<html>
<body>
<font size=3><br>
</font><font face="Times, Times" size=4><b>"FIGHTING BACK"
TOUR<br>
<br>
Tour Schedule Feb. 23-28, 2007<br>
Michael Ratner, Lynne Stewart<br>
</font><font face="Times, Times" size=3>Pam Africa, Barbara Lubin, Jeff
Mackler<br><br>
(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.)<br><br>
Friday, Feb. 23:<br><br>
</b>10:45 am Oakland Press Conference, John Burris Law Offices<br>
12:45 - 1:45 pm, Boalt Law School at UC Berkeley<br>
2:30 pm KPFA interview<br>
5:30 pm San Francisco Reception (Women's Bldg. See below.)<br>
7:30 pm SF Mass Rally, Women's Bldg., 3543 18th St. (between
Valencia & Guerrero (near 16th St. BART).<br><br>
<b>Saturday, Feb. 24:<br><br>
</b>10 am Prison Radio SF Reception at Noelle Hanrahan's house
415-648-4505<br>
2 pm Marin Rally, College of Marin, Student Services Center
(Cafeteria) <br>
835 College Ave.,
Kentfield 415-302-9440<br>
5:30 pm Berkeley Reception, Middle East Children's Alliance, 901 Parker
at 7th, Berkeley, 510-548-0542 <br>
7:30 pm Berkeley Mass Rally, Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, 1781
Rose at Grant (near North Berkeley BART).<br><br>
<b>Sunday, Feb. 25:</b> <br><br>
1:00 pm, Palo Alto Reception, Fireside Room, Unitarian Church (See
below).<br>
2:00 pm Mass Rally, Unitarian Universalist Church, 505 E. Charleston Rd.,
near Middlefield, Palo Alto, 650-326-8837, peaceandjustice.org<br><br>
<b>Monday, Feb. 26:<br><br>
</b>7:50 am: KPFA interview with Ralph Schoenman<br>
10:30 am Gray Panther Reception, SF, 415-552-8800<br>
12:30 pm, University of SF Law School, Fulton at Stanyon,
Kendrick<br>
Hall,
646-729-4303<br>
5:00 pm Press Conference, Fresno<br>
5:30 pm Fresno Reception<br>
7:00 pm Fresno Rally, Mennonite Community Church, corner of Olive &
Willow. 559-255-9492;
<a href="mailto:maria.telesco@sbcglobal.net">
maria.telesco@sbcglobal.net</a><br><br>
<b>Tuesday, Feb 27:<br><br>
</b>5:30 pm: Reception, wine and cheese, Santa Rosa Peace and Justice
Center, 467 Sebastopol Ave., Santa Rosa, 707-575-8902, $20.00<br>
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<br><br>
Additional sponsors are the P&J Center, Free Mind Media, and Purple
Berets.<br><br>
<b>Wednesday, Feb. 28:<br>
</b>12:00 Noon, UC Davis School of Law, Moot Courtroom, 734-972-1036<br>
5:30 pm Sacramento Reception, 403 21st Street, Sacramento,
916-369-5510</font><font face="Times, Times" size=1 color="#0000FF"><u>
<a href="mailto:jekeltner@aol.com">jekeltner@aol.com</a><br><br>
</u></font><font face="Times, Times" size=4><b>Michael Ratner, Lynne
Stewart,<br>
Pam Africa, Jeff Mackler, Barbara Lubin<br>
"Fighting Back" California tour for civil liberties<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Times, Times" size=3>"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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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<br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
</font><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.freedomarchives.org</a></font></body>
</html>