From: Marioccco@aol.com
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 21:01:56 EDT
Youth Summit '99 - http://www.blackmind.com/hosting/youthsummit
ON THE MOVE!
This afternoon, Pennsylvania's kill-crazy governor Tom Ridge signed a death
warrant for our brother, Mumia Abu-Jamal. The execution date is set for
December 2, 1999.
Tomorrow, October 14th, here in Philly, we will demonstrate at 4:00pm at
Broad & Spring Garden Sts., at the state building, right across from the
Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) headquarters.
This Friday, October 15, 1999, Mumia's attorneys will be filing a petition
for Habeas Corpus here in Philadelphia. Immediately following this filing,
there will be a major press conference at the American Friends Service
Committee building (Friends Center),1501 Cherry St. beginning at 11:00am.
On Saturday, October 16th, the International Concerned Family & Friends of
Mumia Abu-Jamal is calling for an International Mass Demonstration to Save
Mumia. We will gather at 11:00am, also at Broad & Spring Garden Sts.
People, please do not listen to the media's lies & misinformation! They are
sayin that the execution will be automatically stayed, that Mumia has years
worth of appeals left, that this ain't no big deal. These are all lies! This
situation is very serious. We must be very serious. We must come at this
government with all of our strength, as one, to beat back this pre-meditated
murder!
Although he is already caged in one of the most brutally oppressive
institutions in the country, our brother has now been moved into Phase II or "
deathwatch". Under Phase II, Mumia goes into further isolation. He loses all
contact with the outside world, the brutality increases, he is literally
stripped of all legal materials, all correspondence, all possessions,
everything.
This government means to kill Mumia, MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT!! We must
be even more committed, more steadfast, more uncompriming, and more consistent
in our actions to free our brother from the clutches of this murderous
government.
Our sister Pam Africa visited with Mumia yesterday. He remains as strong and
committed as ever! If he can do his part from the dungeons of this system, we
can do ours out here! Remember, today we are fighting for Mumia, but keep in
mind, this system is so murderous, so deceptive, so violent, so insane, that
we are in fact struggling for ourselves, our families, our children!
Please contact your local Mumia/Political Prisoner support organization, or
he International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia at 215-476-8812. Make
plans to get to Filthydelphia 10/16!
Together we will win! To quote MOVE's founder JOHN AFRICA--AS LONG AS YOU ARE
COMMITTED TO DOING WHAT'S RIGHT THE POWER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS WILL
NEVER BETRAY YOU--end quote.
LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA!
ONA MOVE!
FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!
FREE THE MOVE 9!
FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!
LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA'S REVOLUTION FOREVER!!
=========================================>
From: "ICFFMAJ Washington" <freemumianow@hotmail.com>
Subject: URGENT -DC protest: Mumia Abu-Jamal execution warrant signed.
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 21:44:10 PDT
Following is the press release for the DC demonstration in protest of the
new execution warrant signed for Mumia. In addition, there will be a
regional demonstration on Saturday, October 16 in Philadelphia (11am at
Broad and Spring Garden). Please call (202) 973-2177 for transportation
information from the DC area. (Tentatively, car pools will leave Brookland
Station Metro at 9 am. PLEASE VERIFY THIS INFO BEFORE COMING!). More
information will also be available at the demonstration Thursday night.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
What:
***Protest Pennsylvania Governor Ridge's signing of a execution warrant for
Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Where:
***United States Supreme Court Building, 1st and East Capitol Streets, NE,
Washington D. C.
When:
***Thursday, October 14, 1999
***7:00 P.M.
Wednesday, October 13, 1999, Pennsylvania Governor Thomas Ridge signed a
second execution warrant for political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, setting the
execution date for December 2, 1999. Mumia's attorneys are expected to file
an appeal in the federal court in Philadelphia.
Despite the overwhelming evidence of his innocence and national and
international outrage at the injustice of his conviction and sentence, the
state of Pennsylvania seems determined to take the life of this innocent
political prisoner. We will not allow the state of Pennsylvania to kill our
brother Mumia.
