From: Jeff Mackler <jmackler@sirius.com>
The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
3425 Cesar Chavez Street, San Francisco, CA. 94110
Phone: 415-695-7745 Fax: 415-821-0166
In the San Francisco Bay Area, we're having a protest picket line at the
headquarters of ABC-TV. We'll be at 900 Front Street at Vallejo Street on
Tuesday, August 17 at 5 pm. We will protest ABC's 20/20 rebroadcast of
their lying presentation of Mumia's case, this time including the
additional lies of Phillip Bloch.
The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal is also organizing a series of
September 19-25 activities throught the Northen California Bay Area. These
include:
*Student rallies and teach-ins at UC Berkeley, San Francisco State and
other schools and colleges.
*A Saturday, Septmber 25 series of car caravans with speakers/sound system
and leafleters throughout the city of San Francisco.
*A Bay Area Mumia essay contest, with prizes. This will be open to all
public school students with classroom teachers giving out the forms,
specifications, and being the judges.
*A week of Mumia literature, books and videos in local bookstores.
*House meetings with "Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case for Reasonable Doubt?"
*Posters for the week in local shops, store windows, bookstores, etc.
*A culminating mass rally at UC Berkeley on Saturday evening, 7:30 pm
*A week of letters and op. ed. pieces to local newspapers.
*A labor forum at the headquartters of the ILWU
*Church announcements about the case and events of the week.
*The publication of a newsletter with all west coast Mumia events.
*Sevweral other groups in the area are planning events during the same
week. We are all working together.
In addition, we've contacted all west coast Mumia groups that we know of to
lend our organizing and resource assistance.
Emergency demonstrations are also scheduled in the event of a new warrant
for Mumia's execution.
These are as follows:
*The day after at Powell and Market at 5 pm in San Francisco
* The Saturday after at Powell and Market at 12:00 Noon, San Francisco.
Please note our new phone number at: 415-695-7745
Our address reamins the same as above.
In solidarity,
Jeff Mackler, Co-Coordinator
==========================================>
From: iacenter@iacenter.org
There is a real possibility that GOVERNOR RIDGE WILL SIGN A NEW DEATH
WARRANT FOR MUMIA soon. The Philadelphia Daily News reported this
recently.
Such an action might well come in AUGUST when SCHOOLS are OUT, many
organizations are not functioning and activists are dispersed.
*Which is what makes organizing and getting involved now so vital.*
**FOR ALL ORGANIZERS**
More information will be sent our soon regarding organizing for Mumia
Awarness Week, September 19-25. Please contact us now if you are interested.
Please attend an
EAST COAST YOUTH AND STUDENTS ORGANIZING MEETING
for September 21st International Youth and Student Day for Mumia
and other activities
for MUMIA AWARENESS WEEK
Sunday, August 15th
NEW TIME: 12:30 pm - 4pm, IAC office, 39 W. 14th St. Room 206
(between 5th and 6th Ave), Manhattan
CONTACT
Youth and Students for Mumia at 212 633-6646 or
npcny@peoplescampaign.org
OR
Refuse and Resist Youth Network at 212-385-9303 or rnryouth@yahoo.com
OR
Mumia Awareness Week Natl. office 212-924-8585 or info@j4mumia.org
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Other Mumia Contacts:
Intl. Concern Family and Friends for Mumia Abu-Jamal
215 476-8812
www.mumia.com
Rainbows Flags for Mumia
Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Two-Spirit, Trans People for Mumia
39 West 14th Street Room 206
NY, NY 10011
212 633-6646
rainbows4mumia@hotmail.com
Contact: Imani Henry or Deirdre Sinnott
Youth and Students for Mumia
39 West 14th Street Room 206
NY, NY 10011
212 633-6646
npcny@peoplescampaign.org
Contact: Vivan Martin, Sarah Sloan, Imani Henry, Andrea MacManus
The New York Free Mumia Coalition
212 330-8029
Mumia Awareness Week National Number
212-924-8585
www.j4mumia.org
International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, Room 296
New York, NY 10011
email: iacenter@iacenter.org
http://www.iacenter.org
phone: 212 633-6646
fax: 212 633-2889
=======================================>
REPORT BACK:
From: "Greg Butterfield" <theredguard@hotmail.com>
I received the following note from Susanne Kelly about today's press
conference by the Richmond, Va., Coalition to Free Mumia:
>The press conference went very well, especially for Richmond. There were 8
>or 10 of us, and the local ABC affiliate came, the local talk radio, and
>one of the two African American weeklies. The other weekly sent a
>photographer after almost everyone was gone.
Lee Robinson of AAPRP and Susanne Kelly of WWP spoke on behalf of the
coalition.
Greg Butterfield
====================================>
From: FAIR <FAIR-L@USA.NET>
FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and news reports
ACTION ALERT: The Media & Mumia: Were ABC and Vanity Fair Taken for a Ride?
August 11, 1999
Two mainstream news outlets reported on the case of Pennsylvania death row
inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, claiming to present new evidence pointing to
Abu-Jamal's guilt. But the evidence that both outlets rely on-testimony of a
supposed confession made eight years ago-is questionable on its face, and an
old letter that has subsequently surfaced suggests that this star witness is
lying about Abu-Jamal.
