International Justice Tribune (RNW), June 2, 2010
US lawyer Peter Erlinder is being held by Rwandan authorities, charged with denying the country’s 1994 genocide. Under a 2003 law, persons convicted of denying or grossly minimising genocide, attempting to justify genocide or destroying evidence related to it are liable to a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 20 in prison.
Erlinder arrived in Rwanda last week to defend aspiring presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire. Ingabire was herself arrested and released on bail in April, charged with promoting genocide ideology and with having ties to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, a UN-listed terrorist group.
Rwandan chief prosecutor, Martin Ngoga, told AFP that Erlinder was arrested for remarks made in publications and statements. “Erlinder’s unapologetic violation of these laws is self-evident. He has continually engaged in conspiracy theories and denial surrounding the circumstances of the genocide...Entering Rwanda was a brazen act of provocation, since Erlinder must clearly understand he is in breach of the laws of our country.”
In April, Erlinder - who represents top genocide suspects at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda - filed a lawsuit in the US alleging that current Rwandan president Paul Kagame ordered the attack on a plane carrying then-leader Juvenal Habyarimana, an event that triggered the bloodshed 16 years ago.
“The offence Peter is charged with is [based] on the suppression of free speech in his representation of clients, which undermines the rule of law,” Masako Usui, Erlinder’s wife, said in a statement.
The US State Department will hold a press conference on Erlinder’s detention later today.
Also read: Rwanda genocide tribunal rapped for silence over jailed US lawyer
Showing posts with label political prisoners. Show all posts
Showing posts with label political prisoners. Show all posts
Dangerous News: US Supreme Court Might Reinstate Death Penalty for Mumia
We have been saying that there is a strong possibility that the US Supreme Court will reinstate the Death Penalty for Mumia. This while the leading candidate running to replace Lynne Abraham as Attorney General is calling for Mumia's execution and a new hit piece film by Tigre Hill "The Barrel of a Gun" is scheduled to be released around December 9th, the 28th anniversary of Mumia's arrest and the beginning of the subsequent conspiracy to have him executed. Now this article. Please pay close attention and stay tuned for our messages. -- Suzanne Ross, for the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition
This is most alarming news:
Ohio Death Penalty Case Might Determine Abu-Jamal's Fate
Shannon P. Duffy, The Legal Intelligencer, Oct. 12, 2009
Lawyers for convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal will be watching closely on Tuesday when the U.S. Supreme Court takes up an Ohio death penalty case because its outcome may very well decide whether Abu-Jamal's death sentence will be reinstated.
In April, Abu-Jamal lost his final appeal seeking a new trial for the December 1981 murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner when the justices refused to take up the issue of whether blacks were unfairly excluded from the jury.
But, at the time, the justices took no action on a companion petition filed by the Philadelphia district attorney's office demanding reinstatement of Abu-Jamal's death sentence despite having discussed it weeks before.
Now it appears certain that the high court has decided to hold the Philadelphia prosecutors' petition in abeyance pending the outcome of Smith v. Spisak -- an Ohio case that raises strikingly similar issues to those in Abu-Jamal's case.
If the prosecutors in that case are successful and win reinstatement of the death sentence imposed on Frank G. Spisak, the justices may then see no need to take up Abu-Jamal's case.
Instead, at that point, it's likely that the justices would simply issue a one-page order in Abu-Jamal's case that would summarily reverse the decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and order the appellate court to reconsider whether Abu-Jamal's death sentence should be reinstated.
Why is Abu-Jamal's case so similar to Spisak's? Both were on death row for notorious murders, but both won rulings in federal court that granted them partial new trials limited to the penalty phase.
In both cases, the federal courts' decisions to overturn the death sentences hinged on Mills v. Maryland -- a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision that governs how juries should deliberate during the penalty phase of a capital trial.
The Mills ruling struck down a Maryland statute that said juries in capital cases must be unanimous on any aggravating or mitigating factor. Voting 5-4, the justices declared that unanimity was properly required for any aggravating factor, but that mitigating factors -- those that weigh against imposing a death sentence -- must be handled more liberally, with each juror free to find on his or her own.
Since then, Mills has proven to be a powerful tool for defense lawyers aiming to overturn death sentences in numerous other states.
The question now before the courts is whether Mills truly requires that death sentences in other states be overturned if the juries in those states might have been confused by faulty instructions or verdict forms and led to believe that mitigating factors require unanimity.
Perhaps even more important to the justices is a corollary question of federalism: Is it fair for the federal courts to overturn a state court's decision on how to interpretMills by imposing its own interpretation that extends Mills beyond its original scope?
It's possible that the justices will provide the answers to those questions in Spisak's case that will be immediately applied to Abu-Jamal's case -- with Abu-Jamal and his lawyers forced to simply watch and wait until that happens.
Spisak, 57, was sentenced to death in 1983 for a killing spree at Cleveland State University after a monthlong trial that reportedly included testimony that he was a neo-Nazi and cross-dresser.
According to briefs in the case, Spisak killed Horace T. Rickerson, Timothy Sheehan and Brian Warford and also shot at John Hardaway and Coletta Dartt. Hardaway was shot seven times but survived and identified Spisak as the shooter.
After his arrest, Spisak confessed to all five shootings and declared that his actions were motivated by his hatred of gay people, blacks and Jews.
As Ohio prosecutors argued in their Supreme Court brief, Spisak "proudly testified at length as to his neo-Nazi beliefs and told the jury that those beliefs had motivated the murders."
In 2006, the 6th Circuit overturned Spisak's death sentence based on a Mills violation as well as findings that his lawyers were ineffective and had "demonized" Spisak during the trial.
The Supreme Court overturned the ruling and ordered the 6th Circuit to study the case again in light of two other decisions by the high court.
But the 6th Circuit in 2008 reinstated its prior decisions, finding they were correct.
Now the Supreme Court has taken the Spisak case up a second time to tackle the question of whether the 6th Circuit failed to give proper deference to the Ohio state courts "when it applied Mills v. Maryland to resolve ... questions that were not decided or addressed in Mills."
Abu-Jamal's lead lawyer, Robert R. Bryan of San Francisco, said in April that the issue in Spisak is "very similar" to the issue raised in the prosecutors' petition in Abu-Jamal's case.
"The question we've got," Bryan said at the time, "is whether we'll be left dangling in the wind until Spisak is decided."
In the prosecutor's petition in Abu-Jamal's case, Deputy District Attorney Ronald Eisenberg argued that the 3rd Circuit failed to give the proper deference to the rulings of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court which had addressed the Mills issue in 1995 and -- relying on a 3rd Circuit decision -- concluded that the Pennsylvania jury instructions did not run afoul of Mills.
But by the time Abu-Jamal's case made its way into the federal courts, the 3rd Circuit "had changed its mind," Eisenberg argued, with a series of decisions that said the Pennsylvania courts' analysis of Mills was not only wrong but unreasonable.
Eisenberg urged the justices to see a difference between Mills -- where the Maryland jury was specifically instructed that it had to be unanimous on mitigating factors -- and the situation in states like Pennsylvania, where the issue is much subtler and hinges on speculation by the federal courts that the jury might have been confused.
"The difficulty with the 3rd Circuit's 'risk of confusion' view is that Mills, quite simply, stated no such rule," Eisenberg argues.
This is most alarming news:
Ohio Death Penalty Case Might Determine Abu-Jamal's Fate
Shannon P. Duffy, The Legal Intelligencer, Oct. 12, 2009
Lawyers for convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal will be watching closely on Tuesday when the U.S. Supreme Court takes up an Ohio death penalty case because its outcome may very well decide whether Abu-Jamal's death sentence will be reinstated.
In April, Abu-Jamal lost his final appeal seeking a new trial for the December 1981 murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner when the justices refused to take up the issue of whether blacks were unfairly excluded from the jury.
But, at the time, the justices took no action on a companion petition filed by the Philadelphia district attorney's office demanding reinstatement of Abu-Jamal's death sentence despite having discussed it weeks before.
Now it appears certain that the high court has decided to hold the Philadelphia prosecutors' petition in abeyance pending the outcome of Smith v. Spisak -- an Ohio case that raises strikingly similar issues to those in Abu-Jamal's case.
If the prosecutors in that case are successful and win reinstatement of the death sentence imposed on Frank G. Spisak, the justices may then see no need to take up Abu-Jamal's case.
Instead, at that point, it's likely that the justices would simply issue a one-page order in Abu-Jamal's case that would summarily reverse the decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and order the appellate court to reconsider whether Abu-Jamal's death sentence should be reinstated.
Why is Abu-Jamal's case so similar to Spisak's? Both were on death row for notorious murders, but both won rulings in federal court that granted them partial new trials limited to the penalty phase.
In both cases, the federal courts' decisions to overturn the death sentences hinged on Mills v. Maryland -- a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision that governs how juries should deliberate during the penalty phase of a capital trial.
The Mills ruling struck down a Maryland statute that said juries in capital cases must be unanimous on any aggravating or mitigating factor. Voting 5-4, the justices declared that unanimity was properly required for any aggravating factor, but that mitigating factors -- those that weigh against imposing a death sentence -- must be handled more liberally, with each juror free to find on his or her own.
Since then, Mills has proven to be a powerful tool for defense lawyers aiming to overturn death sentences in numerous other states.
The question now before the courts is whether Mills truly requires that death sentences in other states be overturned if the juries in those states might have been confused by faulty instructions or verdict forms and led to believe that mitigating factors require unanimity.
Perhaps even more important to the justices is a corollary question of federalism: Is it fair for the federal courts to overturn a state court's decision on how to interpretMills by imposing its own interpretation that extends Mills beyond its original scope?
It's possible that the justices will provide the answers to those questions in Spisak's case that will be immediately applied to Abu-Jamal's case -- with Abu-Jamal and his lawyers forced to simply watch and wait until that happens.
Spisak, 57, was sentenced to death in 1983 for a killing spree at Cleveland State University after a monthlong trial that reportedly included testimony that he was a neo-Nazi and cross-dresser.
According to briefs in the case, Spisak killed Horace T. Rickerson, Timothy Sheehan and Brian Warford and also shot at John Hardaway and Coletta Dartt. Hardaway was shot seven times but survived and identified Spisak as the shooter.
After his arrest, Spisak confessed to all five shootings and declared that his actions were motivated by his hatred of gay people, blacks and Jews.
As Ohio prosecutors argued in their Supreme Court brief, Spisak "proudly testified at length as to his neo-Nazi beliefs and told the jury that those beliefs had motivated the murders."
In 2006, the 6th Circuit overturned Spisak's death sentence based on a Mills violation as well as findings that his lawyers were ineffective and had "demonized" Spisak during the trial.
The Supreme Court overturned the ruling and ordered the 6th Circuit to study the case again in light of two other decisions by the high court.
But the 6th Circuit in 2008 reinstated its prior decisions, finding they were correct.
Now the Supreme Court has taken the Spisak case up a second time to tackle the question of whether the 6th Circuit failed to give proper deference to the Ohio state courts "when it applied Mills v. Maryland to resolve ... questions that were not decided or addressed in Mills."
Abu-Jamal's lead lawyer, Robert R. Bryan of San Francisco, said in April that the issue in Spisak is "very similar" to the issue raised in the prosecutors' petition in Abu-Jamal's case.
"The question we've got," Bryan said at the time, "is whether we'll be left dangling in the wind until Spisak is decided."
In the prosecutor's petition in Abu-Jamal's case, Deputy District Attorney Ronald Eisenberg argued that the 3rd Circuit failed to give the proper deference to the rulings of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court which had addressed the Mills issue in 1995 and -- relying on a 3rd Circuit decision -- concluded that the Pennsylvania jury instructions did not run afoul of Mills.
But by the time Abu-Jamal's case made its way into the federal courts, the 3rd Circuit "had changed its mind," Eisenberg argued, with a series of decisions that said the Pennsylvania courts' analysis of Mills was not only wrong but unreasonable.
Eisenberg urged the justices to see a difference between Mills -- where the Maryland jury was specifically instructed that it had to be unanimous on mitigating factors -- and the situation in states like Pennsylvania, where the issue is much subtler and hinges on speculation by the federal courts that the jury might have been confused.
"The difficulty with the 3rd Circuit's 'risk of confusion' view is that Mills, quite simply, stated no such rule," Eisenberg argues.
Israeli Nobel Laureate calls for release of all Hamas prisoners
By Haaretz Service and Army Radio, Haaretz, Oct. 10, 2009
Israeli Nobel Prize for chemistry laureate Professor Ada Yonath on Saturday said all Hamas prisoners held in Israel should be released in order to bring Gilad Shalit home.
"I don't understand why we incarcerate them in Israel in the first place," the professor told Army Radio Saturday.
She added that "all prisoners should be returned to Palestine regardless of a deal for Gilad Shalit's release."
Yonath was interviewed on the weekly Saturday radio show about her thoughts in general regarding the Middle East conflict and called for a "change in the status quo." She said that holding Palestinians captive encourages and perpetuates their motivation to harm Israel and its citizens.
"If we hold Palestinian prisoners captive for years on end, their familys' resentment for Israel will grow and we are actively creating terrorists," the Nobel Laureate suggested.
She also said that if we cease from incarcerating Palestinians it will end soldier abductions. "Once we don't have any prisoners to release they will have no reason to kidnap soldiers."
Yonath described many Palestinian lives as having "no hope for the future," and said that "in a state of such despair they have every reason to jump at the opportunity to better their prospects for a better afterlife."
Israeli Nobel Prize for chemistry laureate Professor Ada Yonath on Saturday said all Hamas prisoners held in Israel should be released in order to bring Gilad Shalit home.
"I don't understand why we incarcerate them in Israel in the first place," the professor told Army Radio Saturday.
She added that "all prisoners should be returned to Palestine regardless of a deal for Gilad Shalit's release."
Yonath was interviewed on the weekly Saturday radio show about her thoughts in general regarding the Middle East conflict and called for a "change in the status quo." She said that holding Palestinians captive encourages and perpetuates their motivation to harm Israel and its citizens.
"If we hold Palestinian prisoners captive for years on end, their familys' resentment for Israel will grow and we are actively creating terrorists," the Nobel Laureate suggested.
She also said that if we cease from incarcerating Palestinians it will end soldier abductions. "Once we don't have any prisoners to release they will have no reason to kidnap soldiers."
Yonath described many Palestinian lives as having "no hope for the future," and said that "in a state of such despair they have every reason to jump at the opportunity to better their prospects for a better afterlife."
FREE DR. AAFIA SIDDIQUI, RELEASE THE SECRET U.S. DOCUMENTS ON HER TORTURE
International Action Center, Press Release, Sept. 5, 2009
Sara Flounders, the Co-Director of the International Action Center released the following statement to the media on Friday, September 5, 2009, following the September 3 court appearance of Dr Aafia Siddiqui in U.S. District Court in New York City.
Now that the documents recording the systematic torture of thousands of prisoners in secret U.S. prisons has been released to the world media in U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s report, the secret documents on the imprisonment and torture of Dr Aafia Siddiqui must also be released to the courts and to the world.
Days before Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a small woman weighing less than 90 pounds, was again forcibly brought into United States District Court on wild and contradictory charges of trying to murder FBI agents in Afghanistan, the latest documentary evidence of what the FBI and CIA is really doing in Afghanistan and in secret prisons around the world was confirmed in major news stories for all to read.
Tens of thousands of pages of newly de-classified government documents released by U.S. Attorney Holder confirm in the most graphic details that CIA interrogators threatened to kill the children of detainees, threatened sexual assaults on another’s mother, threatened bound prisoners with guns and an electric drill. Used water boarding against one prisoner 183 times, used chocking into unconsciousness, brutal strip searches and mock executions, confinement in a tiny box, continued slamming of the head.
