From: Rubygitt@aol.com
*FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL*
Monday Nov. 15, 7:30pm
Unitarian Church * 2125 Chestnut * Center City * Phila PA
Sponsored by African People's Solidarity Committee 215-546-9616
also to Free Fred Hampton Jr. and all African Political Prisoners. Demand an
end to the mass imprisonment of African people. Participate in building the
African-led movement for economic development, social justice and empowerment
for African people!
We demand the unconditional release of Mumia Abu-Jamal!
Speakers--
Pam Africa, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
Robert X Gray, African American Freedom and Reconstruction League
Kamau Becktemba, National People's Democratic Uhuru Movement
Alison Hoehne, African People's Solidarity Committee
Representative, PA. Abolitionists
More
Mumia Abu-Jamal was framed by the U.S. government in 1981 and has been on
PA death row ever since. The government wants to silence Mumia because he is
a courageous fighter for African people's rights. Like Fred Hampton Jr. he
was imprisoned for his political beliefs. African people have the right to
struggle for freedom without being imprisoned, terrorized and murdered by the
government and the police.
This forum is sponsored by the African People's Solidarity Committee,
(APSC). We work under the leadership of the African working-class-led Uhuru
(freedom) Movement for Black Power. APSC organizes the white population to
recognize and take action against the daily, escalating violations of African
people's democratic rights. The Uhuru Movement is building a powerful
movement to bring positive solutions to the conditions the government imposes
on the African community, including a drug economy and massive poverty,
police terror, mass imprisonment and lack of power over heath care, housing
and education.
We call on other white people to participate in building campaigns to call
for the immediate release of Mumia and all African political prisoners, and
to uphold the rights of ALL African people to organize for social justice,
economic development and self-determination!
===========================================>
From: "C. Clark Kissinger" <cck1@earthlink.net>
The Legal Community Can No Longer Remain Silent in the Case of the Mumia
Abu-Jamal
NYU Law School, Tuesday, November 16, 1999, 7:00pm, Tishman Auditorium
You are invited to participate in a program calling on the legal
community to take action in the efforts to stop the execution, and overturn
the conviction, of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
The program will focus on the unfairness of the 1982 trial and
post-conviction proceedings, all held before Judge Sabo. This is an to
appeal to all who, upon a review of the undisputed facts and irrespective
of their opinion as to Mumia's guilt or innocence, are troubled by the many
issues of unfairness in areas such as the exclusion of African Americans in
jury selection, grossly inadequate defense counsel, withholding of evidence
by the prosecution, police coercion of witnesses, and inadequate funds for
defense investigation and experts. Further, this program aims to urge U.S.
District Court Judge William Yohn, Jr., to grant an evidentiary hearing in
response to Mumia's habeas corpus petition.
The program will address these issues and encourage action to be
taken through resolutions by bar associations, articles, further programs,
and the preparation of amicus briefs at the appellate level.
We are fortunate to have confirmed, so far, the participation of
the following people at the program:
Ron Tabak, Skadden Arps, who was instrumental in the ABA's
resolution calling for a moratorium on all executions;
William Moffitt, President of the National Association of Criminal
Defense Lawyers;
Steven Hawkins, Executive Director of the National Coalition to
Abolish the Death Penalty and member of Abu-Jamal's defense team;
Arthur Kinoy, former Professor of Law, Rutgers University
Robert Meeropol, attorney, and son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
In addition to the speakers mentioned above, David Dinkins, former mayor of
NYC, and Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director of the Equal Justice
Initiative of Alabama, while unable to attend, have urged use of their
names to promote the event.
The program is being co-sponsored by: NYU
Law Students Against the Death Penalty, National Lawyers Guild-NYU Chapter,
NYU Black American Law Student Association, NYU Chapter of Amnesty
International, and Refuse & Resist!-NYC Chapter. We are working for
additional co-sponsors from NYU and other law schools.
The media is urged to cover this program. Press packets will be
available containing statements of support, such as one recently issued by
the Congressional Black Caucus. The work around this has already inspired
planning of a similar program at Boalt Hall at the University of
California.
For more information, contact Bruce Bentley at (212)388-3634 or:
bkbentley@compuserve.com.
=============================================>
From: Manuel Callahan <motinrfm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>
ReSent-From: Art McGee <amcgee@igc.org>
Companeros,
Accion Zapatista has put together a small pamphlet that contains a letter
written by Subcomandante Marcos to Mumia Abu-Jamal, several pieces on
the Zapatistas by Mumia and brief updates on the status of Mumia's fight for
justice. We have made this pamphlet available as a PDF file so that it may be
downloaded and reproduced. The updates on Mumia and the back page on
the WTO, as well as any of the pages, may be easily replaced with more
current or locally relevant material.
