[News] Fri. 2/23 7:30 pm Women's Bldg, SF, Pam Africa, Michael Ratner, Lynne Stewart

[Anti-Imperialist News]

"FIGHTING BACK" TOUR

Tour Schedule Feb. 23-28, 2007
Michael Ratner, Lynne Stewart
Pam Africa, Barbara Lubin, Jeff Mackler

(For details on all events, admission costs, or requests for 
additional meetings call 415-255-1085. Michael Ratner will join the 
tour for Feb. 23-25 events only.)

Friday, Feb. 23:

10:45 am Oakland Press Conference, John Burris Law Offices
12:45 - 1:45 pm, Boalt Law School at UC Berkeley
2:30 pm KPFA interview
5:30 pm San Francisco Reception (Women's Bldg. See below.)
7:30 pm SF Mass Rally, Women's Bldg., 3543 18th  St. (between 
Valencia & Guerrero (near 16th St. BART).

Saturday, Feb. 24:

10 am Prison Radio SF Reception at Noelle Hanrahan's house 415-648-4505
2 pm Marin Rally, College of Marin, Student Services Center (Cafeteria)
           835 College Ave., Kentfield 415-302-9440
5:30 pm Berkeley Reception, Middle East Children's Alliance, 901 
Parker at 7th, Berkeley, 510-548-0542
7:30 pm Berkeley Mass Rally, Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, 
1781 Rose at Grant (near North Berkeley BART).

Sunday, Feb. 25:

1:00 pm, Palo Alto Reception, Fireside Room, Unitarian Church (See below).
2:00 pm Mass Rally, Unitarian Universalist Church, 505 E. Charleston 
Rd., near Middlefield, Palo Alto, 650-326-8837, peaceandjustice.org

Monday, Feb. 26:

7:50 am: KPFA interview with Ralph Schoenman
10:30 am Gray Panther Reception, SF,  415-552-8800
12:30 pm, University of SF Law School, Fulton at  Stanyon, Kendrick
           Hall, 646-729-4303
5:00 pm Press Conference, Fresno
5:30 pm Fresno Reception
7:00 pm Fresno Rally, Mennonite Community Church, corner of Olive & 
Willow. 559-255-9492; 
<mailto:maria.telesco at sbcglobal.net>maria.telesco at sbcglobal.net

Tuesday, Feb 27:

5:30 pm: Reception, wine and cheese, Santa Rosa Peace and Justice 
Center, 467 Sebastopol Ave., Santa Rosa, 707-575-8902, $20.00
7:00 pm Public meeting with Lynne Stewart and Jeff Mackler, New 
College of California, North Bay Campus, 99 - 6th Street, Santa Rosa 
(only a few minutes away from the Center), 707-568-0112, $10.00

Additional sponsors are the P&J Center, Free Mind Media, and Purple Berets.

Wednesday, Feb. 28:
12:00 Noon, UC Davis School of Law, Moot Courtroom, 734-972-1036
5:30 pm Sacramento Reception, 403 21st Street, Sacramento, 
916-369-5510 <mailto:jekeltner at aol.com>jekeltner at aol.com

Michael Ratner, Lynne Stewart,
Pam Africa, Jeff Mackler, Barbara Lubin
"Fighting Back" California tour for civil liberties

"Fighting Back: No one shall be tortured, falsely imprisoned, or 
denied basic democratic rights" is the theme of the upcoming February 
23-28, 2007 San Francisco Bay Area tour of Michael Ratner, Lynne 
Stewart, Pam Africa and Jeff Mackler.

Sponsored by and a benefit for the Northern California-based 
Mobilization Free Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Lynne Stewart Defense 
Committee, the tour includes some eighteen meetings, rallies, 
receptions and media events. (See tour schedule on this page). 
Winning new support for justice and freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal and 
Lynne Stewart and defending basic civil liberties that are under 
severe attack today are the central objectives of the six-day tour.

Lynne Stewart, 67, free on bail pending her appeal of a McCarthy-era 
type post-911 conviction on charges of "conspiracy to aid and abet 
terrorism," was granted permission to travel to California by 
presiding District Court Judge John Koeltl.