The release of these documents and U.S. Attorney General Holder’s appointment of a special federal prosecutor to investigate interrogation practices of the CIA was announced on August 28, 2009. Monday's documents represent the largest release of information about the Bush Administration's once-secret system of capturing terrorism suspects and interrogating them in undisclosed locations around the world.
An ACLU law suit compelled the release of the CIA’s own 2004 Inspector General’s internal report on stomach turning interrogations. These released documents of "enhanced interrogation" tactics were heavily ‘redacted’ or censored with whole pages blocked out for “security reasons”.
This 2004 Inspector General’s report shows that the CIA kept detailed observational records on thousands of prisoners and the impact of their torture techniques on the human psyche. They made systematic measurements of the prisoners’ reaction to torture. From the censured documents it is clear that medical doctors and psychologists betrayed their profession by monitoring calibrated, incremental increases of torture to bring about excruciating pain, terror, humiliation and shame. The documents make it clear that all tortures were designed to create a systematic emotional and psychological breakdown in the prisoners being interrogated.
At a court appearance on September 3, 2009 the date for the start of Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s trial was set for Monday, November 2. The court room was full of Pakistani and other Muslim supporters. Supporters of the Pakistan USA Freedom Forum and other organizations have mobilized on days when Dr Siddiqui is brought into court. But this is a case that must be taken up in full solidarity by the entire progressive movement in the U.S., including the women’s movement, the movement for immigrant rights and the broad movement against U.S. racism and war.
The demand for Aafia Siddiqui’s freedom and return to her family in Pakistan must be combined with the demand to release all the secret documents on Dr Siddiqui’s long imprisonment. The 130,000 pages of documents released by U.S. Attorney General Holder last week confirms that the most detailed records were kept with, Nazi-like meticulousness, on the wrenching torture and abuse of countless prisoners held in U.S. secret prisons.
The case of Dr Aafia Siddiqui exposes the whole sordid torturous role of U.S. occupation of Afghanistan and widening war in Pakistan. Support for freedom and return to her family in Pakistan is a basic demand for human rights and justice for a woman who has been horrendously abused.
A rally to support Dr Siddiqui is planned for the opening day of her trial, Monday, November 2 in front of U.S. District Court, 500 Pearl Street.
For more info:
International Action Center
55 West 17th St, Suite 5C
New York, NY 10011
www.iacenter.org 212-633-6646
Founded by Ramsey Clark
Sara Flounders, the Co-Director of the International Action Center released the following statement to the media on Friday, September 5, 2009, following the September 3 court appearance of Dr Aafia Siddiqui in U.S. District Court in New York City.
Now that the documents recording the systematic torture of thousands of prisoners in secret U.S. prisons has been released to the world media in U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s report, the secret documents on the imprisonment and torture of Dr Aafia Siddiqui must also be released to the courts and to the world.
Days before Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a small woman weighing less than 90 pounds, was again forcibly brought into United States District Court on wild and contradictory charges of trying to murder FBI agents in Afghanistan, the latest documentary evidence of what the FBI and CIA is really doing in Afghanistan and in secret prisons around the world was confirmed in major news stories for all to read.
Tens of thousands of pages of newly de-classified government documents released by U.S. Attorney Holder confirm in the most graphic details that CIA interrogators threatened to kill the children of detainees, threatened sexual assaults on another’s mother, threatened bound prisoners with guns and an electric drill. Used water boarding against one prisoner 183 times, used chocking into unconsciousness, brutal strip searches and mock executions, confinement in a tiny box, continued slamming of the head.
The release of these documents and U.S. Attorney General Holder’s appointment of a special federal prosecutor to investigate interrogation practices of the CIA was announced on August 28, 2009. Monday's documents represent the largest release of information about the Bush Administration's once-secret system of capturing terrorism suspects and interrogating them in undisclosed locations around the world.
An ACLU law suit compelled the release of the CIA’s own 2004 Inspector General’s internal report on stomach turning interrogations. These released documents of "enhanced interrogation" tactics were heavily ‘redacted’ or censored with whole pages blocked out for “security reasons”.
This 2004 Inspector General’s report shows that the CIA kept detailed observational records on thousands of prisoners and the impact of their torture techniques on the human psyche. They made systematic measurements of the prisoners’ reaction to torture. From the censured documents it is clear that medical doctors and psychologists betrayed their profession by monitoring calibrated, incremental increases of torture to bring about excruciating pain, terror, humiliation and shame. The documents make it clear that all tortures were designed to create a systematic emotional and psychological breakdown in the prisoners being interrogated.
At a court appearance on September 3, 2009 the date for the start of Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s trial was set for Monday, November 2. The court room was full of Pakistani and other Muslim supporters. Supporters of the Pakistan USA Freedom Forum and other organizations have mobilized on days when Dr Siddiqui is brought into court. But this is a case that must be taken up in full solidarity by the entire progressive movement in the U.S., including the women’s movement, the movement for immigrant rights and the broad movement against U.S. racism and war.
The demand for Aafia Siddiqui’s freedom and return to her family in Pakistan must be combined with the demand to release all the secret documents on Dr Siddiqui’s long imprisonment. The 130,000 pages of documents released by U.S. Attorney General Holder last week confirms that the most detailed records were kept with, Nazi-like meticulousness, on the wrenching torture and abuse of countless prisoners held in U.S. secret prisons.
The case of Dr Aafia Siddiqui exposes the whole sordid torturous role of U.S. occupation of Afghanistan and widening war in Pakistan. Support for freedom and return to her family in Pakistan is a basic demand for human rights and justice for a woman who has been horrendously abused.
A rally to support Dr Siddiqui is planned for the opening day of her trial, Monday, November 2 in front of U.S. District Court, 500 Pearl Street.
For more info:
International Action Center
55 West 17th St, Suite 5C
New York, NY 10011
www.iacenter.org 212-633-6646
Founded by Ramsey Clark
The Health Care That Equals "I Don't Care"
By Mumia Abu-Jamal, Prison Radio, Written 8/29/09, Recorded 8/30/09
Listen To Audio Column: Full Version | Short Version
As the White House and Congress square off on health care, take care, because the deals with the big dogs have been made -- and the people will be -- once again -- left holding an empty bag.
That's because in the opening hours of this drama, the central issue -- single payer -- was given away, in an attempt to attract the support of big insurance companies. A pre-pay-off, if you will, to show them that neither their profits nor future growth would be impaired.
Truly, this is change that they can believe in, for it means more clients, more funds flooding their tills, and legislative protection for their dwindling pay outs (for sick people.)
Single-payer means that all doctors and hospitals would have been paid for their services by a single government agency -- spelling the end to the immense profits garnered each year by hundreds of insurance companies -- now costing at least $350 billion annually.
Now, that amount of money would've paid for much of the nation's health care needs, instead of private business profits, and executive bonuses.
With the deal made, that money is gone -- and so are the hopes of millions for a fix of the nation's broken health care system.
Do you really think the insurance companies donated millions to Obama and select members of Congress because they liked their looks?
They'll give dough to Democrats, Republicans -- hell, even communists if they think it'll buy them more profits.
And it looks like they have.
There's an old American saying, 'You get what you pay for.'
Well, they've paid the politicians -- and they're about to get the payoff!
There's considerable coverage on the recent passing of Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, a long time advocate of universal healthcare. While his brain cancer undoubtedly shortened his days, it's also likely that this adept politician, seeing the horse trades being made to sell out the people on health care, caused him to die from a broken heart.
Oh -- and about those town halls? It's much ado about nothing, or as Shakespeare once wrote, it's 'sound and fury, signifying nothing.'
Most of them are people who didn't even vote for Obama, and who call him a 'socialist' for using 'the guvamint to interfere with Medicare.' Nutty as a Snickers bar. Many still believe he was born in Kenya, East Africa!
And yes, a bill will pass, and Obama will sign it, but it'll mean less, not more health care. It'll mean higher co-pays (really prepays, or deductibles), less services, and more profits for their campaign contributors. There will be celebrations and TV PR people will praise it like American Idol -- but it'll be a sell-out -- pure and simple.
Unless -- unless -people really raise hell -- and demand single payer -- and universal health care -- before the door slams shut.
--(c) '09 maj
***************
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
URGENT Need for Petition Signatures at: http://www.iacenter.org/mumiapetition/
Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090
If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).
WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM
Please mail donations/ checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
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Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
www.FreeMumia.com
Listen To Audio Column: Full Version | Short Version
As the White House and Congress square off on health care, take care, because the deals with the big dogs have been made -- and the people will be -- once again -- left holding an empty bag.
That's because in the opening hours of this drama, the central issue -- single payer -- was given away, in an attempt to attract the support of big insurance companies. A pre-pay-off, if you will, to show them that neither their profits nor future growth would be impaired.
Truly, this is change that they can believe in, for it means more clients, more funds flooding their tills, and legislative protection for their dwindling pay outs (for sick people.)
Single-payer means that all doctors and hospitals would have been paid for their services by a single government agency -- spelling the end to the immense profits garnered each year by hundreds of insurance companies -- now costing at least $350 billion annually.
Now, that amount of money would've paid for much of the nation's health care needs, instead of private business profits, and executive bonuses.
With the deal made, that money is gone -- and so are the hopes of millions for a fix of the nation's broken health care system.
Do you really think the insurance companies donated millions to Obama and select members of Congress because they liked their looks?
They'll give dough to Democrats, Republicans -- hell, even communists if they think it'll buy them more profits.
And it looks like they have.
There's an old American saying, 'You get what you pay for.'
Well, they've paid the politicians -- and they're about to get the payoff!
There's considerable coverage on the recent passing of Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, a long time advocate of universal healthcare. While his brain cancer undoubtedly shortened his days, it's also likely that this adept politician, seeing the horse trades being made to sell out the people on health care, caused him to die from a broken heart.
Oh -- and about those town halls? It's much ado about nothing, or as Shakespeare once wrote, it's 'sound and fury, signifying nothing.'
Most of them are people who didn't even vote for Obama, and who call him a 'socialist' for using 'the guvamint to interfere with Medicare.' Nutty as a Snickers bar. Many still believe he was born in Kenya, East Africa!
And yes, a bill will pass, and Obama will sign it, but it'll mean less, not more health care. It'll mean higher co-pays (really prepays, or deductibles), less services, and more profits for their campaign contributors. There will be celebrations and TV PR people will praise it like American Idol -- but it'll be a sell-out -- pure and simple.
Unless -- unless -people really raise hell -- and demand single payer -- and universal health care -- before the door slams shut.
--(c) '09 maj
***************
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
URGENT Need for Petition Signatures at: http://www.iacenter.org/mumiapetition/
Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090
If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).
WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM
Please mail donations/ checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
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Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
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www.FreeMumia.com
Sun Dance Chief Seeks Meeting with President Obama
Sun Dance Chief Fasts at White House For Leonard Peltier: seeks meeting with President Obama
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee, Aug. 28, 2009
As a result of Peltier’s recent parole denial, Ben Carnes, Choctaw Nation, and a Sun Dance Chief, states he will go to Washington, D.C. to stand and fast in front of the White House between September 5th – 12th, in hopes of securing a meeting with President Obama.
Earlier this year, the LP-DOC sent a letter to President Obama to discuss the case of Leonard Peltier, but the reply from the White House declined to invite members of the committee for a meeting.
Leonard Peltier has been an international cause celeb based upon critical questions surrounding his conviction in 1977 in the deaths of two FBI agents. Amnesty International has designated Peltier as a political prisoner and a U.S. prosecutor has admitted in court during an appeal hearing that he did not know who killed the agents and cannot prove who did. A federal judge who heard this statement but was unable to afford any relief wrote a letter to Sen. Inouye to ask the president to grant clemency.
Carnes is a recipient of the 1987 Oklahoma Human Rights Award for his stand against forced hair cutting of Native prisoners. He has been asked to speak before congressional committees and has served with numerous human rights, interfaith and Native organizations. He has worked tirelessly on behalf of Peltier for over 28 years, and first became a national spokesperson in 1991. He is also national support group coordinator and advisory board member for the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee.
“The basis of Peltier’s denial by the parole commission is one of hypocrisy. It is also beyond belief that the chair of the US Parole Commission, Issac Fullwood, who lectures on ethics in law enforcement, would turn a blind eye to the FBI’s abuse of the investigative process. And Ms. Patricia Cushwa, commission member, and Chair of the Maryland parole commission recently supported a pardon for a man who had been executed, because there were questions about the case,” said Carnes. He said that there are questions about Peltier's case that remain unanswered, and with this denial, the parole commission have made Peltier's life sentence a sentence of death as he won’t be eligible for parole for 15 years when he is 79 years old. Peltier will observe his next birthday on September 12 when he will turn 65. He has already served 33 years in prison.
Supporters are calling for world wide 24 hour vigils on September 11th – 12th to begin at 8:45 AM
We call upon all supporters to organize solidarity events and actions in conjunction with Ben's solitary prayer fast in DC on September 12th.
If you can, begin a 24 hour vigil on September 11 beginning at 8:45 AM and set up some means of a public address for the 12th to broadcast a live statement from Ben as he concludes his fast. This could very well be an important time in the history of the struggle to bring justice to free Peltier, and in the federal government's relations' with the Native people of this land.
Everyone is asked to work locally, we know not everyone can be in DC at that time, but your work in your area is vitally important.
"The president has made some promises to the First Nations people during his campaign," Carnes said, "and since the election we have been saying it starts with Leonard Peltier. He needs to prove to us he means this!
Otherwise, it is just another in a long running series of broken promises, treaties and broken lives. We will not accept this anymore!"
Leonard Peltier has long reached International celebrity status, based upon critical questions surrounding his conviction in 1977 in the deaths of two FBI agents. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for the 6th time, and has had the support of world political/spiritual leaders from around the world, including 55 members of Congress who have joined in the call for justice.
For more information, go to www.whoisleonardpeltier.info, the official website of the LP-DOC.
Information for contributions can be made through this site to help the committee and the action taking place in Washington, DC. You can also order litho’s of Peltier’s art or other products to help support the cause of Leonard Peltier.
This is not the time to be quiet, it is time to act – and right now.
CONTACT THE WHITE HOUSE:
Contact President Obama via EMAIL
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
The website is not the only way to reach the president.
You can also call or write to the President :
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111 or 202-456-6213
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461
********************
TUNE IN EVERY SUNDAY NIGHT WITH WANBLI
at 7:00 p.m. EST
www.TheRealPublicRadio.net
CALL IN TO TALK 712-432-8773, PIN 179441
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee, Aug. 28, 2009
As a result of Peltier’s recent parole denial, Ben Carnes, Choctaw Nation, and a Sun Dance Chief, states he will go to Washington, D.C. to stand and fast in front of the White House between September 5th – 12th, in hopes of securing a meeting with President Obama.
Earlier this year, the LP-DOC sent a letter to President Obama to discuss the case of Leonard Peltier, but the reply from the White House declined to invite members of the committee for a meeting.
Leonard Peltier has been an international cause celeb based upon critical questions surrounding his conviction in 1977 in the deaths of two FBI agents. Amnesty International has designated Peltier as a political prisoner and a U.S. prosecutor has admitted in court during an appeal hearing that he did not know who killed the agents and cannot prove who did. A federal judge who heard this statement but was unable to afford any relief wrote a letter to Sen. Inouye to ask the president to grant clemency.
Carnes is a recipient of the 1987 Oklahoma Human Rights Award for his stand against forced hair cutting of Native prisoners. He has been asked to speak before congressional committees and has served with numerous human rights, interfaith and Native organizations. He has worked tirelessly on behalf of Peltier for over 28 years, and first became a national spokesperson in 1991. He is also national support group coordinator and advisory board member for the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee.
