In Prison My Whole Life: An interview with William Francome
by William Francome and Hans Bennett; October 26, 2007
The trailer for the new British documentary about US death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, titled "In Prison My Whole Life," begins with the film's central character, William Francome, explaining that he's "been aware of Mumia for as long as I can remember. That’s because he was arrested on the night I was born, for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer. As my mom would often remind me, every birthday I had, has been another year that Mumia has spent in prison.... I am going on a journey to find out about the man who has been in prison my whole life."
The 90-minute film premieres on October 25 at both The Times BFI 51st London Film Festival and Rome's International Film Festival. With the acclaimed British actor Colin Firth as an executive producer, "In Prison My Whole Life" is directed by Marc Evans and produced by Livia Firth and Nick Goodwin Self. The film has interviews with such figures as Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman, Ramona Africa, and musicians Mos Def, Snoop Dogg and Steve Earle. Amnesty International, who concluded in a previous report that Abu-Jamal's original 1982 trial was unfair, is supporting "In Prison" as part as part of its international campaign to abolish the death penalty. Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen says: "It's shocking that the US justice system has repeatedly failed to address the appalling violation of Mumia Abu-Jamal's fundamental fair trial rights."
In this exclusive interview on the eve of the film's premiere, Francome discloses for the very first time, one of the movies biggest surprises: The film will prominently feature the startling Dec. 9, 1981 crime scene photos that were recently discovered by German author Michael Schiffmann, and are published in his new book. Never presented to the 1982 jury, these new photos (taken by press-photographer Pedro Polakoff) "bolster claims of Mumia's innocence and unfair trial," according to Black Commentator columnist David A. Love.
Polakoff's photos have been shown on the Journalists for Mumia website since Dr. Schiffmann unveiled the photos in May, the same week that The US Third Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments regarding the fairness of Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial (listen to courtroom audio). While waiting for this important court ruling (expected any week), Abu-Jamal's international support network has initiated a media-activist campaign demanding that the major media outlets acknowledge the new crime scene photos. One of Polakoff's photos will be published for the first time in the US, in this week's issue of The San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper, which has previously reported on Abu-Jamal's case.
Francome cannot reveal any more of the film's big surprises, but he does say that "the film interviews people who have never told their story of the events of that night for the first time ever and offers new insight and theories as to what happened on Locust Street in 1981. To learn more about this, people ought to go and watch the film."
Hans Bennett: What can you tell us about the new crime scene photos discovered by German author Michael Schiffmann, and how they appear in your film?
William Francome: The photos of press photographer Pedro Polakoff feature in the film as well as an interview with him and Michael Schiffmann, the German author who found them.
We had been in contact with Michael from the beginning of this project as he is one of the most knowledgeable people on the case. He had been working on his book 'Race Against Death' when he found a photo online that he realized was not taken by the police at the scene. Somehow (Michael is an amazing investigator) he found Pedro who was a press photographer at the time of the shootings in December of 1981. Pedro had arrived on the scene within minutes and captured much of the initial chaos of the scene.
They are quite amazing photographs as they show the complete lack of professionalism by the police who were faced with the task of preserving the crime scene and any forensic evidence that might be inherent within it. There are pictures of a police officer holding both of the weapons at the scene in one hand without gloves, which would therefore completely contaminate any fingerprints or gun powder residue. They also show the police walking in and out of the scene and show that Officer Faulkner’s hat was moved from photo to photo. I may just be a layman in terms of crime scene maintenance but it seems to me that these are grave and almost criminally negligent mistakes to make. There is also the issue of bullet holes or the lack thereof in the pavement. The photos should show where bullet fragments would have been found in the surrounding cement according to the prosecution witnesses’ account, but this is not the case.
Whether or not these acts were made on purpose remains to be seen, but the photos could have helped clear this case up from the very beginning. Now we are 25 years down the line and we are still asking basic questions of the initial evidence that should not have been left for so long unanswered. Meanwhile, a man is on death row who claims he's innocent and it's been a quarter of a century since a policeman was killed and many feel the killing hasn't been sufficiently solved.
What makes the issue of the photos even more important is that they were purposefully ignored by the prosecution and the District Attorney's Office. Pedro says that he rang them and told them of his photographs and offered them for use in the trial, but that the office never got back to him. It is obvious that the prosecution knew that the photographs of the crime scene could have done their case some damage in court and therefore outright ignored them.
HB: Where does the movie go from here? When can people in the US view it?
WF: The film is about to premiere at the London and Rome film festivals and I'm very happy to say that it's sold out all of its screenings. We are still at the early stages and we have to wait and see if and when it gets taken on by a distributor, what happens next. I'm sure at some point in the near future we'll be screening the film in the US. The film was shot in America and mostly deals with American issues so I look forward to seeing the reaction it gets there. I myself am half American, and spent my teenage years in New York, so I have enjoyed making a film about the country I grew up in as well as having been able to look at it as an outsider.
HB: Why is Mumia's case still so important after 25 years?
WF: I think the fact that Mumia's case is still being debated after twenty five years is an issue in itself. It seems unbelievable to me that you could keep someone in solitary confinement for a quarter of a century as well as having a death sentence hanging over him that whole time. The starting point of this film is that it's been my whole life, and considering all the things that I have done and all the memories I have really helps to put the whole thing in perspective. Try thinking back to what you were doing in 1981 and it might have the same effect. In that time, there have been hundreds of people executed and there are still over 3,000 currently sitting on death row in America. However, despite evidence that people innocent of the crimes they were convicted for have been executed and over 100 people who have been exonerated and released from death row because of new evidence, the death penalty system in America still grinds forward.
After 25 years, the questions of race, cost and inadequate legal representation have yet to be fully and honestly addressed and the issues that caused it to be declared unconstitutional in the 70's persist. In short, as long as there is a death penalty in the United States, Mumia's case and the case of all death row inmates will remain vital and important. People should see this movie because they too seek for answers and honesty from the criminal justice system, and they too, want to gain a greater understanding of the inherent flaws in the death penalty system in the U.S.
Even if people can't relate to the story of Mumia Abu-Jamal or are not affected by it, they might still be able to relate to my story. I think for many people, the journey that I'm going on is enough on its own. This is the story of two lives coming together in a sense, and hopefully it will allow many who have previously been uninterested in the issues surrounding the case to sit up, take notice and find out more on their own. In a ninety minute film, it is hard to comprehensively look into any subject, but you hope that it gives the audience enough to go away and delve further.
Hans Bennett is an independent journalist and co-founder (with German author Michael Schiffmann) of Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal (Abu-Jamal-News.com).
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Guardian Article on Mumia
'I spend my days preparing for life, not for death
'The former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal has spent 25 years on death row in the United States - despite strong evidence that he is innocent. In his first British interview, he talks to Laura Smith about life in solitary, how he has remained politically active, and why the Panthers are still relevant today
Laura Smith
Thursday October 25, 2007
Guardian
SCI Greene County Prison on the outskirts of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, sits low in the rural landscape so that it's easy from the restaurants and petrol stations on the main road to miss the barbed wire coiled in endless circles. Inside, the plush leather chairs that squat on shiny floors make it feel more like a private hospital than a maximum security institution. But the black men in prison jumpsuits cleaning the floor, eyes downcast, dispel any such illusions. Signs spell out the rules: no hoods, no unauthorised persons, only $20 in cash allowed.Death row - or at least the visiting area - is a curiously ordinary place. A central waiting room where a guard watches the goings-on. Institutional doors opening on to small boxes, each furnished with a table and chair. But then, inside the visiting room, there is the shock of a grown man in an orange jumpsuit, his hands cuffed, the space small enough for him to reach out and touch both walls. And between us a layer of thick, reinforced glass.
Mumia Abu-Jamal has lived at SCI Greene since January 1995. Convicted and sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of a police officer in his home town, Philadelphia, he spends his days in solitary confinement, in a room he has described as smaller than most people's bathroom. When I arrive, he puts his fist to the glass in greeting. He is a tall, broad man with dreadlocked hair, still dark, and a beard slightly greying at the edges. He has lively eyes.