The major news in both ABC 20/20's July 11 broadcast and the August 1999
issue of Vanity Fair is the testimony of Philip Bloch, a former prison
volunteer who now claims to have heard Abu-Jamal confess to the 1981 murder
of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. During a conversation in
1991, Bloch claims that he asked Abu-Jamal if he had any regrets about
shooting Faulkner, to which Abu-Jamal allegedly replied, "Yes."
Why has Bloch waited 8 years? Vanity Fair's Buzz Bissinger doesn't ask (or
at the very least doesn't share his curiosity), and ABC's Sam Donaldson, in
a virtual re-run of 20/20's 12/9/98 report, explains only that Bloch "felt
no need to come forward," since "his friend was already on death row."
But Bloch's story has some serious problems, and new evidence casts
considerable doubt on his credibility. A 1993 letter from Bloch to
Abu-Jamal-two years after the "confession"-ended with the following passage:
"So--it is possible to get justice from a jury--not always--but sometimes.
So, when you get a new trial-I think that there is a good chance of
acquittal." Why would one write that to a confessed murderer?
But even without this documentary contradiction, Bloch's tale is too dubious
for a responsible journalist to run with. Over 18 years of imprisonment,
Abu-Jamal has consistently refused to answer questions about the night of
the shooting. Journalism professor Linn Washington, Jr. explained
Abu-Jamal's stance (Philadelphia Tribune, 7/20/99), describing an interview
conducted under circumstances similar to those Bloch had described: "During
an interview, I asked Mumia a question regarding the shooting of Faulkner.
He refused to respond, giving two reasons: (1) his lawyers told him not to
discuss that incident; and (2) the cubicle was bugged."
In the rest of his account of the case, Bissinger consistently presents a
version of reality that is partial to the prosecution-unsurprisingly, given
that the writer has an extraordinarily close relationship with Philadelphia
Mayor Ed Rendell, who was Philadelphia's district attorney at the time of
Abu-Jamal's trial. It's instructive to compare Bissinger's article with
perhaps the most thorough journalistic account of the case, legal journalist
Stuart Taylor's article in American Lawyer (12/95), to see how Bissinger
leaves out information that undermines the prosecution's witnesses and
points to the basic unfairness of Abu-Jamal's trial.
For example, Bissinger makes much of the fact the prosecution witnesses
"formed a consistent picture of what happened that night." What he doesn't
mention, though it is amply documented by Taylor, is that these witnesses
changed their stories markedly after they were first interviewed by police.
Absurdly, Bissinger spends a considerable amount of space scolding
supporters of Abu-Jamal for not reading the entire transcript of his case
(which totals more than 12,000 pages). But several basic errors in
Bissinger's account seem to indicate he did not carefully review the
documents either. For example, Bissinger refers to Judge Alfred Sabo as
Albert Sabo. He also misidentifies a key prosecution witness as a defense
witness.
Such reporting might have been anticipated by Leonard Weinglass, who wrote
Vanity Fair's editors in June requesting a less biased journalist be
assigned to the story. "I found (Bissinger's) manner and demeanor to be that
of an angry, even furious, advocate for Mr. Jamal's detractors."
As for 20/20, the program seemed to leap on the claims of Philip Bloch in
order to bolster its 12/9/98 hatchet-job on Abu-Jamal, for which it received
a great deal of criticism: "Even before we broadcast our investigation into
the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal last December, we began to hear from his
supporters, " explained ABC's Charles Gibson. "Our four-month investigation
turned up provocative evidence, and recently turned up something startling."
Aside from Bloch's far-fetched, subsequently debunked tale, much of the
broadcast simply reiterated the distortions of the previous report, which
was analyzed by FAIR in a previous action alert
( http://www.fair.org/activism/mumia-alert.html ) and article
( http://www.fair.org/extra/9902/hanging-judge.html ).
ACTION: Please contact Vanity Fair's editors and suggest that they issue a
retraction regarding the supposed confession related in Buzz Bissinger's
August 1999 report. Philip Bloch's claim was dubious and unsubstantiated to
begin with, and is completely undermined by his letter expressing hope for
Abu-Jamal's acquittal.
Vanity Fair
350 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10017
212-880-8800
mailto:vfmail@vf.com
In New York, the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal coalition and Simon Nkoli Queer
Crusaders for Mumia are sponsoring a picket outside the Vanity Fair offices
on Tuesday, August 17 from 4:30 to 6:30 pm. The offices are located at 4
Times Square (42nd Street and Broadway). Please call (212) 330-8029 for more
information.
Also, let ABC know that Bloch's implausible story was no excuse for
re-running the bulk of its deeply flawed 12/9/98 report. Sam Donaldson and
others were clearly troubled by the criticism their original broadcast
received; let them know that the segment simply compounded their
journalistic irresponsibility.
Contact:
ABC News
77 W. 66th Street
New York, NY 10023
Phone:
212-456-2020 (20/20)
202-222-7090 (Sam Donaldson)
212-456-4000 (Roone Arledge, ABC News chair)
212-456-7777 (ABC News general number)
212-456-6533 (ABC News fax)
mailto:netaudr@abc.com (ABC News)
mailto:2020@abc.com (20/20)
FAIR
(212) 633-6700
http://www.fair.org/
E-mail: fair@fair.org
list administrators: FAIR-L-request@american.edu
=======================================>
International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 19709, Philadelphia, PA 19143
Ph: 215-476-8812 / Fax: 215-476-7551
website: www.mumia.org / e-mail: mumia@webcom.com