truth Ministries)
Philadelphia PA 19143

12-4pm

November 27, 2010

For more information contact us ICFFMAJ@aol.com or Iresha.Picot@gmail.com

12/5 LA - "Justice on Trial: Mumia Abu-Jamal" Film Screening

2010-11-19T23:12:00.000-05:00

From Thandisizwe Chimurenga:

Justice on Trial: Mumia Abu Jamal
L.A. PREMIERE - ONE NIGHT ONLY!

Sunday, Dec. 5, 2010 @ 7 p.m.

@ the Downtown Independent Theatre
251 S. Main Street, betw 2nd and 3rd

TICKETS: $12 at the door

On Nov. 9 a Federal court in Philadelphia again took up the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, journalist, author and former member of the Black Panther Party currently on death row. The results of that hearing, which will determine if Mumia is executed or gets life imprisonment, have not been decided YET. Attorney Robert Bryan says that Mumia is now "in the greatest danger since his 1981 arrest."

Dec. 9 is the 29th anniversary of the night Mumia was accused of murdering a white policeman. He has always affirmed his innocence. This new film, "Justice on Trial: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal," fairly presents the arguments made by Mumia's supporters alongside the prosecution's arguments and interviews with others advocating Mumia's execution. The film's featured interviews include press photographer Pedro Polakoff, whose newly discovered crime scene photos expose police manipulation of evidence.

213.321.0575 for more info

Amnesty International: Mumia Abu-Jamal Deserves New Trial, Not New Death Sentence says Amnesty International

2010-11-19T23:10:00.001-05:00

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/11/09-4

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 9, 2010

Contact:
Amnesty International USA
Wende Gozan Brown
212-633-4247, wgozan@aiusa.org

Mumia Abu-Jamal Deserves New Trial, Not New Death Sentence says Amnesty International
Washington, D.C. - November 9

On Tuesday, November 9, a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals will conduct a hearing to re-examine its previous decision overturning Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence.

In 2000, after a painstaking review of the case, Amnesty International concluded in its report, The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Life in the Balance, that justice could only be served by granting Abu-Jamal a new trial.

The following is a statement from Laura Moye, director of Amnesty International USA’s Death Penalty Abolition Campaign:

“Re-imposing the death penalty would be intolerable. Mumia Abu-Jamal should receive a new trial, not a new death sentence.

“Serious questions about fairness in Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case remain unanswered. While Amnesty International does not take a position on guilt or innocence, the organization maintains that Abu-Jamal’s original trial, which was irredeemably tainted by politics and race, failed to meet international fair trial standards.

“Among myriad concerns surrounding this case: Abu-Jamal had inadequate defense representation at trial and during the sentencing phase. Eleven potential African American jurors were dismissed. The close political relationship between the Fraternal Order of Police and the elected Pennsylvania judiciary was inappropriate. The judge, who had close political ties to law enforcement, was openly hostile to the defense.

“These and other concerns have not been addressed. Justice demands a new trial. The state of Pennsylvania should turn its back on the irreversible and broken death penalty system.”

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Amnesty International - USA