It is hard to know how to begin a conversation with Abu-Jamal, revered for his activism around the world as much as he is reviled as a cop killer by some in his home country. He is careful about who he agrees to see and rarely talks to the mainstream media - this is the first time he has granted an interview to a British newspaper. We start with the basics - the everyday restrictions of prison life. Visits: one a week - though it is difficult for his family to make the 660-mile, 11-hour round-trip from Philadelphia. Money: a stipend of less than $20 (£10) per month. Phone calls: three a week lasting 15 minutes each - but a quarter of an hour to Philadelphia costs $5.69 (£2.77).
This being Abu-Jamal, a campaigning journalist who has written five books about injustice while in prison, it is not long before we are on to the bigger questions: why SCI Greene, which takes most of its 1,700 inmates from Philadelphia, was built "the farthest you can be from Philly and still be in the state of Pennsylvania". "I believe it is intentional," he says. "I could count the times on my hand when I have seen this whole visiting area full." And why Global Tel Net, the firm that provides the prison phone calls, is allowed to charge so much of people who have so little. His conclusion is characteristically pithy: "The poorest pay the most."
Abu-Jamal has eight children, the eldest of whom is 38, and several grandchildren. How does he keep in touch? "Some grandchildren I have not seen. That's difficult. You try to keep contact through the phone, you write. I send cards that I draw and paint. To let them know the old man still loves them." Abu-Jamal's father William died when he was nine; his mother Edith died in February 1990 - eight years after he was imprisoned. He goes very quiet telling me this, and there doesn't seem much point asking how it felt not to be able to sit with her at the end.
Abu-Jamal has been locked up since he was 27. He is now 53. The story of how he ended up here has been told often. As a teenager he had been active in the Black Panther party but by 1981, with most of the party's leaders either dead or in jail, he had become a well-respected radio reporter and president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Association of Black Journalists. Radio journalism was not well paid, however, and Abu-Jamal supplemented his income by driving a taxi at night.
In the early hours of December 9 1981, he was out in his cab when he saw his brother, Billy Cook, being stopped by a police officer, Daniel Faulkner. A struggle ensued, during which Cook says Faulkner assaulted him. Abu-Jamal got out of his cab. Minutes later, Faulkner had been shot dead and Abu-Jamal was slumped nearby with a bullet wound to the chest, his own gun not far away.
At his trial in 1982 it appeared an open and shut case. A former Black Panther with a history of antipathy towards the police (although no criminal record). A white police officer dead. A succession of eye-witnesses who testified that Abu-Jamal was the killer. And the icing on the cake: a confession made by Abu-Jamal himself at the hospital where he was taken for treatment.
But some inconvenient facts were obscured: Abu-Jamal's gun was never tested to see whether it had been fired; his hands were never swabbed to establish whether he had fired it; and his gun's bullets were never solidly linked to those that killed Faulkner. The crime scene was never secured.
Of the three witnesses, one has since admitted to lying under police pressure, another has disappeared amid evidence that she too was under duress, and the third initially told police that he had seen the killer run away, but changed his story. Evidence from others who said they saw a third man running away was played down.
Evidence of Abu-Jamal's confession was equally shaky. Although two witnesses testified to hearing him shout, "I shot the motherfucker and I hope the motherfucker dies", the doctors who treated him insist that his medical condition made such a thing impossible. Neither of the two police officers who claimed to have heard the confession reported it until more than two months after the shooting - after Abu-Jamal had made allegations of being abused by police during his arrest. On the contrary, one noted in his log at the time that "the negro male made no comment" in hospital.
The trial judge, Albert Sabo, was a former member of the powerful police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, known to favour prosecutors. He overturned permission Abu-Jamal had obtained to represent himself, excluded him from much of his own trial, and presided over jury selection in which the majority of black candidates were removed. A court stenographer overheard Sabo telling a colleague: "I'm going to help them fry the nigger."
There were other irregularities, so many that Amnesty International concluded in 2000 that the trial was "in violation of minimum international standards", adding, "the interests of justice would best be served by the granting of a new trial to Mumia Abu-Jamal".
In the 25 years since, Abu-Jamal has appealed against his conviction many times, and many times has had his pleas rejected. He has had two dates set for his execution, only for them to be overturned by legal pressure. He is now awaiting the outcome of his latest appeal; this time by the second highest court in the US. His lead lawyer, Robert R Bryan, describes it as "the first time in 25 years that Mumia has had a chance at a free and fair trial". Abu-Jamal is more circumspect. "I have learned not to do predictions," he says. "It's not helpful, psychologically. I don't sit and fret about things."
Instead, he spends his days writing about prison life and social struggles around the world. He takes reams of notes from books sent in by supporters, so that he can refer to them when they are taken away (he is allowed only seven in his cell). "I confess, I am a nerd," he says, laughing. He uses his weekly phone calls to record radio commentaries that are broadcast around the world.
Then there are the speeches he records - he spoke at the World Congress Against the Death Penalty this year and the Million Man March in 1995 - the cards he paints for his family, and his drawing. He is currently working on his sixth book, Jailhouse Lawyers, about those prisoners who, like himself, help prepare legal cases with other inmates. He uses a beaten-up typewriter; he has never seen a computer. Asked about the work of which he is proudest, he cites his 2004 book, We Want Freedom, a history of the Black Panther party.
Abu-Jamal spends 22 hours a day alone in his cell - except at weekends, when it's 24. For two hours between 7am and 9am every weekday he has the option of going out into the yard - or "cage", as he prefers to call it. It is 60ft square and fenced on all sides, including overhead. Because "air is precious", he rarely refuses, but not everyone takes up the offer. "People have different ways," he says. "I know some guys who play chess for hours and hours, shouting the moves between cells. Some guys argue with other guys. Some guys used to enjoy smut books, but they've stopped those now. A lot of guys don't come out. I think it's depression. You get tired of seeing the same old faces. The role of television is the illusion of company, noise. I call it the fifth wall and the second window: the window of illusion."
Many of the younger prisoners call him "papa" or "old head" and it is clear that he is touched. "When you are out in the yard, it's dudes joshing," he says. "Guys being guys, playing ball. You have this machismo." One of the things that seems to keep him going are these relationships with other guys in "the hole". Many of them have inspired me and taught me ... about how things are on the street now, how young people are talking and walking."
I ask how prison has changed him. "In ways I could not have imagined," he says. "It has made me immensely patient. I was not before. It has given me an introspection that I hadn't had before, and even a kind of compassion I hadn't had before."
In Abu-Jamal's company, it is easy to forget that you are inside prison walls. As he talks, one is pulled into a world of urgent work that needs doing, of debates to be thrashed out, of injustices to be tackled. With characteristic eloquence, he calls Hurricane Katrina "a rude awakening from an illusion", watching television "a profoundly ignorising experience" and observes that much commercial hip-hop contains "no distinction, except in beat and tone, to a Chrysler advert". "If the message is, I am cool because I am rich, and if you get rich, you can be cool like me, that's a pretty fucked-up message." On American politics, he is damning. "You would think that a country that goes to war allegedly to spread democracy would practice it in its own country."
Born Wesley Cook in the Philadelphia projects, he adopted the name Mumia as a 14-year-old (later adding Abu-Jamal - "father of Jamal" in Arabic - when his first son was born). The following year, aged just 15, he helped found the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther party after being handed a copy of their newspaper in the street. "I was like, whoah," he says. "It just thrilled me. I was like, this is heaven. This is great. Everything. It was the truth. Uncut, unalloyed. It was everything. It fit me."
He spent long days helping with party activities, which included free children's breakfast programmes and the monitoring of police, whose corruption at that time has since become notorious (at least a third of the officers involved in Abu-Jamal's investigations have since been found to have engaged in corrupt activities, including the fabrication of evidence to frame suspects).
Mostly, as the party's lieutenant of information, he wrote, gathering stories for The Black Panther, the party's newsletter. "It was great fun," he remembers now. "You worked six and seven days a week and 18 hours a day for no pay ... When I tell young people that now they are like, what was that last part? Are you crazy, man? But because we were socialists we didn't want pay. We wanted to serve our people, free our people, stop the homicide and make revolution. We thought about the party morning, noon and night. It was a very busy but fulfilling life for thousands of people across the country. We were serving our people and what could be better than that?"
