Socialist Action /September 2002
National Civil Liberties Conference
to Focus on Mumia Abu-Jamal
The Northern California-based Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal will
host, along with the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California
at Berkeley, a national conference that will situate Mumia's fight for life
and freedom in the context of the post 9-11 assault on civil liberties and
democratic rights.
The Nov. 15-16, 2002, conference is co-sponsored by the International
Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal as well as the leading coalitions
of Mumia supporters in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and cities across
the country. Representatives of Mumia support groups from France, Germany,
Spain, and Portugal are expected to participate.
Fifty workshops are in preparation linking the legal and constitutional
issues in Mumia's case to the concerted attack on civil liberties that threaten
the rights of political association, the rights of immigrants, the right
to strike, and the government's orchestration, in the name of fighting terrorism,
of a McCarthy-era type witchhunt in the United States.
Scheduled workshops will be led by representatives of leading civil liberties
organizations, including the National Lawyers Guild, the ACLU, the National
Criminal Lawyers Association, and many others.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which has been threatened
with government intervention should it exercise its right to strike against
the Pacific Maritime Association, is organizing a workshop linking Mumia's
case to the threats against the ILWU. The ILWU recently joined an amicus
curiae brief demanding Mumia's freedom.
Experts in the field and social activists defending fundamental civil
liberties will lead three sessions of conference workshops.
Workshop panels will discuss the Patriot Act, the Anti-Terrorism and
Effective Death Penalty Act, the government's proposed T.I.P.S program,
the prison-industrial complex, the case of the Cuban Five, the racist nature
of the death penalty, legislation excluding immigrants from constitutional
protection, lessons of the McCarthy era and the fight against the FBI's
COINTELPRO, the use of "national security threats" to curtail
civil liberties, the cases of Wen Ho Lee, Lynn Stewart and the Japanese
internment case won by Fred Koramatsu, among others.
Nationally prominent speakers are also slated for two plenary sessions
and a closing mass rally to raise funds for Mumia's legal and political
defense.
Freed death row inmates, anti-death penalty advocates, and opponents
of U.S. intervention in the name of the "war on terror" will join
anti-racist fighters, union leaders who are challenging government persecution
of their members, and other defenders of democratic rights of every kind.
Special invitations have been extended to the families of Malcolm X and
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who have spoken in defense of Mumia's rights.
For further information and to endorse the conference, contact: The Mobilization
to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, 3425 Cesar Chavez, San Francisco, CA 94110, (415)
695-7745.
Contributions can be made payable to "The Mobilization" and
mailed to the address above.
- JEFF MACKLER
Socialist Action /September 2002 |