Disability Justice and Rights Caucus statement on Mumia

By Disability Justice and Rights Caucus posted on September 19, 2025

The Disability Justice and Rights Caucus of Workers World Party drafted the following statement on Sept. 14, 2025:

The Disability Justice and Rights Caucus of Workers World Party urgently appeals to all peoples with disabilities and our allies and advocates, as well as the entire national and international progressive community, to demand immediately complete ACCESS for whatever medical treatment is needed for disabled senior citizen and incarcerated, internationally renowned, Pennsylvania political prisoner and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal in order to save his eyesight and prevent him from becoming more severely disabled.

Unjustly convicted of killing a police officer, Mumia has spent 43 years in prison, despite documented evidence which would prove his innocence if given a fair opportunity to be presented in a court of law. Writing prior and during his incarceration, Mumia has exposed the mass incarceration of people of color in for-profit U.S. prisons and the dangers of U.S. wars and interventions abroad.

In 2015, Mumia suffered a diabetic coma due to the prison’s overuse of steroids to treat severe dermatitis, which left him with undiagnosed retinal diabetes. Recently, Mumia’s personal physician determined that he needed secondary cataract surgery. In late 2024, he was scheduled for an eye appointment in January 2025, but that was cancelled due to poor weather. In June, it was also revealed that he was also suffering from diabetic retinopathy, a complication of diabetes that caused damage to the blood vessels at the back of his eyes.

After a national and international campaign demanding medical treatment for Mumia to save his eyesight, finally in early September 2025 Mumia was allowed to have successful cataract surgery in his left eye. But he still needs cataract surgery in his right eye, and the diabetic retinopathy needs to be immediately treated and subsequently monitored.

Mumia is entitled to access. He is being blatantly discriminated against in his health care in clear violation of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) passed 35 years ago.

If the Pennsylvania prison system cannot provide such access to Mumia under the ADA, he should be given reasonable accommodation for his disabilities by his immediate release to a venue outside of the prisons where he can receive the medical treatment that he is entitled to.

We realize that folks who claim to advocate for disability justice and rights may unfortunately not be motivated sufficiently to intervene in solidarity with Mumia solely because of all of the evidence of his innocence or the obvious targeting of him like other progressive journalists for his exposure of racism in prisons and society. But how can any genuine disability justice and rights activist remain silent in the face of such ableism, elder abuse and racism — or to paraphrase the words of the great labor song, “Which Side Are You On?”

You’ll either be for access for everyone including those behind the walls of U.S. prisons, or you will be fully complicit with the consequent denial of access anywhere. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere!” a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr., was emblazoned on a banner carried at the 1993 New York City Disability Independence Day March.

Please call or email using the following script:

My name is ______. I am calling from ______, because Mumia Abu-Jamal — also known as Wesley Cook, AM8335, SCI Mahanoy — needs to immediately see a retinal specialist and be treated for his diabetic retinal condition. This condition can cause permanent blindness. No more delay.