Subject to relentless disruption by the FBI's Counter Intelligence Programme, which targeted radical and progressive organisations, and riven by internal disagreements, the Black Panthers imploded in the early 1970s. For Abu-Jamal it was a personal tragedy. "Despair," he says when asked how it felt. "A profound despair."
He is adamant that the party's message is still relevant today. "Millions of black people are more isolated in economic, social and political terms than they were 30 years ago," he says. "I remember a photograph of an elderly black woman (after Katrina) who had wrapped herself in the American flag and I remember looking at it and being so struck by it. Maybe she wasn't thinking visually, she was probably very cold and hungry, but I couldn't help thinking, what does citizenship mean? Are you a citizen if in the wealthiest country on earth you are left to starve, to sink or swim, to drown at the time of the flood?"
If Abu-Jamal's latest appeal is successful he could be a granted a retrial or have the death penalty overturned. If it is not, his execution could quickly follow. He does not sound afraid. "I spend my days preparing for life, not preparing for death," he says. "They haven't stopped me from doing what I want every day. I believe in life, I believe in freedom, so my mind is not consumed with death. It's with love, life and those things. In many ways, on many days, only my body is here, because I am thinking about what's happening around the world."
As we leave, people emerge from other visiting rooms into the central area. There's a family with teenage children; a young mother whose little daughter has spent much of our interview peeking through the door - to Abu-Jamal's delight; a grandfather being pushed in a wheelchair. A mother says to her children with a forced cheeriness: "That was a nice visit, wasn't it? I'm sure glad we came."
We step outside into a perfect summer day. All I can think of is my last view after saying goodbye to Abu-Jamal: a row of men, all black, standing behind glass. Their hands cuffed, their faces smiling goodbye to their families, their voices shouting greetings to each other. In a couple of minutes, each man will trek back to a cell no bigger than your bathroom, with no company but their own. But for now, just for now, there is the sight of life. And they're drinking it in.
'The former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal has spent 25 years on death row in the United States - despite strong evidence that he is innocent. In his first British interview, he talks to Laura Smith about life in solitary, how he has remained politically active, and why the Panthers are still relevant today
Laura Smith
Thursday October 25, 2007
Guardian
SCI Greene County Prison on the outskirts of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, sits low in the rural landscape so that it's easy from the restaurants and petrol stations on the main road to miss the barbed wire coiled in endless circles. Inside, the plush leather chairs that squat on shiny floors make it feel more like a private hospital than a maximum security institution. But the black men in prison jumpsuits cleaning the floor, eyes downcast, dispel any such illusions. Signs spell out the rules: no hoods, no unauthorised persons, only $20 in cash allowed.Death row - or at least the visiting area - is a curiously ordinary place. A central waiting room where a guard watches the goings-on. Institutional doors opening on to small boxes, each furnished with a table and chair. But then, inside the visiting room, there is the shock of a grown man in an orange jumpsuit, his hands cuffed, the space small enough for him to reach out and touch both walls. And between us a layer of thick, reinforced glass.
Mumia Abu-Jamal has lived at SCI Greene since January 1995. Convicted and sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of a police officer in his home town, Philadelphia, he spends his days in solitary confinement, in a room he has described as smaller than most people's bathroom. When I arrive, he puts his fist to the glass in greeting. He is a tall, broad man with dreadlocked hair, still dark, and a beard slightly greying at the edges. He has lively eyes.
It is hard to know how to begin a conversation with Abu-Jamal, revered for his activism around the world as much as he is reviled as a cop killer by some in his home country. He is careful about who he agrees to see and rarely talks to the mainstream media - this is the first time he has granted an interview to a British newspaper. We start with the basics - the everyday restrictions of prison life. Visits: one a week - though it is difficult for his family to make the 660-mile, 11-hour round-trip from Philadelphia. Money: a stipend of less than $20 (£10) per month. Phone calls: three a week lasting 15 minutes each - but a quarter of an hour to Philadelphia costs $5.69 (£2.77).
This being Abu-Jamal, a campaigning journalist who has written five books about injustice while in prison, it is not long before we are on to the bigger questions: why SCI Greene, which takes most of its 1,700 inmates from Philadelphia, was built "the farthest you can be from Philly and still be in the state of Pennsylvania". "I believe it is intentional," he says. "I could count the times on my hand when I have seen this whole visiting area full." And why Global Tel Net, the firm that provides the prison phone calls, is allowed to charge so much of people who have so little. His conclusion is characteristically pithy: "The poorest pay the most."
Abu-Jamal has eight children, the eldest of whom is 38, and several grandchildren. How does he keep in touch? "Some grandchildren I have not seen. That's difficult. You try to keep contact through the phone, you write. I send cards that I draw and paint. To let them know the old man still loves them." Abu-Jamal's father William died when he was nine; his mother Edith died in February 1990 - eight years after he was imprisoned. He goes very quiet telling me this, and there doesn't seem much point asking how it felt not to be able to sit with her at the end.
Abu-Jamal has been locked up since he was 27. He is now 53. The story of how he ended up here has been told often. As a teenager he had been active in the Black Panther party but by 1981, with most of the party's leaders either dead or in jail, he had become a well-respected radio reporter and president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Association of Black Journalists. Radio journalism was not well paid, however, and Abu-Jamal supplemented his income by driving a taxi at night.
In the early hours of December 9 1981, he was out in his cab when he saw his brother, Billy Cook, being stopped by a police officer, Daniel Faulkner. A struggle ensued, during which Cook says Faulkner assaulted him. Abu-Jamal got out of his cab. Minutes later, Faulkner had been shot dead and Abu-Jamal was slumped nearby with a bullet wound to the chest, his own gun not far away.
At his trial in 1982 it appeared an open and shut case. A former Black Panther with a history of antipathy towards the police (although no criminal record). A white police officer dead. A succession of eye-witnesses who testified that Abu-Jamal was the killer. And the icing on the cake: a confession made by Abu-Jamal himself at the hospital where he was taken for treatment.
But some inconvenient facts were obscured: Abu-Jamal's gun was never tested to see whether it had been fired; his hands were never swabbed to establish whether he had fired it; and his gun's bullets were never solidly linked to those that killed Faulkner. The crime scene was never secured.
Of the three witnesses, one has since admitted to lying under police pressure, another has disappeared amid evidence that she too was under duress, and the third initially told police that he had seen the killer run away, but changed his story. Evidence from others who said they saw a third man running away was played down.
Evidence of Abu-Jamal's confession was equally shaky. Although two witnesses testified to hearing him shout, "I shot the motherfucker and I hope the motherfucker dies", the doctors who treated him insist that his medical condition made such a thing impossible. Neither of the two police officers who claimed to have heard the confession reported it until more than two months after the shooting - after Abu-Jamal had made allegations of being abused by police during his arrest. On the contrary, one noted in his log at the time that "the negro male made no comment" in hospital.
The trial judge, Albert Sabo, was a former member of the powerful police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, known to favour prosecutors. He overturned permission Abu-Jamal had obtained to represent himself, excluded him from much of his own trial, and presided over jury selection in which the majority of black candidates were removed. A court stenographer overheard Sabo telling a colleague: "I'm going to help them fry the nigger."
There were other irregularities, so many that Amnesty International concluded in 2000 that the trial was "in violation of minimum international standards", adding, "the interests of justice would best be served by the granting of a new trial to Mumia Abu-Jamal".
In the 25 years since, Abu-Jamal has appealed against his conviction many times, and many times has had his pleas rejected. He has had two dates set for his execution, only for them to be overturned by legal pressure. He is now awaiting the outcome of his latest appeal; this time by the second highest court in the US. His lead lawyer, Robert R Bryan, describes it as "the first time in 25 years that Mumia has had a chance at a free and fair trial". Abu-Jamal is more circumspect. "I have learned not to do predictions," he says. "It's not helpful, psychologically. I don't sit and fret about things."
