[Ppnews] Letter to Eric Holder for Civil Rights Investigation of the Case of MUMIA!

[Political Prisoner News]

From:  Sis. Pam Africa
---------------------------------

Campaign for a Civil Rights Investigation of the Case of
Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 16, College Station, New York, NY 10030
Website:  <http://www.freemumia.com>www.freemumia.com


February 19, 2010

Contacts:
Pam Africa, 215-476-8812
Dr. Suzanne Ross, 917-584-2135


Attorney General Eric Holder
Cc:  Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez
Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

Dear Attorney General Holder:

We write to you about the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. We are sure you 
know quite a bit about this case and about the person behind the 
"case." As you probably have heard, we are asking the Department of 
Justice to review the extensive history of civil rights violations in 
this case, dating back to even before there was any issue of a crime 
involved, to the present day. We are eager to meet with you to 
discuss these violations. An international delegation will be 
available to meet with you on Monday, April 26. We certainly hope 
that it will be possible for you to arrange to see us at that time. 
By the beginning of April, we will provide you with a legal brief 
addressing the issues involved.

This letter, and the request we are submitting for a meeting, is our 
second approach to the Department of Justice in the past few months. 
Last November 12, we delivered approximately 20,000 letters (online 
and in hard copy) to the Department of Justice after holding a press 
conference at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. Henry Louis 
Gates, Jr, Cornel West, Noam Chomsky, Charles Rangel, Ruby Dee, 
Angela Davis, and Alice Walker were among the signers.  We delivered 
the letters to the Department of Justice spokesperson, Alejandro 
Mijar. We explained to Mr. Mijar why we are calling for a civil 
rights investigation into Mumia's case and also conveyed to him that 
we hoped to meet with you when we next came to the Department of 
Justice. This exchange with an official from the department was 
arranged by telephone by Dr. Suzanne Ross in conversation with the 
Office of the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Thomas E. 
Perez, through his secretary, Nathaniel Gamble.

We wish to return in April with many of us listed below as well as 
other national and international leaders representing unions, 
anti-death penalty groups, religious, legal, and human rights 
organizations. On April 26 we will explain the police, prosecutorial, 
and judicial patterns in this 28 year legal case that could hardly be 
said to represent the law but rather the lack of law. Clearly this is 
a very political and highly charged case.  As such, the case of Mumia 
Abu-Jamal cries out for a review of the decades-long history of 
lawlessness and injustice.

We hope to hear from you in the very near future and very much look 
forward to sharing ideas about how a civil rights investigation might 
contribute to establishing fairness and justice in a case where an 
innocent man, a rather remarkable intellectual leader and visionary, 
is being railroaded to execution.

We are attaching a number of documents to give you a picture of the 
issues involved, the work we've done to educate people about a civil 
rights investigation, the support we've gotten, and some of the 
activities we've conducted. These are not legal documents. We will 
submit those in advance of our meeting with you.

Yours for justice,

National Conference of Black Lawyers
The Riverside Church Prison Ministry
Pam Africa, Chair, International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
Sion Assidon, member of Moroccan Association of Human Rights, former 
political prisoner
Alan Benjamin, San Francisco Labor Council Executive Board member; 
International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples
Patrick Braouezec, former Mayor of Saint-Denis, France; current 
member of the French Parliament
Dr. Marvin Cheatham, NAACP, Baltimore City, President
Sister Empress Phile Chionesu, Founder and President General of the 
Original Million Woman March and Universal Movement, Philadelphia, PA
Michael Coard, Esq., Philadelphia, PA
Martha Conley, Esq., Pittsburgh, PA
Mireille Fanon-Mendes France, Chairperson, Frantz Fanon Foundation, 
Member of International Association of Democratic Lawyers
Larry Hales, Students and Youth for Mumia
Leslie Jones, Esq., Ithaca, NY
Jeff Mackler, Director, Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (San Francisco)
Nada Khader, WESPAC Foundation
Cynthia McKinney, Former Congressional Representative, Atlanta, GA
Suryea Peterson, Westchester Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute for 
Non-Violence, Board member
Dr. Suzanne Ross, Co-chair, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)
Sundiata Sadiq, Ossining NAACP, former President
Fignole St. Cyr, Autonomous Unions of Haiti, President
Dr. Michael Schiffman, English Department, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Professor Mark Taylor, Princeton Theological Seminary, Educators for Mumia
Leon Williams, Esq., Philadelphia, PA


List of Attachments

Mass Grassroots Letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Congressional 
Black Caucus Letter to Attorney General Janet Reno, June 30, 1995
Statement by Martin Luther King, III 1999
Article by Hans Bennett, San Francisco Bay View
Article by Linn Washington, This Is No Victory, March 2008
NAACP Press Conference, July 2009
Julian Bond Statement on Democracy Now!, June 2009
Article by Linn Washington, Wrongs in Civil Rights Underlying 
Abu-Jamal Conviction, August 11, 2009
Final Call Article by Saeed Shabazz, October 30, 2009
November 12, 2009, Press Conference in Washington, DC
Final Call Article by Askia Muhammad, November 2009
Article by Linn Washington, Cracks in Mumia Abu-Jamal's Case, December 10, 2009
Article by Linn Washington, The Mumia Exception, February 11, 2010




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
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