Political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal’s petition to United Nations

Lawyers for Pennsylvania political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal filed a 20-page petition with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on his behalf on July 28 outlining nearly 45 years of “failures of the criminal legal system” in his case.

The petition, filed by Brett Grote of the Abolitionist Law Center, along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights, argues that multiple violations of international law in Abu-Jamal’s case include an “unfair trial, a biased appellate process, decades of surveillance and censorship and a death by incarceration sentence that has been recognized by the U.N. as violating international human rights standards.” (Truthout, July 28)

Abu-Jamal’s legal team is turning to the U.N. working group for support in part because the body urged the release of federal political prisoner Leonard Peltier in 2022. Following decades of struggle by Indigenous groups and other supporters of Peltier, President Joe Biden commuted Peltier’s life sentence to home confinement in 2025.

Abu-Jamal, a Black Panther and award-winning journalist, was convicted of murdering Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. After decades of public protests, his death sentence was overturned by U.S. District Judge William Yohn in December 2001. Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams appealed Yohn’s decision, keeping Abu-Jamal on death row until 2011, when Pennsylvania resentenced him to life without parole.

Abu-Jamal has always maintained his innocence. Ironically, Williams was sentenced to five years in prison for a federal bribery charge in 2017.

Repeated denial of a fair trial

Multiple legal appeals on Abu-Jamal’s behalf to secure a new and fair trial have been denied by state and federal judges and the repeated interference of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police. The petition to the U.N. body points out that Judge Albert Sabo, the original trial judge, who was allowed to hear Abu-Jamal’s initial appeals, was overheard saying, “I’m going to help them fry the n****r.”

Abu-Jamal’s most recent appeal was denied in 2023 by Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Lucretia Clemons, who refused to consider new evidence only disclosed to Abu-Jamal’s defense team in 2018. This evidence was that the state’s main witness, Robert Chobert, in 1982 wrote to the chief prosecutor asking about “the money owed to me” after the trial concluded.

Decades of medical negligence by Pennsylvania DOC

Mumia is now 72 years old and suffering multiple health problems made worse by medical neglect and the denial of proper medical care. The petition to the U.N. notes that he was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 2012, which caused cirrhosis of the liver.

The petition notes that “he later ‘developed a painful, severe rash covering most of his body, potentially caused or exacerbated’ by the disease, and then went into diabetic shock ‘due to untreated hyperglycemia’ caused by steroid treatment for his skin condition.”

The petition raises U.N. human rights experts’ concern when Abu-Jamal was shackled to his hospital bed in 2021 while awaiting long-delayed heart surgery.

The petition noted the prison’s most recent denial of necessary medical care, citing medical records showing how in 2025, Abu-Jamal “began experiencing a common and easily treated complication of cataract surgery” and that he continues to “suffer from multiple, complex, ophthalmological conditions, including proliferative diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma, that pose a significant risk of permanent blindness.” All of these conditions are treatable — however the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections has repeatedly denied or delayed necessary care.

Truthout reported that Grote acknowledged that the U.N. body lacks enforcement powers but said, “We are asking for a ruling, because we think the truth of what has been done to Mumia in his case needs to be exposed in the light of day.” The U.N. has a chance to recognize how Abu-Jamal’s “continuing incarceration is in violation of international human rights norms.” (July 28)

In a telephone interview with the Guardian on July 28, Abu-Jamal, who is currently incarcerated at S.C.I. Mahanoy, said the U.N. appeal was “part of his personal and legal efforts to keep hope alive. Hope is an element of struggle, is it not? As we used to say in the old days, ‘A luta continua [the struggle continues].’”