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RIGHTS-US: Journalist on Death Row<br>
Interview with Mumia Abu-Jamal<br>
_<br><br>
BOSTON, Feb 14 (IPS) - Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist and black
activist who exposed corruption in the Philadelphia police
department, is among the best known of America's 3,500 death row
inmates. For years, lawyers have been fighting to overturn his 1982
murder conviction. They argue that Abu-Jamal was condemned due to
his skin colour and undue influence from the powerful Fraternal
Order of Police. <br><br>
Abu-Jamal and his chief lawyer, Robert Bryan, are currently
awaiting a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia
on their request for a new trial. If a re-trial is ordered, many
believe it will be one of the most sensational in U.S. legal
history. <br>
In this rare interview from Pennsylvania’s death row, Abu-Jamal
talks about being a journalist on death row with IPS correspondent
Adrianne Appel and radio journalist John Grebe. "Writing from a
radical and populist, black liberation point of view, never left
me," he says, "We do truly live in amazing times, times
that are challenging, times that are dangerous -- but also times
that are inspiring." <br><br>
IPS: Through your radio broadcasts and columns about politics,
race, black liberation and the death penalty, you have continued to
be a leader for those on the left, and I suspect an inspiration to
those in prison and on death row. Do you hear from others on death
row? <br><br>
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: I do actually receive letters from guys literally
all around the country and -- truth be told -- around the world.
Some express solidarity, many request to correspond, some just ask
questions on history because they’ve heard of my history with the
black liberation movement. I know that many people on death row
are projected as monsters and really evil people. The fact of the
matter is, most of the people I’ve met, I’ve heard about, or know
about on death row are on death row because of their poverty. If
they were men or women of means and could have afforded a decent
defence at their trials, many wouldn’t be in jail. And if they were
not in jail, they wouldn’t be on death row. <br><br>
IPS: You have great support in Europe but not here in the U.S. What
accounts for this difference?<br>
<br>
MAJ: The [U.S.] media has really been an adversary and not an aide.
The struggle waxes and wanes, ebbs and flows. <br><br>
IPS: Public sentiment here seems to be shifting away from the death
penalty, especially in light of the 126 people who have so far been
exonerated -- six in Pennsylvania. Have you and your legal team
sensed any change in attitude towards your case -- more openness to
the idea that you did not receive a fair trial? <br><br>
MAJ: I can’t say that I have. How do you gauge such a thing? There
are many people who -- because of what they read in the paper --
firmly believe I am no longer on death row. I have read articles to
that effect. Unfortunately, those articles are misleading. I have never
left death row for one day. I am on death row. <br><br>
IPS: Are you confident you will receive a fair trial this time?
<br><br>
MAJ: I’ve learned not to be in the business of prediction. That’s a
risky business. We’re certainly working toward that end and I’m
certainly hopeful. But I’m not in the prediction game. <br><br>
IPS: Of the 35 states with a death penalty, conditions on
Pennsylvania’s death row are among the most inhumane. The 228 death
row inmates are kept in solitary confinement 23 hours a day in
small cells. You are kept shackled when not in your cell, even in
the shower. You are not allowed physical contact with visitors,
with no one at all. How does this affect you? <br><br>
MAJ: It affects how you interact with family and friends, staff
people, females. It affects everything. <br>
Years ago in Huntington [another prison], I was taken to a dentist.
As I was coming back and crossing the central portion of the
prison, there were several hundred men walking toward their dining
area. Because it had been so many years that I had been away from a
large mass of people I froze, I just froze. The guard with me
pushed my back and said, "C’mon Jamal", but I couldn’t move. I
was so stunned to be in the presence of hundreds of guys. I hadn’t
been around a group for so many years. I didn’t know how to
interact with that situation. For years I had lived in a cell or in
a cage by myself. <br><br>
John Grebe: As a young, working reporter what inspired you?
<br><br>
MAJ: My life as a writer on the staff of the Black Panther
newspaper. Just learning from people in the ministry of information
of the [Black Panther] Party, that really did inspire me -- even
when I left the party, when it fell apart in disarray -- that part
of my life, writing from a radical and populist, black liberation point
of view. It never left me. I learned some important lessons. When I
talk to people in the biz I say I’m glad I never went to journalism
school. <br><br>
IPS: You’ve written five books from death row and produce weekly
radio <br>
commentaries. Why do you still speak out? <br><br>
MAJ: It’s still interesting. We do truly live in amazing times,
times that are challenging, times that are dangerous -- but also
times that are inspiring. We have a government that for all intents
and purposes now says that torture is cool. We have secret prisons,
so-called black sites, where people from all around the world are
held in the name of the United States of America -- whose names you
cannot know. People who are tortured. I feel compelled to write
because they move me. I’m still a writer, an author, a journalist.
They touch me. I would be remiss if I did not write about those
things. If you recall, after 9/11 quite a few of the journalistic
mainstays in this country did not write about those things. They
endorsed the war, they supported the war. They came with what some
people would call a mimeograph service for the state. I chose not
to take that role. <br><br>
IPS: Pennsylvania death row has twice as many black people on it as
white people, something that does not reflect the makeup of the
population in Pennsylvania. What does this say about the courts in
Pennsylvania? <br><br>
MAJ: It says much about the courts in Philadelphia as opposed to
Pennsylvania. Philly [Philadelphia] is a national leader in the
death penalty business. Many cases that would be considered third
degree or even volunteer manslaughter, or not guilty in other counties,
become first degree [murder] or death [penalty] cases in Philly.
That’s because the political system in Philly has been formed
around the death penalty. <br><br>
Anyone who doesn’t believe in the death penalty is automatically
excluded from the jury. Well that’s a different kind of jury. It’s
profoundly unfair at its very foundation. If you pick a jury that
is fundamentally unfair, you can only get a fundamentally unfair
result. <br><br>
JG: Do you currently have communication with people in the black
liberation movement? <br><br>
MAJ: There are many elders who I do hear from. They’re wonderful
brothers and sisters. Many are no longer with us. But some of them are.
I delight in having contact with many of those people. <br>
(END/2008) <br><br>
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