Tomorrow, Thursday, October 14, 1998 at 7:00 PM, supporters of Mumia
Abu-Jamal will gather in front of the Supreme Court to let it be known that
we will not tolerate this biased, prejudiced, and appalling decision and
that we demand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal.
In 1982, Mumia Abu-Jamal, an award winning Journalist and former Black
Panther who fearlessly criticized the violence and racism of the
Philadelphia police department was convicted of killing a white police
officer, Daniel Faulkner. He was railroaded and sentenced to death in the
court of Judge Sabo, "the hanging Judge," known for putting more
African-American men on death row than any other Judge in the US. For the
past 17 years, Mumia Abu-Jamal, known as the "voice of the voiceless," has
remained a political prisoner on Pennsylvania's death row.
During the post-conviction process, Mumia Abu-Jamal's innocence has become
even more apparent. Key witnesses such as Veronica Jones and Robert
Chobert, have testified that they were intimidated by police into testifying
falsely in the original trial. Sharon Smith, William Singeltary and William
Harmon have testified for the first time about what they saw that night.
Anthony Jackson, Mumia Abu-Jamal's attorney for the 1982 trial, explained
how Judge Sabo and the withholding of evidence made it impossible to conduct
an adequate defense. Pamela Jenkins testified that she and Cynthia White
were pressured by police to testify at Mumia's trial as eyewitnesses even
though they were not at the scene! (Jenkins did not testify in 1982, White
did.)
Mumia Abu-Jamal is not imprisoned for the killing of Daniel Faulkner.
He is under threat of death because he of his political beliefs and actions.
We demand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Now.
International Concerned Friends & Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal / Washington DC
Phone: (202) 973-2177 Fax: (703) 256-3075
email: FreeMumiaNOW@hotmail.com
****----****----****----****
========================================>
From: CAGeovanis@aol.com
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 21:21:51 EDT
Emergency Response: Mumia Abu-Jamal
Late Wednesday, Gov. Tom Ridge signed a Death Warrent against Mumia Abu-Jamal
and set an execution date of December 2. This Friday, Oct. 15 the Legal
defense team for Mumia will file their habeus corpus petition.
Mumia needs our help! Lend your voices to those who oppose Mumia's execution!
EMERGENCY PRESS CONFERENCE: Thursday * Oct. 14 * 11:30 AM
ACLU Offices * 180 N. Michigan Ave, Suite 2300
RALLY & MARCH: Oct. 18 * 4:30 PM
FEDERAL PLAZA (Adams & Dearborn)
FAX GOV. RIDGE, THE PENN. ATTORNEY GENERAL, AND US ATTORNEY GENERAL JANET
RENO! See below for FAX/phone numbers and addresses.
The Chicago Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal is putting its emergency
response network in place now. Please forward this message, tell your
friends, try to make to both the Thursday press conference and Monday's
demonstration, and try to go to Philadelphia for this Saturday's national
protest. Enclosed in this message is also Gov. Tom Ridge, the Attny. Gen. of
Pennsylvania and Janet Reno's fax and phone numbers -- please utilize this
information! Details of actions planned in Chicago and Philadelphia are
listed above and below. We are trying to send a contingent to Philadelphia.
For info please call the Chicago Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal at
773-381-6507.
ADDITIONAL ACTIONS:
SATURDAY * OCT. 16: PROTEST IN PHILADELPHIA!
We need people this SATURDAY in Philadelphia!
Assemble at: 11 am * Saturday * Oct. 16
Pennsylvania State Office Building, Broad and Spring Garden Streets
For Philadelphia info, contact International Concerned Family and Friends of
Mumia Abu-Jamal at 215-476-8812.
FAX-CALL-FAX-CALL Mumia needs our help!!!
