[Ppnews] Solidarity for Mumia in 6 U.S. cities, 8 countries

[Political Prisoner News]

Solidarity for Mumia in 6 U.S. cities, 8 countries

http://www.workers.org/2007/world/mumia-roundup-0531/

Published May 24, 2007 12:14 AM

In at least five U.S. cities outside Philadelphia and at least eight 
other countries demonstrations in solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal 
took place aimed at bringing attention to the latest court hearing 
May 17 and winning the political prisoner a new trial on the way 
toward freeing him.


In Ankara, Turkey's capital and Istanbul, its biggest city, activists 
protested against the United States for imprisoning Mumia unfairly 
for 25 years. The group included academics, journalists, human rights 
activists and also correspondents of the daily Evrensel in front of 
the U.S. Embassy in Ankara and the Central Post office in Istanbul. 
They delivered a petition to the U.S. Embassy demanding a fair trial 
for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

The Cleveland Lucasville Five Defense Committee demonstrated during 
rush hour downtown. Signs called for the freedom of Abu-Jamal and the 
Lucasville Five, innocent men who face execution in Ohio in relation 
to the 1993 Lucasville prison uprising, and demanded "Justice for 
Aaron Steele."  Steele, a 23-year old African-American bus mechanic, 
died May 8 after being shot multiple times by Cleveland police. 
Passersby grabbed hundreds of newsletters on Mumia's case. Other 
Mumia supporters had held a protest during the morning rush hour.

Members of the San Diego International Action Center and the San 
Diego Mumia Coalition gathered at a busy community intersection and 
distributed newsletters and other material on Mumia's case to workers 
on their way home from work in the evening commute. Several motorists 
pulled over to get more details on Mumia's struggle. Poet Jim Moreno 
read his Ode to Mumia for the assembled activists.

Organized in only one week, a broad-base of labor and community 
activists joined to support a May 17 press conference and protest in 
Milwaukee demanding a new trial for political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Speakers from Africans on the Move, AFSCME Local 82, Industrial 
Workers of the World (IWW), International Action Center-Milwaukee, 
the National Lawyers Guild, Pan African Revolutionary Socialist 
Party, Peace Action-Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Green Party spoke in 
downtown Milwaukee at the Henry Reuss Federal Plaza.

Prior to the May 17 action IAC-Milwaukee organizer Bryan G. Pfeifer 
was invited to speak about the struggle surrounding Mumia Abu-Jamal's 
case on "The Eric Von" show hosted by African American- radio 
journalist Eric Von and "The Word Warriors Report," hosted by 
African- American City Councilman Michael McGee Jr.

In Houston, in the execution capital of the country, where 16 
executions are scheduled over the summer, anti-death penalty 
activists were fired up by the strong turnouts at two demonstrations. 
Outside the criminal courthouse, notorious for sending Shaka Sankofa, 
Frances Newton and Joseph Nichols to the execution chambers, 
demonstrators faced down a phalanx of cops in riot gear, mounted 
police and undercover cops everywhere that outnumbered the protesters 
10-1. "Maybe they thought Mumia was joining us," said one of the organizers.

In the afternoon from 4-6 p.m. there was another militant 
demonstration and rally, this one showing unity among young and older 
and Black, Latin@, Asian and white protesters from the Nation of 
Islam, the National Black United Front, the New Black Panther 
Party--whose youth distributed almost 600 of the Mumia 
newspapers--the Anarchist Black Cross, Code Pink, World Can't Wait, 
gay activist/leader Ray Hill, the Revolutionary Communist Party, 
Zapatista supporters who just returned from meeting Zapatistas with 
La Otra Campana across the border, the director of S.H.A.P.E. Center 
where the Movement to Abolish the Death Penalty is based, the leader 
of the Venezuela Solidarity Committee and others as every group took 
the microphone.

In San Francisco over 300 people rallied in front of the federal 
building to demand that Mumia Abu-Jamal be set free, in an action 
sponsored by the locally-based Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. 
A broad coalition of students, union members, community activists and 
prisoner advocates spoke out, including Rudy Corpuz, Jr. and other 
members of United Playaz, who linked the fight to free Mumia with the 
everyday reality of repression and racism in the Black and Brown 
communities of the Bay Area.

Kiilu Nyasha, a local activist and former Black Panther Party member, 
delivered a solidarity statement to the crowd on behalf of the San 
Francisco 8 who are former BPP members and community activists who 
were arrested this spring and charged with the 1971 killing of a San 
Francisco policeman. Cristina Gutierrez of Barrio Unido called upon 
the crowd to unite to "change this system. His freedom is our 
freedom. His life is our life." Judy Greenspan spoke at the rally 
representing Workers World Party. Other speakers demanded a new trial 
and freedom for Mumia.

Native political prisoner Leonard Peltier's statement to Mumia was 
read from the podium in Milwaukee, Houston and other cities.

Cihan Celik in Istanbul, Susan Danann, Bob McCubbin, Bryan G. 
Pfeifer, Gloria Rubac and Judy Greenspan contributed to this article.




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20070524/d582c199/attachment.htm>