Political prisoners
A national press conference to demand the immediate release of Dr. Sami Al-Arian was held at the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial, Educational and Cultural Center in Harlem on April 15. Al-Arian was in the 44th day of a hunger strike to demand that the government abide by the terms of his release. He has been imprisoned for more than five years....Al-Arian, a tenured professor at the University of South Florida, was
arrested in 2003. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft trumpeted it as the
"arrest of the most dangerous financier of Islamic Jihad in the Western
world." This case of a Palestinian who raised funds for orphans and charities back home is viewed as one of the most extreme examples of racist and anti-Muslim persecution....
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Over a thousand people voiced their collective outrage here April 19 that political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal was once again denied the right to a fair hearing by an injustice system determined to keep this innocent man imprisoned for life if it can&'t silence him outright through execution....
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Rainbow Flags for Mumia is a coalition of lesbian, gay, bi and trans people and organizations that came together in 1999 to demand a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal. The following are excerpts from a call issued by RF4M
organizers Imani Henry and LeiLani Dowell to help raise awareness and solidarity with the Free Mumia rally in Philadelphia on April 19....
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In his new book, O'Connor argues that Abu-Jamal was clearly framed by police, and that the actual shooter was a man named Kenneth Freeman. O'Connor criticizes the local media, who, he says, "bought into the prosecution's story line early on and has never been able to see this case for what it is: a framing of an innocent and peace-loving man."...
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Friday, April 11, is the scheduled release date of Dr. Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian professor on a hunger strike, who has been imprisoned for more than five years. But the Department of Justice, through its continuous abuse of the grand jury system, is threatening to keep him imprisoned for many years....
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This Legal Update is made on behalf of my client, Mumia Abu-Jamal, who remains on Pennsylvania’s death row. Many people have inquired as to our
reaction and position concerning recent legal developments, and what will happen now. This should answer many of those questions and alleviate some of the confusion....
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There is considerable documentation of the extremely
"irregular" decision making by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. See the...minority position in the Third Circuit ruling. We must expose the conspiracy to convict
Mumia, to deny him a new trial, and to have him either executed or imprisoned
for life. We will not accept their decision. Into
the streets for our brother, Mumia, and for ourselves!!!...
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The following statement was issued on March 29 by Pam Africa,
coordinator of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia
Abu-Jamal, on the March 28, 2008 court ruling by the three-judge panel of the Third
Circuit of Appeals....
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Emergency protests took place in a number of cities March 28, 2008, the day after a 2
to 1 court ruling March 27 made by the 3rd Circuit of Appeals that upheld the
guilty verdict in the case of death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and called for a resentencing hearing due to flawed jury instructions in the original trial....
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A ruling by the three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals rejecting Mumia Abu-Jama's appeals has left supporters outraged and
convinced that, for this internationally known political prisoner, there is no chance for a "fair trial" within the U.S. injustice system....
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THE THIRD CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS HAS RULED AGAINST A NEW TRIAL FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL. THEY HAVE CALLED FOR A SENTENCING HEARING WHICH CAN RESULT IN EITHER AN EXECUTION OR LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE.DAY AFTER PLANS ARE IN EFFECT
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As news flashed of the formal resignation of Cuba's Fidel Castro from the office of the President, morbid celebrations broke out in "Little Havana"(Miami), Florida, the U.S. capital of the Cuban exiled, anti-Castro movement. Just as they rejoiced at his illness in 2006, they reveled at his resignation....
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The issues in this case concern the right to a fair trial, the struggle against the death penalty, and the political repression of a
courageous writer and ournalist. My goal is to
win a new and fair trial for Mumia, and a jury acquittal upon his retrial. I want him to go home to his family. Nevertheless, Mumia is in great danger, for if all is lost he will be executed. We must never forget that racism, fraud, and politics are threads that have run through this case since the beginning and continue today....
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A federal judge here on Jan. 28 sentenced Ricardo Palmera, a peace negotiator for the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces-People's Army (FARC-EP), to 60 years in prison without parole....
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Earlier this month the federal government issued a statement in which they labeled Joanne Chesimard, known to most in the Black community as Assata
Shakur, as a domestic terrorist. In so doing, they also increased the bounty on
her head from $150,000 to an unprecedented $1,000,000. Viewed through the lens
of U.S. law enforcement, Shakur is an escaped cop-killer. Viewed through the
lens of many Black people, including me, she is a wrongly convicted woman and a hero of epic proportions....