Access the pamphlet directly at:
http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/mumia.marcos.pdf
or check it out from the Accion Zapatista web page:
http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
Please forward this message to other listserves.
Thanks,
Manolo Callahan
Accion Zapatista
Austin, TX
______________________
motinrfm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
==========================================>
From: The Nation Magazine <emailnation@thenation.com>
ReSent-From: Art McGee <amcgee@igc.org>
Dear EmailNation Subscriber,
On October 4 the Supreme Court declined to consider Mumia Abu-Jamal's
appeal of his conviction for the 1981 shooting of Philadelphia police
officer Daniel Faulkner. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge signed a death
warrant setting December 2 as the journalist's execution date. Abu-Jamal's
attorney, Leonard Weinglass, filed for a writ of habeas corpus with
Federal Judge William Yohn Jr., who stayed the execution long enough to
hold a hearing.
Abu-Jamal reiterates his claim of innocence and cites 675 instances of
police misconduct, judicial errors and factual flaws in his 1982
prosecution. These outrageous particulars demand that federal courts
review Mumia Abu-Jamal's case with care--and reject Congress's attempt to
sweep compromised death-penalty trials away from judicial scrutiny.
Currently at http://www.thenation.com, you can find a compelling editorial
on Mumia, co-written by Angela Davis, June Jordan and Alice Walker, as
well as a grim but enlightening essay by Mumia himself, originally
published in the April 23, 1990 issue of The Nation. There's also a
section of links for additional resources and information on how you can
register your outrage at Mumia's death sentence.
Best regards,
Peter Rothberg
Associate Publisher
-------------------------------------
From: "C. Clark Kissinger" <cck1@earthlink.net>
Editorial, The Nation, November 15, 1999
The Life of a Black Man
A stay of execution was issued October 26. Pending the outcome of the habeas
corpus brief filed for the defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the third, and
irrevocable, death warrant will be forthcoming or a new trial granted.
He must not die. As thousands crowding the streets of our country and far
beyond our borders continue to insist: He must not die.
It is his one life that provokes our persevering resistance. It is his one,
persisting life that permits us hope beyond our day-to-day irrelevance. It
is his living, still, as a black man sentenced to death that condemns our
complacency and puts all our acquiescent inclinations to shame.
We can ignite and sustain our outcry, our judicious agitation, our public
appeal, our steadfast seeking after rescue and reprieve.
We can do this.
We can keep him alive.
He must not die.
Even though these United States detain the world's largest death row
population--
Even though these United States lead the industrialized world in numbers of
people incarcerated and, correlatively, in total expenditures for prison
construction, prison maintenance and prison personnel--
Even though these United States maintain a more aggressive, and growing,
commitment to the imprisonment of their citizens than to public education of
their peoples--
Even though the past twenty years inside these United States have tolerated
a prison-spending growth rate of 823 percent versus 374 percent for higher
education, nationwide--
He must not die.
Even though close to 70 percent of America's prisoners are people of color--
Even though more than 90 percent of those on death row are poor--
He must not die.
Even though the October 13 signing of a death warrant on Mumia Abu-Jamal
means that Pennsylvania's Governor Thomas Ridge has now signed 176 death
warrants in four years--which is to say five times the number signed by two
previous governors over a twenty-five-year period--
Even though the Philadelphia judge who presided over the trial of Mumia
Abu-Jamal is the judge who presided over more trials resulting in death
sentences than any other judge in the United States--
Mumia Abu-Jamal must not die.
Even though the punishing, death-driven, merciless values of these United
States deliberately neglect or else destroy whoever may oppose or fail to
enable its profit-motivated policies here and abroad--
Even though such policies frequently overwhelm local and international best
efforts toward humanitarian relief and nonviolent interventions--
Even though these United States achieve and retain domination through the
(actual and implied) violence that underlies, asserts and expands its
dominating power--
Mumia Abu-Jamal must not die.
Even though these United States have yet to heed the American Bar
Association's 1997 call for an immediate moratorium on death sentencing
until the processing of capital cases shall conform to minimal criteria of
consistency and fairness--
Even though the 1997 UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or
arbitrary executions found that, in these United States, "race, ethnic
origin, and economic status appear to be key determinants of who will, and
who will not, receive a death sentence" and, therefore, called for an
immediate moratorium on death sentencing--
Even though these United States have not acknowledged or abided by this
transnational call--
Mumia Abu-Jamal must not die.
As the state cannot take away what it has not given--
He must not die.
As the state cannot retract what it has never conferred--
the state cannot kill this man.