“The basis of Peltier’s denial by the parole commission is one of hypocrisy. It is also beyond belief that the chair of the US Parole Commission, Issac Fullwood, who lectures on ethics in law enforcement, would turn a blind eye to the FBI’s abuse of the investigative process. And Ms. Patricia Cushwa, commission member, and Chair of the Maryland parole commission recently supported a pardon for a man who had been executed, because there were questions about the case,” said Carnes. He said that there are questions about Peltier's case that remain unanswered, and with this denial, the parole commission have made Peltier's life sentence a sentence of death as he won’t be eligible for parole for 15 years when he is 79 years old. Peltier will observe his next birthday on September 12 when he will turn 65. He has already served 33 years in prison.
Supporters are calling for world wide 24 hour vigils on September 11th – 12th to begin at 8:45 AM
We call upon all supporters to organize solidarity events and actions in conjunction with Ben's solitary prayer fast in DC on September 12th.
If you can, begin a 24 hour vigil on September 11 beginning at 8:45 AM and set up some means of a public address for the 12th to broadcast a live statement from Ben as he concludes his fast. This could very well be an important time in the history of the struggle to bring justice to free Peltier, and in the federal government's relations' with the Native people of this land.
Everyone is asked to work locally, we know not everyone can be in DC at that time, but your work in your area is vitally important.
"The president has made some promises to the First Nations people during his campaign," Carnes said, "and since the election we have been saying it starts with Leonard Peltier. He needs to prove to us he means this!
Otherwise, it is just another in a long running series of broken promises, treaties and broken lives. We will not accept this anymore!"
Leonard Peltier has long reached International celebrity status, based upon critical questions surrounding his conviction in 1977 in the deaths of two FBI agents. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for the 6th time, and has had the support of world political/spiritual leaders from around the world, including 55 members of Congress who have joined in the call for justice.
For more information, go to www.whoisleonardpeltier.info, the official website of the LP-DOC.
Information for contributions can be made through this site to help the committee and the action taking place in Washington, DC. You can also order litho’s of Peltier’s art or other products to help support the cause of Leonard Peltier.
This is not the time to be quiet, it is time to act – and right now.
CONTACT THE WHITE HOUSE:
Contact President Obama via EMAIL
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
The website is not the only way to reach the president.
You can also call or write to the President :
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111 or 202-456-6213
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461
********************
TUNE IN EVERY SUNDAY NIGHT WITH WANBLI
at 7:00 p.m. EST
www.TheRealPublicRadio.net
CALL IN TO TALK 712-432-8773, PIN 179441
Injustice continues: Leonard Peltier denied parole
By Mahtowin, International Action Center, Aug. 27, 2009
A wave of outrage swept the progressive community worldwide at the news that Native political prisoner Leonard Peltier was denied parole on Aug. 21. The U.S. government said Peltier will not be eligible for another parole hearing until 2024, when he will be 79 years old.
Peltier, framed up by the FBI for the 1975 shooting of two FBI agents at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, has been unjustly imprisoned since 1976. He is an international symbol of the U.S. government’s refusal to respect Native nations and sovereignty and a symbol of the corruption of the U.S. criminal “justice” system.
But Peltier is not just a symbol. He is “ikce wicasa,” the Lakota phrase meaning “human being.” He has been held captive for more than 12,000 days–six years longer than South Africa’s Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.
The feds have tried to have Peltier assassinated in prison. He has been put in solitary confinement countless times. He is currently imprisoned in Lewisburg, Pa., far from his family and his reservation. Peltier, now 64, grows increasingly ill from diabetes, vision and prostate problems, and other medical issues. Like all prisoners, he receives inadequate medical care.
Peltier’s children have grown up without him, and he has never been able to hold his grandchildren. He longs to walk the land and see the night sky, to eat a meal of his own choosing, to gather with his family and friends, to live among his people once more. Peltier, a man whose only crime has been to fight for Native rights and sovereignty, languishes in prison solely because of the dishonesty and arrogance of the U.S. government and its Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Despite everything, Peltier’s spirit is not crushed. His supporters cannot allow themselves to be discouraged. Peltier depends upon his supporters to transmute our outrage into action and educate others about his case.
The Leonard Peltier Defense/Offense Committee is considering its next steps, and meanwhile it wishes “to thank our thousands of supporters for their tenacious efforts, in particular during the months leading to Leonard’s recent parole hearing. Currently we are in the process of finalizing plans for efforts around exercising our right to challenge this decision, advocating for intervention by President Barack Obama, and succeeding in getting both proper medical attention for Leonard and a transfer to a federal prison closer to home. We will be issuing directives within the near future.”
For more information on Peltier’s case and the struggle to free him, visit www.whoisleonardpeltier.info. Cards and letters may be sent to Leonard
Peltier, #89637-132, USP-Lewisburg, P.O. Box 1000, Lewisburg, PA 17837.
Mahtowin is co-leader of United American Indians of New England.
Statement of Peltier’s attorney
Following are excerpts from an Aug. 21 statement released by Eric Seitz, a defense attorney for Leonard Peltier:
Despite judicial determinations that the unrepentant FBI fabricated evidence and presented perjured testimony in Leonard Peltier’s prosecution; despite a jury’s acquittal on grounds of self-defense of two co-defendants who were found to have engaged in the same conduct of which Mr. Peltier was convicted; despite Mr. Peltier’s exemplary record during his incarceration for more than 33 years and his clearly demonstrated eligibility for parole; despite letters and petitions calling for his release submitted by millions of people in this country and around the world including one of the judges who ruled on his earlier appeals; and despite his advanced age and deteriorating health, the Parole Commission today informed Mr. Peltier that his “release on parole would depreciate the seriousness of your offenses and would promote disrespect for the law,” and set a reconsideration hearing in July 2024.
This is the extreme action of the same law enforcement community that brought us the indefinite imprisonment of suspected teenage terrorists; tortures and killings in CIA prisons around the world. ... These are the same institutions that have never treated Indigenous peoples with dignity or respect or accepted any responsibility for centuries of intolerance and abuse.
At his parole hearing on July 28, Leonard Peltier expressed regret and accepted responsibility for his role in the incident in which the two FBI agents and one Native American activist died as the result of a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Mr. Peltier emphasized that the shootout occurred in circumstances where there literally was a war going on between corrupt tribal leaders, supported by the government, on the one hand, and Native American traditionalists and young activists, on the other.
He again denied—as he has always denied—that he intended the deaths of anyone or that he fired the fatal shots that killed the two agents, and he reminded the hearing officer that one of his former co-defendants recently admitted to having fired the fatal shots himself.
Accordingly, it is not true that Leonard Peltier participated in “the execution style murders of two FBI agents,” as the Parole Commission asserts, and there never has been credible evidence of Mr. Peltier’s responsibility for the fatal shots, as the FBI continues to allege.
Moreover, given the corrupt practices of the FBI, ... it is entirely untrue that Leonard Peltier’s parole at this juncture will in any way “depreciate the seriousness” of his conduct and/or “promote disrespect for the law.”
We will continue to seek parole and clemency for Mr. Peltier and to eventually bring this prolonged injustice to a ... fair resolution.
*****************
Also see:
Leonard Peltier Parole Denied
A wave of outrage swept the progressive community worldwide at the news that Native political prisoner Leonard Peltier was denied parole on Aug. 21. The U.S. government said Peltier will not be eligible for another parole hearing until 2024, when he will be 79 years old.Peltier, framed up by the FBI for the 1975 shooting of two FBI agents at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, has been unjustly imprisoned since 1976. He is an international symbol of the U.S. government’s refusal to respect Native nations and sovereignty and a symbol of the corruption of the U.S. criminal “justice” system.
But Peltier is not just a symbol. He is “ikce wicasa,” the Lakota phrase meaning “human being.” He has been held captive for more than 12,000 days–six years longer than South Africa’s Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.
The feds have tried to have Peltier assassinated in prison. He has been put in solitary confinement countless times. He is currently imprisoned in Lewisburg, Pa., far from his family and his reservation. Peltier, now 64, grows increasingly ill from diabetes, vision and prostate problems, and other medical issues. Like all prisoners, he receives inadequate medical care.
Peltier’s children have grown up without him, and he has never been able to hold his grandchildren. He longs to walk the land and see the night sky, to eat a meal of his own choosing, to gather with his family and friends, to live among his people once more. Peltier, a man whose only crime has been to fight for Native rights and sovereignty, languishes in prison solely because of the dishonesty and arrogance of the U.S. government and its Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Despite everything, Peltier’s spirit is not crushed. His supporters cannot allow themselves to be discouraged. Peltier depends upon his supporters to transmute our outrage into action and educate others about his case.
The Leonard Peltier Defense/Offense Committee is considering its next steps, and meanwhile it wishes “to thank our thousands of supporters for their tenacious efforts, in particular during the months leading to Leonard’s recent parole hearing. Currently we are in the process of finalizing plans for efforts around exercising our right to challenge this decision, advocating for intervention by President Barack Obama, and succeeding in getting both proper medical attention for Leonard and a transfer to a federal prison closer to home. We will be issuing directives within the near future.”
For more information on Peltier’s case and the struggle to free him, visit www.whoisleonardpeltier.info. Cards and letters may be sent to Leonard
Peltier, #89637-132, USP-Lewisburg, P.O. Box 1000, Lewisburg, PA 17837.
Mahtowin is co-leader of United American Indians of New England.
Statement of Peltier’s attorney
Following are excerpts from an Aug. 21 statement released by Eric Seitz, a defense attorney for Leonard Peltier:
Despite judicial determinations that the unrepentant FBI fabricated evidence and presented perjured testimony in Leonard Peltier’s prosecution; despite a jury’s acquittal on grounds of self-defense of two co-defendants who were found to have engaged in the same conduct of which Mr. Peltier was convicted; despite Mr. Peltier’s exemplary record during his incarceration for more than 33 years and his clearly demonstrated eligibility for parole; despite letters and petitions calling for his release submitted by millions of people in this country and around the world including one of the judges who ruled on his earlier appeals; and despite his advanced age and deteriorating health, the Parole Commission today informed Mr. Peltier that his “release on parole would depreciate the seriousness of your offenses and would promote disrespect for the law,” and set a reconsideration hearing in July 2024.
This is the extreme action of the same law enforcement community that brought us the indefinite imprisonment of suspected teenage terrorists; tortures and killings in CIA prisons around the world. ... These are the same institutions that have never treated Indigenous peoples with dignity or respect or accepted any responsibility for centuries of intolerance and abuse.
At his parole hearing on July 28, Leonard Peltier expressed regret and accepted responsibility for his role in the incident in which the two FBI agents and one Native American activist died as the result of a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Mr. Peltier emphasized that the shootout occurred in circumstances where there literally was a war going on between corrupt tribal leaders, supported by the government, on the one hand, and Native American traditionalists and young activists, on the other.
He again denied—as he has always denied—that he intended the deaths of anyone or that he fired the fatal shots that killed the two agents, and he reminded the hearing officer that one of his former co-defendants recently admitted to having fired the fatal shots himself.
Accordingly, it is not true that Leonard Peltier participated in “the execution style murders of two FBI agents,” as the Parole Commission asserts, and there never has been credible evidence of Mr. Peltier’s responsibility for the fatal shots, as the FBI continues to allege.
Moreover, given the corrupt practices of the FBI, ... it is entirely untrue that Leonard Peltier’s parole at this juncture will in any way “depreciate the seriousness” of his conduct and/or “promote disrespect for the law.”
We will continue to seek parole and clemency for Mr. Peltier and to eventually bring this prolonged injustice to a ... fair resolution.
*****************
Also see:
Leonard Peltier Parole Denied
Leonard Peltier Parole Denied
Friends Of Peltier email, Aug. 21, 2009
"When you begin a great work you can't expect to finish it all at once; therefore, you and your brothers [and sisters] press on and let nothing discourage you until you have entirely finished what you have begun."--Teedyuschung, Delaware
News from North Dakota, today, is that Leonard Peltier's parole has been denied. He won't receive another full parole hearing until 2024, at the age of 79 years.
As sad as we all are, we are steadfast, undefeated. We will not go away. We will not be quiet.
Take a moment to reflect. Just a moment. But then put your disappointment behind you. Gather your strength. There's much work to be done.
* Action Item 1: Contact the Attorney General *
On June 23, 1995, Amnesty International submitted a letter of concern about the Peltier case to the then U.S. Attorney General. There was no response. Write to Eric Holder, Attorney General. Ask him to conduct an executive review of the case and to finally right the wrongs of the past. Tell him it's never too late to find the truth. Justice delayed is justice denied.
Eric A. Holder, Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Or call the Office of the Attorney General at 202-353-1555.
And while you're at it, ask Mr. Holder why more than 140,000 documents from a 30+-year-old case are still being withheld by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Tell him America has a right to know what occurred over 30 years ago and demand the release of all documents related to the Peltier case.
* Action Item 2: Contact Members of Congress *
Use all the resources at your disposal to contact your Members of Congress and continue urging them to support freedom for Leonard Peltier. That support should be formally expressed in correspondence to President Obama.
Also demand a full congressional investigation into the Reign of Terror on the Pine Ridge Reservation during the '70s. It's long past time for the truth to be told. See:
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org/call.htm
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org/write.htm
Do you use Twitter? Try using this service to quickly and easily
reach your Members of Congress: http://tcxs.net/.
You also can sign the petition:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Pine_Ridge/.
Congress will not be in session for most of August. This is a good time to meet with your Members of Congress in their home offices. Make the appointment now. You can find locations, telephone numbers, etc., via our congressional directory:
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org/congressmaster.htm.
* Action Item 3: Call the White House *
Call the White House comment line to express your outrage at the outcome of the parole hearing. Demand that President Obama free Peltier now. Call:
(202) 456-1111 or (202) 456-1112.
You also can send an e-mail to the White House. Go to
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/.
If you prefer, mail or fax a letter:
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
Fax - (202) 456-2461
Better yet... Do all three.
-----
Time to set him free... Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.
Friends of Peltier
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org
****************
Also see:
Injustice continues: Leonard Peltier denied parole
"When you begin a great work you can't expect to finish it all at once; therefore, you and your brothers [and sisters] press on and let nothing discourage you until you have entirely finished what you have begun."--Teedyuschung, Delaware
News from North Dakota, today, is that Leonard Peltier's parole has been denied. He won't receive another full parole hearing until 2024, at the age of 79 years.
As sad as we all are, we are steadfast, undefeated. We will not go away. We will not be quiet.
Take a moment to reflect. Just a moment. But then put your disappointment behind you. Gather your strength. There's much work to be done.
* Action Item 1: Contact the Attorney General *
On June 23, 1995, Amnesty International submitted a letter of concern about the Peltier case to the then U.S. Attorney General. There was no response. Write to Eric Holder, Attorney General. Ask him to conduct an executive review of the case and to finally right the wrongs of the past. Tell him it's never too late to find the truth. Justice delayed is justice denied.
Eric A. Holder, Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Or call the Office of the Attorney General at 202-353-1555.
And while you're at it, ask Mr. Holder why more than 140,000 documents from a 30+-year-old case are still being withheld by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Tell him America has a right to know what occurred over 30 years ago and demand the release of all documents related to the Peltier case.
* Action Item 2: Contact Members of Congress *
Use all the resources at your disposal to contact your Members of Congress and continue urging them to support freedom for Leonard Peltier. That support should be formally expressed in correspondence to President Obama.
Also demand a full congressional investigation into the Reign of Terror on the Pine Ridge Reservation during the '70s. It's long past time for the truth to be told. See:
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org/call.htm
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org/write.htm
Do you use Twitter? Try using this service to quickly and easily
reach your Members of Congress: http://tcxs.net/.
You also can sign the petition:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Pine_Ridge/.
Congress will not be in session for most of August. This is a good time to meet with your Members of Congress in their home offices. Make the appointment now. You can find locations, telephone numbers, etc., via our congressional directory:
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org/congressmaster.htm.
