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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the April 18, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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In yet another display of international support for Mumia Abu Jamal, activists delivered petitions with over 66,000 signatures from France to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge on April 5.
A delegation from France, including noted journalist Julia Wright and Jean Solbes of the French Committee to Defend Human Rights and Liberties, joined about 70 U.S. supporters in Harrisburg, Pa., to deliver the signatures. Solbes also brought word of French President Jacques Chirac's support for Abu Jamal's case.
Apparently the French president, who is far from progressive, had his own reasons for embarrassing the United States over the case.
Initially, the governor's office refused to accept the petitions, although the French delegation had made an appointment weeks in advance. Supporters took over the hall outside the governor's office, chanting and singing.
When Wright made it clear that the delegation would be reporting back to Chirac, the governor's Press Secretary Timothy Reeves agreed to accept the petitions and gave the group a typed receipt.
Other people present were Pam Africa of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal; Robert Meeropol, son of executed political prisoners Ethel Rosenberg and Julius Rosenberg; Mark Taylor of Academics for Mumia; and Yuri Kochiyama, who read a message from the family of Malcolm X.
--Andy McInerney
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