Instead, he spends his days writing about prison life and social struggles around the world. He takes reams of notes from books sent in by supporters, so that he can refer to them when they are taken away (he is allowed only seven in his cell). "I confess, I am a nerd," he says, laughing. He uses his weekly phone calls to record radio commentaries that are broadcast around the world.
Then there are the speeches he records - he spoke at the World Congress Against the Death Penalty this year and the Million Man March in 1995 - the cards he paints for his family, and his drawing. He is currently working on his sixth book, Jailhouse Lawyers, about those prisoners who, like himself, help prepare legal cases with other inmates. He uses a beaten-up typewriter; he has never seen a computer. Asked about the work of which he is proudest, he cites his 2004 book, We Want Freedom, a history of the Black Panther party.
Abu-Jamal spends 22 hours a day alone in his cell - except at weekends, when it's 24. For two hours between 7am and 9am every weekday he has the option of going out into the yard - or "cage", as he prefers to call it. It is 60ft square and fenced on all sides, including overhead. Because "air is precious", he rarely refuses, but not everyone takes up the offer. "People have different ways," he says. "I know some guys who play chess for hours and hours, shouting the moves between cells. Some guys argue with other guys. Some guys used to enjoy smut books, but they've stopped those now. A lot of guys don't come out. I think it's depression. You get tired of seeing the same old faces. The role of television is the illusion of company, noise. I call it the fifth wall and the second window: the window of illusion."
Many of the younger prisoners call him "papa" or "old head" and it is clear that he is touched. "When you are out in the yard, it's dudes joshing," he says. "Guys being guys, playing ball. You have this machismo." One of the things that seems to keep him going are these relationships with other guys in "the hole". Many of them have inspired me and taught me ... about how things are on the street now, how young people are talking and walking."
I ask how prison has changed him. "In ways I could not have imagined," he says. "It has made me immensely patient. I was not before. It has given me an introspection that I hadn't had before, and even a kind of compassion I hadn't had before."
In Abu-Jamal's company, it is easy to forget that you are inside prison walls. As he talks, one is pulled into a world of urgent work that needs doing, of debates to be thrashed out, of injustices to be tackled. With characteristic eloquence, he calls Hurricane Katrina "a rude awakening from an illusion", watching television "a profoundly ignorising experience" and observes that much commercial hip-hop contains "no distinction, except in beat and tone, to a Chrysler advert". "If the message is, I am cool because I am rich, and if you get rich, you can be cool like me, that's a pretty fucked-up message." On American politics, he is damning. "You would think that a country that goes to war allegedly to spread democracy would practice it in its own country."
Born Wesley Cook in the Philadelphia projects, he adopted the name Mumia as a 14-year-old (later adding Abu-Jamal - "father of Jamal" in Arabic - when his first son was born). The following year, aged just 15, he helped found the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther party after being handed a copy of their newspaper in the street. "I was like, whoah," he says. "It just thrilled me. I was like, this is heaven. This is great. Everything. It was the truth. Uncut, unalloyed. It was everything. It fit me."
He spent long days helping with party activities, which included free children's breakfast programmes and the monitoring of police, whose corruption at that time has since become notorious (at least a third of the officers involved in Abu-Jamal's investigations have since been found to have engaged in corrupt activities, including the fabrication of evidence to frame suspects).
Mostly, as the party's lieutenant of information, he wrote, gathering stories for The Black Panther, the party's newsletter. "It was great fun," he remembers now. "You worked six and seven days a week and 18 hours a day for no pay ... When I tell young people that now they are like, what was that last part? Are you crazy, man? But because we were socialists we didn't want pay. We wanted to serve our people, free our people, stop the homicide and make revolution. We thought about the party morning, noon and night. It was a very busy but fulfilling life for thousands of people across the country. We were serving our people and what could be better than that?"
Subject to relentless disruption by the FBI's Counter Intelligence Programme, which targeted radical and progressive organisations, and riven by internal disagreements, the Black Panthers imploded in the early 1970s. For Abu-Jamal it was a personal tragedy. "Despair," he says when asked how it felt. "A profound despair."
He is adamant that the party's message is still relevant today. "Millions of black people are more isolated in economic, social and political terms than they were 30 years ago," he says. "I remember a photograph of an elderly black woman (after Katrina) who had wrapped herself in the American flag and I remember looking at it and being so struck by it. Maybe she wasn't thinking visually, she was probably very cold and hungry, but I couldn't help thinking, what does citizenship mean? Are you a citizen if in the wealthiest country on earth you are left to starve, to sink or swim, to drown at the time of the flood?"
If Abu-Jamal's latest appeal is successful he could be a granted a retrial or have the death penalty overturned. If it is not, his execution could quickly follow. He does not sound afraid. "I spend my days preparing for life, not preparing for death," he says. "They haven't stopped me from doing what I want every day. I believe in life, I believe in freedom, so my mind is not consumed with death. It's with love, life and those things. In many ways, on many days, only my body is here, because I am thinking about what's happening around the world."
As we leave, people emerge from other visiting rooms into the central area. There's a family with teenage children; a young mother whose little daughter has spent much of our interview peeking through the door - to Abu-Jamal's delight; a grandfather being pushed in a wheelchair. A mother says to her children with a forced cheeriness: "That was a nice visit, wasn't it? I'm sure glad we came."
We step outside into a perfect summer day. All I can think of is my last view after saying goodbye to Abu-Jamal: a row of men, all black, standing behind glass. Their hands cuffed, their faces smiling goodbye to their families, their voices shouting greetings to each other. In a couple of minutes, each man will trek back to a cell no bigger than your bathroom, with no company but their own. But for now, just for now, there is the sight of life. And they're drinking it in.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
A Dance Party with a Purpose
The Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition Presents
A Dance Party with a Purpose, For the Grown and Sexy
Any day now, we expect to get a ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals regarding Mumia's Abu-Jamal legal rights to a new and fair trial. As we all know, his original 1981 trial was completely biased and racially tarnished by the prosecutor's incorrect summary remarks and Judge Sabo's infamous statement during the trial.
Mumia Abu-Jamal was and continues to be a very vocal critic of the United States governmental terrorism within and beyond our borders. Since his former membership in the Black Panther Party, our government has kept a close watch on him, and now that they have him in their clutches – the courts have bent over backwards to keep him, where he remains – on death row. It's up to us to force their hand.
Be in the streets the Day After the ruling is made public. Check out our website regularly for updates www.freemumia.com or call 212 330-8029
Come to our party in order to raise money, so we have a nest egg to pay for transportation costs to Philadelphia, at a moments notice. They actually believe they have won the battle – we must show them how we intend to win the war, at home for our own self determination.
Where: St Mary's Episcopal Church (in the basement)
521 West 126th Street
(btw. Old Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.)
1 train to 125
When: Friday November 9, 2007 – 7-12pm
Suggested donation $10, food, beverages, and Mumia gear on sale
DJ Mellow G will be spinning Old School R&B, House Music, Salsa Meringue, Blue Eyed Soul, Classic Hip Hop and Reggae with video streaming for your visual pleasure. Special guest performance by Nana Soul of Black Wax Productions.
If you can't make it and would like to make a donation send it to:
Free Mumia Coalition NYC
P.O. Box 16 College Station
New York, NY 10030
Make checks out to Free Mumia Coalition/IFCO
A Dance Party with a Purpose, For the Grown and Sexy
Any day now, we expect to get a ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals regarding Mumia's Abu-Jamal legal rights to a new and fair trial. As we all know, his original 1981 trial was completely biased and racially tarnished by the prosecutor's incorrect summary remarks and Judge Sabo's infamous statement during the trial.
Mumia Abu-Jamal was and continues to be a very vocal critic of the United States governmental terrorism within and beyond our borders. Since his former membership in the Black Panther Party, our government has kept a close watch on him, and now that they have him in their clutches – the courts have bent over backwards to keep him, where he remains – on death row. It's up to us to force their hand.
