www.mumia.org
www.peoplescampaign.org
www.iacenter.org
http://mojo.calyx.net/~refuse/mumia/demos.html
----------------------------------------------------
From: "Nason, David" <nasond@spawar.navy.mil>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 10:38:37 -0400
ONA MOVE!
The ICFFMAJ in Norfolk, Va plans to have a demonstration today Oct 14,
1999 From 5-7pm in front of the Virginia Pilot headquarters on Brambleton
Ave in Norfolk. Bring signs and noise so we can expose the injustice
happening to brother Mumia. For more information please contact David Nason
at 757 396-0082. ONA MOVE! LONG LIVE REVOLUTION!
=========================================>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 10:11:12 -0500
From: Michelle Gross <mgresist@minn.net>
Here's the plan for Minneapolis/St. Paul:
Emergency demonstration on Thursday, October 14 at 5:00 p.m. at the corner
of Cedar & Riverside Avenues in Minneapolis.
Follow-up demonstration on Saturday, October 16 at 1:00 at Peavey Park on
Chicago & Franklin in Minneapolis.
Twin Cities Coalition to Defend Mumia 651-649-4579
Take to the streets to save Mumia!
=========================================>
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 23:52:18 -0500
ALBANY NY: Vans will go from Albany for the demonstration in
Philadelphia Saturday October 16th. We will leave 5:30 a.m.
from the Women's Building, 79 Central Avenue, Albany. Students
$20, employed people $35, some subsidies available. Call
272-0501 to reserve seats. Return late Saturday.
---------------------
Naomi
Email: naomi@innocent.com
==================================.>
MAINSTREAM MEDIA
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 09:08:56 -0400
From: Marcus Rediker <red1+@pitt.edu>
Once-jailed Davis vows to help free death-row inmate
By Cathy Rubin
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Every rally and march in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal that Kenny Henderson
ever saw in Germany was well attended.
The Coraopolis native, though, said he was surprised - and a little
embarrassed -
to see so few black people joining the cause to help win Abu-Jamal another
trial in
the 1981 killing of a police officer.
"I thought: `It's time for the people to wake up,'" said Henderson, who
has lived in Europe since 1984 and most recently moved to Germany.
Henderson, who is black, has organized benefits and has posted countless
posters and fliers in Germany to rally support for Abu-Jamal, a death-row
inmate at
State Correctional Institution Greene in Waynesburg.
Efforts to help Abu-Jamal, a Philadelphia journalist, have grown this
year. Henderson said he flew to Pittsburgh from Berlin just to prove to
locals
here that the effort to help Abu-Jamal is worldwide. He also wanted to meet
Angela Davis, a professor and activist who traveled from California to talk
with
Abu-Jamal yesterday.
Abu-Jamal, 45, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1982 for killing
Philadelphia police Officer Daniel Faulkner during an altercation between
Abu-Jamal's
brother and Faulkner. Supporters say a number of irregularities prevented
Abu-Jamal
from receiving a fair trial, including witnesses and evidence overlooked by
prosecutors.
Others are outraged at the portrayal of Abu-Jamal as a victim.
"People ask me why I fight for Mumia, and I say because Mumia is
representing me and
my newborn nephew and my grandfather and my great-grandmother," Henderson
said. "I have always fought oppression, and that's what he stands for."
Davis, 55, who spoke to a mostly black audience in Oakland yesterday
about her visit with Abu-Jamal, is one of dozens of other activists against
the death penalty
who have made a special trip to visit the cause celebre in prison. The
list this past year
includes actor Ossie Davis; Julia Wright, daughter of black novelist
Richard Wright;
poet Martin Espada; Pierre Sane, general secretary of Amnesty
International; Danielle
Mitterand, former first lady of France; and Alliane Pailler, a member of
the European parliament.
Davis, who spent time in jail in 1971 and 1972 awaiting trial on murder and
conspiracy charges, said she was "absolutely impressed" by Abu-Jamal's spirit
and made a renewed commitment to prevent his execution. Davis said she
believes
he is innocent.
"In the course of two hours, I found myself more hopeful and drawn into
his own spirit and concern for everyone else," she said.
Davis said she was fortunate that activists worked for her complete and
sound defense 27 years ago, but Abu-Jamal had only an unprepared public
defender
to plead his Case.
"All of us who call ourselves progressive, we have to be willing to stand
up for the right to even mount a defense that could give us an informed
decision on
what may have happened in 1981," she said.
Davis said the two talked about his family; other inmates; what has
changed between the 1960s and 1990s; the pitfalls of nationalism; and the
history of the
Black Panthers.
Having limited her speeches mainly to outspoken activists and students,
Davis now has decided to speak to a conference of black Xerox employees
and a group of black firefighters.
================================
Angela Davis visits Abu-Jamal, joins his death sentence fight
Wednesday, October 13, 1999
By Dennis B. Roddy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Staff Writer
For a change, Angela Davis was having trouble getting into jail.
