Movement proceeds with Feb. 11 protest for Mumia

Why is the Feb. 11 Philadelphia event in support of death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal so important? What is the significance of this date?

This past Dec. 21, Abu-Jamal's lead coun sel, Robert R. Bryan, received a letter from Judge Pamela Dembe of the Penn sylvania Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia.

Dembe stated she would hold a hearing on Feb. 11 to respond to a writ of habeas corpus filed by Abu-Jamal's lawyers on Dec. 8, 2003. This writ raised two main issues. One was that the state manipulated a purported eyewitness to falsely identify Abu-Jamal as the shooter of Police Officer Daniel Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981. This false statement was in violation of Abu-Jamal's rights under the fifth, sixth, eighth, and fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

The second issue in the writ was that Abu-Jamal was found guilty and sentenced to death on July 3, 1982, through the use of a fabricated confession, in violation of three out of the four amendments just cited.

Back in August 2001, Dembe dismissed a petition by Abu-Jamal's lawyers around similar legal issues. At the last moment, Dembe denied Abu-Jamal the right to be present in the court during the hearing. This did not keep an estimated 1,000 Mumia supporters from rallying in the streets outside the Criminal Justice Center on a hot summer day. There has been no further court hearing since then.

Once the Feb. 11 hearing was announ ced, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the newly formed Free Mumia national task force decided to organize a day of protest.

But in mid-January, Dembe sent another letter to Abu-Jamal's lawyers
canceling the hearing. Instead, the judge ordered a "briefing" by Feb. 15 on the issue of whether a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision in another case is applicable to whether the court has jurisdiction to proceed in Abu-Jamal's request for a third Post Conviction Relief Act petition.

Previous PCRA hearings for Abu-Jamal took place in 1995 and 1996 and were conducted by the late Judge Albert Sabo. Terri Maurer-Carter, a court stenographer, has made a sworn statement that she overheard Sabo say he was going to "fry the n----r," in reference to Abu-Jamal.

Dembe's cancellation of the court hearing has made Abu-Jamal's supporters more determined than ever to move forward with the Feb. 11 protest.

The groups will march from the American Friends Service Committee building to the Criminal Justice building and then hold a press conference. A people's court will be held at the AFSC office. These events will ask: Why was the hearing cancelled so abruptly with no clear political or legal explanations? Why do the courts continue to suppress the vital evidence that proves Abu-Jamal's innocence? Don't the people deserve to hear this evidence?

The people's court will include progressive lawyers, activists and original eyewitnesses providing written, verbal and visual evidence on how Abu-Jamal has been a legal and political victim of a racist governmental conspiracy to silence him ever since he joined the Black Panther Party in Philadelphia.

The movement must not fall in the trap of becoming complacent when it comes to saving Abu-Jamal's life. Federal District Judge William Yohn overturned Abu-Jamal's death sentence back in December 2001 but not his murder conviction. This ruling was used as a vehicle to both confuse and lull the movement into a false state of security. The Yohn ruling did not take Abu-Jamal off death row and it won't necessarily prevent him from receiving the death penalty once again, if the powers-that-be have their way.

The Philadelphia prosecutor's office appealed the Yohn ruling, hoping to bring back the death penalty for Abu-Jamal. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a former prosecutor, was elected on a reactionary platform of vowing to execute Abu-Jamal.

Abu-Jamal's lawyers are doing everything legally possible to win him a new trial. This is his only chance of being liberated. The political movement must continue to do its part. The courts, on their own, cannot be relied on to grant Abu-Jamal a new trial. The courts, the police and the U.S. government want to silence Abu-Jamal's revolutionary voice, either by lethal injection or by keeping him behind prison walls for the rest of his life.

The movement has to continue to find imaginative ways to broaden out the struggle to free Abu-Jamal. Resolutions passed by groups such as the NAACP, San Francisco Board of Supervisors and others demanding a new trial help get out the word about Abu-Jamal's case.

The movement must continue to politicize the legal case of Abu-Jamal. He is one of countless victims of the racist use of the death penalty. And as the "voice of the voiceless," Abu-Jamal continues to commit himself to fight war, racist oppression and exploitation with his written and audio commentaries.