Be in the streets the Day After the ruling is made public. Check out our website regularly for updates www.freemumia.com or call 212 330-8029
Come to our party in order to raise money, so we have a nest egg to pay for transportation costs to Philadelphia, at a moments notice. They actually believe they have won the battle – we must show them how we intend to win the war, at home for our own self determination.
Where: St Mary's Episcopal Church (in the basement)
521 West 126th Street
(btw. Old Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.)
1 train to 125
When: Friday November 9, 2007 – 7-12pm
Suggested donation $10, food, beverages, and Mumia gear on sale
DJ Mellow G will be spinning Old School R&B, House Music, Salsa Meringue, Blue Eyed Soul, Classic Hip Hop and Reggae with video streaming for your visual pleasure. Special guest performance by Nana Soul of Black Wax Productions.
If you can't make it and would like to make a donation send it to:
Free Mumia Coalition NYC
P.O. Box 16 College Station
New York, NY 10030
Make checks out to Free Mumia Coalition/IFCO
Photos Bolster Claims of Mumia's Innocence and Unfair Trial
By David A. Love
Published by The Black Commentator
October 18, 2007 - Cover Story
A group of journalists is determined to seek a fair retrial of death row prisoner, noted journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, and they point to evidence they say provides further proof of his innocence: photos from the crime scene that the jury never had the chance to see.The group, Journalists for Mumia, was founded by Hans Bennett, a Philadelphia journalist, and Dr. Michael Schiffmann, German linguist at the University of Heidelberg, to challenge what they characterize as "the long history of media bias against Abu-Jamal's case for a new trial." Abu-Jamal, formerly known as Wesley Cook, was arrested and convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. He has been on Pennsylvania's death row since then, although a federal judge affirmed his conviction but vacated his death sentence in 2001. A three-judge, federal appeals court panel is reconsidering the case for his retrial, and heard oral arguments on May 17, 2007.
Faulkner was killed on the corner of Locust and 13th Streets in Philadelphia, on the morning of December 9, 1981. Abu-Jamal and his brother, Billy Cook, were found lying on the sidewalk when police arrived at the scene to find Faulkner dead. In addition, Abu-Jamal, who also had been shot, was beaten by police when they came to the scene. And he was arraigned at his hospital bed while recovering from life-threatening injuries.This case has been one of the most contentious, most widely observed and most thoroughly critiqued cases of our times, as it has put a spotlight on the contagion of police brutality, racism and corruption in the criminal justice system, and the capricious application of the death penalty. Amnesty International has called for a new trial for Abu-Jamal. "It's shocking that the US justice system has repeatedly failed to address the appalling violation of Mumia Abu-Jamal's fundamental fair trial rights," said Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen.
Through prodigious research, Schiffmann has located a number of photos taken by press photographer Pedro Polakoff. Polakoff, who arrived on the scene 12 minutes after Faulkner's killing, produced at least 26 photos before the arrival of the Philadelphia Police Department's Mobile Crime Unit. Some of the photos are highlighted in Schiffmann's new book, Race Against Death. Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Black Revolutionary in White America. The book — an expansion of Schiffmann's doctoral dissertation — was recently released in Germany, and has yet to be published in the United States.
Polakoff told Schiffmann that the crime scene was poorly managed and unsecured, "the most messed up crime scene I have ever seen." Polakoff attempted to hand his photos to the D.A.'s office on two occasions — before the trial in 1982 and in 1995 during Mumia's post-conviction relief hearing — but to no avail. Apparently, they weren't interested in what he had to show them. (And Schiffmann and Bennett say that Polakoff, who until very recently assumed Mumia was guilty, and that Mumia was the passenger in his brother's car, had no interest in contacting Mumia's lawyers regarding the photos.)
Perhaps this was because his photos presented some damning truths. In his book, Schiffmann makes a number of important arguments:
The police manipulated the evidence that was provided to the trial court. For example, Polakoff's photo shows Faulkner's cap resting on the roof of Billy Cook's Volkswagen. Yet, in a police photo taken 10 minutes later, the cap is on the sidewalk in front of 1234 Locust.
Police officer, James Forbes, testified at trial that he had secured Faulkner's and Abu-Jamal's weapons, and did not touch the metal parts in order to preserve the fingerprints. Yet, Polakoff's photos show that Forbes had touched the metal parts of the weapons, destroying valuable evidence in the process.
• Polakoff told Schiffmann that officers at the crime scene said they believed the shooter was sitting in the passenger seat of Billy Cook's Volkswagen, supporting the argument that a third person was at the crime scene.
• One of the prosecution's key witnesses, a cab driver names Robert Chobert, claimed he was sitting in his cab behind Faulkner's police car during the shooting. Yet, there is no taxicab in Polakoff's crime scene photos.
• The prosecution asserted that Mumia killed Faulkner by standing over the already wounded officer and unloading several shots from a .38 revolver.However, the Polakoff photos show a clean trickle of blood on the pavement, not the splatter of blood or cement damage that one would expect from the firing of such a weapon.
Journalists for Mumia are providing a valuable public service in the honored tradition of the First Amendment. Linn Washington, Jr., veteran journalist who worked for the Philadelphia Tribune at the time of Mumia's arrest, was on the case at a time when most of the Philadelphia press corps were asleep on the issues of race and criminal justice. Washington recently reflected on the role of the press in the U.S. Constitution: "One of the reasons why we have this First Amendment is [the framers] said, they knew that power corrupts absolutely. So they had this check and balance, you know, where the executive had a check on the legislative, and the legislative and a check on the courts, and the courts had a check on both of them. But who is going to check the checkers? Well that was supposed to be the press. So, the press had a watchdog role to look at what government is doing, and more specifically, look at what the government is doing wrong to who? We the people."
And the Philadelphia of 1981, on the heels of the brutal reign of police-chief-turned-mayor Frank Rizzo, was a time of rampant official corruption and misconduct, racism, and police brutality. Washington noted that during the year of Mumia's arrest, five men were framed by the Philadelphia police for murder and exonerated years later. Two of the innocent men spent as much as 20 years in prison before their release, and one man spent 1,375 days on death row before he became a free man. This legacy of police corruption haunts the city to this day, at a time when better police-community relations are needed to stem a
tide of gun homicides.
There is much in Mumia's case that is troubling, and points to a dysfunctional system in dire need of repair.
• The prosecutor had a history of excluding African American jurors, and struck 10 of 14 Black potential jurors, but only 5 of 25 whites.
• In a sworn statement, a court stenographer said she overheard the trial judge, Albert Sabo, saying he would help the prosecution "fry the nigger."
• For twelve years, prosecutors withheld evidence that the driver's license of a third man was found in Faulkner's pocket at the crime scene.
• Defense witnesses who testified that someone other than Abu-Jamal killed Faulkner were intimidated.
• Five of the seven members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which denied his appeal, received campaign contributions from the Fraternal Order of Police, the primary group that has advocated for the execution of Mumia, who they regard as an unrepentant cop killer.
All of this is about Mumia, yet far more than just Mumia, for Mumia's case marks a part of the continuum that represents the tortured, tragically consistent narrative of people of color in America's justice system. Decades before Abu-Jamal, there were the Scottsboro boys. In 1931, nine black teenagers in Scottsboro, Alabama — ranging in age from thirteen to nineteen — were accused of raping two white women. Tried without adequate representation, they were sentenced to death by all-white juries, despite a lack of evidence. And one of the women later recanted.
In more recent years, there were the Central Park Five, the five Black and Latino men convicted of raping and beating a female jogger in Central Park, N.Y., in 1989, and later found to be railroaded. Donald
Trump had spent $85,000 on full-page newspaper ads calling for the death penalty for the five youths, who were characterized as a wolf pack. And of course, today we have the Jena Six, arrested and prosecuted in a Louisiana town for fighting against nooses dangling under their high school's "White tree," while the White students who planted the nooses and committed other acts of violence were given a pass.
We will never know how many innocent people in this country — those who could not afford to buy justice — were sent to their deaths or forced to languish in prison for the rest of their lives, all on a lack of
evidence or doctored and cooked-up evidence, served up by police officers who wanted to make a name for themselves, and prosecutors who aspired to higher office on a tough-on-crime stance.
