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<h1><b>Solidarity for Mumia in 6 U.S. cities, 8
countries</b></h1><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.workers.org/2007/world/mumia-roundup-0531/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.workers.org/2007/world/mumia-roundup-0531/<br><br>
</a>Published May 24, 2007 12:14 AM <br><br>
In at least five U.S. cities outside Philadelphia and at least eight
other countries demonstrations in solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal took
place aimed at bringing attention to the latest court hearing May 17 and
winning the political prisoner a new trial on the way toward freeing
him.<br><br>
<br>
In <b>Ankara</b>, Turkey’s capital and <b>Istanbul</b>, its biggest city,
activists protested against the United States for imprisoning Mumia
unfairly for 25 years. The group included academics, journalists, human
rights activists and also correspondents of the daily Evrensel in front
of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara and the Central Post office in Istanbul.
They delivered a petition to the U.S. Embassy demanding a fair trial for
Mumia Abu-Jamal.<br><br>
The <b>Cleveland</b> Lucasville Five Defense Committee demonstrated
during rush hour downtown. Signs called for the freedom of Abu-Jamal and
the Lucasville Five, innocent men who face execution in Ohio in relation
to the 1993 Lucasville prison uprising, and demanded “Justice for Aaron
Steele.” Steele, a 23-year old African-American bus mechanic, died
May 8 after being shot multiple times by Cleveland police. Passersby
grabbed hundreds of newsletters on Mumia’s case. Other Mumia supporters
had held a protest during the morning rush hour.<br><br>
Members of the <b>San Diego</b> International Action Center and the San
Diego Mumia Coalition gathered at a busy community intersection and
distributed newsletters and other material on Mumia’s case to workers on
their way home from work in the evening commute. Several motorists pulled
over to get more details on Mumia’s struggle. Poet Jim Moreno read his
Ode to Mumia for the assembled activists.<br><br>
Organized in only one week, a broad-base of labor and community activists
joined to support a May 17 press conference and protest in
<b>Milwaukee</b> demanding a new trial for political prisoner Mumia
Abu-Jamal.<br><br>
Speakers from Africans on the Move, AFSCME Local 82, Industrial Workers
of the World (IWW), International Action Center-Milwaukee, the National
Lawyers Guild, Pan African Revolutionary Socialist Party, Peace
Action-Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Green Party spoke in downtown
Milwaukee at the Henry Reuss Federal Plaza.<br><br>
Prior to the May 17 action IAC-Milwaukee organizer Bryan G. Pfeifer was
invited to speak about the struggle surrounding Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case on
“The Eric Von” show hosted by African American- radio journalist Eric Von
and “The Word Warriors Report,” hosted by African- American City
Councilman Michael McGee Jr.<br><br>
In <b>Houston</b>, in the execution capital of the country, where 16
executions are scheduled over the summer, anti-death penalty activists
were fired up by the strong turnouts at two demonstrations. Outside the
criminal courthouse, notorious for sending Shaka Sankofa, Frances Newton
and Joseph Nichols to the execution chambers, demonstrators faced down a
phalanx of cops in riot gear, mounted police and undercover cops
everywhere that outnumbered the protesters 10-1. “Maybe they thought
Mumia was joining us,” said one of the organizers.<br><br>
In the afternoon from 4-6 p.m. there was another militant demonstration
and rally, this one showing unity among young and older and Black,
Latin@, Asian and white protesters from the Nation of Islam, the National
Black United Front, the New Black Panther Party--whose youth distributed
almost 600 of the Mumia newspapers--the Anarchist Black Cross, Code Pink,
World Can’t Wait, gay activist/leader Ray Hill, the Revolutionary
Communist Party, Zapatista supporters who just returned from meeting
Zapatistas with La Otra Campana across the border, the director of
S.H.A.P.E. Center where the Movement to Abolish the Death Penalty is
based, the leader of the Venezuela Solidarity Committee and others as
every group took the microphone.<br><br>
In <b>San Francisco</b> over 300 people rallied in front of the federal
building to demand that Mumia Abu-Jamal be set free, in an action
sponsored by the locally-based Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. A
broad coalition of students, union members, community activists and
prisoner advocates spoke out, including Rudy Corpuz, Jr. and other
members of United Playaz, who linked the fight to free Mumia with the
everyday reality of repression and racism in the Black and Brown
communities of the Bay Area.<br><br>
Kiilu Nyasha, a local activist and former Black Panther Party member,
delivered a solidarity statement to the crowd on behalf of the San
Francisco 8 who are former BPP members and community activists who were
arrested this spring and charged with the 1971 killing of a San Francisco
policeman. Cristina Gutierrez of Barrio Unido called upon the crowd to
unite to “change this system. His freedom is our freedom. His life is our
life.” Judy Greenspan spoke at the rally representing Workers World
Party. Other speakers demanded a new trial and freedom for
Mumia.<br><br>
Native political prisoner Leonard Peltier’s statement to Mumia was read
from the podium in Milwaukee, Houston and other cities.<br><br>
<i>Cihan Celik in Istanbul, Susan Danann, Bob McCubbin, Bryan G. Pfeifer,
Gloria Rubac and Judy Greenspan contributed to this article.<br><br>
<br><br>
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