* Action Item 3: Call the White House *
Call the White House comment line to express your outrage at the outcome of the parole hearing. Demand that President Obama free Peltier now. Call:
(202) 456-1111 or (202) 456-1112.
You also can send an e-mail to the White House. Go to
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/.
If you prefer, mail or fax a letter:
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
Fax - (202) 456-2461
Better yet... Do all three.
-----
Time to set him free... Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.
Friends of Peltier
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org
****************
Also see:
Injustice continues: Leonard Peltier denied parole
Prison Blog Post from Travis Bishop - G.I. War Resister
By Travis Bishop, Free Travis Bishop, Fort Hood war resister, Aug. 20, 2009
First off, hello to all those who still support me! Your support, kind words, and well-wishings have truly kept me going through this difficult time.
I want to assure everyone, well-wishers and nay-sayers, that I am still 100% confident that my decision was a smart one. Though I suffer a harsh personal loss, the gain for this movement is incredible. Already I have heard of others who have been influenced by mine and Victor’s decisions and actions, and it warms my heart.
Ultimately, the goal is to end these wars. And keeping that in mind, remember that my decisions are mine and mine alone. My hope is that others learn from mine and Victor’s sacrifices. They are small when compared to the ultimate gain.
To my supporters, Thank You and write me right now while I’m in Bell County even!
To those who think I was coerced, influenced or made to do this, please write me to. I would love to personally explain how I feel.
Yours,
Travis
You can write Travis at: Travis Bishop, Bell County Jail, 113 W. Central Ave., Belton, TX 76513
First off, hello to all those who still support me! Your support, kind words, and well-wishings have truly kept me going through this difficult time.
I want to assure everyone, well-wishers and nay-sayers, that I am still 100% confident that my decision was a smart one. Though I suffer a harsh personal loss, the gain for this movement is incredible. Already I have heard of others who have been influenced by mine and Victor’s decisions and actions, and it warms my heart.
Ultimately, the goal is to end these wars. And keeping that in mind, remember that my decisions are mine and mine alone. My hope is that others learn from mine and Victor’s sacrifices. They are small when compared to the ultimate gain.
To my supporters, Thank You and write me right now while I’m in Bell County even!
To those who think I was coerced, influenced or made to do this, please write me to. I would love to personally explain how I feel.
Yours,
Travis
You can write Travis at: Travis Bishop, Bell County Jail, 113 W. Central Ave., Belton, TX 76513
G 20 -- or More G-Money?
By Mumia Abu-Jamal, Prison Radio, Written 8/10/09, Recorded 8/17/09
click here to listen to audio column
click here to listen to short version
As the G 20 gathers again, they assemble amidst the wreckage of their own creation.
Representatives of 20 of the alleged developed economies, they are instead representatives of casino capitalism, the use, misuse and grand-theft of public wealth, to fund the bonuses of financial pirates which have looted the treasury of billions.
A few months ago, as they gathered in London, the nation's finance ministers talked about tax havens, but few had any real substantial solutions to the economic turmoil roiling in their own countries.
Much has been said about stimulus packages, and even of the enormous amounts of money being allocated for this purpose, but a modest amount has actually been spent, with the lion's share being devoted to boosting the very banks and businesses that created this disaster.
And while banks and billionaires have been rewarded for their insatiable greed, average people, working people, families struggling in the worst economic environment since the 1930's, are on their own. Millions are jobless. Many are homeless. Many more are helpless.
And while they barely survive day after day, big buck bonuses are back on track at Goldman Sachs and other such entitles in the City.
Politicians, meanwhile, talk of a 'jobless recovery'. If there are no jobs, who can really speak of a recovery?
Wall Street is recovering-- but are you?
Even the French conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy said the economic disaster of last fall spelled the end to laissez-faire (French for 'let it be'), economic theory. Governments on both sides of the Atlantic are giving various stimulus packages to banks and businesses that looks an awful lot like life support.
If this is free market, then slavery was free labor!
Only a bold, unified people's movement can put the people's interests before that of big finance. It's going to take protests -- real protests -- to break through this vampire's bite on the wealth of nations.
--(c) '09 maj
*******************
Info on G20 protests at http://bailoutpeople.org
***************
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
URGENT Need for Petition Signatures at: http://www.iacenter.org/mumiapetition/
Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090
If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).
WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM
Please mail donations/ checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
www.FreeMumia.com
click here to listen to audio column
click here to listen to short version
As the G 20 gathers again, they assemble amidst the wreckage of their own creation.
Representatives of 20 of the alleged developed economies, they are instead representatives of casino capitalism, the use, misuse and grand-theft of public wealth, to fund the bonuses of financial pirates which have looted the treasury of billions.
A few months ago, as they gathered in London, the nation's finance ministers talked about tax havens, but few had any real substantial solutions to the economic turmoil roiling in their own countries.
Much has been said about stimulus packages, and even of the enormous amounts of money being allocated for this purpose, but a modest amount has actually been spent, with the lion's share being devoted to boosting the very banks and businesses that created this disaster.
And while banks and billionaires have been rewarded for their insatiable greed, average people, working people, families struggling in the worst economic environment since the 1930's, are on their own. Millions are jobless. Many are homeless. Many more are helpless.
And while they barely survive day after day, big buck bonuses are back on track at Goldman Sachs and other such entitles in the City.
Politicians, meanwhile, talk of a 'jobless recovery'. If there are no jobs, who can really speak of a recovery?
Wall Street is recovering-- but are you?
Even the French conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy said the economic disaster of last fall spelled the end to laissez-faire (French for 'let it be'), economic theory. Governments on both sides of the Atlantic are giving various stimulus packages to banks and businesses that looks an awful lot like life support.
If this is free market, then slavery was free labor!
Only a bold, unified people's movement can put the people's interests before that of big finance. It's going to take protests -- real protests -- to break through this vampire's bite on the wealth of nations.
--(c) '09 maj
*******************
Info on G20 protests at http://bailoutpeople.org
***************
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
URGENT Need for Petition Signatures at: http://www.iacenter.org/mumiapetition/
Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090
If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).
WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM
Please mail donations/ checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
www.FreeMumia.com
Skip Nadra and the Philadelphia Grand Jury
By Mumia Abu-Jamal, Prison Radio, Recorded 8/17/09
click here to listen to full audio column 3:20 min.
click here to listen to short version 2:48 min.
***************
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
URGENT Need for Petition Signatures at: http://www.iacenter.org/mumiapetition/
Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090
If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).
WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM
Please mail donations/ checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
www.FreeMumia.com
click here to listen to full audio column 3:20 min.
click here to listen to short version 2:48 min.
***************
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
URGENT Need for Petition Signatures at: http://www.iacenter.org/mumiapetition/
Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090
If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).
WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM
Please mail donations/ checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
www.FreeMumia.com
The San Francisco 8 -- No More!
By Mumia Abu-Jamal, Prison Radio, Written 7/15/09, Recorded 7/22/09
click here to listen to audio column
It's been 2 1/2 years since the San Francisco 8 -- eight former members of the Black Panther Party -- were cast into California jails and threatened with life sentences stemming from the 1971 shooting of a cop.
Perhaps the State figured the post - 9//11 paranoia and mania would make this an easy case. Perhaps the government thought that because many of the accused were men of advancing age, decades away from their prime organizing and activist days, it would be a cake walk.
The 8 men fought with dignity, principle and unity -- and several days ago -- charges for 4 of them were dismissed altogether: Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Hank Jones and Harold Taylor.
New York's Jalil Muntaqim pled no contest to conspiracy -- and got time served in San Francisco County Jail -- almost 2 1/2 years -- with 3 years probation.
Herman Bell -- another New York former Panther -- took a similar deal earlier in July.
One ex-Panther, Francisco Torres, faces a hearing next month, where most observers expect all charges to be dropped. Another, John bowman, died before trial. The last, Richard O'Neal, was cleared pre-trial.
From the very beginning, back in the '70's -- several of the men were brutally tortured by police in Louisiana to elicit false confessions (thus we see that Abu Ghraib really was nothing new).
The cases were dismissed decades ago -- on that basis alone.
That the prosecutions were reinstated at all is due more to the politicized Justice Department under John Ashcroft and George Bush -- where torture was a tool of state --than anything else. Also implicated? The political ambitions of California Attorney General Jerry Brown, seeking the governorship.
No charges should've been brought in the first place -- or if contemplated, dismissed under double jeopardy principles.
As it is -- even the state admits -- dismissal is valid due to insufficient evidence.
These results are due, in large part, to the solidarity of the men themselves, and some excellent, aggressive lawyering by assorted defense counsel, among them J. Soffiyah Elijah of Harvard Law School.
Several years ago, in a statement calling for support for the San Francisco 8, I implored supporters to fight for them now -- before they fell into the clutches of the state containment system -- instead of after.
Many took up that fight -- leading to many of the most recent results.
-- (c) '09 maj
***************
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
URGENT Need for Petition Signatures at: http://www.iacenter.org/mumiapetition/
Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090
If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).
WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM
Please mail donations/ checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
www.FreeMumia.com
click here to listen to audio column
It's been 2 1/2 years since the San Francisco 8 -- eight former members of the Black Panther Party -- were cast into California jails and threatened with life sentences stemming from the 1971 shooting of a cop.
Perhaps the State figured the post - 9//11 paranoia and mania would make this an easy case. Perhaps the government thought that because many of the accused were men of advancing age, decades away from their prime organizing and activist days, it would be a cake walk.
The 8 men fought with dignity, principle and unity -- and several days ago -- charges for 4 of them were dismissed altogether: Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Hank Jones and Harold Taylor.
New York's Jalil Muntaqim pled no contest to conspiracy -- and got time served in San Francisco County Jail -- almost 2 1/2 years -- with 3 years probation.
Herman Bell -- another New York former Panther -- took a similar deal earlier in July.
One ex-Panther, Francisco Torres, faces a hearing next month, where most observers expect all charges to be dropped. Another, John bowman, died before trial. The last, Richard O'Neal, was cleared pre-trial.
From the very beginning, back in the '70's -- several of the men were brutally tortured by police in Louisiana to elicit false confessions (thus we see that Abu Ghraib really was nothing new).
The cases were dismissed decades ago -- on that basis alone.
That the prosecutions were reinstated at all is due more to the politicized Justice Department under John Ashcroft and George Bush -- where torture was a tool of state --than anything else. Also implicated? The political ambitions of California Attorney General Jerry Brown, seeking the governorship.
No charges should've been brought in the first place -- or if contemplated, dismissed under double jeopardy principles.
As it is -- even the state admits -- dismissal is valid due to insufficient evidence.
These results are due, in large part, to the solidarity of the men themselves, and some excellent, aggressive lawyering by assorted defense counsel, among them J. Soffiyah Elijah of Harvard Law School.
Several years ago, in a statement calling for support for the San Francisco 8, I implored supporters to fight for them now -- before they fell into the clutches of the state containment system -- instead of after.
Many took up that fight -- leading to many of the most recent results.
-- (c) '09 maj
***************
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
URGENT Need for Petition Signatures at: http://www.iacenter.org/mumiapetition/
Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090
If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).
WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM
Please mail donations/ checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
www.FreeMumia.com
Update On Leonard Peltier's July 28 Parole Hearing
Friends of Peltier, July 28, 2009
Greetings from Lewisburg, PA. As you know, Leonard's parole hearing was today. The attorney Eric Seitz is very hopeful about the outcome of the hearing. The government brought nothing new to the table and made it clear that their position is that LP should never be released despite his being eligible for parole. That, of course, is about nothing but revenge. Peter Matthiessen ("In the Spirit of Crazy Horse") was a witness today. He's attended many of the hearings, appeals, etc., over the years. He felt the examiner was attentive and open to what was being said on LP's behalf. He's also feeling positive. We're also told Leonard handled the Q&A (for about 45 minutes) very well. Unfortunately, there's nothing further to report. The examiner said he'd like some time before making a recommendation. We expect that Leonard will be notified of the recommendation within the next 24-48 hours. This is progress, folks. Normally a denial is made and immediately, sometimes even before LP's lawyers have even finished their presentation. Overall, the feeling is that Leonard received a fair hearing. Keep up those prayers for a positive outcome. Ultimately, of course, the full Parole Commission will make the final decision. We'll keep you posted.
-----
Time to set him free... Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.
Friends of Peltier
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org
Type the rest of your post here.
Greetings from Lewisburg, PA. As you know, Leonard's parole hearing was today. The attorney Eric Seitz is very hopeful about the outcome of the hearing. The government brought nothing new to the table and made it clear that their position is that LP should never be released despite his being eligible for parole. That, of course, is about nothing but revenge. Peter Matthiessen ("In the Spirit of Crazy Horse") was a witness today. He's attended many of the hearings, appeals, etc., over the years. He felt the examiner was attentive and open to what was being said on LP's behalf. He's also feeling positive. We're also told Leonard handled the Q&A (for about 45 minutes) very well. Unfortunately, there's nothing further to report. The examiner said he'd like some time before making a recommendation. We expect that Leonard will be notified of the recommendation within the next 24-48 hours. This is progress, folks. Normally a denial is made and immediately, sometimes even before LP's lawyers have even finished their presentation. Overall, the feeling is that Leonard received a fair hearing. Keep up those prayers for a positive outcome. Ultimately, of course, the full Parole Commission will make the final decision. We'll keep you posted.-----
Time to set him free... Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.
Friends of Peltier
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org
Type the rest of your post here.
Citing withheld evidence, supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal call for civil rights investigation
By Hans Bennett, San Francisco Bay View, June 16, 2009
On April 6, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal from death-row journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of white Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in a 1982 trial deemed unfair by Amnesty International, the European Parliament, the Japanese Diet, Nelson Mandela and numerous others. Citing the Supreme Court denial and several instances of withheld evidence, Abu-Jamal’s international support network is now calling for a federal civil rights investigation into Abu-Jamal’s case.
The facts of the Abu-Jamal/Faulkner case are highly contested, but all sides agree on certain key points: Abu-Jamal was moonlighting as a taxi-driver on Dec. 9, 1981, when, shortly before 4 a.m., he saw his brother, William “Billy” Cook, in an altercation with Officer Faulkner after Faulkner had pulled over Cook’s car at the corner of 13th and Locust streets, downtown Philadelphia. Abu-Jamal approached the scene.
Minutes later when police arrived, Faulkner had been shot dead, and Abu-Jamal had been shot in the chest. The bullet removed from Faulkner, reportedly a .38, was officially too damaged to match it to the legally registered .38 caliber gun that Abu-Jamal says he carried as a taxi driver, after he was robbed several times on the job. Further, Amnesty International has criticized the official “failure of the police to test Abu-Jamal’s gun, hands, and clothing” for gunshot residue as “deeply troubling.”
Abu-Jamal has always maintained his innocence, and today still fights the conviction from his death-row cell in Waynesburg, Penn., where he also records weekly radio commentaries and has now written six books.
Recently, Abu-Jamal had petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the U.S. Third Circuit Court ruling of March 27, 2008, which rejected his bid, based on three issues, for a new guilt-phase trial. One issue was that of racially discriminatory jury selection, based on the 1986 case Batson v. Kentucky, on which the three-judge panel split 2-1, with Judge Thomas Ambro dissenting.
Ambro argued that prosecutor Joseph McGill’s use of 10 out of his 15 peremptory strikes to remove otherwise acceptable African-American jurors was itself enough evidence of racial discrimination to grant Abu-Jamal a preliminary hearing that could have led to a new trial. In denying Abu-Jamal this preliminary hearing, Ambro argued that the court was creating new rules that were being exclusively applied to Abu-Jamal’s case. The denial “goes against the grain of our prior actions … I see no reason why we should not afford Abu-Jamal the courtesy of our precedents,” wrote Ambro.