The longtime leftist, the only member of her college faculty to have
made the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list, was late for yesterday's news
conference because of the elaborate protocol to visiting Mumia
Abu-Jamal on Death Row.
"You have to sign the papers, you have to go through the metal detector,
if you can't get through the metal detector you have to take off your shoes,"
Davis said. Pennsylvania's Death Row inmates are housed at
the state prison in Greene County, and visits involve at least three
waiting rooms, including what Davis described as "the waiting room to get
into the next waiting room."
The visit, a topic of Davis' news conference yesterday in Oakland, was with
the state's most famous Death Row resident -- a former journalist convicted
of the 1981 shooting death of a Philadelphia policeman and now a cause
celebre in the United States and Europe. One news conference attendee,
Pittsburgh native Kenny Henderson, brought along a tape of a "Free Mumia"
concert in Berlin, as well as German language posters calling for his freedom.
Abu-Jamal's case has become a dividing line between left and right in the
United States, each side arguing the arcane details of evidence they believe
proves their case. Davis, who spent 16 months in prison in the early 1970s
before she was acquitted of murder and conspiracy charges in connection
with a shootout at the Marin County (Calif.) Courthouse, said she believes in
Abu-Jamal's innocence, but even that was somewhat beside the point.
"Belief in his guilt or innocence does not have to determine involvement in
the campaign to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal," Davis said.
The case has pitted Philadelphia police and Faulkner's widow in a bitter
public dispute with Abu-Jamal's supporters. Davis yesterday said she
would tell Maureen Faulkner, the policeman's widow,
that she is sorry for her loss. "It's very sad that she finds herself in that
predicament," Davis said. "I would offer her my deepest condolences. But
I would also say that her feelings don't have anything to do with the case
of Mumia Abu-Jamal. The emphasis on so-called victims' rights, or the rights
of perceived victims at this time is quite scary and quite undemocratic. It
seems
to me that if we believe in fairness and we believe in democracy, then we
should
at least be in favor of a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal."
=========================================>
From: Alan Benjamin <theorganizer@pop.igc.org> (by way of Michael Novick
<part2001@usa.net>)
EUROPEAN CAMPAIGN TO SAVE MUMIA
The following was issued by the organizers of the October 15 mass
rally in Paris, France, to build support for the Open World Conference
in Defense of Trade Union Independence and Democratic Rights. The
OWC will be held in San Francisco on Feb. 11-14 of the year 2000.
The Oct. 15 rally in Paris will be held at the Sports Palace
and is expected to gather more than 10,000 trade unionists
and activists from across Europe. Baldemar Velasquez,
president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee
(FLOC-AFL-CIO) and co-chair of the Labor Party will
chair the Paris rally.
*****
Open Letter to President Bill Clinton
Mr. President,
We call upon you because you have the power given
to you by the Constitution of the United States to
prevent an irreparable injustice: the execution of
Mumia Abu-Jamal. The Supreme Court of the United
States has just rejected without any commentary the
appeal submitted by Mumia Abu-Jamal¹s defenders.
Whatever our country, our nationality, our political,
philosophical or religious opinions, or the color of our
skin, we the undersigned are staunch defenders of
human rights and justice.
Mr. President, you know that any objective
examination of the conditions of Mumia Abu-Jamal¹s
trial shows that his elementary right to a fair trial
was denied to him.
In such conditions, his execution would be but an act of
legalized murder.
You have the power and duty to prevent this.
In the name of justice, to which all citizens have a right,
We call upon you with a sense of urgency and ask you to
use the powers bestowed upon you by your office to prevent the
execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal and to guarantee
him the conditions for a fair trial.
*****
The following people will speak at the rally of
October 15th, 1999 in Paris, France
The rally will be chaired by Baldemar Velasquez,
President, Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC-
AFL-CIO), and co-president Labor Party (US) on
behalf of the Organizing Committee of the Open
World Conference in Defense of Trade Union
Independence and Democratic Rights.
o Geoff Martin, leader of the public services trade
union of London (UNISON);
o Rubina Jamil, president of the All Pakistan Trade
Union Federation;
o Norbert Gbikpi-Benissan, General secretary,
Federation of Independent Unions of Togo (UNSIT);
o José-Miguel Villa, member of the leadership of the
General Union of Workers (UGT), Spain;
o Gaby Clavier, general secretary , General Workers
Union of Guadeloupe (UGTG);
o Gerlinde Schermer, MP of the Berlin Land, SPD
o Caï Chongguo, editor of the French version of the
Chinese Labor Bulletin;
o Cristos Roubanis, leader of the teacher trade union
(OLME) of Greece , in charge of the international
commission of inquiry in Yugoslavia from which he
comes back
o Alexandre Jidenkov, leader of Solidarnost (Russia);
o Roque Ferreira, leader of the CUT railway workers
Union (Brazil);
o Daniel Gluckstein, coordinator of the International
Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples;
o Patrick Hébert, General secretary of the UD CGT-FO
of Loire-Atlantique (France);
o Jean-Charles Marquiset, trade-unionist, CGT (France)
=======================================>
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