Koeltl shocked more than one legal observer by sentencing Stewart, a 
lifelong civil rights and political prisoner attorney, to 28 months 
in prison in the face of Probation Department and prosecution 
recommendations that she be sentenced to thirty years.

Stewart's crime? She was the lead attorney defending the blind 
Egyptian cleric, Shiek Omar Abdel Rachman, who was convicted of 
conspiracy charges to blow up federal monuments. Former U.S. Attorney 
General Ramsey Clark and American-Arab Anti-Discrinimation Committee 
head Abdeen Jabarra, were Stewart's co-counsels. In the course of her 
defense effort, in a case where the Wall Street Journal argued that 
Rachman was innocent, Stewart issued a public press release to 
Reuters News Agency indicating her client's views on the policies of 
the Egyptian government that was then murdering Rachman's imprisoned 
Islamic co-thinkers. Federal prosecutors contend that a Bureau of 
Prison regulation (Special Administrative Measure) prohibited Abdel 
Rachman contact with outside groups. The government is appealing 
Koeltl's relatively short sentence while Stewart is appealing her conviction.

Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Center for 
Constitutional Rights, will join the tour for its major Feb. 23-25 
events in San Francisco, Berkeley, Marin and Palo Alto. Ratner won an 
historic law suit against the Bush Administration when the U.S. 
Supreme Court ruled last year that Guantanamo, Cuba detainees, 
imprisoned and tortured by government interrogators, must be afforded 
access to U.S. federal courts, that is, granted the right to habeas 
corpus. This victory was essentially nullified soon after when a 
bi-partisan Congress passed legislation legitimizing torture, but 
under a new name. The same legislation effectively denied detainees 
access to federal courts. The Bush Administration had originally 
argued before the court that detainees had no rights in U.S. Courts 
because Guantanamo, Cuba was not a U.S. possession. The more astute 
Supreme Court rejected this contention, thus reaffirming U.S. 
colonial rule over Guantanamo.

Ratner is currently in a battle to use the German court system to 
file war crimes/torture charges against Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. 
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and some eight other U.S. officials 
responsible for torture in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and elsewhere.

Pam Africa is the central national leader of the political defense of 
Mumia-Abu-Jamal, the award-winning and innocent African-American 
journalist on Pennsylvania's death row for the past 25 years. Jamal's 
case is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third 
Circuit, with the State of Pennsylvania seeking its third order for 
Mumia's execution by lethal injection. In 1982, in a trial that has 
been condemned by groups ranging from Amnesty International and the 
NAACP to the European Parliament and the presidents of France and 
South Africa, Jamal was falsely convicted of murdering a Philadelphia 
policeman. His defense team, headed by attorney Robert R. Bryan, 
await oral arguments before the court in a major battle that could 
lead to a new trial and Mumia's freedom.

The possibility of winning a new trial, based on numerous 
constitutional violations and racist conduct on the part of the 
presiding Judge and state prosecutor, has rattled the nation's top 
lawmakers. In December 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives 
effectively intervened in the judicial proceedings against Mumia by 
passing a resolution, with only 33 votes in opposition, to condemn 
the French city of St. Denis for naming a street after Jamal. The 
resolution, initiated by two Pennsylvania congresspersons, was more 
intended to pressure the appeals court as it prepares for the final 
deliberative processes in Mumia's case, than it was to change the 
view of St. Denis officials. The latter have visited the U.S. on 
Mumia's behalf on several occasions and have rejected the 
congressional request, pointing to both the racist nature of the 
legal proceedings against Mumia and to the heinous U.S. death penalty.

Jeff Mackler, tour organizer and director of the West Coast Lynne 
Stewart Defense Committee and the Mobilization to Free Mumia 
Abu-Jamal is a major spokesperson for both defense efforts and has 
written widely on both cases. Barbara Lubin, Executive Director of 
the Middle East Children's Alliance will also speak at tour meetings. 
Lubin is a national leader in the defense of Palestinian rights.

In addition to the immediate Bay Area counties the tour will take the 
participants to Frenso, Santa Rosa and Sacramento as well as to some 
five area law schools.

The tour is co-sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild, the Peninsula 
Peace and Justice Center, Middle East Children's Alliance, Vanguard 
Public Foundation, the Marin Peace and Justice Coalition, and 
Pacifica Radio Station KPFA. For further information call: 415-255-1085

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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