In his new essay titled “The Mumia Exception,” author J. Patrick O’Connor argues that the Third Circuit Court’s rejection of the Batson claim and of the other two issues presented is only the latest example of the courts’ longstanding practice of altering existing precedent to deny Abu-Jamal legal relief. O’Connor cites many other problems, including the 2001 affidavit by a former court stenographer, who says that on the eve of Abu-Jamal’s trial, she overheard Judge Albert Sabo say to someone at the courthouse that he was going to “help” the prosecution “fry the nigger,” referring to Abu-Jamal. Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe rejected this affidavit on grounds that even if Sabo had made the comment, it was irrelevant as long as his “rulings were legally correct.”
The phrase “Mumia exception” was first coined by Linn Washington Jr., a Philadelphia Tribune columnist and professor of journalism at Temple University, who has covered this story since the day of Abu-Jamal’s 1981 arrest. Washington criticizes the Third Circuit’s ruling against Abu-Jamal’s claim that Judge Sabo had treated him unfairly at the 1995-97 Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) hearings, which was another issue the Circuit Court had considered. Citing “the mound of legal violations in this case,” Washington says “the continuing refusal of U.S. courts to equally apply the law in the Abu-Jamal case constitutes a stain on America’s image internationally.”
Launched campaign cites withheld evidence
The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported that supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal are responding to the March 2009 U.S. Supreme Court ruling by launching a campaign calling for a federal civil rights investigation into Abu-Jamal’s case. The campaign’s supporters include the Riverside Church’s Prison Ministry, actress Ruby Dee, professor Cornel West and U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel, who is chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means.
In 2004, the NAACP passed a resolution supporting a new trial for Abu-Jamal, and campaign supporters will be gathering to publicize the civil rights campaign at the upcoming NAACP National Convention in New York City July 11-16 and to pressure the NAACP to honor their earlier resolutions by actively supporting the current campaign seeking an investigation. Supporters will then be in Washington, D.C., on July 22 to lobby their elected officials and, in mid-September, they’ll return to Washington, D.C., for a major press conference.
Thousands of signatures have been collected for a public letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, which reads: “Inasmuch as there is no other court to which Abu-Jamal can appeal for justice, we turn to you for remedy of a 27-year history of gross violations of U.S. constitutional law and international standards of justice.” The letter cites Holder’s recent investigation into the case of former Sen. Ted Stevens, which led to all charges against him being dropped: “You were specifically outraged by the fact that the prosecution withheld information critical to the defense’s argument for acquittal, a violation clearly committed by the prosecution in Abu-Jamal’s case. Mumia Abu-Jamal, though not a U.S. Senator of great wealth and power, is a Black man revered around the world for his courage, clarity and commitment and deserves no less than Senator Stevens.”
Assistant Attorney General Andrew Fois responded to the CBC’s request and, in a September 1995 rejection letter written to Congressman Ron Dellums, Fois conceded that even though there is a five-year statute of limitations for a civil rights investigation, the statute does not apply if “there is significant evidence of an ongoing conspiracy.”
One of the 2009 campaign’s organizers is Dr. Suzanne Ross, a spokesperson for the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition of New York City.
Citing Andrew Fois’ letter, Ross argues that the “continued denial of justice to Mumia in the federal courts, as documented by dissenting Judge Thomas Ambro,” is evidence of an “ongoing conspiracy” and thus merits an investigation. “Throughout the history of this case, we were always told ‘Wait until we get to the federal courts. They will surely overturn the racism and gross misconduct of Judge Sabo,’ but we never got even a preliminary hearing on the issue considered most winnable: racial bias in jury selection, the so called Batson issue.”
Ross also criticizes the Third Circuit’s denial of Abu-Jamal’s claim that Judge Sabo was unfair at the 1995-97 PCRA hearings and considers this denial to be further evidence of an “ongoing conspiracy.” Ross argues that the courts’ continued affirmation of Sabo’s rulings during the PCRA hearings and Sabo’s ultimate ruling that nothing presented at the PCRA hearings was significant enough to merit a new trial serves to legitimize numerous injustices throughout Abu-Jamal’s case.
Specifically referring to the issue of withheld evidence that was central to the case of former Sen. Ted Stevens, organizer Suzanne Ross identifies five key instances in Abu-Jamal’s case where “evidence was withheld that could have led to Mumia’s acquittal.” The DA’s office withheld two items from Abu-Jamal’s defense: the actual location of the driver’s license application found in Officer Faulkner’s pocket and Pedro Polakoff’s crime scene photos. Then, at the request of prosecutor McGill, Judge Sabo ruled to block three items from the jury: prosecution eyewitness Robert Chobert’s probation status and criminal history; testimony from defense eyewitness Veronica Jones about police attempts to solicit false testimony; and testimony from Police Officer Gary Waskshul.
DA suppresses evidence about Kenneth Freeman
In their recent books, Michael Schiffmann (”Race Against Death: The Struggle for the Life and Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal,” 2006), and J. Patrick O’Connor (”The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal,” 2008) argue that the actual shooter of Officer Faulkner was a man named Kenneth Freeman. Schiffmann and O’Connor argue that Freeman was an occupant of Billy Cook’s car who shot Faulkner in response to Faulkner having shot Abu-Jamal first, and then fled the scene before police arrived.
Central to Schiffmann and O’Connor’s argument was the presence of a driver’s license application for one Arnold Howard, which was found in the front pocket of Officer Faulkner’s shirt. Abu-Jamal’s defense would not learn about this until 13 years later, because the police and DA’s office had failed to notify them about the application’s crucial location. Journalist Linn Washington argues that this failure was “a critical and deliberate omission” and “a major violation of fair trial rights and procedures. If the appeals process had any semblance of fairness, this misconduct alone should have won a new trial for Abu-Jamal.”
More importantly, Washington says, “This evidence provides strong proof of a third person at the scene along with Faulkner and Billy Cook. The prosecution case against Abu-Jamal rests on the assertion that Faulkner encountered a lone Cook minutes before Abu-Jamal’s arrival on the scene, but Faulkner got that application from somebody other than Cook, who had his own license.”
At the 1995 PCRA hearing, Arnold Howard testified that he had loaned his temporary, non-photo license to Kenneth Freeman, who was Billy Cook’s business partner and close friend. Further, Howard stated that police came to his house early in the morning on Dec. 9, 1981, and brought him to the police station for questioning because he was suspected of being “the person who had run away” from the scene, but he was released after producing a 4 a.m. receipt from a drugstore across town – which provided an alibi – and telling them that he had loaned the application to Freeman, who Howard reports was also at the police station that morning.
Also pointing to Freeman’s presence in the car with Cook, O’Connor and Schiffmann cite prosecution witness Cynthia White’s testimony at Cook’s separate trial for charges of assaulting Faulkner, where White describes both a “driver” and a “passenger” in Cook’s VW. Also notable, investigative journalist Dave Lindorff’s book (”Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal,” 2003) features an interview with Cook’s lawyer, Daniel Alva, in which Alva says that Cook had confided to him within days of the shooting that Freeman had been with him that morning.
Linn Washington argues that “this third person at the crime scene is consistent with eyewitness accounts of the shooter fleeing the scene. Remember that accounts from both prosecution and defense witnesses confirm the existence of a fleeing shooter. Abu-Jamal was arrested at the scene, critically wounded. He did not run away and return in a matter of seconds.” Eyewitnesses Robert Chobert, Dessie Hightower, Veronica Jones, Deborah Kordansky, William Singletary and Marcus Cannon all reported, at various times, that they saw one or more men run away from the scene.
O’Connor writes that “some of the eyewitnesses said this man had an Afro and wore a green army jacket. Freeman did have an Afro and he perpetually wore a green army jacket. Freeman was tall and burly, weighing about 225 pounds at the time.” Then there’s eyewitness Robert Harkins, whom prosecutor McGill did not call as a witness. O’Connor postulates that the prosecutor made that decision because Harkins’ account of a struggle between Faulkner and the shooter that caused Faulkner to fall on his hands and knees before Faulkner was shot “demolished the version of the shooting that the state’s other witnesses rendered at trial.” O’Connor writes further that “Harkins described the shooter as a little taller and heavier than the 6-foot, 200-pound Faulkner,” which excludes the 6-foot-1-inch, 170-pound Abu-Jamal.
Linn Washington’s 2001 affidavit states that he knew Freeman to be a “close friend of Cook’s” and that “Cook and Freeman were constantly together.” Washington first met Freeman when Freeman reported his experience of police brutality to the Philadelphia Tribune, where Washington worked. Washington says today that “Kenny did not harbor any illusions about police being unquestioned heroes due to his experiences with being beaten a few times by police and police incessantly harassing him for his street vending.”
Regarding the police harassment and intimidation of Freeman, which continued after the arrest of Abu-Jamal, Washington adds: “It is significant to note that the night after the Faulkner shooting, the newsstand that Freeman built and operated at 16th and Chestnut Streets in Center City burned to the ground. In news media accounts of this arson, police sources openly boasted to reporters that the arsonist was probably a police officer. Witnesses claimed to see officers fleeing the scene right before the fire was noticed. Needless to say, that arson resulted in no arrests.”
Dave Lindorff argues that the police clearly “had their eye on Freeman,” because “only two months after Faulkner’s shooting, Freeman was arrested in his home, where he was found hiding in his attic armed with a .22 caliber pistol, explosives and a supply of ammunition. At that time, he was not charged with anything.” O’Connor and Schiffmann argue that police intimidation ultimately escalated to the point where police themselves murdered Freeman.
The morning of May 14, 1985, Freeman’s body was found: naked, bound and with a drug needle in his arm. His cause of death was officially declared a “heart attack.” The date of Freeman’s death is significant because the night before his body was found, the police had orchestrated a military-style siege on the MOVE organization’s West Philadelphia home. Police had fired over 10,000 rounds of ammunition in 90 minutes and used a State Police helicopter to drop a C-4 bomb – illegally supplied by the FBI – on MOVE’s roof, which started a fire that destroyed the entire city block. The MOVE Commission later documented that police had shot at MOVE family members when they tried to escape the fire: In all, six adults and five children were killed.
As a local journalist, Abu-Jamal had criticized the city government’s conflicts with MOVE and, after his 1981 arrest, MOVE began to publicly support him. Through this mutual advocacy, which continues today, Abu-Jamal and MOVE’s contentious relationship with the Philadelphia authorities have always been closely linked. Seen in this context, Schiffmann argues that “if Freeman was indeed killed by cops, the killing probably was part of a general vendetta of the Philadelphia cops against their ‘enemies’ and the cops killed him because they knew or suspected he had something to do with the killing of Faulkner.” O’Connor concurs, arguing that “the timing and modus operandi of the abduction and killing alone suggest an extreme act of police vengeance.”
DA suppresses Pedro Polakoff’s crime scene photos
On Dec. 6, 2008, several hundred protesters gathered outside the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, where Pam Africa, coordinator of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, spoke about the newly discovered crime scene photos taken by press photographer Pedro Polakoff. Africa cited Polakoff’s statements today that he approached the DA’s office with the photos in 1981, 1982 and 1995 but that the DA had completely ignored him.
Polakoff states that because he had believed Abu-Jamal was guilty, he had no interest in approaching the defense, and never did. Consequently, neither the 1982 jury nor the defense ever saw Polakoff’s photos. “The DA deliberately kept evidence out,” declared Africa. “Someone should be arrested for withholding evidence in a murder trial.”
Advocacy groups called Educators for Mumia and Journalists for Mumia explain in their fact sheet, “21 FAQs,” that Polakoff’s photos were first discovered by German author Michael Schiffmann in May 2006 and published that fall in his book, “Race Against Death.” One of Polakoff’s photos was first published in the U.S. by the San Francisco Bay View newspaper on Oct. 24, 2007.
Reuters followed with a Dec. 4, 2007, article, after which the photos made their television debut on NBC’s Dec. 6, 2007 Today Show. They have since been spotlighted by National Public Radio, Indymedia.org, Counterpunch, The Philadelphia Weekly and the new British documentary “In Prison My Whole Life,” which features an interview with Polakoff.
Since May, 2007, www.Abu-Jamal-News.com has displayed four of Polakoff’s photos, making the following points:
Photo 1: Mishandling the Guns – Officer James Forbes holds both Abu-Jamal’s and Faulkner’s guns in his bare hand and touches the metal parts. This contradicts his later court testimony that he had preserved the ballistics evidence by not touching the metal parts.
Photos 2 and 3: The Moving Hat – Faulkner’s hat is moved from the top of Billy Cook’s VW and placed on the sidewalk for the official police photo.
Photo 4: The Missing Taxi – Prosecution witness Robert Chobert testified that he was parked directly behind Faulkner’s car, but the space is empty in the photo.
The Missing Divots – In all of Polakoff’s photos of the sidewalk where Faulkner was found, there are no large bullet divots, or destroyed chunks of cement, which should be visible in the pavement if the prosecution scenario was accurate. According to that account, Abu-Jamal shot down at Faulkner – and allegedly missed several times – while Faulkner was on his back. Also, citing the official police photo, Michael Schiffmann writes: “It is thus no question any more whether the scenario presented by the prosecution at Abu-Jamal’s trial is true, because it is physically impossible.”
Pedro P. Polakoff was a Philadelphia freelance photographer who reports having arrived at the crime scene about 12 minutes after the shooting was first reported on police radio and at least 10 minutes before the arrival of the Mobile Crime Detection Unit that handles crime scene forensics and photographs. In Schiffmann’s interview with him, Polakoff recounted that “all the officers present expressed the firm conviction that Abu-Jamal had been the passenger in Billy Cook’s VW and had fired and killed Faulkner by a single shot fired from the passenger seat of the car.” Polakoff bases this on police statements made to him directly and from his having overheard their conversations.
Polakoff states that this early police opinion was apparently the result of their interviews of three other witnesses who were still present at the crime scene: a parking lot attendant, a drug-addicted woman and another woman. None of those eyewitnesses, however, have appeared in any report presented to the courts by the police or the prosecution.
It is undisputed that Abu-Jamal approached from across the street and was not the passenger in Billy Cook’s car. Schiffmann argues that Polakoff’s personal account strengthens the argument that the actual shooter was Billy Cook’s passenger Kenneth Freeman, who, Schiffmann postulates, fled the scene before police arrived.
Robert Chobert’s legal status withheld from jury
At prosecutor Joseph McGill’s request, Judge Albert Sabo blocked Abu-Jamal’s defense from telling the 1982 jury that key prosecution eyewitness, taxi driver Robert Chobert, was on probation for throwing a molotov cocktail into a school yard, for pay. Sabo justified this by ruling that Chobert’s offense was not crimen falsi, i.e., a crime of deception. Consequently, the jury never heard about this, nor that on the night of Abu-Jamal’s arrest, Chobert had been illegally driving on a suspended license (revoked for a DWI). This probation violation could have given him up to 30 years in prison, so he was extremely vulnerable to pressure from the police. Notably, at the later 1995 PCRA hearing, Chobert testified that his probation had never been revoked, even though he continued to drive his taxi illegally through 1995.
At the 1982 trial, Chobert testified that he was in his taxi, which he had parked directly behind Faulkner’s police car, and was writing in his log book when he heard the first gunshot and looked up. Chobert alleged that while he did not see a gun in Abu-Jamal’s hand, nor a muzzle flash, he did see Abu-Jamal standing over Faulkner, saw Abu-Jamal’s hand “jerk back” several times, and heard shots after each “jerk.” After the shooting, Chobert stated that he got out and approached the scene.
Damaging Chobert’s credibility, however, is evidence suggesting that Chobert may have lied about his location at the time of Faulkner’s death. As noted earlier, the newly discovered Polakoff crime scene photos show that the space where Chobert testified to being parked directly behind Officer Faulkner’s car was actually empty.
