Socialist Action /June 2000
Mumia's Fight for Freedom Wins Worldwide
Support
By JEFF MACKLER
Demonstrations demanding a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal took place in
scores of cities around the world on May 13. It was truly the International
Day of Solidarity With Mumia Abu-Jamal that its organizers projected last
December at a New York City conference attended by hundreds of activists.
Abu-Jamal, an award-winning journalist framed up in 1982 on charges of
murdering a Philadelphia police officer, has been on Pennsylvania's death
row for the past 18 years.
Abu-Jamal's three books, numerous articles and audio-taped statements,
and his courageous fight against the racist U.S. criminal "justice"
system have won him the support of groups ranging from Amnesty International
to national and international trade-union bodies, the European Parliament,
and the Japanese Diet.
At the end of May, meeting in Pittsburgh, 30 miles from his Waynesburg,
Pa., prison, 1100 delegates to the convention of the 1.4 million-member
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) voted without dissent to support
a new trial for Abu-Jamal as well as a moratorium on the death penalty.
The SEIU action opens the door to the support of the entire 14 million-member
AFL-CIO, a powerful potential ally in Abu-Jamal's struggle against the state
and federal authorities that seek his execution.
In the United States on May 13, local rallies of about 300 took place
in Philadelphia and Chicago-while in San Francisco, more than 6000 rallied
in a Western regional protest initiated by the Mobilization to Free Mumia
Abu-Jamal.
The San Francisco event was endorsed by more than 100 national, regional,
and local groups-including six of the seven San Francisco Bay Area central
labor councils and scores of local unions.
A rally at San Francisco's Civic Center featured representatives from
Amnesty International; the ACLU; the National Lawyers Guild; Tom Ammiano,
president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors; Dolores Huerta of the
United Farmworkers Union; Leo Seidlitz of the San Francisco Labor Council;
and youthful leaders who have emerged as important organizers of Abu-Jamal's
defense efforts.
Socialist Action leader Carole Seligman addressed the rally, as did Gloria
La Riva of the Workers World Party, Tod Cretien of the International Socialist
Organization, and Bob Price, Freedom Socialist Party.
The day before, Bay Area labor councils and some 20 local unions sponsored
a "Labor for Mumia" conference attended by 100 labor officials
and union members. The Oakland conference approved plans to deepen Mumia's
support among working people and to ready a union contingent for May 13
in San Francisco.
The youthful San Francisco march and rally drew Mumia supporters from
throughout the Western states and from as far away as Florida and Tennessee.
The rally was addressed by Charleston, S.C., leaders of the International
Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and by the West Coast-based International
Longshore and Warehouse Union-which last year closed down all West Coast
ports from Mexico to Canada to demand Jamal's freedom.
ILA Local 1422 President Ken Riley described his union's successful battle
to prevent a shipping company from using non-union workers on the Charleston
docks. Following a police assault on ILA members during this struggle in
January, several ILA members were arrested and today face trumped-up charges.
Riley also spoke of his union's joining the protests to bring down the Confederate
flag in Columbia, S.C.
Rallies on five continents!
Rallies, protests at U.S. embassies, and marches demanding a new trial
for Mumia took place on May 13 in cities across Europe, as well as in Latin
America, Africa, Asia, and in Canada. In Italy, demonstrators mobilized
in 20 cities. In France, more than a dozen cities scheduled local rallies-including
Paris, where 2000 mobilized.
Sit-ins and other protests were organized at U.S. embassies in Madrid,
Barcelona, Quebec, Toronto, Capetown, Vienna, Malta, Buenos Aires, and Mexico
City. In Brazil, a score of Mumia solidarity demonstrations were organized
across the country. Marches were also organized in Berlin and Hamburg, Germany,
and in Luxemburg and Pakistan.
A number of these international protests were initiated by the International
Committee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal, the group that initiated the January
protests at the U.S. Department of Justice that resulted in a meeting between
Justice Department officials and an international delegation of prominent
trade unionists and elected officials.
A broad range of national and local Mumia organizations as well as political
parties also joined in the international protests. In France, several of
the protests were co-sponsored by the French Communist Party, the Socialist
Party, the Revolutionary Communist League, and the Workers Party.
A week earlier, on May 7, in New York City's Madison Square Garden Theater,
6000 attended a sold-out rally to hear actors Ossie Davis and Ed Asner,
former NYC Mayor David Dinkins, Mumia's chief legal counsel Leonard Weinglass,
and many others.
The New York City rally, initiated by the International Action Center,
was the largest indoor protest for a U.S. political prisoner since the struggle
for the life of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the early 1950s.
Students at two of the colleges at the University of California Santa
Cruz won a victory recently when Provost John Schechter agreed to their
request to listen to a taped message from Mumia at their graduation ceremonies
this month. This follows a similar action by graduating students at Antioch
College, in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in May.
Hearings in federal court
Mumia's case is now before Federal District Court Judge William H. Yohn
Jr., who in May agreed to a defense team request to file a supplementary
brief on the issues raised by recent Supreme Court rulings on cases that
challenged the notoriously racist and anti-democratic 1996 Effective Death
Penalty Act.
The defense team was given until June 2 to file its brief on this matter,
limited to 15 pages. The prosecution has until June 23 to reply, after which
time Judge Yohn is expected to set the date for oral arguments for which
Jamal will be present. A united national effort is underway to pack the
Philadelphia courtroom, federal courthouse, and surrounding streets on this
still unknown date.
At that time, Abu-Jamal's defense team will argue for a full evidentiary
hearing and new trial to present critical evidence proving Mumia's innocence
that was banned from the trial and appeals record by the notorious state
court "hanging" Judge Albert Sabo.
(Jeff Mackler is the National Secretary of Socialist Action, Co-Coordinator
of The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, and a National Coordinator
of Mumia's defense.)
Socialist Action /June 2000 |