BAYAN:
'Mumia--symbol of oppressed'
From: the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (New Patriotic
Alliance)
Quezon City, Philippines
October 17
The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (New Patriotic Alliance)
condemns Pennsylvania Governor Ridge for signing the death
warrant against Black leader Mumia Abu-Jamal who will be
executed Dec. 2, 1999.
Gov. Ridge has the shocking record of having signed 171
death warrants since 1994, five times the number signed by his
predecessors over a 25-year period. What is horrifying to
contemplate is that 99 percent of those warrants signed by
Ridge were done while the inmates still had time to appeal.
BAYAN is outraged with the rush to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal
because it violates the defendant's basic legal rights and
opposes the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Bar Association's
recent call for a moratorium on executions until the death
penalty system is proven just.
Furthermore, what is galling is that Mumia Abu-Jamal will be
executed when the trial attorney has admitted he "interviewed
no witnesses and conducted no investigation"; when 11
African-American jurors were removed on the basis of race; and
when the prosecution wrongly used a teenager's political
statements to give the death penalty to an adult 12 years
later.
BAYAN joins the rest of the organizations, institutions and
personages in the United States and all over the world in
calling for a stop to the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an
award-winning journalist, political activist and one-time
member of the Black Panther Party.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is the symbol of the oppressed people of the
world whose only weapons are the truth and the collective
strength of those who believe in their principles and just
struggles.
Stop the execution!
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