Yet even more evidence suggests he lied about his location. While prosecution eyewitness Cynthia White is the only witness to testify seeing Chobert’s taxi parked behind Faulkner’s police car, no official eyewitness reported seeing White at the scene. Furthermore, Chobert’s taxi is missing both from White’s first sketch of the crime scene given to police (Defense Exhibit D-12) and from a later one (Prosecution Exhibit C-35). In a 2001 affidavit, private investigator George Michael Newman says that in a 1995 interview, Chobert told Newman that Chobert was actually parked around the corner, on 13th Street, north of Locust Street, and did not even see the shooting.
Amnesty International documents that both Chobert and White “altered their descriptions of what they saw, in ways that supported the prosecution’s version of events.” Chobert first told police that the shooter simply “ran away,” but after he had identified Abu-Jamal at the scene, he said the shooter had run away 30 to 35 “steps” before he was caught. At trial, Chobert changed this distance to 10 “feet,” which was closer to the official police account that Abu-Jamal was found just a few feet away from Officer Faulkner.
Nevertheless, Chobert did stick to a few statements in his trial testimony that contradicted the prosecution’s scenario. For example, Chobert declared that he did not see the apparently unrelated Ford car that, according to official reports, was parked in front of Billy Cook’s VW. Chobert also claimed that the altercation happened behind Cook’s VW (it officially happened in front of Cook’s VW), that Chobert did not see Abu-Jamal get shot or see Officer Faulkner fire his gun, and that the shooter was “heavyset” – estimating 200-225 pounds. Abu-Jamal weighed 170 pounds.
In his 2003 book, “Killing Time,” Dave Lindorff wrote about two other problems with Chobert’s account. While being so legally vulnerable, why would Chobert have parked directly behind a police car? Why would he have left his car and approached the scene if in fact the shooter were still there? Lindorff suggests that “at the time of the incident, Chobert might not have thought that the man slumped on the curb was the shooter,” because “in his initial Dec. 9 statement to police investigators, Chobert had said that he saw ‘another man’ who ‘ran away’ … He claimed in his statement that police stopped that man, but that he didn’t see him later.” Therefore, “if Chobert did think he saw the shooter run away, it might well explain why he would have felt safe walking up to the scene of the shooting as he said he did, before the arrival of police.”
The attempts to silence Veronica Jones
Veronica Jones was working as a prostitute at the crime scene on Dec. 9, 1981. She first told police on Dec. 15, 1981, that she had seen two men “jogging” away from the scene before police arrived. As a defense witness at the 1982 trial, Jones denied having made that statement; however, later in her testimony she started to describe a pre-trial visit from police: “They were getting on me telling me I was in the area and I seen Mumia, you know, do it. They were trying to get me to say something that the other girl [Cynthia White] said. I couldn’t do that.” Jones then explicitly testified that police had offered to let her and White “work the area if we tell them” what they wanted to hear regarding Abu-Jamal’s guilt.
At this point, prosecutor McGill interrupted Jones and moved to block her account, calling her testimony “absolutely irrelevant.” Judge Sabo agreed to block the line of questioning and strike the testimony and then ordered the jury to disregard Jones’ statement.
The DA and Sabo’s efforts to silence Jones continued through to the later PCRA hearings that started in 1995. Having been unable to locate Jones earlier, the defense found Jones in 1996, and, over the DA’s protests, obtained permission from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to extend the PCRA hearings for Jones’ testimony. Sabo vehemently resisted – arguing that there was not sufficient proof of her unavailability in 1995. However, in 1995, Sabo had refused to order disclosure of Jones’ home address to the defense team.
Over Sabo’s objections, the defense returned to the state Supreme Court, which ordered Sabo to conduct a full evidentiary hearing. Sabo’s attempts to silence Jones continued as she took the stand. He immediately threatened her with five-10 years imprisonment if she testified to having perjured herself in 1982. In defiance, Jones persisted with her testimony that she had in fact lied in 1982, when she had denied her original account to police that she had seen two men “leave the scene.”
Jones testified that she had changed her version of events after being visited by two detectives in prison, where she was being held on charges of robbery and assault. Urging her to both finger Abu-Jamal as the shooter and to retract her statement about seeing two men “run away,” the detectives stressed that she faced up to 10 years in prison and the loss of her children if convicted. Jones testified in 1996 that in 1982, afraid of losing her children, she had decided to meet the police halfway: She did not actually finger Abu-Jamal, but she did lie about not seeing two men running from the scene. Accordingly, following the 1982 trial, Jones only received probation and was never imprisoned for the charges against her.
During the 1996 cross-examination, the DA announced that there was an outstanding arrest warrant for Jones on charges of writing a bad check and that she would be arrested after concluding her testimony. With tears pouring down her face, Jones declared: “This is not going to change my testimony!” Despite objections from the defense, Sabo allowed New Jersey police to handcuff and arrest Jones in the courtroom.
While the DA attempted to use this arrest to discredit Jones, her determination in the face of intimidation may, arguably, have made her testimony more credible. Outraged by Jones’ treatment, even the Philadelphia Daily News, certainly no fan of Abu-Jamal, reported: “Such heavy-handed tactics can only confirm suspicions that the court is incapable of giving Abu-Jamal a fair hearing. Sabo has long since abandoned any pretense of fairness.”
Jones’ account was given further credibility a year later. At the 1997 PCRA hearing, former prostitute Pamela Jenkins testified that police had tried pressuring her to falsely testify that she saw Abu-Jamal shoot Faulkner. In addition, Jenkins testified that in late 1981, Cynthia White – whom Jenkins knew as a fellow police informant – told Jenkins that she was also being pressured to testify against Abu-Jamal and that she was afraid for her life.
As part of a 1995 federal probe of Philadelphia police corruption, Officers Thomas F. Ryan and John D. Baird were convicted of paying Jenkins to falsely testify that she had bought drugs from a Temple University student. Jenkins’ 1995 testimony in this probe helped to convict Ryan, Baird and other officers and also to dismiss several dozen drug convictions. At the 1997 PCRA hearing, Jenkins testified that this same Thomas F. Ryan was one of the officers who attempted to have her lie about Abu-Jamal.
More recently, a 2002 affidavit by former prostitute Yvette Williams described police coercion of Cynthia White. The affidavit reads: “I was in jail with Cynthia White in December of 1981 after Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed. Cynthia White told me the police were making her lie and say she saw Mr. Jamal shoot Officer Faulkner when she really did not see who did it … Whenever she talked about testifying against Mumia Abu-Jamal, and how the police were making her lie, she was nervous and very excited and I could tell how scared she was from the way she was talking and crying.”
Explaining why she is just now coming out with her affidavit, Williams says: “I feel like I’ve almost had a nervous breakdown over keeping quiet about this all these years. I didn’t say anything because I was afraid. I was afraid of the police. They’re dangerous.” Williams’ affidavit was rejected by Philadelphia Judge Pamela Dembe in 2005, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in February 2008 and, in October 2008, by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Further supporting the contention that police had made a deal with White, author J. Patrick O’Connor writes: “Prior to her becoming a prosecution witness in Abu-Jamal’s case, White had been arrested 38 times for prostitution … After she gave her third statement to the police, on December 17, 1981, she would not be arrested for prostitution in Philadelphia ever again even though she admitted at Billy Cook’s trial that she continued to be ‘actively working.’”
Amnesty International reports that later, in 1987, White was facing charges of armed robbery, aggravated assault and possession of illegal weapons. A judge granted White the right to sign her own bail and she was released after a special request was made by Philadelphia Police Officer Douglas Culbreth – where Culbreth cited her involvement in Abu-Jamal’s trial. After White’s release, she skipped bail and has never, officially, been seen again.
At the 1997 PCRA hearing, the DA announced that Cynthia White was dead, and presented a death certificate for a “Cynthia Williams,” who died in New Jersey in 1992. However, Amnesty International reports, “an examination of the fingerprint records of White and Williams showed no match and the evidence that White is dead is far from conclusive.”
Journalist C. Clark Kissinger writes, a Philadelphia police detective “testified that the FBI had ‘authenticated’ that Williams had the same fingerprints as White.” However, Kissinger continues, “the DA’s office refused to produce the actual fingerprints,” and “the body of Williams was cremated so that no one could ever check the facts! Finally, the Ruth Ray listed on the death certificate as the mother of the deceased Cynthia Williams has given a sworn statement to the defense that she is not the mother of either Cynthia White or Cynthia Williams.” Dave Lindorff reports further that the listing of deaths by social security number for 1992 and later years does not include White’s number.
Gary Wakshul’s testimony blocked
On the final day of testimony during the original trial, Abu-Jamal’s lawyer discovered Police Officer Gary Wakshul’s official statement in the police report from the morning of Dec. 9, 1981. After riding with Abu-Jamal to the hospital and guarding him until treatment for his gunshot wound, Wakshul reported: “The negro male made no comment.” This statement contradicted the trial testimony of prosecution witnesses Gary Bell, a police officer, and Priscilla Durham, a hospital security guard, who testified that they had heard Abu-Jamal confess to the shooting while Abu-Jamal was awaiting treatment at the hospital.
When the defense immediately sought to call Wakshul as a witness, the DA reported that he was on vacation. Judge Sabo denied the defense request to locate him for testimony, on grounds that it was too late in the trial to even take a short recess so that the defense could attempt to locate Wakshul. Consequently, the jury never heard from Wakshul, nor about his contradictory written report. When an outraged Abu-Jamal protested, Judge Sabo replied: “You and your attorney goofed.”
Wakshul’s report from Dec. 9, 1981, is just one of the many reasons cited by Amnesty International for their conclusion that Bell’s and Durham’s trial testimonies were not credible. There are many other problems that merit a closer look if we are to determine how important Wakshul’s 1982 trial testimony could have been.
The alleged “hospital confession,” in which Abu-Jamal reportedly shouted, “I shot the motherf***er and I hope he dies,” was first officially reported to police over two months after the shooting, by hospital guards Priscilla Durham and James LeGrand on Feb. 9, 1982, by Police Officer Gary Wakshul on Feb. 11, by Officer Gary Bell on Feb. 25, and by Officer Thomas M. Bray on March 1. Of these five, only Bell and Durham were called as prosecution witnesses.
When Durham testified at the trial, she added something new to her story which she had not reported to the police on Feb. 9. She now claimed that she had reported the confession to her supervisor the next day, on Dec. 10, making a handwritten report. Neither her supervisor nor the alleged handwritten statement was ever presented in court. Instead, the DA sent an officer to the hospital, returning with a suspicious typed version of the alleged Dec. 10 report. Sabo accepted the unsigned and unauthenticated paper despite both Durham’s disavowal – because it was typed and not handwritten – and the defense’s protest that its authorship and authenticity were unproven.
Gary Bell, Faulkner’s partner and self-described “best friend,” testified that his two month memory lapse had resulted from his having been so upset over Faulkner’s death that he had forgotten to report it to police.
Later, at the 1995 PCRA hearings, Wakshul testified that both his contradictory report made on Dec. 9, 1981 – “The negro male made no comment” – and the two month delay were simply bad mistakes. He repeated his earlier statement given to police on Feb. 11, 1982, that he “didn’t realize it [Abu-Jamal's alleged confession] had any importance until that day.” Contradicting the DA’s assertion of Wakshul’s unavailability in 1982, Wakshul also testified in 1995 that he had in fact been home for his 1982 vacation and available for trial testimony, in accordance with explicit instructions to stay in town for the trial so that he could testify if called.
Just days before his PCRA testimony, undercover police officers savagely beat Wakshul in front of a sitting judge in the Common Pleas Courtroom where Wakshul worked as a court crier. The two attackers, Kenneth Fleming and Jean Langen, were later suspended without pay as punishment. With the motive still unexplained, Dave Lindorff and J. Patrick O’Connor speculate that the beating may have been used to intimidate Wakshul into maintaining his “confession” story at the PCRA hearings.
Regarding Abu-Jamal’s alleged confession, Amnesty International concluded: “The likelihood of two police officers and a security guard forgetting or neglecting to report the confession of a suspect in the killing of another police officer for more than two months strains credulity.”
Conclusion: The DA still wants to execute
“The urgent need for a civil rights investigation is heightened because the DA is still trying to execute Mumia,” emphasizes Dr. Suzanne Ross, an organizer of the campaign seeking an investigation. This past March, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Abu-Jamal’s appeal for a new guilt-phase trial, but the Court has yet to rule on whether to hear the appeal made simultaneously by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, which seeks to execute Abu-Jamal without granting him a new penalty-phase trial.
In March 2008, the Third Circuit Court affirmed Federal District Court Judge William Yohn’s 2001 decision “overturning” the death sentence. Citing the 1988 Mills v. Maryland precedent, Yohn had ruled that sentencing forms used by jurors and Judge Albert Sabo’s instructions to the jury were potentially confusing, and that therefore jurors could have mistakenly believed that they had to unanimously agree on any mitigating circumstances in order to consider them as weighing against a death sentence.
According to the 2001 ruling, affirmed in 2008, if the DA wants to re-instate the death sentence, the DA must call for a new penalty-phase jury trial. In such a penalty hearing, new evidence of Abu-Jamal’s innocence could be presented, but the jury could only choose between execution and a life sentence without parole.
The DA is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court against this 2008 affirmation of Yohn’s ruling. If the court rules in the DA’s favor, Abu-Jamal can be executed without benefit of a new sentencing hearing. If the U.S. Supreme Court rules against the DA’s appeal, the DA must either accept the life sentence for Abu-Jamal or call for the new sentencing hearing. Meanwhile, Mumia Abu-Jamal has never left his death row cell.
How you can help
Actions are being organized throughout the summer to support the campaign for a federal civil rights investigation, including at the upcoming NAACP convention in New York City, July 11-16. Organizers are focusing particularly on July 13, the day that Attorney General Holder will address the convention.
Supporters will then be in Washington, D.C., on July 22 to lobby their elected officials and, in mid-September, they’ll return to Washington, D.C., for a major press conference. For more information on how you can support the campaign for a federal civil rights investigation and to sign the online letter and petition to Attorney General Holder, visit http://freemumia.com/civilrights.html.
Hans Bennett is an independent multi-media journalist (www.insubordination.blogspot.com) and co-founder of Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal (www.Abu-Jamal-News.com). Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Bennett has been researching Abu-Jamal’s case for over 10 years and lived in Philadelphia for seven years, documenting the movement to free Mumia and all political prisoners from the frontlines of the struggle.
On April 6, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal from death-row journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of white Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in a 1982 trial deemed unfair by Amnesty International, the European Parliament, the Japanese Diet, Nelson Mandela and numerous others. Citing the Supreme Court denial and several instances of withheld evidence, Abu-Jamal’s international support network is now calling for a federal civil rights investigation into Abu-Jamal’s case.The facts of the Abu-Jamal/Faulkner case are highly contested, but all sides agree on certain key points: Abu-Jamal was moonlighting as a taxi-driver on Dec. 9, 1981, when, shortly before 4 a.m., he saw his brother, William “Billy” Cook, in an altercation with Officer Faulkner after Faulkner had pulled over Cook’s car at the corner of 13th and Locust streets, downtown Philadelphia. Abu-Jamal approached the scene.
Minutes later when police arrived, Faulkner had been shot dead, and Abu-Jamal had been shot in the chest. The bullet removed from Faulkner, reportedly a .38, was officially too damaged to match it to the legally registered .38 caliber gun that Abu-Jamal says he carried as a taxi driver, after he was robbed several times on the job. Further, Amnesty International has criticized the official “failure of the police to test Abu-Jamal’s gun, hands, and clothing” for gunshot residue as “deeply troubling.”
Abu-Jamal has always maintained his innocence, and today still fights the conviction from his death-row cell in Waynesburg, Penn., where he also records weekly radio commentaries and has now written six books.