Society cannot help those who were victimized by kangaroo justice, but no longer live among us and are now but a fleeting memory. But we can still help Mumia Abu-Jamal, and in doing so we begin to repair this
system of "justice" and save ourselves in the process.
Copyright © 2007 by David A. Love
The new crime scene photos can be viewed at the Journalists for Mumia
website: www.abu-jamal-news.com
http://www.blackcommentator.com/249/249_cover_color_of_law_photos_mumia.html
Published by The Black Commentator
October 18, 2007 - Cover Story
A group of journalists is determined to seek a fair retrial of death row prisoner, noted journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, and they point to evidence they say provides further proof of his innocence: photos from the crime scene that the jury never had the chance to see.The group, Journalists for Mumia, was founded by Hans Bennett, a Philadelphia journalist, and Dr. Michael Schiffmann, German linguist at the University of Heidelberg, to challenge what they characterize as "the long history of media bias against Abu-Jamal's case for a new trial." Abu-Jamal, formerly known as Wesley Cook, was arrested and convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. He has been on Pennsylvania's death row since then, although a federal judge affirmed his conviction but vacated his death sentence in 2001. A three-judge, federal appeals court panel is reconsidering the case for his retrial, and heard oral arguments on May 17, 2007.
Faulkner was killed on the corner of Locust and 13th Streets in Philadelphia, on the morning of December 9, 1981. Abu-Jamal and his brother, Billy Cook, were found lying on the sidewalk when police arrived at the scene to find Faulkner dead. In addition, Abu-Jamal, who also had been shot, was beaten by police when they came to the scene. And he was arraigned at his hospital bed while recovering from life-threatening injuries.This case has been one of the most contentious, most widely observed and most thoroughly critiqued cases of our times, as it has put a spotlight on the contagion of police brutality, racism and corruption in the criminal justice system, and the capricious application of the death penalty. Amnesty International has called for a new trial for Abu-Jamal. "It's shocking that the US justice system has repeatedly failed to address the appalling violation of Mumia Abu-Jamal's fundamental fair trial rights," said Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen.
Through prodigious research, Schiffmann has located a number of photos taken by press photographer Pedro Polakoff. Polakoff, who arrived on the scene 12 minutes after Faulkner's killing, produced at least 26 photos before the arrival of the Philadelphia Police Department's Mobile Crime Unit. Some of the photos are highlighted in Schiffmann's new book, Race Against Death. Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Black Revolutionary in White America. The book — an expansion of Schiffmann's doctoral dissertation — was recently released in Germany, and has yet to be published in the United States.
Polakoff told Schiffmann that the crime scene was poorly managed and unsecured, "the most messed up crime scene I have ever seen." Polakoff attempted to hand his photos to the D.A.'s office on two occasions — before the trial in 1982 and in 1995 during Mumia's post-conviction relief hearing — but to no avail. Apparently, they weren't interested in what he had to show them. (And Schiffmann and Bennett say that Polakoff, who until very recently assumed Mumia was guilty, and that Mumia was the passenger in his brother's car, had no interest in contacting Mumia's lawyers regarding the photos.)
Perhaps this was because his photos presented some damning truths. In his book, Schiffmann makes a number of important arguments:
The police manipulated the evidence that was provided to the trial court. For example, Polakoff's photo shows Faulkner's cap resting on the roof of Billy Cook's Volkswagen. Yet, in a police photo taken 10 minutes later, the cap is on the sidewalk in front of 1234 Locust.
Police officer, James Forbes, testified at trial that he had secured Faulkner's and Abu-Jamal's weapons, and did not touch the metal parts in order to preserve the fingerprints. Yet, Polakoff's photos show that Forbes had touched the metal parts of the weapons, destroying valuable evidence in the process.
• Polakoff told Schiffmann that officers at the crime scene said they believed the shooter was sitting in the passenger seat of Billy Cook's Volkswagen, supporting the argument that a third person was at the crime scene.
• One of the prosecution's key witnesses, a cab driver names Robert Chobert, claimed he was sitting in his cab behind Faulkner's police car during the shooting. Yet, there is no taxicab in Polakoff's crime scene photos.
• The prosecution asserted that Mumia killed Faulkner by standing over the already wounded officer and unloading several shots from a .38 revolver.However, the Polakoff photos show a clean trickle of blood on the pavement, not the splatter of blood or cement damage that one would expect from the firing of such a weapon.
Journalists for Mumia are providing a valuable public service in the honored tradition of the First Amendment. Linn Washington, Jr., veteran journalist who worked for the Philadelphia Tribune at the time of Mumia's arrest, was on the case at a time when most of the Philadelphia press corps were asleep on the issues of race and criminal justice. Washington recently reflected on the role of the press in the U.S. Constitution: "One of the reasons why we have this First Amendment is [the framers] said, they knew that power corrupts absolutely. So they had this check and balance, you know, where the executive had a check on the legislative, and the legislative and a check on the courts, and the courts had a check on both of them. But who is going to check the checkers? Well that was supposed to be the press. So, the press had a watchdog role to look at what government is doing, and more specifically, look at what the government is doing wrong to who? We the people."
And the Philadelphia of 1981, on the heels of the brutal reign of police-chief-turned-mayor Frank Rizzo, was a time of rampant official corruption and misconduct, racism, and police brutality. Washington noted that during the year of Mumia's arrest, five men were framed by the Philadelphia police for murder and exonerated years later. Two of the innocent men spent as much as 20 years in prison before their release, and one man spent 1,375 days on death row before he became a free man. This legacy of police corruption haunts the city to this day, at a time when better police-community relations are needed to stem a
tide of gun homicides.
There is much in Mumia's case that is troubling, and points to a dysfunctional system in dire need of repair.
• The prosecutor had a history of excluding African American jurors, and struck 10 of 14 Black potential jurors, but only 5 of 25 whites.
• In a sworn statement, a court stenographer said she overheard the trial judge, Albert Sabo, saying he would help the prosecution "fry the nigger."
• For twelve years, prosecutors withheld evidence that the driver's license of a third man was found in Faulkner's pocket at the crime scene.
• Defense witnesses who testified that someone other than Abu-Jamal killed Faulkner were intimidated.
• Five of the seven members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which denied his appeal, received campaign contributions from the Fraternal Order of Police, the primary group that has advocated for the execution of Mumia, who they regard as an unrepentant cop killer.
All of this is about Mumia, yet far more than just Mumia, for Mumia's case marks a part of the continuum that represents the tortured, tragically consistent narrative of people of color in America's justice system. Decades before Abu-Jamal, there were the Scottsboro boys. In 1931, nine black teenagers in Scottsboro, Alabama — ranging in age from thirteen to nineteen — were accused of raping two white women. Tried without adequate representation, they were sentenced to death by all-white juries, despite a lack of evidence. And one of the women later recanted.
In more recent years, there were the Central Park Five, the five Black and Latino men convicted of raping and beating a female jogger in Central Park, N.Y., in 1989, and later found to be railroaded. Donald
Trump had spent $85,000 on full-page newspaper ads calling for the death penalty for the five youths, who were characterized as a wolf pack. And of course, today we have the Jena Six, arrested and prosecuted in a Louisiana town for fighting against nooses dangling under their high school's "White tree," while the White students who planted the nooses and committed other acts of violence were given a pass.
We will never know how many innocent people in this country — those who could not afford to buy justice — were sent to their deaths or forced to languish in prison for the rest of their lives, all on a lack of
evidence or doctored and cooked-up evidence, served up by police officers who wanted to make a name for themselves, and prosecutors who aspired to higher office on a tough-on-crime stance.
Society cannot help those who were victimized by kangaroo justice, but no longer live among us and are now but a fleeting memory. But we can still help Mumia Abu-Jamal, and in doing so we begin to repair this
system of "justice" and save ourselves in the process.
