[Ppnews] German Academy of Arts Demands Freedom for Mumia

[Political Prisoner News]

German Academy of Arts Demands Freedom for Mumia

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/8320/
By <http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/author/view/356>Victor Grossman

[]
  3-31-09, 9:40 am

BERLIN – The call to free Mumia Abu-Jamal from 
the death cell resounded once again across the 
street from Berlin’s famous Brandenburg Gate. 
This time it was not chanted out on the square by 
a hardy bunch of fighters, muffled against the 
icy weather, some of them active for most of the 
27 years of Mumia’s captivity. In well-spoken 
words it had been taken up by some very prominent 
people at a meeting in the super-modern Academy 
of Arts building, just two doors away from the 
new U.S. Embassy. The respected Academy, founded 
by royalty in 1691, had decided on action.

Most prominent speaker was Danielle Mitterrand, 
widow of the former French president and a 
fighter against injustice since anti-apartheid 
struggle days. Recalling that a street in Paris 
is named for Mumia, an honored citizen of Paris, 
she denounced the death penalty in general and said, to loud applause:

“Silencing Mumia would mean silencing 3000 people 
condemned to death in a land where the number of 
imprisoned people is breaking all records
The 
Americans do not deserve such barbarism!”

The meeting was chaired and organized by the 
German section of P.E.N., the worldwide 
organization of poets, essayists and novelists, 
whose US section chose Mumia Abu-Jamal for 
membership. His latest book, with a foreword by 
Angela Davis, is almost ready for publication. 
Among the many noted German members who support 
his right to a fair trial are Nobel Prize author 
Guenter Grass and the best-known East German writer, Christa Wolf.

Also supporting the rally was amnesty 
international, which has published a lengthy 
documentation proving the unfairness and 
illegality of the 1982Abu-Jamal trial, against 
which, despite all the evidence, no appeal has ever been granted.

Gerhart Baum, once a member of the West German 
government for the conservative Free Democratic 
Party, added his voice to the meeting:

“I visited American prisons as cabinet minister 
and found that the majority of prisoners were 
people of color. They have no money, they receive 
no proper defense, they are used as scapegoats – 
this racist background forced me to be skeptical...

“The Americans are recuperating from the awful 
‘Bush II’ phase
That is all changing now, and I 
can only hope that 
 even though the President 
has no direct influence in this case the 
atmosphere in the USA will now change
.”

The meeting opened with a clip from the 
documentary film„ "Imprisoned my whole life" by 
the young Englishman William Francome, who was 
inspired to do the exhaustive research and 
interviewing because he was born on exactly the 
same day, July 3rd 1982, when Mumia Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death.

The film was followed by Mumia’s chief counsel, 
Robert R. Bryan, who flew in especially from his 
home in San Francisco to speak and explain the 
current situation regarding the case.

Within the next few weeks the Supreme Court of 
the USA must decide whether to rule on either or 
both of the following questions:

The demand by the Pennsylvania state to quash the 
revision of Mumia’s death penalty, thus possibly leading to his execution.

The demand by the defense that the original court 
trial in 1982 be annulled because of racist 
practices used in selecting a jury. At least one 
such case in the past led to success, which 
provides a ray of hope that Mumia Abu-Jamal might 
even win his demand for a new and fair trial or 
for his release. Mr. Bryan pointed out that the 
Supreme Court generally accepts only one or two 
percent of the cases brought before it. But the 
situation is not yet hopeless, he added.

A new petition campaign has been begun, in 
Germany and internationally, to ask President 
Obama, although he cannot alter any decisions by 
Pennsylvania courts, to make an influential 
statement. Such a campaign could also serve to 
again publicize a highly symbolic case, which has 
largely been ignored by the main media and 
neglected by many former supporters, although the 
decisions are now more crucial than ever.

Many at the meeting were surprised to learn that 
Franz Müntefering, national head of the Social 
Democratic Party which now shares government 
power in Germany, has also expressed support for 
Mumia. But some recalled the nearly forgotten 
fact that a decade ago the Bundestag, Germany’s 
congress, not only officially opposed the death 
penalty in all countries but called explicitly 
for a new, fair trial for Mumia. If Europe could 
decide he would probably be free tomorrow.



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415 863-9977

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