[Ppnews] Overflow crowd in Philadelphia - Free Mumia NOW!

[Political Prisoner News]

Overflow crowd: ‘Free Mumia NOW!’

http://www.workers.org/2011/us/free_mumia_now_1222/

By Betsey Piette
Philadelphia
Published Dec 14, 2011 9:01 PM


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Dec. 13 ­ After nearly three decades on 
Pennsylvania’s death row, former Black Panther 
Party member and world-renowned journalist, Mumia 
Abu-Jamal, was moved into transitional area at 
SCI Greene maximum security prison on Dec. 11, 
following an announcement by Philadelphia 
District Attorney Seth Williams earlier in the 
week that he would no longer seek Abu-Jamal’s execution.

On Oct. 11, 2011, the Supreme Court decided not 
to review a decision by the Third Circuit Court 
upholding a 2001 ruling by Federal Judge William 
Yohn that Abu-Jamal’s 1982 death sentence had 
been unconstitutional. The district attorney’s 
office had the option to pursue a new sentencing 
hearing, but sought to avoid the risk that a new 
jury might rule to release Abu-Jamal if new evidence was introduced.

The district attorney may have hoped that lifting 
the death sentence would also end the worldwide 
movement that has kept the pressure on the courts 
to free Abu-Jamal, but this gamble appears to have backfired.

No life in prison ­ free Mumia now!

Two days after the district attorney’s 
announcement, an overflow crowd of more than 
1,000 people filled the balcony space at 
Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center for 
an indoor rally initially planned to mark the 
30th anniversary of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s incarceration.

A highlight of the event was a phone call from 
Abu-Jamal, who thanked his supporters for helping 
win his victory against the death penalty. 
Maintaining his innocence, Abu-Jamal promised to 
continue his fight for freedom, while urging 
ongoing organizing of the mass movement.

The Fraternal Order of Police had attempted to 
block this call by flooding Gov. Tom Corbett’s 
office with phone calls and faxes earlier in the 
day. A group of off-duty police, on motorcycles 
and revving their engines at full throttle during 
Abu-Jamal’s call-in, was also unsuccessful in 
their attempt to drown him out. While blatantly 
violating city noise ordinances, their protest 
was inaudible to the gathering inside.

The mood of the crowd ­ the largest to attend an 
event in support of Abu-Jamal in years ­ was 
celebratory, but determined that Abu-Jamal must 
not be left in prison for the rest of his life 
for a crime he did not commit. Under Pennsylvania 
law, capital juries have only two options ­ the 
death sentence or life in prison without parole.

Ramona Africa, one of the only survivors of the 
1985 police bombing of a MOVE house in 
Philadelphia, stated that even though the state 
can’t legally execute Abu-Jamal, “it does not 
mean they won’t try to kill him. Officials killed 
George Jackson in prison, and tried to get 
several different people to kill Leonard Peltier in prison.”

Johanna Fernandez, with Educators for Mumia, who 
co-hosted the event along with Pam Africa of 
International Family and Friends of Mumia 
Abu-Jamal, echoed this concern. Fernandez said 
that the comment to the New York Times by Maureen 
Faulkner (widow of slain police officer Daniel 
Faulkner, killed Dec. 9, 1981) that Abu-Jamal 
should be put into general population “so someone 
can take care of him” effectively amounted to 
“this pretty white lady putting a hit out on him.”

Fernandez stated that the police investigation 
that led to Abu-Jamal’s conviction was riddled 
with corruption and tampered evidence. “The 
recently discovered Polokoff photographs that 
were taken at the crime scene reveal that Officer 
James Forbes, who testified in court that he 
properly handled the guns allegedly retrieved at 
the crime scene, appears holding the guns with his bare hands.”

Fernandez challenged District Attorney Williams 
to honor a 1995 promise by former District 
Attorney Lynn Abraham that she would “discard any 
cases where evidence surfaces that even one of 
the officers involved in an investigation lied in 
court or in written reports.” Fifteen of the 35 
officers involved in collecting evidence in 
Faulkner’s death were “charged with tampering 
with evidence in an FBI probe that ended within 
days of Mumia’s trial,” Fernandez said.