Gov. Thomas Ridge
Main Capitol Bldg., Rm 225
Harrisburg, PA 17120
(717) 787-2500 (ph)
(717) 772-8284 (fax)
(717) 783-3369 (fax)
governor@state.pa.us
D.A. Lynne Abraham
1421 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
(215) 686-8700 (Ph)
(215) 686-8024 (Fax)
Atty. General Janet Reno
Main Justice Bldg.
10th & Constitution Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20053
(202) 514-2000 (ph)
(202) 514-4371 (fax)
Contact International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal at Box
19709, Phila., PA, 19143, Tel: 215-476-8812; Fax: 215-476-7551; email:
mumia@webcom.com
======================================>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 00:18:21 -0400
From: "Rev. Khandi Konte-Paasewe" <khandi@netset.com>
Million Woman March National Headquarters
MWMUM
MASS RALLIES PLANNED IN PHILADELPHIA AND DETROIT
PHILADELPHIA - National Co-chair and founder of the Million Woman March
Universal Movement Dr. Phile' Chionesu has called for all sisters in the
Philadelphia area to join in a mass rally Saturday October 16, 1999 at the
Pennsylvania State Building on Broad and Spring Street Garden. There will be
a press conference Friday at Friends Building at 11:00 a.m. Pam Africa will
be there as well as many other supporters from MOVE.
DETROIT - National Co-chair Brenda J. Burgess has called for all sisters and
brothers in Detroit and surrounding areas in support of the Million Woman
March Universal Movement to join in a mass rally to be held Thursday October
14, 1999 at the Federal District Court Bldg on Lafayette and Washington Ave.
The rally will be held from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. For more information call
1-313-628-4932, 1-313-869-8383 or 1-248-396-5792.
========================================>
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 22:30:23 -0700
From: Linda Mickelson <lmickelson@igc.org>
Subject: Mumia protests (San Francisco)- an addition
I got a call tonight from someone in the East Bay Free Mumia Coalition,
telling me of demonstrations. In addition to the one tomorrow
(Thursday) at 5:00 p.m. and Saturday at 12:00 noon at Powell and Market
Streets, there is to be a torchlight march on Tuesday night, with people
assembling at Montgomery and Market Streets (Montgomery BART station) at
6:00 p.m. I hadn't seen this posted anywhere yet, so am sending it
along.
Linda
============================>
From: "renee fletz" <chickpea_@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 22:45:33 PDT
EMERGENCY RALLY TO PROTEST THE SIGNING OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL'S DEATH WARRANT BY
PENNSYLVANIA GOVERNOR THOMAS RIDGE
IF YOU SUPPORT A NEW TRIAL FOR MUMIA, NOW IS THE TIME TO SHOW IT
Please forward this message!
CONTACTS: 713.863.8390, 713.529.4371
WHO: Houstonians United for Mumia (HUM) has organized this rally. We expect
suporters from throughout the Houston area to join us.
WHAT: An emergency rally has been called for 4:00 to 6:00 PM today
(Thursday) to express Houston's response to the signing of Mumia Abu-Jamal's
death warrant.
WHEN: Today, Thursday October 13, from 4:00 to 6:00 PM.
WHERE: 1919 Smith @ Jefferson, in front of the Mickey Leeland Federal
Building.
WHY: Houstonians United for Mumia (HUM) are demonstrating to express our
outrage in response to Govenor Thomas Ridge's signing of Jamal's death
warrant yesterday. We are joining with supporters throughout the world to
demand the immediate granting of stay by the Federal District Court in
Philadelphia. However, a stay is nothing but a temporary postponement of the
execution order.
Ridge's signing of the death warrant comes on the heels of the Supreme
Court's denial of Jamal's petition for a writ of certiori. The next legal
step will be to file a petition for a writ of Habeas Corpus in the federal
district court of Philadelphia. Under teh restrictive terms of the Effective
Deth Penalty Act of 1996, Jamal must file his petiion before the end of
October, 1999. "Habeus Corpus" is simply the technical term for asking the
federal courts to review whether Jamal has been sentenced legally by the
state courts. HUM joins witha n interational movement in demanding a new,
fair trial in which evidene that indicates Jamal's innocence can be heard
for the first time in a court of law.