Recently, Abu-Jamal had petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the U.S. Third Circuit Court ruling of March 27, 2008, which rejected his bid, based on three issues, for a new guilt-phase trial. One issue was that of racially discriminatory jury selection, based on the 1986 case Batson v. Kentucky, on which the three-judge panel split 2-1, with Judge Thomas Ambro dissenting.
Ambro argued that prosecutor Joseph McGill’s use of 10 out of his 15 peremptory strikes to remove otherwise acceptable African-American jurors was itself enough evidence of racial discrimination to grant Abu-Jamal a preliminary hearing that could have led to a new trial. In denying Abu-Jamal this preliminary hearing, Ambro argued that the court was creating new rules that were being exclusively applied to Abu-Jamal’s case. The denial “goes against the grain of our prior actions … I see no reason why we should not afford Abu-Jamal the courtesy of our precedents,” wrote Ambro.
In his new essay titled “The Mumia Exception,” author J. Patrick O’Connor argues that the Third Circuit Court’s rejection of the Batson claim and of the other two issues presented is only the latest example of the courts’ longstanding practice of altering existing precedent to deny Abu-Jamal legal relief. O’Connor cites many other problems, including the 2001 affidavit by a former court stenographer, who says that on the eve of Abu-Jamal’s trial, she overheard Judge Albert Sabo say to someone at the courthouse that he was going to “help” the prosecution “fry the nigger,” referring to Abu-Jamal. Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe rejected this affidavit on grounds that even if Sabo had made the comment, it was irrelevant as long as his “rulings were legally correct.”
The phrase “Mumia exception” was first coined by Linn Washington Jr., a Philadelphia Tribune columnist and professor of journalism at Temple University, who has covered this story since the day of Abu-Jamal’s 1981 arrest. Washington criticizes the Third Circuit’s ruling against Abu-Jamal’s claim that Judge Sabo had treated him unfairly at the 1995-97 Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) hearings, which was another issue the Circuit Court had considered. Citing “the mound of legal violations in this case,” Washington says “the continuing refusal of U.S. courts to equally apply the law in the Abu-Jamal case constitutes a stain on America’s image internationally.”
Launched campaign cites withheld evidence
The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported that supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal are responding to the March 2009 U.S. Supreme Court ruling by launching a campaign calling for a federal civil rights investigation into Abu-Jamal’s case. The campaign’s supporters include the Riverside Church’s Prison Ministry, actress Ruby Dee, professor Cornel West and U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel, who is chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means.
In 2004, the NAACP passed a resolution supporting a new trial for Abu-Jamal, and campaign supporters will be gathering to publicize the civil rights campaign at the upcoming NAACP National Convention in New York City July 11-16 and to pressure the NAACP to honor their earlier resolutions by actively supporting the current campaign seeking an investigation. Supporters will then be in Washington, D.C., on July 22 to lobby their elected officials and, in mid-September, they’ll return to Washington, D.C., for a major press conference.
Thousands of signatures have been collected for a public letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, which reads: “Inasmuch as there is no other court to which Abu-Jamal can appeal for justice, we turn to you for remedy of a 27-year history of gross violations of U.S. constitutional law and international standards of justice.” The letter cites Holder’s recent investigation into the case of former Sen. Ted Stevens, which led to all charges against him being dropped: “You were specifically outraged by the fact that the prosecution withheld information critical to the defense’s argument for acquittal, a violation clearly committed by the prosecution in Abu-Jamal’s case. Mumia Abu-Jamal, though not a U.S. Senator of great wealth and power, is a Black man revered around the world for his courage, clarity and commitment and deserves no less than Senator Stevens.”
Supporters will be gathering to publicize the campaign for a federal civil rights investigation into Abu-Jamal’s case at the upcoming NAACP National Convention in New York City July 11-16.Several campaigns seeking a civil rights investigation into the Abu-Jamal case have been launched since 1995, at which time the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) was one of many groups that publicly supported an investigation. In a 1995 letter written independently of the CBC, Reps. Chaka Fattah, Ron Dellums, Cynthia McKinney, Maxine Waters and John Conyers – now chairman of the House Judiciary Committee – stated, “There is ample evidence that Mr. Abu-Jamal’s constitutional rights were violated, that he did not receive a fair trial, and that he is, in fact, innocent.”
Assistant Attorney General Andrew Fois responded to the CBC’s request and, in a September 1995 rejection letter written to Congressman Ron Dellums, Fois conceded that even though there is a five-year statute of limitations for a civil rights investigation, the statute does not apply if “there is significant evidence of an ongoing conspiracy.”
One of the 2009 campaign’s organizers is Dr. Suzanne Ross, a spokesperson for the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition of New York City.
Citing Andrew Fois’ letter, Ross argues that the “continued denial of justice to Mumia in the federal courts, as documented by dissenting Judge Thomas Ambro,” is evidence of an “ongoing conspiracy” and thus merits an investigation. “Throughout the history of this case, we were always told ‘Wait until we get to the federal courts. They will surely overturn the racism and gross misconduct of Judge Sabo,’ but we never got even a preliminary hearing on the issue considered most winnable: racial bias in jury selection, the so called Batson issue.”
Ross also criticizes the Third Circuit’s denial of Abu-Jamal’s claim that Judge Sabo was unfair at the 1995-97 PCRA hearings and considers this denial to be further evidence of an “ongoing conspiracy.” Ross argues that the courts’ continued affirmation of Sabo’s rulings during the PCRA hearings and Sabo’s ultimate ruling that nothing presented at the PCRA hearings was significant enough to merit a new trial serves to legitimize numerous injustices throughout Abu-Jamal’s case.
Specifically referring to the issue of withheld evidence that was central to the case of former Sen. Ted Stevens, organizer Suzanne Ross identifies five key instances in Abu-Jamal’s case where “evidence was withheld that could have led to Mumia’s acquittal.” The DA’s office withheld two items from Abu-Jamal’s defense: the actual location of the driver’s license application found in Officer Faulkner’s pocket and Pedro Polakoff’s crime scene photos. Then, at the request of prosecutor McGill, Judge Sabo ruled to block three items from the jury: prosecution eyewitness Robert Chobert’s probation status and criminal history; testimony from defense eyewitness Veronica Jones about police attempts to solicit false testimony; and testimony from Police Officer Gary Waskshul.
DA suppresses evidence about Kenneth Freeman
In their recent books, Michael Schiffmann (”Race Against Death: The Struggle for the Life and Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal,” 2006), and J. Patrick O’Connor (”The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal,” 2008) argue that the actual shooter of Officer Faulkner was a man named Kenneth Freeman. Schiffmann and O’Connor argue that Freeman was an occupant of Billy Cook’s car who shot Faulkner in response to Faulkner having shot Abu-Jamal first, and then fled the scene before police arrived.
Central to Schiffmann and O’Connor’s argument was the presence of a driver’s license application for one Arnold Howard, which was found in the front pocket of Officer Faulkner’s shirt. Abu-Jamal’s defense would not learn about this until 13 years later, because the police and DA’s office had failed to notify them about the application’s crucial location. Journalist Linn Washington argues that this failure was “a critical and deliberate omission” and “a major violation of fair trial rights and procedures. If the appeals process had any semblance of fairness, this misconduct alone should have won a new trial for Abu-Jamal.”
More importantly, Washington says, “This evidence provides strong proof of a third person at the scene along with Faulkner and Billy Cook. The prosecution case against Abu-Jamal rests on the assertion that Faulkner encountered a lone Cook minutes before Abu-Jamal’s arrival on the scene, but Faulkner got that application from somebody other than Cook, who had his own license.”
At the 1995 PCRA hearing, Arnold Howard testified that he had loaned his temporary, non-photo license to Kenneth Freeman, who was Billy Cook’s business partner and close friend. Further, Howard stated that police came to his house early in the morning on Dec. 9, 1981, and brought him to the police station for questioning because he was suspected of being “the person who had run away” from the scene, but he was released after producing a 4 a.m. receipt from a drugstore across town – which provided an alibi – and telling them that he had loaned the application to Freeman, who Howard reports was also at the police station that morning.
Also pointing to Freeman’s presence in the car with Cook, O’Connor and Schiffmann cite prosecution witness Cynthia White’s testimony at Cook’s separate trial for charges of assaulting Faulkner, where White describes both a “driver” and a “passenger” in Cook’s VW. Also notable, investigative journalist Dave Lindorff’s book (”Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal,” 2003) features an interview with Cook’s lawyer, Daniel Alva, in which Alva says that Cook had confided to him within days of the shooting that Freeman had been with him that morning.
Linn Washington argues that “this third person at the crime scene is consistent with eyewitness accounts of the shooter fleeing the scene. Remember that accounts from both prosecution and defense witnesses confirm the existence of a fleeing shooter. Abu-Jamal was arrested at the scene, critically wounded. He did not run away and return in a matter of seconds.” Eyewitnesses Robert Chobert, Dessie Hightower, Veronica Jones, Deborah Kordansky, William Singletary and Marcus Cannon all reported, at various times, that they saw one or more men run away from the scene.
O’Connor writes that “some of the eyewitnesses said this man had an Afro and wore a green army jacket. Freeman did have an Afro and he perpetually wore a green army jacket. Freeman was tall and burly, weighing about 225 pounds at the time.” Then there’s eyewitness Robert Harkins, whom prosecutor McGill did not call as a witness. O’Connor postulates that the prosecutor made that decision because Harkins’ account of a struggle between Faulkner and the shooter that caused Faulkner to fall on his hands and knees before Faulkner was shot “demolished the version of the shooting that the state’s other witnesses rendered at trial.” O’Connor writes further that “Harkins described the shooter as a little taller and heavier than the 6-foot, 200-pound Faulkner,” which excludes the 6-foot-1-inch, 170-pound Abu-Jamal.
Linn Washington’s 2001 affidavit states that he knew Freeman to be a “close friend of Cook’s” and that “Cook and Freeman were constantly together.” Washington first met Freeman when Freeman reported his experience of police brutality to the Philadelphia Tribune, where Washington worked. Washington says today that “Kenny did not harbor any illusions about police being unquestioned heroes due to his experiences with being beaten a few times by police and police incessantly harassing him for his street vending.”
Regarding the police harassment and intimidation of Freeman, which continued after the arrest of Abu-Jamal, Washington adds: “It is significant to note that the night after the Faulkner shooting, the newsstand that Freeman built and operated at 16th and Chestnut Streets in Center City burned to the ground. In news media accounts of this arson, police sources openly boasted to reporters that the arsonist was probably a police officer. Witnesses claimed to see officers fleeing the scene right before the fire was noticed. Needless to say, that arson resulted in no arrests.”
Dave Lindorff argues that the police clearly “had their eye on Freeman,” because “only two months after Faulkner’s shooting, Freeman was arrested in his home, where he was found hiding in his attic armed with a .22 caliber pistol, explosives and a supply of ammunition. At that time, he was not charged with anything.” O’Connor and Schiffmann argue that police intimidation ultimately escalated to the point where police themselves murdered Freeman.
The morning of May 14, 1985, Freeman’s body was found: naked, bound and with a drug needle in his arm. His cause of death was officially declared a “heart attack.” The date of Freeman’s death is significant because the night before his body was found, the police had orchestrated a military-style siege on the MOVE organization’s West Philadelphia home. Police had fired over 10,000 rounds of ammunition in 90 minutes and used a State Police helicopter to drop a C-4 bomb – illegally supplied by the FBI – on MOVE’s roof, which started a fire that destroyed the entire city block. The MOVE Commission later documented that police had shot at MOVE family members when they tried to escape the fire: In all, six adults and five children were killed.
As a local journalist, Abu-Jamal had criticized the city government’s conflicts with MOVE and, after his 1981 arrest, MOVE began to publicly support him. Through this mutual advocacy, which continues today, Abu-Jamal and MOVE’s contentious relationship with the Philadelphia authorities have always been closely linked. Seen in this context, Schiffmann argues that “if Freeman was indeed killed by cops, the killing probably was part of a general vendetta of the Philadelphia cops against their ‘enemies’ and the cops killed him because they knew or suspected he had something to do with the killing of Faulkner.” O’Connor concurs, arguing that “the timing and modus operandi of the abduction and killing alone suggest an extreme act of police vengeance.”
DA suppresses Pedro Polakoff’s crime scene photos
On Dec. 6, 2008, several hundred protesters gathered outside the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, where Pam Africa, coordinator of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, spoke about the newly discovered crime scene photos taken by press photographer Pedro Polakoff. Africa cited Polakoff’s statements today that he approached the DA’s office with the photos in 1981, 1982 and 1995 but that the DA had completely ignored him.
Polakoff states that because he had believed Abu-Jamal was guilty, he had no interest in approaching the defense, and never did. Consequently, neither the 1982 jury nor the defense ever saw Polakoff’s photos. “The DA deliberately kept evidence out,” declared Africa. “Someone should be arrested for withholding evidence in a murder trial.”
Advocacy groups called Educators for Mumia and Journalists for Mumia explain in their fact sheet, “21 FAQs,” that Polakoff’s photos were first discovered by German author Michael Schiffmann in May 2006 and published that fall in his book, “Race Against Death.” One of Polakoff’s photos was first published in the U.S. by the San Francisco Bay View newspaper on Oct. 24, 2007.
Reuters followed with a Dec. 4, 2007, article, after which the photos made their television debut on NBC’s Dec. 6, 2007 Today Show. They have since been spotlighted by National Public Radio, Indymedia.org, Counterpunch, The Philadelphia Weekly and the new British documentary “In Prison My Whole Life,” which features an interview with Polakoff.
Since May, 2007, www.Abu-Jamal-News.com has displayed four of Polakoff’s photos, making the following points:
Photo 1: Mishandling the Guns – Officer James Forbes holds both Abu-Jamal’s and Faulkner’s guns in his bare hand and touches the metal parts. This contradicts his later court testimony that he had preserved the ballistics evidence by not touching the metal parts.
Photos 2 and 3: The Moving Hat – Faulkner’s hat is moved from the top of Billy Cook’s VW and placed on the sidewalk for the official police photo.
Photo 4: The Missing Taxi – Prosecution witness Robert Chobert testified that he was parked directly behind Faulkner’s car, but the space is empty in the photo.
The Missing Divots – In all of Polakoff’s photos of the sidewalk where Faulkner was found, there are no large bullet divots, or destroyed chunks of cement, which should be visible in the pavement if the prosecution scenario was accurate. According to that account, Abu-Jamal shot down at Faulkner – and allegedly missed several times – while Faulkner was on his back. Also, citing the official police photo, Michael Schiffmann writes: “It is thus no question any more whether the scenario presented by the prosecution at Abu-Jamal’s trial is true, because it is physically impossible.”
Pedro P. Polakoff was a Philadelphia freelance photographer who reports having arrived at the crime scene about 12 minutes after the shooting was first reported on police radio and at least 10 minutes before the arrival of the Mobile Crime Detection Unit that handles crime scene forensics and photographs. In Schiffmann’s interview with him, Polakoff recounted that “all the officers present expressed the firm conviction that Abu-Jamal had been the passenger in Billy Cook’s VW and had fired and killed Faulkner by a single shot fired from the passenger seat of the car.” Polakoff bases this on police statements made to him directly and from his having overheard their conversations.
Polakoff states that this early police opinion was apparently the result of their interviews of three other witnesses who were still present at the crime scene: a parking lot attendant, a drug-addicted woman and another woman. None of those eyewitnesses, however, have appeared in any report presented to the courts by the police or the prosecution.
It is undisputed that Abu-Jamal approached from across the street and was not the passenger in Billy Cook’s car. Schiffmann argues that Polakoff’s personal account strengthens the argument that the actual shooter was Billy Cook’s passenger Kenneth Freeman, who, Schiffmann postulates, fled the scene before police arrived.