Both Fernandez and attorney Michael Coard noted 
that the prosecution purposely withheld evidence 
in Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial. Fernandez reported 
that prosecutor Joseph McGill knew that a 
driver’s license found in Faulkner’s pocket led 
police to Kenneth Freeman, a passenger in the car 
driven by Mumia’s brother, which Faulkner had stopped just before he was shot.

Freeman was picked out as the man fleeing the 
scene in a line-up by prosecution witness Cynthia 
White, who was subsequently coerced by police to 
identify Abu-Jamal as the shooter. Other 
witnesses, never called to the stand, identified 
“the man fleeing the scene” as the shooter. 
McGill withheld this information at Abu-Jamal’s trial.

Coard challenged a police claim that they 
“forgot” to perform the standard gunpowder test 
on Abu-Jamal’s hands. “I believe they certainly 
ran that test and it came up negative,” Coard said.

A call for int’l campaign to free Mumia

Prominent civil rights attorney Lennox Hinds 
stated, “The Third Circuit Court ruled that the 
death sentence was illegal, and that Abu-Jamal 
was wrongly held on death row for 30 years. That 
violates the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution 
against cruel and unlawful punishment.” Hinds 
also noted that the U.S. signed on to an 
international law banning the practice of 
prolonged solitary confinement. Held in a tiny 
cell, Abu-Jamal has been denied direct human contact for over 29 years.

Hinds, a permanent representative to the 
International Association of Democratic Lawyers, 
vowed to “launch an international movement,” 
including a petition to the United Nations, 
challenging Abu-Jamal’s continued imprisonment.

On a panel about the key role that the movement 
has played and must continue to play in the fight 
to free Abu-Jamal, Monica Moorehead, speaking on 
behalf of Workers World Party and the 
International Action Center, welcomed the 
participation of Occupy Philadelphia activists in the audience.

Moorehead said, “We are occupying the 
Constitution Center, liberating it for several 
hours, in recognition that if not for the 
millions of people around the world who filled 
courtrooms, blocked streets and risked arrest, 
Mumia Abu-Jamal would not be alive today.

“For thirty years, Mumia’s resistance to his 
individual condition stood as a symbol of 
resistance to all forms of capitalist repression. 
Occupy Philadelphia, even though it was just 
evicted, exposed the role of police repression, 
long an issue for Black and Latina/Latino 
communities and in Mumia’s incarceration.”

Addressing the gathering by video, Archbishop 
Desmond Tutu called for Abu-Jamal’s release, 
stating: “It is clear that Mumia should never 
have been on death row in the first place. 
Justice will not be served by relegating him to 
prison for the rest of his life ­ yet another 
form of death sentence. I call on District 
Attorney Seth Williams to rise to the challenge 
of reconciliation, human rights and justice 
 and 
allow Mumia Abu-Jamal to be immediately released.”

Other participants in this historic rally 
included the IMPACT Repertory Theatre, poet 
laureate Amiri Baraka, Immortal Technique, 
Michelle Alexander, Marc Lamont Hill, Estela 
Vasquez, Vijay Prashad, Suzanne Ross and the 
Universal African Dance and Drum Ensemble.

Rounding out the program, keynote speaker Cornel 
West challenged the audience to continue the 
fight until Abu-Jamal is released. “Mumia’s 
spirit has not been broken for 30 years. He is a 
free man on death row for telling the truth.”

“We are at the beginning of a new revolutionary 
wave against Wall Street, against militarism, 
against the prison-industrial complex, against 
plutocracy. You’ve got to take a risk.”

Taking up West’s challenge, dozens of people 
attending a follow-up gathering at the Germantown 
Event Center on Dec. 10 participated in two 
working groups on Abu-Jamal’s behalf. They 
included members of Occupy Kentucky, Occupy Wall 
Street and students from Ursinus College, who 
heard about the event at Occupy Philly.

A taskforce was set up to re-launch a campaign to 
focus unrelenting public pressure on the U.S. 
Attorney General and Department of Justice to 
conduct civil rights investigations into 
Abu-Jamal’s case. A second working group was 
formed to continually challenge the district 
attorney’s office on the merits of Abu-Jamal’s 
grounds for release, drawing on international 
human rights standards and international support.

One proposal of this group was to establish an 
“Occupy for Justice” movement to connect 
Abu-Jamal’s struggle with the fight against 
police brutality and the prison-industrial complex.




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
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