This will be the most critical moment in the appeals process. If Federal
judge agrees to hold a hearing on Jamal's petition, it will be the last
opportunity to present the evidence and witnesses denied by the Pennsylvania
court system. After the Federal District Court, higher appeals courts will
only review transcripts - they will not hear new evidence.
The federal judge who gets this case is not required to grant a hearing. He
could simply read the original trial transcripts and issue a ruling. In
fact, the 1996 federal law is specifically designed to discourage federal
courts from reviewing and overturning death sentences handed down in the
state courts. That is why the government has to hear a loud popular demand
for a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal.
=====================================>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 00:26:42 -0700
From: Betsy Wolf-Graves <sgraves@igc.org>
The South Bay Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal and All Political
Prisoners is calling all parties in this area to meet Thursday,
Oct. 14, at 5:00 PM at Cesar Chavez Plaza, San Jose, CA..
There will be an open mike, drumming, and planning to publicize
our protest against Gov. Ridge's handing down the
death warrant. In solidarity, Betsy Wolf-Graves,
=======================================>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 10:35:24 +0800
From: Silver <gjayar@skyinet.net>
Dear friends,
I am starting an email support campaign for the release of journalist
and political activist Mumia Abu-Jamal of Philadelphia.
Mumia has been wrongly accused of killing a Philadelphia police officer
and has been languishing on death row for more than 15 years now. Mumia
is known for his public denouncements of police brutalities and racism
in Philadelphia.
MUMIA WILL BE EXECUTED ON DECEMBER 2, 1999.
------------------------
THE CASE OF MUMIA ABUL-JAMAL (information taken from
http://www.mumia.org)
In 1981, while attempting to stop police officer Daniel Faulkner from
assaulting a Black man (who turned out to be Mumia's brother), an
unidentified person shot Faulkner. Faulkner then shot Mumia in the
chest. For 45 minutes thereafter, police officers took turns beating
Mumia as he bled on the curb.
Faulkner died and Mumia was charged with his murder and sentenced to
death in 1982.
The trial was held in Philadelphia - a city known for police notoriety
and police manufacturing of evidence to frame innocent people. The
condition is so monstrously prevalent that 1,200 cases of police
misconduct are still under review, more than 300 convictions have been
overturned and 137 people released from prison.
The trigger-happy judge who convicted Mumia - Judge Albert Sabo - has
sentenced thirty black people, and two whites to death, surpassing any
other U.S. judge's record of death convictions by more than 200%.
Mumia was wrongfully convicted for many reasons:
1. Bullets in Faulkner's body or anywhere on the scene didn't match
with the gun that allegedly belonged to Mumia.
2. Mumia's fingerprints weren't on the murder weapon. And Mumia's hands
were never tested for powder burns.
3. The witnesses who implicated Mumia did so under dubious
circumstances:
a. Cynthia White, changed her story several times before pointing
her finger at Mumia.
b. Veronica Jones testified several years later (1996) that she was
forced to lie in court. After her recantation, she was arrested in the
courtroom for "missing a two-year-old court date!"
c. 16-year-old Pamela Jenkins, who wasn't at the scene of the crime,
identified Mumia as the shooter. In the June 1999 hearing, she
testified she was pressured into lying in 1981 by her then boyfriend
police officer Tom Ryan.
d. Robert Chober, a white cab driver originally reported that the
shooter, a 225-pound man, "ran away" from the scene. He changed his
story in court apparently because he was still on probation for felony
arson and was driving a cab without license (and continued to do so
unhindered by police).
4. Four witnesses said that they saw a man other than Mumia flee from
the scene of the crime.
