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<font size=4><b>Political prisoners struggle for justice<br>
</b></font><font size=3>By Saeed Shabazz<br><br>
<a href="http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_5683.shtml" eudora="autourl">
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_5683.shtml<br>
</a>Staff Writer<br>
Updated Mar 12, 2009, 11:19 am<br><br>
(FinalCall.com) - Defenders of Native American activist Leonard Peltier,
64, are turning their attention to President Barack Obama hoping that the
new administration will move the issue of his incarceration to the front
burner. <br><br>
Supporters of Native American activist Leonard Peltier hope that the
Obama administration will do justice in his case.<br><br>
Supporters from around the nation gathered Feb. 6 in Denver, Colo., to
commemorate the 33rd anniversary of Mr. Peltier’s 1977 conviction in the
murder of two FBI agents during a shootout on a South Dakota Indian
reservation.<br><br>
Over the years Mr. Peltier has garnered worldwide support from political
leaders, organizations such as Amnesty International, the Dalai Lama and
various celebrities. Observers say the underlying themes of whether he
received a fair trialand acknowledgement of historical abuses against
Native Americans, huge poverty on reservations, horrifying suicide rates
and high unemploymentfuel Mr. Peltier’s support base.<br><br>
David Hill, 65, of Oklahoma, national coordinator for the Leonard Peltier
Defense-Offense Committee joined the American Indian Movement with Mr.
Peltier in the 1970s. He explained to <i>The Final Call</i> that Mr.
Peltier’s supporters are turning to President Obama for executive
clemency.<br><br>
“We believe now more than ever in Leonard’s innocence and he has been a
model prisoner. So why not free him?” Mr. Hill asked. <br><br>
Former 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney in a
letter to President Obama said, pardoning Mr. Peltier “is but a down
payment on the path of justice and reconciliation our country so sorely
needs. Peltier should be released. He has become a global symbol of
injustice and prison abuse; a man who was never given a fair trial,” Ms.
McKinney stated in her letter.<br><br>
Amnesty International acknowledged Mr. Peltier’s status as a political
prisoner in actions before the United Nations in 1992 and in a statement
commemorating the 33rd anniversary of his incarceration noted that they
recognize a retrial is no longer a feasible option. “Leonard Peltier
should be irrevocably and unconditionally released,” Amnesty
International said.<br><br>
Attorney Michael Kuzma of Buffalo, N.Y., has become Mr. Peltier’s lead
counsel and he informed <i>The Final Call</i> that he just visited his
client at the Lewisburg Federal Facility on Feb. 21. “He is in good
spirits, and he wants to thank all of his supporters for standing with
him during those difficult days when he had been transferred out of
Lewisburg to the Canaan facility. He wants to get support for a transfer
closer to his South Dakota home, where he believes the atmosphere would
be more conducive to possible parole after his December hearing,” Mr.
Kuzma said.<br><br>
Mr. Kuzma also said supporters believe they have a friendly ear in the
White House now.<br><br>
President Obama on Feb. 10 appointed Jodi Archambault Gillette, a member
of the Sioux Nation, as deputy associate director of the Office of
Intergovernmental Affairs, which was held by a non-Native American during
the days of the Bush administration.<br><br>
First lady Michelle Obama made an historical visit to the Interior Dept.
on Feb 10, saying, “Barack has pledged to honor the unique government to
government relationship between tribes and the federal
government.”<br><br>
But developments have also occurred with other political prisoners. News
concerning Mumia Abu Jamal’s case came in an e-mail message from his San
Francisco-based attorney, Robert R. Bryan. “On Feb. 4, the U.S. Supreme
Court docketed and accepted for filing the ‘Petition for Writ of
Certiorari’ that had been submitted on Dec. 19, 2008,” Mr. Bryan
said.<br><br>
Mr. Abu Jamal was sent to death row in 1983 for the 1981 murder of a
Philadelphia police officer during a traffic stop. Mr. Abu Jamal was well
known as an activist with the Black Panther Party and for his
hard-hitting investigative community journalism.<br><br>
“The central issue in this case is racism in jury selection. The
prosecutor systematically removed people from sitting on the trial jury
because of the color of their skin,” said Mr. Bryan.<br><br>
Mr. Bryan warned that the city prosecutor was attempting to overturn the
ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that the death
penalty ruling was incorrect and ordered a new trial on the question of
the death sentence. The attorney said that he had filed a brief of
opposition with the Supreme Court on Feb. 13.<br><br>
“Now what occurs in the Supreme Court will determine whether Mumia will
have a new trial or die,” Mr. Bryan stressed.<br><br>
Another important hearing concerning a political prisoner will take place
March 3 before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Albert
Woodfox, one of the Angola 3 inmates in Louisiana. Herman Wallace, Robert
King and Mr. Woodfox were convicted of killing a prison guard in 1973 at
the 18,000 acre former slave plantation known as Angola state prison. The
men were held for 36 years in solitary confinement and in 2001, Mr. King
was freed. The three had become outspoken critics of the conditions at
Angola, which began to receive attention from Black Louisiana politicians
and prison activists. In July 2008, a federal judge over turned Mr.
Woodfox’s conviction after a state judicial magistrate ruled his trial
was unfair due to inadequate legal representation, prosecutorial
misconduct, suppression of exculpatory evidence and racial discrimination
in the grand jury selection process.<br><br>
Each side will argue on March 3 for 20 minutes after which the court
could take from one to six months to render a decision. If the jurists
uphold the ruling, the state has 120 days to decide to re-try Mr. Woodfox
or release him, according to his supporters.<br><br>
The trials and tribulations of Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin continue and
Karimah Al-Amin, his attorney and wife, reported that towards the end of
2008 her husband was transferred from a Georgia state prison to a
supermax facility in Florence, Colo. “This stems from a March 1990
agreement between Georgia and the federal prison system that people they
cannot handle could be sent to a federal facility, and Georgia would pay
for it,” Ms. Al-Amin explained to <i>The Final Call</i>.<br><br>
She said the imam was recently “stripped searched and placed into a cell
with no bed, no shower and no control over the lights. They have also
taken his Qur’an,” Ms. Al-Amin said. “When he asked a guard when he could
make a phone call, the guard told him in 90 days.”<br><br>
Imam Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, was a founder of the
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He was convicted in
2002 of killing a Georgia sheriff’s deputy and wounding another while
they attempted to serve a warrant for a traffic ticket.<br><br>
“The continued harassment of the imam is a continuation of the
government’s COINTEL program,” Ms. Al-Amin said. The government is also
angry that he continues to preach Islam whenever he enters the prison
population, she said. “It’s just the way they have treated him over the
past 40 years,” Ms. Al-Amin said.<br><br>
In 2001, neo-conservative columnist, Daniel Pipes wrote concerning the
imam: “Even as he sits in a Georgia jail, the Washington-based American
Muslim Council hails him as a leader in the American Muslim
community.”<br><br>
<i>To support Imam Al-Amin’s release from solitary confinement please
write: Warden Ron Wiley, USP Florence ADMAX, U.S. Penitentiary, P.O. Box
8500, Florence, Colo. 81226. The imam’s prison ID number is
99974-555.<br><br>
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