[Cdhrsupport] LA March tp Free the SF Eight 3/13

[SF-8 case]

For immediate release -- please forward widely

What:   Rally and March to Free the Eight former Black Panthers
Where:  Leimert Park, 43rd Place at Crenshaw Blvd., Los Angeles
When:   Tuesday, March 13, at 6:00 PM
Who:    Sponsored by Unity Mission to Free the Eight
        (Black Riders Liberation Party, Jericho Amnesty Coalition,
Puerto Rican Alliance, Movimiento de Liberacion Nacional, Asians for
Jericho and Mumia, Union del Barrio, All African Peoples
Revolutionary Party, Anti-Racist Action, Anarchist Black Cross
Federation, Critical Resistance, IAC, MUDP)

The Unity Mission to Free the Eight will hold a press conference and rally
on Tuesday, March 13, to support the demand to drop the
charges against the San Francisco Eight, former Black Panthers
recently charged with murder and conspiracy in a 35-year old case
based on torture of the accused and of the only witness for the
state. The rally will begin at 6:00 PM in Leimert Park, at the
corner of 43rd Place and Crenshaw Blvd. in south LA, and continue
with a march on the sidewalks up to Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and back.

The case, which was already thrown out of court once in the 1970s
because of the proof of torture and coerced statements carried out by the
New Orleans police under the supervision of the FBI, SFPD,
LAPD and NYPD, is seen as the continuation of the COINTELPRO attack on the
Black Panther Party for Self Defense in the 1960s and 70s
into the era of the USA PATRIOT Act and legalized torture at Abu
Ghraib and Guantanamo. Recent disclosures of new FBI illegalities
similar to the black bag jobs, torture, and psychological warfare it
carried out under COINTELPRO underline the importance of defending the
Eight and defeating this new attempt to criminalize dissent and
resistance.

Following up on the Tuesday march and rally, the Unity Mission to
Free the Eight will be participating in the Jericho Amnesty
contingent in the March 17 anti-war protest, commencing at noon on
Hollywood and Vine. On Sunday, March 18, the Unity Mission to Free the
Eight will be holding a follow-up meeting at 2:00 PM at 253 W. Martin
Luther King Blvd. (between Broadway and Broadway Place). In April, there
will be a showing of the film "Legacy of Torture: The War Against the
Black Liberation Movement," a documentary about the case based on
interviews with five of the former Panthers who were imprisoned last year
for refusing to testify to a grand jury witch- hunt.

For more information, call 310-495-0299, or check
www.geocities.com/jerichoamnestycoalitionla