Copyright © 2007 by David A. Love
The new crime scene photos can be viewed at the Journalists for Mumia
website: www.abu-jamal-news.com
http://www.blackcommentator.com/249/249_cover_color_of_law_photos_mumia.html
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Mumia Abu-Jamal: crucial decision on the way
from Freedom Socialist • Vol. 28, No. 5 • October-November 2007
Wall mural in Lisbon, Portugal, demands freedom for Abu-Jamal.
Photo: Anne-Marie Algemo
Supporters of imprisoned African American journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former member of the Black Panther Party, continue to wait hopefully for an imminent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Abu-Jamal has spent 25 years on death row after being framed for the killing of a Philadelphia policeman in 1981. His case has won international attention for its revelations of racism, fraud and bias in the legal system. It has brought to the foreground the right to a fair trial, the inhumanity of the death penalty, and the system’s particular vindictiveness toward Black radicals.
After numerous thwarted attempts to appeal his verdict and sentencing and to bring new evidence before the courts, a three-judge appeals court panel heard arguments on the case in May 2007. As we go to press, a decision is expected at any moment.
Fateful decision. As described by Abu-Jamal’s attorney Robert Bryan, the possible rulings by the panel are these:
• An entirely new jury trial on the question of Abu-Jamal’s guilt;
• A new jury trial to consider the issue of life imprisonment or the death penalty;
• A return to the lower U.S. District Court for further proceedings; or
• Denial of all relief.
Whichever side loses can be expected to seek a rehearing and to petition the U.S. Supreme Court for an appeal. But, as neither of these legal recourses is likely if the panel rules against Mumia, a great deal rides on its decision.
Days of action. If the panel does rule negatively, Mumia’s hope for keeping avenues of appeal open lies with strong public protest. The International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia and other support organizations are calling for immediate protests in the streets if the panel’s ruling is unfavorable. “Day after” activities are planned in several cities. Among them:
In Philadelphia, there will be a march from the scene of the 1981 confrontation at 13th and Locust to the Federal Building. In San Francisco, the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal has announced a demonstration at the Federal Building.
Two separate rallies are planned in New York City. The Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition and the Harlem Campaign to Name a Street in Honor of Mumia Abu-Jamal will congregate at the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building from 5:00-8:00 p.m. (1-4 p.m. if the day after is a Saturday). The Partisan Defense Committee has called for a rally at the Federal Building in Lower Manhattan from 5:00-7:00 p.m. (1-4 p.m. if a Saturday).
In Seattle, the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women are calling on people to attend a next-day demo at 4:00 p.m. at the downtown Federal Courthouse. In Portland, Oregon, RW and FSP are organizing a gathering from 4:00-6:00 p.m. at Terry Schrunk Plaza across from the Federal Building. Come prepared to speak at an open microphone if you have something to say, and bring picket signs and banners!
And a national demonstration in Philadelphia is being called for the third Saturday after the decision.
A voice that will not be silenced. While all wait on tenterhooks, Mumia himself continues his masterful and galvanizing commentaries on political happenings in the U.S. and the world. His deeply insightful commentaries on issues such as U.S. atrocities in Iraq, defense of the Cuban Five, racism in sports, and the commutation of Kenneth Foster’s death sentence (see story on page at left), can be read at www.prisonradio. org. Mumia refuses to censor himself or tailor his message to accommodate notions of “respectable” dissent. Instead he courageously seeks to educate the public about the radical realities of class and race in the U.S.A.
For instance, in his commentary “The Politics of Promises” (Aug. 15, 2007), he says, “For millions of people, the hunger for an end to the Bush regime is gnawing at their innards.
“But are they hungry for a Democratic warmonger, in the place of a Republican one?
“Is that change — or the same old madness, in another wrapper?”
Meanwhile, a new documentary on Abu-Jamal, In Prison My Whole Life, will screen simultaneously at London and Rome film festivals in October. This powerful film is sure to rally thousands more to Mumia’s defense.
The world needs this man alive, free, and mobilizing for justice.
Watch for the latest case updates at the websites of New York City and San Francisco coalitions www.freemumia.com and www.freemumia.org.
Write to Mumia at Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dr., Waynesburg, PA 15370.
Wall mural in Lisbon, Portugal, demands freedom for Abu-Jamal.
Photo: Anne-Marie Algemo
Supporters of imprisoned African American journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former member of the Black Panther Party, continue to wait hopefully for an imminent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Abu-Jamal has spent 25 years on death row after being framed for the killing of a Philadelphia policeman in 1981. His case has won international attention for its revelations of racism, fraud and bias in the legal system. It has brought to the foreground the right to a fair trial, the inhumanity of the death penalty, and the system’s particular vindictiveness toward Black radicals.
After numerous thwarted attempts to appeal his verdict and sentencing and to bring new evidence before the courts, a three-judge appeals court panel heard arguments on the case in May 2007. As we go to press, a decision is expected at any moment.
Fateful decision. As described by Abu-Jamal’s attorney Robert Bryan, the possible rulings by the panel are these:
• An entirely new jury trial on the question of Abu-Jamal’s guilt;
• A new jury trial to consider the issue of life imprisonment or the death penalty;
• A return to the lower U.S. District Court for further proceedings; or
• Denial of all relief.
Whichever side loses can be expected to seek a rehearing and to petition the U.S. Supreme Court for an appeal. But, as neither of these legal recourses is likely if the panel rules against Mumia, a great deal rides on its decision.
Days of action. If the panel does rule negatively, Mumia’s hope for keeping avenues of appeal open lies with strong public protest. The International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia and other support organizations are calling for immediate protests in the streets if the panel’s ruling is unfavorable. “Day after” activities are planned in several cities. Among them:
In Philadelphia, there will be a march from the scene of the 1981 confrontation at 13th and Locust to the Federal Building. In San Francisco, the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal has announced a demonstration at the Federal Building.
Two separate rallies are planned in New York City. The Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition and the Harlem Campaign to Name a Street in Honor of Mumia Abu-Jamal will congregate at the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building from 5:00-8:00 p.m. (1-4 p.m. if the day after is a Saturday). The Partisan Defense Committee has called for a rally at the Federal Building in Lower Manhattan from 5:00-7:00 p.m. (1-4 p.m. if a Saturday).
In Seattle, the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women are calling on people to attend a next-day demo at 4:00 p.m. at the downtown Federal Courthouse. In Portland, Oregon, RW and FSP are organizing a gathering from 4:00-6:00 p.m. at Terry Schrunk Plaza across from the Federal Building. Come prepared to speak at an open microphone if you have something to say, and bring picket signs and banners!
And a national demonstration in Philadelphia is being called for the third Saturday after the decision.
A voice that will not be silenced. While all wait on tenterhooks, Mumia himself continues his masterful and galvanizing commentaries on political happenings in the U.S. and the world. His deeply insightful commentaries on issues such as U.S. atrocities in Iraq, defense of the Cuban Five, racism in sports, and the commutation of Kenneth Foster’s death sentence (see story on page at left), can be read at www.prisonradio. org. Mumia refuses to censor himself or tailor his message to accommodate notions of “respectable” dissent. Instead he courageously seeks to educate the public about the radical realities of class and race in the U.S.A.
For instance, in his commentary “The Politics of Promises” (Aug. 15, 2007), he says, “For millions of people, the hunger for an end to the Bush regime is gnawing at their innards.
“But are they hungry for a Democratic warmonger, in the place of a Republican one?
“Is that change — or the same old madness, in another wrapper?”
Meanwhile, a new documentary on Abu-Jamal, In Prison My Whole Life, will screen simultaneously at London and Rome film festivals in October. This powerful film is sure to rally thousands more to Mumia’s defense.
The world needs this man alive, free, and mobilizing for justice.
Watch for the latest case updates at the websites of New York City and San Francisco coalitions www.freemumia.com and www.freemumia.org.
Write to Mumia at Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dr., Waynesburg, PA 15370.
Monday, October 15, 2007
A CALL TO JOIN "DAY AFTER" PLANS IN THE CURRENT STRUGGLE FOR MUMIA'S LIFE AND FREEDOM
A CALL TO JOIN "DAY AFTER" PLANS IN THE CURRENT STRUGGLE FOR MUMIA'S LIFE AND FREEDOM
NEW YORK ACTIONS
THE DAY AFTER A DECISION IS REACHED gather at the:
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. State Office Building
125th Street
5 to 8 PM, if it is on a weekday, and from 1 to 4 PM if it is a Saturday.