After several appeals for new trials to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court
(1989, 1990, 1995) and the U.S. Supreme Court, (1999) were denied,
Governor Tom Ridge announced the signing of Mumia's death warrant after
several appeals on October 13, 1999.
-------------------------
THE SOLIDARITY LETTER:
We, Filipinos from everywhere in the world, support the cause to save
Mumia Abu-Jamal's life.
We hope that for every name and every word you find on this letter a
life energy will radiate towards every positive action and movement
taken in the name of justice and Mumia.
May all our energies converge as one, to stop, once and for all,
individual and systemic forces that murder lives in the guise of
"justice". For justice is not in the hands of one, nor in the hands of
a few, but in the hands of truth.
If Mumia is executed, he will be murdered by the very justice system
that claims to denounce murder. Yet we still believe that the U.S.
justice system will see light, especially if we continue to do what we
have been doing - rallying around the cause to free Mumia.
We denounce police brutalities.
We denounce murder.
We denounce unfair trials.
We denounce racism.
Free Mumia's life! Free Mumia's spirit! Free all political prisoners!
Signed in solidarity,
1. Ma. Cecilia "Geejay" Arriola, Davao City Philippines
2.
3.
4.
5.
------------------------------
Please sign your name above, copy the entire message and send to ALL
your friends. It's best to copy the whole email than to forward it
(forwarded emails have lots of >>>>> which can be eye-wearying). For
every email you send, always CC to: gjayar@skyinet.net because I will
process the documents and send them to contacts in the U.S.
Please support Mumia. We have very little time.
Visit: http://www.mumia.org for more information.
Thanks,
geejay
-- Visit my Sacred Space at http://www.shaman.drak.net/silver ====================================>From: "Internationalist Group" <internationalistgroup@email.msn.com> Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 01:05:45 -0400
Mexican Student Strikers Demand
"Freedom Now for Mumia Abu-Jamal!"
Early today, October 13, hundreds of striking students at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) voted a motion calling for working-class action to free Mumia Abu-Jamal, the renowned black radical journalist sitting on Pennsylvania's death row. The 5 a.m. vote came only hours before Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge signed a death warrant setting the date for the execution of Jamal for December 2. The fight to stop the execution of this courageous fighter for the oppressed has become the focus of the worldwide struggle against the barbaric and racist death penalty. UNAM strikers urge all fighters for the oppressed to take up the struggle to save Mumia.
The motion, presented by the Grupo Internacionalista, section of the League for the Fourth International, had been previously adopted by the UNAM School of Sciences. It then went to the Strike General Council (CGH), which met on the campus of the ENEP professional school in Acatlán, one of the outlying facilities of the National University. This is the same campus that was briefly seized a week ago by university authorities and their paid thugs (porros), amid a heavy police deployment, and then reoccupied by hundreds of strikers a few hours later. In today’s CGH meeting, as the motion calling for Mumia's freedom was being presented before a podium with a portrait of Karl Marx, supporters of the popular front around Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas (the former head of government of Mexico City and now presidential candidate of the bourgeois nationalist Party of the Democratic Revolution [PRD]) tried unsuccessfully to disrupt and shut down the strike assembly. However, hundreds of students repudiated the would-be strikebreakers and loudly applauded the motion for Jamal.
Meanwhile, the National University workers union, STUNAM, may go on strike November 1, joining with the striking students as the administration has refused to negotiate with the union. UNAM strikers recently mobilized as well in defense of Iranian students who are threatened with the death penalty by the clericalist regime for allegedly insulting Islam.
As the threat of imminent execution hangs over Mumia Abu-Jamal, it is the duty of all those who fight for the exploited and oppressed to seek to mobilize working-class power to win his freedom. The last time Ridge signed a death warrant for Mumia, unions representing millions of workers around the world came out in his defense, demanding that the execution be stopped. Today, it is more urgent than ever stop the relentless machinery of state murder with an even greater power, that of the workers who make the wheels of the capitalist economy move, from Philadelphia to Mexico City, Rio, Hamburg and Johannesburg, and who can also bring them to a screeching halt.
