Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!
Click Here for a PDF Version of This Article*
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent victim of a corrupt state!
Innocent death-row journalist and political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, has been denied justice by a corrupt and vindictive system. District, State and Federal courts, up to and including the US Supreme Court, have denied Mumia the basic right to prove his innocence. A mountain of evidence has gone completely unheard! Framed for a crime he didn’t commit by cops, prosecutors, courts and politicians from both political parties, Mumia’s only crime was to stand up and speak out against the crimes of corrupt, racist police, and the imperialist state that backs them up. The crimes committed against this brave “voice of the voiceless” are crimes committed against all of us.
Mumia is not alone–others face the same official murder!
Innocent people have been put to death by the state. In Herrera v Collins, the US Supreme Court said it was wrong to execute the innocent, but then they did it anyway, showing that innocence is no defense! Under the law, evidence of innocence may not be admissible, even after a grossly unfair trial. The victims of this lynch-law system are often–but not exclusively–black. Kevin Cooper could not possibly have committed the murders he was accused of, but police framed him because he was a black prison escapee, and the victims were white. One judge said, “California might be about to kill and innocent man,” but that was in a dissent from a ruling against Kevin! Troy Davis was framed in Georgia on the basis of false testimony from the likely murderer. Other witnesses were pressured by police to lie. Oscar Grant was shot in the back while face down on a subway platform– executed by a cop without any trial at all! And in 2004, an innocent white man, Cameron Todd Willingham, was put to death in Texas on charges of arson-murder, when, it turns out, there was no evidence of arson at all! And these are just a few examples. We must fight back against this unjust, racist system because… You could be next!
Mumia Abu-Jamal Needs Your Help Now!
Now, even more than before, we cannot rely on the courts to free Mumia! Mumia is a class-war victim, and it will take a class war to free him. We need mass mobilizations such as that of 1995, which helped stop a death order against Mumia! We need labor actions, such as the West-Coast port shut down to free Mumia by longshore workers in 1999, or the teach-ins the same year by Oakland teachers! And we need your help to build support and initiate actions!
Get the facts. The web site of the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, www.laboractionmumia.org, has an archive of legal briefs and other documents showing how Mumia was framed. For a complete debunking of the frame up against Mumia, see Murdered by Mumia?! Get the Real Story at Indybay. Information on Kevin Cooper can be found at http://www.savekevincooper.org. Information on Troy Davis can be found at Amnesty International USA.
Spread the word. Mobilization begins with convincing others you work with to take action. Download, print out and distribute flyers and other information from the sites mentioned above.
Get books and buttons. Order The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal, by crime writer J Patrick O’Connor, or get Mumia’s brilliant new book, Jailhouse Lawyers. Buttons are also available from the LAC for $1 each, or 50 cents each for batches of 10 or more. Click here to order.
Pass a resolution in your local union or organization. Click here for a sample resolution.
Donate money. Funds are needed to sustain Mumia’s legal defense. Click here to donate money.
Organize! Organize a discussion group in your union, organization or neighborhood. Organize a protest demonstration in your town or city to get the word out. Contact us to arrange for speakers at an event and/or support for demonstrations.
* NOTE: This article is somewhat out of date, because a Pennsylavania judge recently ruled that the ex-Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Ron Castille, violated the Code of Judicial Ethics by presiding over Mumia’s appeals after he earlier served as Philadelphia’s District Attorney with responsibility for opposing those same appeals. Read about it here.