He must not die.
As he still lives, a black man sentenced to death among so many millions of
his brothers and sisters sentenced to penury, contempt and tragic short
circuitries of choice and aspiration--
As he still lives--
so he ennobles the rest of us to deepen, enlarge and improve our political
opposition to a state gone mad with greed and the pathologies of
uncontested, supremacist might.
We begin here, where we can win.
We can do this.
We can keep him alive.
He must not die.
Join us in this fight for a new trial! Write: The Honorable William H. Yohn
Jr., c/o Leonard Weinglass (Defense Attorney), 6 West 20th Street, Suite
10A, New York, NY 10011.
(signed)
Angela Y. Davis, June Jordan and Alice Walker
* * *
N.B. On October 4 the Supreme Court declined to consider Mumia Abu-Jamal's
appeal of his conviction for the 1981 shooting of Philadelphia police
officer Daniel Faulkner. Governor Ridge signed a death warrant setting
December 2 as the journalist's execution date. Abu-Jamal's attorney, Leonard
Weinglass, filed for a writ of habeas corpus with Federal Judge William Yohn
Jr., who stayed the execution long enough to hold a hearing.
Abu-Jamal's petition to Judge Yohn may prove to be a crucial test of new
limits on habeas corpus appeals, signed by President Clinton in 1996.
Abu-Jamal reiterates his claim of innocence and cites 675 instances of
police misconduct, judicial errors and factual flaws in his 1982
prosecution. These outrageous particulars demand that federal courts review
Mumia Abu-Jamal's case with care--and reject Congress's attempt to sweep
compromised death-penalty trials away from judicial scrutiny.
========================================>
From: "KamariYa(!!)" <ngozi@secapl.com>
From: Isaac <Isaac@UNSTOPPABLE.com>
I showed my letter to Judge Yohn to a few people and they liked it, so I
thought I should share it. If it would save you any time with getting your
own statement to the judge, feel free to copy this and use it as your own,
or edit it into your own words. This is the final stage of this battle, and
it's time to take a stand. Mumia's life depends on us, our action, our
protests, our determination, our struggle. SPEAK OUT & ACT UP!
WE CAN'T LET THEM KILL MUMIA!
---------------------------------------------------
Dear Judge Yohn,
You are faced with an important opportunity to finally bring about justice
for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Eyes from all around the world are upon you right now.
Concerned individuals and organizations are all watching to see if the U.S.
Justice System, as embodied in you at this historic moment, will take this
opportunity to do right, or to let stand an injustice that has been dragging
on for far too long. Any one of the violations of Jamal's rights as stated
in his habeus corpus petition is sufficient grounds for you to immediately
stay the execution and grant an evidentiary hearing. Taken together, these
citations paint a picture of a grave injustice. The truth cries out to be
told, and Jamal needs to have a new and fair trial with adequate legal
representation immediately.
One does not have to look far into history to see that the Philadelphia
police have a long history of fabricating evidence and coercing witnesses.
It is widely known that 77 people from across the country have been released
from death row due to false convictions based on falsified evidence
assembled by the police and/or prosecutors. A precedent has been set in
these cases which shows that the possibility of the police and prosecutors
conspiring to send an innocent person to death row is all too real.
I demand that you immediately stay the execution and grant an evidentiary
hearing for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Governor Ridge signed this death warrant
knowing full well that Jamal would be filing his habeus corpus petition in
October. Ridge also knew that the warrant would subject Jamal to the
conditions of Phase II Death Watch. As Pierre Sané of Amnesty International
correctly pointed out, this is playing politics with a man's life, and this
infliction of unnecessary suffering constitutes torture.
I stand firmly with the thousands of people across the U.S. and around the
world who have taken to the streets to demand a new trial and expose this
injustice for all the world to see. Many of us are now being threatened,
harassed, attacked, beaten, spied on, run down with horses, and unjustly
arrested by the police in our cities simply for the "crime" of expressing
our desire for justice for Mumia. We are not deterred by these tactics, and
our numbers are growing every day as the injustice around Jamal's case
continues unabated.
STAY THE EXECUTION! STOP TORTURING MUMIA!
EVIDENTIARY HEARING FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL NOW!
Sincerely,
Isaac Csandl
Chicago, IL
Isaac@unstoppable.com
-------------------------------------
Send your letters to:
Judge William Yohn, Jr.
c/o Leonard Weinglass
6 West 20th St., Suite 10A,
New York, NY 10011
See http://www.calyx.net/~refuse for more updates/details.
