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Free Mumia from the Hell Hole of Prison!

By Rachel Wolkenstein
February 1, 2012

Fifty days after the Philadelphia District Attorney conceded defeat in its attempt to legally lynch Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) was compelled to abandon its efforts to keep Mumia in the tortuous conditions of Administrative Custody (AC) (more commonly known as solitary or “the hole”). In the face of an ever-growing international protest campaign, the threat of legal action and Mumia’s courage and political integrity, on Friday morning, January 27, 2012, Mumia was moved into general population at SCI Mahanoy.

For weeks the DOC insisted that Mumia would be held in AC until it received the “paper work” stating he is resentenced to life imprisonment. This bogus rationale isrepresentative of the arbitrariness and abuse of power exercised by the DOC, since its own documents state that the District Attorney agreed Mumia no longer had a death sentence. When Philadelphia District Attorney, Seth Williams, with the backing of the FOP, agreed to life imprisonment rather than trying again for an execution, they threatened to make Mumia’s life imprisonment as restrictive and difficult as possible.

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Mumia’s Case Hangs by a Thread!

Mumia Abu-Jamal, an innocent man on death row, could be one court decision away from the needle of death. Framed for a crime he didn’t commit because of his Black Panther background, and his bold stand against police brutality and racism as a Philadelphia journalist in the 1970’s, Mumia has been on death row for nearly 30 years. Now the Supreme Court has an appeal before it, filed by Seth Williams, Philadelphia’s first black District Attorney, to reinstate Mumia’s death sentence. His sentence was vacated by a federal judge in 2001 because of faulty instructions to the jury, but the Supreme Court has signaled that it wants to weaken that precedent. A negative ruling will lead to an immediate date with death, under Governor Ed Rendell, who is himself complicit in Mumia’s frame-up!

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Troy Davis is Dead

Another lynching has happened. Troy Anthony Davis was an innocent victim of a corrupt and racist criminal justice system. Witnesses who recanted, lack of physical evidence, new witnesses who identified the real killer — none of this was enough for the capitalist “rule of law.” Tyranny prevailed, this time. Next time, us!

Black, brown and white working people: unite to end the racist death penalty, and Fight To Free Mumia and All Innocent Death Row Prisoners!

Mumia Wins Decision Against Re-Imposition Of Death Sentence, But…

It was a small victory in a very big war. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals decided for the second time on April 26th to uphold a 2001 federal court decision to set aside the death sentence of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist, former Black Panther, and the world’s best-known political prisoner. The court had already ruled in 2008 that, due to improper instructions to the jury in Mumia’s 1982 kangaroo-court trial, his death sentence is to be replaced by life without the possibility of parole, unless the State of Pennsylvania holds a new jury trial on sentencing within 180 days. If the state fails to hold such a hearing within the time limit, the sentence automatically becomes life without the possibility of parole. Now, acting under orders from the US Supreme Court to reconsider, the Third Circuit panel reached the same decision once again.

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Greetings from Mumia for Jack Heyman, ILWU Local 10

On February 25th a retirement party was held at a union restaurant in San Francisco for Jack Heyman, longtime militant in ILWU Local 10. Heyman, a member of the Labor Action Committee, was instrumental in organizing the 1999 port shutdown and march in San Francsico for Mumia, during which 25,000 marched, against Mumia’s execution. This action was the first port shutdown in defense of a political prisoner in the United States. Here are Mumia’s remarks for the party:

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