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<font size=3><br>
Y</font><font size=2>esterday we improvised a small action in support of
Mumia that got a fair amount of mainstream radio coverage. Obama is here,
visiting with Calderón, and we went to the National Auditorium, right by
the gates of Campo Marte, the military camp where his helicopter landed,
to deliver a letter urging him to take a stand for justice and freedom in
the case of Mumia and other pps. Of course they didn't let us in to
deliver the letter, and who knows if Obama will ever find out we were
there, but we put it up on the independent media sites and did get an
abbreviated version in the "letters to the editor" section of
the mainstream, semi-leftist La Jornada newspaper. There's been so much
hype in the press for the last week about all the heavy duty security
measures that it was hard to figure out where we could be, or if were
were going to be able to get through the police /military lines at all.
And all the propaganda about 6,000 police and soldiers, sharpshooters,
helicopters, searches of anyone in the zone, etc. definitely had a
chilling effect on the turnout. There were only thirteen of us, but to
our surprise, the access was pretty easy, and we got a kick out of it
because the press </font><font size=3>never comes to our demonstrations,
but today we got there early and they were hanging around waiting for
Obama, so they all came over to talk to us. As we pretty much expected,
the mainsteam tv stations and newspapers ended up doing official promo,
but for a while some of our interviews were buzzing around on the radio
stations. So we ended up feeling pretty good about it. Will send some
pics as soon as I get them. OnaMOVE <br><br>
</font><font size=2> <br>
Here goes the English version of the letter, followed by the Spanish.
<br>
<br>
Dear President Obama: <br>
<br>
On your first visit to Mexico, today April 16, we are writing to urge
<br>
you to take a stand for justice and freedom in the case of political
<br>
prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. It’s shameful that this acclaimed journalist
<br>
and writer is still held in degrading, inhuman conditions on death row
<br>
27 years after his arrest on December 9, 1981! And it’s even more <br>
shameful that the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court of the
<br>
United States, just broke its own precedents in its zeal to deny him the
<br>
new trial he was seeking to establish his innocence in the killing of
<br>
police officer Daniel Faulkner! <br>
<br>
We are among hundreds of thousands of people in the world who share <br>
Mumia Abu-Jamal’s struggle for a better world. We greatly appreciate his
<br>
weekly columns and the six books he’s written during his time on death
<br>
row. We admire his dignity and steadfastness and want to see him free.
<br>
<br>
As of now, the Supreme Court has not responded to the District <br>
Attorney’s petition to reinstate the death penalty, thrown out in 2001
<br>
by federal Judge William Yohn, who ruled that it would be necessary to
<br>
hold a sentencing hearing in the event that the DA moved to reinstate
<br>
the death penalty. His ruling was sustained by the Third Circuit Court
<br>
of Appeals in May of 2008. But now the Philadelphia D.A. intends to <br>
kill him without even so much as a hearing, in collaboration with the
<br>
Fraternal Order of Police, and public officials who will only be <br>
satisfied with his head. What do you think about the threat of a <br>
modern-day lynching, President Obama? <br>
<br>
President Obama, your victory was celebrated all over the world as a
<br>
great step against racism, but as of yet, you haven’t denounced the fact
<br>
that 41% of all the prisoners in the United States and 41.9% of those on
<br>
death row are African American, although they only represent 12.3% of
<br>
the total population. Of all the political prisoners held in your <br>
country, over half are African American. In their political trials, <br>
racism was a major factor. This was definitely true in the case of Mumia
<br>
Abu-Jamal, where D.A. Joseph McGill used 10 of his 15 peremptory <br>
challenges to exclude black candidates from the jury, and where Judge
<br>
Albert Sabo was overheard commenting to his clerk, “I’m going to
help <br>
them fry the n_____”! <br>
<br>
During your campaign, you promised to put an end to torture and civil
rights violations. You also took a stand for the freedom of political