======================================================>
*** INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL ***
From: "C. Clark Kissinger" <cck1@earthlink.net>
Monday November 1 3:13 PM ET
300 Anti-U.S. Demonstrators Clash With Oslo Police
OSLO (Reuters) - About 300 anti-American demonstrators clashed with
Norwegian riot police in Oslo Monday near where President Clinton attended a
banquet at King Harald's palace.
They protested U.S. use of the death penalty and the American role, they
said, ``as the world's police.''
``Several people were arrested,'' police spokeswoman Liv Merete Wiker told
Reuters. One policeman was slightly injured by a stone thrown by one of the
demonstrators.
Police with riot shields and rubber batons stopped the marchers in Oslo's
main street several hundred yards from Harald's palace. Police on horseback
helped disperse protesters, some of whom waved red flags.
Clinton was in Oslo Monday and Tuesday for a summit with Israeli and
Palestinian leaders and a memorial service for late Israeli prime minister
Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated in 1995.
Clinton is the first sitting U.S. president to visit Norway.
Some protesters carried banners with slogans including ``No to the USA as
the world's police.''
Others protested U.S. use of the death penalty and a death sentence on Mumia
Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther and radio journalist for killing a
Philadelphia policeman 18 years ago.
Abu-Jamal is recognized by death penalty opponents worldwide.
+ + +
=======================================>
From: "H.B. 'International department'" <kanpo@herri-batasuna.org>
OFFICIAL STATEMENT OF THE BASQUE PARLIAMENT
(October 22nd, 1999)
On October 13th, Governor Thomas Ridge of Pennsylvania signed his 171
death warrant. It was the second death warrant against the journalist
and anti-racist fighter Mumia Abu-Jamal. Unless a common
international action mediates, Mr Abu-Jamal will be executed on
December 2nd with a lethal injection.
On December 17th last year, the European Parliament passed a
resolution in which it was stated that Mr Abu-Jamal was found guilty
in a biased trial and called on Mr Ridge to abstain from signing
another death warrant containing the specific date for the execution.
Besides, the European Parliament once again requested the review of
the trial and the commutation of the capital punishment.
Hence, this Parliament agrees on:
1.- Demanding the commutation of this death warrant against Mumia
Abu-Jamal.
2.- Requesting the abolishment of the death penalty in the USA and in
any other place of the world.
3.- Asking for the trial to be reviewed with all the judicial
guarantees.
4.- Sending this statement to the following people and institutions:
Thomas Ridge, Governor of Pennsylvania; Bill Clinton, President of
the USA; Leonard Weinglass, Mumia's attorney; European Parliament
and Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission.
-------------------------------------
OFFICIAL STATEMENT OF THE NAVARRESE PARLIAMENT
(October 22nd, 1999)
On October 13th, Governor Thomas Ridge of Pennsylvania signed his 171
death warrant. It was the second death warrant against the journalist
and anti-racist fighter Mumia Abu-Jamal, ex-Black Panther who openly
critised the US Police Department's violence and racism from a radio
in Philadelphia. Unless a common international action mediates, Mr
Abu-Jamal will be executed on December 2nd with a lethal injection.
Mumia Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death in 1982, after an irregular
process in which all the evidence pointed to his innocence. Key
witnesses on the trial stated that they were pressed by the Police to
give a false testimony. Even the European Parliament passed a
resolution on December 17th last year, in which it was stated that Mr
Abu-Jamal was found guilty in a biased trial and called on Mr Ridge to
abstain from signing another death warrant containing the specific
date for the execution. Besides, the European Parliament once again
requested the review of the trial and the commutation of the capital
punishment.
At present, there are 3 500 people awaiting in the death rows in the
USA for their sentence to be finally accomplished. It does not seem a
coincidence that more than 50% of the sentenced to death are
Afro-American people if we have into account that this community is
only 12% of the population. However, if we focus on the State of
Pennsylvania, the data are clearer: the Afro-American people are 9%
of the population and 61% of the sentenced to death.
Hence, this Parliament agrees on:
1.- Demanding the commutation of this death warrant against Mumia
Abu-Jamal.
2.- Requesting the abolishment of the death penalty in the USA and in
any other place of the world.
3.- Asking for the trial to be reviewed with all the judicial
guarantees.
4.- Sending this statement to the following people and institutions:
Mumia Abu-Jamal, Thomas Ridge, Governor of Pennsylvania; Bill
Clinton, President of the USA; Leonard Weinglass, Mumia's attorney;
European Parliament and Romano Prodi, President of the European
Commission.
==========================================>
WE MUST NOT FAIL! TAKE A STAND FOR YOUR BROTHERMAN!
International Concerned Family & 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: icffmaj@aol.com or mumia@webcom.com
MUMIA MUST LIVE! TIME IS RUNNING OUT!