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March 2005 marked one year since the filing of the last appeal in the case of the Cuban Five. The Five are Cubans who were arrested in 1998 in the U.S. The U.S.
government charged the Five with engaging in espionage against military bases
and threatening "national security." The Cubans were trying to monitor and prevent terror attacks from U.S. soil against their island nation. ...
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Puerto Ricans have resisted U.S. culture and the imposition of English-only
in schools, and over the years have formed liberation organizations such as the
Nationalist Party, the FALN and the Macheteros. Now the movement and its allies
are calling for the FBI and the U.S. Navy to get out of Puerto Rico. International solidarity is needed....
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Victor Toro Ramerez fought the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Now he is fighting deportation from the U.S., and is linking his own struggle
to that of all undocumented workers....
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Leonard Peltier -- a great-grandfather, artist, writer, & indigenous rights activist -- is a citizen of the Anishinabe and Dakota/Lakota Nations who has been unjustly imprisoned since 1976....
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On Dec. 9, 1981, Abu-Jamal was driving a taxi when he saw that police had stopped his brother. He got out of the car to make sure police were not
violating his brother's civil rights.In the altercation that followed, Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed. Witnesses saw a man flee the scene who did not look like Abu-Jamal. But when police arrived, they arrested Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had also been shot....
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Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on Pennsylvania's death row for over a quarter of a century.
His 1982 conviction for the shooting death of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel
Faulkner, has been contested by jurists, human rights organizations, and peoples
of conscience the world over. Even though he is arguably the most famous political
prisoner in the United States, his case and struggle for justice distills many
of the issues that racially stigmatized groups and others have faced in the United
States for decades: police brutality and violence, racist applications of the
death penalty, prosecutorial misconduct, suborning of witnesses, and the use of
wealth and political privilege in criminal justice systems to service the ideological
interests of groups and classes in power. ...
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Leonard Peltier will be 63 years old on September 12, 2007. It's an international day for demanding the immediate, unconditional freedom of this Native American artist, writer, and activist--one of the most widely recognized political prisoners in the world....
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It is mind-boggling for us to be here, now, at this late hour, with Leonard Peltier still in chains. Books have been written; documentaries have been produced; congresspeople have joined his freedom campaign -- all for naught. For Leonard Peltier, a former leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM), is still not free! That, to anyone with a soul, is a damned shame. ...
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Since 1970, hundreds of other Native Americans from across the country and their non-Native allies have been converging on Plymouth Harbor to let people know that Thanksgiving is a "Day of Mourning" that marks the genocide of thousands of Native Americans, the theft of Native Lands and the assault on Native Cultures. On Thursday, November 23, 2006 despite the cold and rainy weather, hundreds of people gathered and marched on Plymouth Harbor and joined in solidarity as various tribal elders and members spoke about the hypocrisy of the current U.S. government's attack against immigrants and spoke of the importance of Unity among all Indigenous Peoples. Elder Bert Waters read the following statement from Leonard Peltier: ...
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Last fall, when two Black high school students sat under the "white" tree on their campus, white students responded by hanging nooses from the tree. When Black students protested the light punishment for the students who hung the nooses, District Attorney Reed Walters came to the school and told the students he could "take [their] lives away with a stroke of [his] pen." Racial tension continued to mount in Jena , and the District Attorney did nothing in response to several egregious cases of violence and threats against black students....
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The International Action Center, an organization with over 15 centers throughout the United States, denounces the Bush Administration's announcement that the FBI has issued an arrest warrant for ANTONIO CAMACHO NEGRON a Puerto Rican pro-independence leader and former political prisoner....
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There are many developments on the legal and other fronts concerning my client, Mumia Abu-Jamal. We remain in active litigation before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and also have issues pending in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Mumia has been honored by fellow writers through acceptance into a prestigious organization, a Nobel Prize winner recently visited him, an excellent new book was released in France, a leading British newspaper has published a major article on Mumia, and a superb film recently premiered in London and Rome. The following are the highlights....
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We continue to await a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia, concerning my client, Mumia Abu-Jamal. This complex case was orally argued before a three-judge panel on May 17, 2007, following extensive litigation which included voluminous briefing and motions. In my experience of successfully defending a large number of murder cases involving the death penalty, it was a great day....
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