Robert Chobert’s legal status withheld from jury
At prosecutor Joseph McGill’s request, Judge Albert Sabo blocked Abu-Jamal’s defense from telling the 1982 jury that key prosecution eyewitness, taxi driver Robert Chobert, was on probation for throwing a molotov cocktail into a school yard, for pay. Sabo justified this by ruling that Chobert’s offense was not crimen falsi, i.e., a crime of deception. Consequently, the jury never heard about this, nor that on the night of Abu-Jamal’s arrest, Chobert had been illegally driving on a suspended license (revoked for a DWI). This probation violation could have given him up to 30 years in prison, so he was extremely vulnerable to pressure from the police. Notably, at the later 1995 PCRA hearing, Chobert testified that his probation had never been revoked, even though he continued to drive his taxi illegally through 1995.
At the 1982 trial, Chobert testified that he was in his taxi, which he had parked directly behind Faulkner’s police car, and was writing in his log book when he heard the first gunshot and looked up. Chobert alleged that while he did not see a gun in Abu-Jamal’s hand, nor a muzzle flash, he did see Abu-Jamal standing over Faulkner, saw Abu-Jamal’s hand “jerk back” several times, and heard shots after each “jerk.” After the shooting, Chobert stated that he got out and approached the scene.
Damaging Chobert’s credibility, however, is evidence suggesting that Chobert may have lied about his location at the time of Faulkner’s death. As noted earlier, the newly discovered Polakoff crime scene photos show that the space where Chobert testified to being parked directly behind Officer Faulkner’s car was actually empty.
Yet even more evidence suggests he lied about his location. While prosecution eyewitness Cynthia White is the only witness to testify seeing Chobert’s taxi parked behind Faulkner’s police car, no official eyewitness reported seeing White at the scene. Furthermore, Chobert’s taxi is missing both from White’s first sketch of the crime scene given to police (Defense Exhibit D-12) and from a later one (Prosecution Exhibit C-35). In a 2001 affidavit, private investigator George Michael Newman says that in a 1995 interview, Chobert told Newman that Chobert was actually parked around the corner, on 13th Street, north of Locust Street, and did not even see the shooting.
Amnesty International documents that both Chobert and White “altered their descriptions of what they saw, in ways that supported the prosecution’s version of events.” Chobert first told police that the shooter simply “ran away,” but after he had identified Abu-Jamal at the scene, he said the shooter had run away 30 to 35 “steps” before he was caught. At trial, Chobert changed this distance to 10 “feet,” which was closer to the official police account that Abu-Jamal was found just a few feet away from Officer Faulkner.
Nevertheless, Chobert did stick to a few statements in his trial testimony that contradicted the prosecution’s scenario. For example, Chobert declared that he did not see the apparently unrelated Ford car that, according to official reports, was parked in front of Billy Cook’s VW. Chobert also claimed that the altercation happened behind Cook’s VW (it officially happened in front of Cook’s VW), that Chobert did not see Abu-Jamal get shot or see Officer Faulkner fire his gun, and that the shooter was “heavyset” – estimating 200-225 pounds. Abu-Jamal weighed 170 pounds.
In his 2003 book, “Killing Time,” Dave Lindorff wrote about two other problems with Chobert’s account. While being so legally vulnerable, why would Chobert have parked directly behind a police car? Why would he have left his car and approached the scene if in fact the shooter were still there? Lindorff suggests that “at the time of the incident, Chobert might not have thought that the man slumped on the curb was the shooter,” because “in his initial Dec. 9 statement to police investigators, Chobert had said that he saw ‘another man’ who ‘ran away’ … He claimed in his statement that police stopped that man, but that he didn’t see him later.” Therefore, “if Chobert did think he saw the shooter run away, it might well explain why he would have felt safe walking up to the scene of the shooting as he said he did, before the arrival of police.”
The attempts to silence Veronica Jones
Veronica Jones was working as a prostitute at the crime scene on Dec. 9, 1981. She first told police on Dec. 15, 1981, that she had seen two men “jogging” away from the scene before police arrived. As a defense witness at the 1982 trial, Jones denied having made that statement; however, later in her testimony she started to describe a pre-trial visit from police: “They were getting on me telling me I was in the area and I seen Mumia, you know, do it. They were trying to get me to say something that the other girl [Cynthia White] said. I couldn’t do that.” Jones then explicitly testified that police had offered to let her and White “work the area if we tell them” what they wanted to hear regarding Abu-Jamal’s guilt.
At this point, prosecutor McGill interrupted Jones and moved to block her account, calling her testimony “absolutely irrelevant.” Judge Sabo agreed to block the line of questioning and strike the testimony and then ordered the jury to disregard Jones’ statement.
The DA and Sabo’s efforts to silence Jones continued through to the later PCRA hearings that started in 1995. Having been unable to locate Jones earlier, the defense found Jones in 1996, and, over the DA’s protests, obtained permission from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to extend the PCRA hearings for Jones’ testimony. Sabo vehemently resisted – arguing that there was not sufficient proof of her unavailability in 1995. However, in 1995, Sabo had refused to order disclosure of Jones’ home address to the defense team.
Over Sabo’s objections, the defense returned to the state Supreme Court, which ordered Sabo to conduct a full evidentiary hearing. Sabo’s attempts to silence Jones continued as she took the stand. He immediately threatened her with five-10 years imprisonment if she testified to having perjured herself in 1982. In defiance, Jones persisted with her testimony that she had in fact lied in 1982, when she had denied her original account to police that she had seen two men “leave the scene.”
Jones testified that she had changed her version of events after being visited by two detectives in prison, where she was being held on charges of robbery and assault. Urging her to both finger Abu-Jamal as the shooter and to retract her statement about seeing two men “run away,” the detectives stressed that she faced up to 10 years in prison and the loss of her children if convicted. Jones testified in 1996 that in 1982, afraid of losing her children, she had decided to meet the police halfway: She did not actually finger Abu-Jamal, but she did lie about not seeing two men running from the scene. Accordingly, following the 1982 trial, Jones only received probation and was never imprisoned for the charges against her.
During the 1996 cross-examination, the DA announced that there was an outstanding arrest warrant for Jones on charges of writing a bad check and that she would be arrested after concluding her testimony. With tears pouring down her face, Jones declared: “This is not going to change my testimony!” Despite objections from the defense, Sabo allowed New Jersey police to handcuff and arrest Jones in the courtroom.
While the DA attempted to use this arrest to discredit Jones, her determination in the face of intimidation may, arguably, have made her testimony more credible. Outraged by Jones’ treatment, even the Philadelphia Daily News, certainly no fan of Abu-Jamal, reported: “Such heavy-handed tactics can only confirm suspicions that the court is incapable of giving Abu-Jamal a fair hearing. Sabo has long since abandoned any pretense of fairness.”
Jones’ account was given further credibility a year later. At the 1997 PCRA hearing, former prostitute Pamela Jenkins testified that police had tried pressuring her to falsely testify that she saw Abu-Jamal shoot Faulkner. In addition, Jenkins testified that in late 1981, Cynthia White – whom Jenkins knew as a fellow police informant – told Jenkins that she was also being pressured to testify against Abu-Jamal and that she was afraid for her life.
As part of a 1995 federal probe of Philadelphia police corruption, Officers Thomas F. Ryan and John D. Baird were convicted of paying Jenkins to falsely testify that she had bought drugs from a Temple University student. Jenkins’ 1995 testimony in this probe helped to convict Ryan, Baird and other officers and also to dismiss several dozen drug convictions. At the 1997 PCRA hearing, Jenkins testified that this same Thomas F. Ryan was one of the officers who attempted to have her lie about Abu-Jamal.
More recently, a 2002 affidavit by former prostitute Yvette Williams described police coercion of Cynthia White. The affidavit reads: “I was in jail with Cynthia White in December of 1981 after Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed. Cynthia White told me the police were making her lie and say she saw Mr. Jamal shoot Officer Faulkner when she really did not see who did it … Whenever she talked about testifying against Mumia Abu-Jamal, and how the police were making her lie, she was nervous and very excited and I could tell how scared she was from the way she was talking and crying.”
Explaining why she is just now coming out with her affidavit, Williams says: “I feel like I’ve almost had a nervous breakdown over keeping quiet about this all these years. I didn’t say anything because I was afraid. I was afraid of the police. They’re dangerous.” Williams’ affidavit was rejected by Philadelphia Judge Pamela Dembe in 2005, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in February 2008 and, in October 2008, by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Further supporting the contention that police had made a deal with White, author J. Patrick O’Connor writes: “Prior to her becoming a prosecution witness in Abu-Jamal’s case, White had been arrested 38 times for prostitution … After she gave her third statement to the police, on December 17, 1981, she would not be arrested for prostitution in Philadelphia ever again even though she admitted at Billy Cook’s trial that she continued to be ‘actively working.’”
Amnesty International reports that later, in 1987, White was facing charges of armed robbery, aggravated assault and possession of illegal weapons. A judge granted White the right to sign her own bail and she was released after a special request was made by Philadelphia Police Officer Douglas Culbreth – where Culbreth cited her involvement in Abu-Jamal’s trial. After White’s release, she skipped bail and has never, officially, been seen again.
At the 1997 PCRA hearing, the DA announced that Cynthia White was dead, and presented a death certificate for a “Cynthia Williams,” who died in New Jersey in 1992. However, Amnesty International reports, “an examination of the fingerprint records of White and Williams showed no match and the evidence that White is dead is far from conclusive.”
Journalist C. Clark Kissinger writes, a Philadelphia police detective “testified that the FBI had ‘authenticated’ that Williams had the same fingerprints as White.” However, Kissinger continues, “the DA’s office refused to produce the actual fingerprints,” and “the body of Williams was cremated so that no one could ever check the facts! Finally, the Ruth Ray listed on the death certificate as the mother of the deceased Cynthia Williams has given a sworn statement to the defense that she is not the mother of either Cynthia White or Cynthia Williams.” Dave Lindorff reports further that the listing of deaths by social security number for 1992 and later years does not include White’s number.
Gary Wakshul’s testimony blocked
On the final day of testimony during the original trial, Abu-Jamal’s lawyer discovered Police Officer Gary Wakshul’s official statement in the police report from the morning of Dec. 9, 1981. After riding with Abu-Jamal to the hospital and guarding him until treatment for his gunshot wound, Wakshul reported: “The negro male made no comment.” This statement contradicted the trial testimony of prosecution witnesses Gary Bell, a police officer, and Priscilla Durham, a hospital security guard, who testified that they had heard Abu-Jamal confess to the shooting while Abu-Jamal was awaiting treatment at the hospital.
When the defense immediately sought to call Wakshul as a witness, the DA reported that he was on vacation. Judge Sabo denied the defense request to locate him for testimony, on grounds that it was too late in the trial to even take a short recess so that the defense could attempt to locate Wakshul. Consequently, the jury never heard from Wakshul, nor about his contradictory written report. When an outraged Abu-Jamal protested, Judge Sabo replied: “You and your attorney goofed.”
Wakshul’s report from Dec. 9, 1981, is just one of the many reasons cited by Amnesty International for their conclusion that Bell’s and Durham’s trial testimonies were not credible. There are many other problems that merit a closer look if we are to determine how important Wakshul’s 1982 trial testimony could have been.
The alleged “hospital confession,” in which Abu-Jamal reportedly shouted, “I shot the motherf***er and I hope he dies,” was first officially reported to police over two months after the shooting, by hospital guards Priscilla Durham and James LeGrand on Feb. 9, 1982, by Police Officer Gary Wakshul on Feb. 11, by Officer Gary Bell on Feb. 25, and by Officer Thomas M. Bray on March 1. Of these five, only Bell and Durham were called as prosecution witnesses.
When Durham testified at the trial, she added something new to her story which she had not reported to the police on Feb. 9. She now claimed that she had reported the confession to her supervisor the next day, on Dec. 10, making a handwritten report. Neither her supervisor nor the alleged handwritten statement was ever presented in court. Instead, the DA sent an officer to the hospital, returning with a suspicious typed version of the alleged Dec. 10 report. Sabo accepted the unsigned and unauthenticated paper despite both Durham’s disavowal – because it was typed and not handwritten – and the defense’s protest that its authorship and authenticity were unproven.
Gary Bell, Faulkner’s partner and self-described “best friend,” testified that his two month memory lapse had resulted from his having been so upset over Faulkner’s death that he had forgotten to report it to police.
Later, at the 1995 PCRA hearings, Wakshul testified that both his contradictory report made on Dec. 9, 1981 – “The negro male made no comment” – and the two month delay were simply bad mistakes. He repeated his earlier statement given to police on Feb. 11, 1982, that he “didn’t realize it [Abu-Jamal's alleged confession] had any importance until that day.” Contradicting the DA’s assertion of Wakshul’s unavailability in 1982, Wakshul also testified in 1995 that he had in fact been home for his 1982 vacation and available for trial testimony, in accordance with explicit instructions to stay in town for the trial so that he could testify if called.
Just days before his PCRA testimony, undercover police officers savagely beat Wakshul in front of a sitting judge in the Common Pleas Courtroom where Wakshul worked as a court crier. The two attackers, Kenneth Fleming and Jean Langen, were later suspended without pay as punishment. With the motive still unexplained, Dave Lindorff and J. Patrick O’Connor speculate that the beating may have been used to intimidate Wakshul into maintaining his “confession” story at the PCRA hearings.
Regarding Abu-Jamal’s alleged confession, Amnesty International concluded: “The likelihood of two police officers and a security guard forgetting or neglecting to report the confession of a suspect in the killing of another police officer for more than two months strains credulity.”
Conclusion: The DA still wants to execute
“The urgent need for a civil rights investigation is heightened because the DA is still trying to execute Mumia,” emphasizes Dr. Suzanne Ross, an organizer of the campaign seeking an investigation. This past March, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Abu-Jamal’s appeal for a new guilt-phase trial, but the Court has yet to rule on whether to hear the appeal made simultaneously by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, which seeks to execute Abu-Jamal without granting him a new penalty-phase trial.
In March 2008, the Third Circuit Court affirmed Federal District Court Judge William Yohn’s 2001 decision “overturning” the death sentence. Citing the 1988 Mills v. Maryland precedent, Yohn had ruled that sentencing forms used by jurors and Judge Albert Sabo’s instructions to the jury were potentially confusing, and that therefore jurors could have mistakenly believed that they had to unanimously agree on any mitigating circumstances in order to consider them as weighing against a death sentence.
According to the 2001 ruling, affirmed in 2008, if the DA wants to re-instate the death sentence, the DA must call for a new penalty-phase jury trial. In such a penalty hearing, new evidence of Abu-Jamal’s innocence could be presented, but the jury could only choose between execution and a life sentence without parole.
The DA is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court against this 2008 affirmation of Yohn’s ruling. If the court rules in the DA’s favor, Abu-Jamal can be executed without benefit of a new sentencing hearing. If the U.S. Supreme Court rules against the DA’s appeal, the DA must either accept the life sentence for Abu-Jamal or call for the new sentencing hearing. Meanwhile, Mumia Abu-Jamal has never left his death row cell.
How you can help
Actions are being organized throughout the summer to support the campaign for a federal civil rights investigation, including at the upcoming NAACP convention in New York City, July 11-16. Organizers are focusing particularly on July 13, the day that Attorney General Holder will address the convention.
Supporters will then be in Washington, D.C., on July 22 to lobby their elected officials and, in mid-September, they’ll return to Washington, D.C., for a major press conference. For more information on how you can support the campaign for a federal civil rights investigation and to sign the online letter and petition to Attorney General Holder, visit http://freemumia.com/civilrights.html.
Hans Bennett is an independent multi-media journalist (www.insubordination.blogspot.com) and co-founder of Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal (www.Abu-Jamal-News.com). Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Bennett has been researching Abu-Jamal’s case for over 10 years and lived in Philadelphia for seven years, documenting the movement to free Mumia and all political prisoners from the frontlines of the struggle.
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