A message to the Peoples Summit from the U.S. solidarity movement on behalf of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal

The following statement was issued by the International Action Center.

To our sisters and brothers at the Peoples’ Summit:

The progressive and revolutionary movement in the U.S. stands with the Peoples’ Summit in Panama April 9-11.  We stand with the Cuban Revolution, the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela and all those fighting against imperialism in the Americas and throughout the world.

We reject Washington’s persistent hostile campaign against Venezuela’s sovereignty and demand the immediate repeal of President Obama’s March 9 decree that calls that nation a “danger” for the USA’s national security. In a country where Black lives are being taken violently every 28 hours by state or repressive forces with complete impunity, the USA has absolutely no moral authority to issue such a declaration. It is in the USA where an ongoing human rights crisis exists with the police killings of so many youth and people of color.

We, therefore, expose the sheer hypocrisy of the USA that says that human rights are violated in Venezuela.

In Venezuela, Leopoldo López, who is responsible for the violence in the attempted coup against President Nicolás Maduro that left 43 people dead, is being treated very well while imprisoned for the crimes he committed, having access to a gym, computer, visits, etc. In contrast, in the USA, political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has been unjustly framed up for the murder of a cop and has been in prison since 1982 for standing up against racism and police brutality, is being denied a most basic right: adequate health care in a state attempt to assassinate him.

As a prisoner of the Empire, he was put on death row and it was only the people’s struggle that forced the state to cancel the death penalty and move him to general population in prison. Now, however, the state of Pennsylvania insists on executing him by denying the needed medical care.

On March 30, Mumia Abu-Jamal had a medical emergency and was taken to the Intensive Care Unit at a Medical Center in Pottsville, Pa. When his family and friends discovered that his health is seriously declining due to medical neglect, they immediately traveled to the hospital to learn more about his condition. Family members were first denied visitation rights and only a national campaign to demand visitation got them to see him.

We would like to request your support to save Mumia’s life.  

It was only the support of the people that won Mumia from the clutches of death row.  And now we need your support to make sure that the state of Pennsylvania does not kill him by medical neglect.

We request that the Peoples’ Summit pass a resolution in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal, demanding immediate adequate medical attention and that Mumia not be executed by medical neglect.  Only the people and movements together can stay the hand of Washington.

Long live international solidarity!  Long live the peoples of the Americas!

End the blockade against Cuba!

Obama: Repeal the Executive Order against Venezuela and Hands off Venezuela!

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Oscar López Rivera and all political prisoners in the USA!