PHILADELPHIA ACTIONS
THE DAY AFTER A DECISION IS REACHED there will be a march:
13th and Locust to the Federal Building
(for more information: ICFFMAJ@aol.com)
The Partisan Defense Committee has called for a "day after"demonstration at the Federal Building in Lower Manhattan at 5 PM if the decision is reached on a weekday and from 1 to 4 PM if on a Saturday. In San Francisco, the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal has called for a demonstration on the "day after" at 5 PM at the Federal Court House, 7th and Mission Street (NOT the Federal Building.) For a flyer for other west coast actions, please CLICK HERE.
Please circulate widely
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SIGN THE FOLLOWING CALL, EMAIL info@freemumia.com ASAP!
We join the celebration of the people's victory in Texas supported by an international movement to save Kenneth Foster/Haramia KiNassor's life. May the movement continue until it frees Haramia altogether and abolishes the death penalty and the prison industrial complex. And congratulations to the tens of thousands of especially young Black people, who poured into the streets of Jena and around the country to stand up against injustice and racism, and the criminalization, brutalization, and railroading of young men of color into prison.
On the heels of these important challenges to the racist death machine in Texas, and to the intense racism and injustice we see across this country, perpetrated and supported by all aspects of the government, we await the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision on Mumia. As the decision could come down any day, we are making a tentative plan for the "DAY AFTER" should the decision be a negative one. In other words, if Mumia's death sentence is either affirmed or life in prison is imposed, we immediately take to the streets. Mumia should be released, based on his innocence and his so-called "trial". But we demand, at the very least, that he be granted a new and fair trial.
In an inter-city consultation, we have decided on three steps in our response:
1. An immediate press conference in Philadelphia upon announcement of the decision (that day, if possible, or at the latest the following morning),
2. LOCAL ACTIONS AROUND THE COUNTRY THE "DAY AFTER" and,
3. NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION on the third Saturday after the decision, in Philadelphia.
Some of the planned local activities for the "day after" are: in Philadelphia there will be a march from 13th and Locust, the scene of the original confrontation on December 9, 1981, to the Federal Building. It will be the following evening if that turns out to be a week day, or the following Saturday at noon. In New York City, the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition and the Harlem Campaign to Name a Street in Honor of Mumia Abu-Jamal are calling for people to gather at the Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. State Office Building on 125th Street from 5 to 8 PM, if it is on a weekday, and from 1 to 4 PM if it is a Saturday. We will let the community know what happened, mobilize for greater support for the street naming campaign, and organize people to join us in Philadelphia for the national demonstration scheduled for three weeks later. The Partisan Defense Committee has called for a "day after"demonstration at the Federal Building in Lower Manhattan at 5 PM if on a weekday and from 1 to 4 PM if on a Saturday. In San Francisco, the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal has called for a demonstration on the "day after" at 5 PM at the Federal Court House, 7th and Mission Street (NOT the Federal Building.). Call your local committee to find out what is being planned, or organize an activity. But everyone's voice of protest should be heard in some way if the decision is a bad one. We must free our Brother now!
As soon as we know what other local committees are planning for the "day after", we will send that information out. Please call the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition Hotline in NYC (212) 330-8029 to leave a message as to your plan for a local response with both your phone number and your e-mail address. You can also call Pam Africa at (215) 476-8812 or Suzanne Ross (917) 584-2135 if you want to speak with someone in person.
Free Mumia and All Political Prisoners! Abolish the Death Penalty and the Prison Industrial Complex! Stop Police and Government Terrorism!
(list in formation)
Pam Africa, International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal (ICFFMAJ)
The MOVE Organization
Amiri and Amina Baraka, Poets/Activists
Albany Political Prisoners Support Committee
Ashanti Alston, National Jericho Movement
Elombe Brath, Patrice Lumumba Coalition/ Harlem Campaign to Name a
Street in Honor of Mumia Abu-Jamal
Comite de Soutien a Mumia Abu-Jamal de Marseille (France)
Comite Mumia de Saint-Denis (France)
Dhoruba Bin Wahad, National Jericho Movement
Tameka Cage, Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Martha Conley, Pittsburgh Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Committee
Colia Clark, Grandmother, Mothers, Daughters, Sisters and Granddaughters
on the Move to Free Mumia and More; Richard Wright Centennial,
International Liason Committee; Socialist Party, Pennsylvania;
Solidarity Committee, Capital District New York
Gwen Debrow, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)
Herman and Iyaluua Ferguson
Johanna Fernandez, Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Frances Goldin, Mumia's literary agent
Lawrence Hamm, People's Organization for Progress (New Jersey)
Chairman Fred Hampton, Prisoners of Conscience Committee (P.O.C.C.)
Noelle Hanrahan, Prison Radio
Immortal Technique
Leslie Jones, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu
Jamal, (Ithaca, NY)
Phoebe Jones, Global Women's Strike/ Philadelphia, on behalf of
international network
JR, Prisoners of Conscience Committee/POCC, Block Report Radio
Jeff Mackler, Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (California)
Esperanza Martell, Harlem Campaign to Name a Street in Honor of Mumia
Abu-Jamal/Iglesia San Romero de las Americas
Monica Moorehead, Millions for Mumia of International Action Center
Suzanne Ross, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)
Sundiata Sadiq, Ossining NAACP In Exile, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Coalition (NYC)
Comite Mumia de Saint-Denis, France
Johnnie Stevens, Ad Hoc Committee to stop police terror
Taina Asili, Activist/Poet
Mark Taylor, Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Kazi Toure, The National Jericho Movement
Harold C. Wilson, 122nd Exonerated Death Row Prisoner (Philadelphia)
Kema C. Washington, Father Paul Washington Committee (Philadelphia)
Julia Wright, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal (Paris, France)
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SIGN THIS CALL, EMAIL info@freemumia.com ASAP!
Guinness World Records Mislabels Move Organization Murders as Mass Suicide
ONA MOVE Everybody!
Ramona of the MOVE organization needs your help. The 2008 Guinness Book Of World Records lists MOVE under "Mass Suicides" based on the May 1985 bombing and MURDER of MOVE people. They also list the MOVE organization with "cults" and lists the source of this misinformation as "The Cult Information Centre". MOVE is not and has never been a cult. MOVE is an organization and certainly did not commit "mass suicide". This is a malevolent and very dangerous lie. It's a deliberate tactic of this system to defame and misrepresent this organization so that when officials wrong us, treat us unjustly and even murder us, a lot of people will accept and dismiss it because of how we have been characterized by this system. We have discovered that both The Guinness Book Of World Records and The Cult Information Centre are based in London. There are several offices based in New York, and we are asking for your help by simply signing your name to demand the removal of the MOVE being labeled a cult and committing mass suicide.
We don't intend to let MOVE be defamed like this because it's wrong and dangerous.
Take care and stay strong
--Ramona
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/OnaMove
Ramona of the MOVE organization needs your help. The 2008 Guinness Book Of World Records lists MOVE under "Mass Suicides" based on the May 1985 bombing and MURDER of MOVE people. They also list the MOVE organization with "cults" and lists the source of this misinformation as "The Cult Information Centre". MOVE is not and has never been a cult. MOVE is an organization and certainly did not commit "mass suicide". This is a malevolent and very dangerous lie. It's a deliberate tactic of this system to defame and misrepresent this organization so that when officials wrong us, treat us unjustly and even murder us, a lot of people will accept and dismiss it because of how we have been characterized by this system. We have discovered that both The Guinness Book Of World Records and The Cult Information Centre are based in London. There are several offices based in New York, and we are asking for your help by simply signing your name to demand the removal of the MOVE being labeled a cult and committing mass suicide.
We don't intend to let MOVE be defamed like this because it's wrong and dangerous.
Take care and stay strong
--Ramona
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/OnaMove
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