Petition for Mumia

From Robert R. Bryan, Mumia's attorney:

Mumia & I recently launched an online petition in 10 languages: Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Global Abolition of the Death Penalty.  It is the only petition that Mumia & I have approved.  There are already over 14,500 signers, mostly from outside the U.S.  The petition will eventually be presented to President Barack Obama by a distinguished international delegation.  The early signers include: Desmond Tutu, South Africa (Nobel Peace Prize); Günter Grass, Germany (Nobel Prize in Literature); the first signer, Danielle Mitterrand (former Fist Lady of France); Fatima Bhutto, Pakistan (writer); Noam Chomsky, MIT (philosopher & author); Ed Asner (actor; Mike Farrell (actor); Michael Radford (director of the Oscar winning film Il Postino); members of the European Parliament; members of the German Bundestag; European Association of Lawyers for Democracy & World Human Rights; Reporters Without Borders, Paris; Paris officials.

Please e-mail the petition link to all possible people, ideally to members of organizations.  Its link is at http://www.PetitionOnline.com/Mumialaw/petition.html  The petition provides:

WE THE UNDERSIGNED petition you to speak out against the death penalty for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and all the men, women and children facing execution around the world.  This ultimate form of punishment is unacceptable in a civilized society and undermines human dignity.  (U.N. General Assembly, Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty, Resolution 62/149, Dec. 18, 2007; reaffirmed, Resolution 63/168, Dec. 18, 2008.)

Mr. Abu-Jamal, a renowned black journalist and author, has been on Pennsylvania’s death row for nearly three decades.  Even though you do not have direct control over his fate as a state death-row inmate, we ask that you as a moral leader on the world stage call for a global moratorium on the death penalty in his and all capital cases.  Mr. Abu-Jamal has become a global symbol, the “Voice of the Voiceless”, in the struggle against capital punishment and human-rights abuses.  There are over 20,000 awaiting execution around the globe, with over 3,000 on death rows in the United States.

The 1982 trial of Mr. Abu-Jamal was tainted by racism, and occurred in Philadelphia which has a history of police corruption and discrimination.  Amnesty International, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, “determined that numerous aspects of this case clearly failed to meet international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings.  [T]he interests of justice would best be served by the granting of a new trial to Mumia Abu-Jamal.  The trial should fully comply with international standards of justice and should not allow for the reimposition of the death penalty.”  (A Life In the Balance - The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, at 34, Amnesty Int’l, 2000; www. Amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/001/2000.)

[Note:  This petition is approved by Mumia Abu-Jamal and his lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, San Francisco.]

As you know, the U.S. Supreme Court recently issued the long-awaited ruling in Mumia's case.  It has been sent back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia.  The decision I won in 2008 for a new jury trial on the issue of the death penalty, was vacated & the federal court directed to reconsider the death penalty.  My client is now much closer to being executed.

The link to Mumia's Legal Defense: http://www.MumiaLegalDefense.org

We will be grateful any assistance you can provide.

Cordially yours,

Robert
_______
Robert R. Bryan
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117
http://www.MumiaLegalDefense.org

Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal