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Contact: Dasaw
Floyd:<x-tab> </x-tab>718-254-8800<x-tab>
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</x-tab>Dream Hampton:
<br>
dreamhampton@aol.com<br><br>
For Immediate Release <br><br>
•<x-tab> </x-tab>Hundreds of New
Yorkers Join Councilmember Charles Barron demanding<br>
clemency for Assata Shakur <br><br>
On Wednesday, May 25th at 1:30PM, Brooklyn City Councilmember
Charles<br>
Barron, prominent hip-hop artists and community groups will hold a<br>
press conference on the steps of City Hall condemning a<br>
one-million-dollar bounty offered May 2nd for the capture of exiled<br>
Black Liberation fighter, Assata Shakur. <br>
<br>
“I’m infuriated that a bounty has been put on her, placing her in<br>
danger,” said Councilmember Barron who called for Wednesday’s
press<br>
conference “She is a shero to our community, its long overdue for<br>
her to receive clemency and come home.”<br><br>
In an unprecedented move, on May 2nd the Federal Justice Department,<br>
working side by side with New Jersey’s Attorney General, also placed<br>
the 58-year-old grandmother on the same domestic terrorist list as<br>
Osama bin Laden this despite the fact that Assata herself was shot<br>
while her hands were raised above her head, allowing the bullet to<br>
pass through her armpit, traveling past her clavicle. Barron
and<br>
others are demanding that Assata Shakur be removed from that
list.<br><br>
This sensationalized action was taken 32 years after Ms. Shakur and<br>
two companions were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973<br>
allegedly for a “broken tail light”. There are many versions of
what<br>
occurred that night, but what is known is that one Panther, Zayd<br>
Shakur, was shot dead, Assata also shot- was left on the side of<br>
the road to die and Trooper Werner Forester also lay dead.
Another<br>
Panther, Sundiata Acoli, was taken into custody. <br><br>
Following trials tainted with documented human rights
violations<br>
and constitutional errors including the exclusion of African people<br>
from the jury, Assata and Sundiata were both found guilty, in<br>
separate trials, of the murder of Trooper Forester and sentenced to<br>
life in prison. Prior to her New Jersey trial, Assata was tried and<br>
acquitted six times on the various false charges.<br><br>
In 1979 Assata was liberated from a New Jersey jail and seven years<br>
later received political Asylum from the government of Cuba, where<br>
she has continues to speak out for the right of African people in
the<br>
United States to freedom and self-determination.<br>
”Assata was granted asylum in Cuba because they understood what many<br>
here understand” says Kamau Karl Franklin, an attorney
and member<br>
of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. “The Cuban government<br>
understands that Assata was convicted in a climate where she and<br>
anyone who stood up for the human rights of Black people were<br>
completely criminalized. She never had a chance at a fair trial
in<br>
this country and Cuba understood that.”<br>
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<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
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