The struggle to mobilize the working class to free Mumia and do away with the racist death penalty poses the urgent need to break with all the parties of the capitalist class, from Cárdenas; PRD in Mexico to Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. and to forge a revolutionary workers party to lead the fight for all the oppressed. Just as workers internationally mobilized in defense of Sacco and Vanzetti in the 1920s and saved the "Scottsboro Boys," nine black youth facing execution in Alabama in the '30s, today work stoppages, strike action and mass labor-centered demonstrations are urgently needed to demand: Stop the Execution! Smash the Racist Death Penalty! Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now! - - - - - - - - - -
Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal!
The following motion was approved by over 500 striking students of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) at a meeting of the strike general council early on October 13, hours before Pennsylvania governor Ridge signed a death warrant ordering the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
On 4 October 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it refused to hear an appeal submitted by the lawyers of Mumia Abu-Jamal. The attorneys demanded a new trial on the basis of the innumerable and flagrant judicial atrocities that took place during the trial in 1982 which sentenced him to death. While the defense team is preparing new legal steps, this rejection by the highest court of the United States makes it all the more urgent to massively mobilize the working class to demand freedom now for Mumia. This is the social force which has the power to defeat this capitalist onslaught against the oppressed.
The capitalist state wants to silence Mumia Abu-Jamal, the renowned black journalist known as the "voice of the voiceless," by executing him. His "crime" was to defy the racist American bourgeoisie and to denounce a system based on the most unbearable oppression of racial minorities. The racist death penalty in the United States is nothing less than legal lynching, an official version of the terror of the Ku Klux Klan which is directly derived from slavery. Today there are thousands on death row, most of them blacks and Latinos, including dozens of Mexicans.
By murdering Abu-Jamal, the ruling class wants to send a warning to all those who dare to raise their heads against oppression and poverty, hunger and war. To do this, they trample on the rights of the oppressed. Jamal was not allowed to present his own legal defense, and was even expelled from the court room during much of his 1982 trial. Blacks were systematically eliminated from the jury. This goes to show that there can be no justice for the exploited and oppressed in the bourgeois courts. In the capitalist judicial system the only voice is that of the bosses, their politicians and judges, who always seek to suppress the protests of those who fight against the starvation measures which they impose on the working people.
Those who have ordered that Mumia must die are the same ones who have ordered the increase of student "fees" at UNAM, as well as the wave of privatizations that threatens to throw thousands of workers out of their jobs around the world. They are the same ones who have deployed an enormous military force in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guerrero in order to crush the Indians and peasants rebelling against their relentless oppression. From the largest university in Latin America, currently on strike, we join our voice with the international protests for Mumia. At the same time, we fight for immediate freedom for all the class-war prisoners in this country, victims of bourgeois justice in Mexico.
We UNAM students on strike who have resisted the blows of the Mexican bourgeoisie, junior partner of those who today seek to silence Mumia, emphasize that in order to prevent this new crime of the capitalist state, it is necessary to mobilize the enormous power of the working class around the world. This past April, teachers in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and longshoremen on the West Coast of the United States stopped work demanding freedom for Jamal. Today we address ourselves to the unions and militant workers in Mexico, in particular to those who have organized and participated in defense guards in the UNAM strike, to call on them to join with us in protest actions demanding: Freedom now for Mumia Abu-Jamal! Abolish the racist death penalty!
See the Internationalist Group/League for the Fourth International website at www.internationalist.org for articles on Mumia Abu-Jamal and on the UNAM student strike. ========================================>
"How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand around and look?" -- Robert Nesta Marley
WE MUST NOT FAIL!
International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal P.O. Box 19709 - Philadelphia, PA 19143 Ph: 215-476-8812 / Fax: 215-476-7551 Web: www.mumia.org / E-mail: mumia@webcom.com
MUMIA MUST LIVE! TIME IS RUNNING OUT!