prisoners in Burma, including that of political prisoner Aung San Suu
Kyi. But we haven’t heard you utter a single word of support for Mumia
Abu-Jamal or more than a hundred other political prisoners who have spent
decades of torture, isolation, and denigrating conditions in the dungeons
of your own country, condemned for their political activism. There they
are: Leonard Peltier, the MOVE 9, the San Francisco 8, the Angola 3, the
Puerto Rican independence fighters, The Cuban Five “Los Cinco”, the
anti-imperialists, the Chicano activists, the environmentalists, the
animal rights defenders, and the opponents of the terrible School of the
Americas, along with so many more. Neither have we heard you make a call
for the freedom of more than 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners who
endure constant torture in Israel’s extermination camps. <br>
<br>
As a matter of fact, when the right wing columnist Michael Smerconish
<br>
asked you about Mumia Abu-Jamal during your campaign, you said you <br>
didn’t know much about his case, but that anyone who kills a cop <br>
deserves the death penalty or life in prison. (Philadelphia Inquirer,
<br>
October 10, 2008). Are we to believe that a defender of human rights <b>
<br>
</b>like yourself knows little or nothing about the case of one of the
most <br>
widely supported political prisoners in the world and is not aware of
<br>
all the violations of his constitutional rights during his trial, which
<br>
have been duly registered by a long list of human rights organizations,
<br>
including Amnesty International? <br>
<br>
Please don’t tell us that you agree with the political motives of the
<br>
Fraternal Order of Police and politicians like Pennsylvania Governor
<br>
Edward G. Rendell, District Attorney Lynn Abraham, and Pennsylvania <br>
Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille. These public officials
<br>
who incriminated Mumia Abu-Jamal of homicide are the very people who are
<br>
still in power and block every attempt to achieve justice and freedom in
<br>
his case. You couldn’t possible believe that his membership in the Black
<br>
Panther Party in the ‘60s and his sympathy with the MOVE organization
<br>
constitute a crime, could you? <br>
<br>
President Obama, you have a great opportunity to act on behalf of <br>
justice and freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal and all the political prisoners
<br>
in your country. What do you intend to do? <br>
<br>
Amig@s de Mumia, México <br>
<br>
<br>
Estimado presidente Obama: <br>
<br>
Aprovechamos su visita a México el 16 de abril, para instarle a <br>
pronunciarse por la justicia y libertad en el caso del preso político
<br>
Mumia Abu-Jamal. Es vergonzoso que este aclamado periodista y escritor
<br>
sigue en el corredor de la muerte 27 años después de su detención el 9
<br>
de diciembre de 1981, bajo condiciones inhumanas y denigrantes, y aún
<br>
más vergonzoso que la corte más alta de la nación, la Suprema Corte de
<br>
Estados Unidos, acaba de romper su propios precedentes en su afán de
<br>
negarle un nuevo juicio para comprobar su inocencia en el asesinato del
<br>
policía Daniel Faulkner. <br>
<br>
Somos cientos de miles de personas en el mundo que compartimos la lucha
<br>
de Mumia Abu-Jamal para un mundo mejor. Apreciamos sus columnas <br>
semanales y los seis libros que él ha escrito desde el corredor de la
<br>
muerte. Apreciamos su dignidad y congruencia, y queremos verlo libre.
<br>
<br>
Hasta la fecha, la Corte Suprema no ha respondido a la petición de la
<br>
fiscalía para reimponer la pena de muerte, rechazada por el juez federal
<br>
William Yohn en el 2001, quien había dictado que sería necesario <br>
celebrar una audiencia para determinar su sentencia en el evento de que
<br>
la fiscalía quisiera reimponer la pena de muerte. Su dictamen fue <br>
avalado por el Tribunal Federal de Apelaciones del Tercer Circuito en
<br>
mayo del 2008. Pero ahora la fiscalía de Filadelfia pretende ejecutarlo
<br>
sin audiencia alguna con el respaldo del sindicato de policías y de las
<br>
autoridades públicas que piden su cabeza. ¿Qué opina de la amenaza de
<br>
un linchamiento moderno, presidente Obama? <br>
<br>
Presidente Obama, su victoria fue celebrada en todas partes del mundo
<br>
como un gran avance contra el racismo, pero hasta ahora usted no ha <br>
denunciado la situación de que 41% de todos los presos en Estados Unidos
<br>
y 41.9% de los condenados a la muerte son africano-americanos aunque
<br>
representan sólo 12.3% de la población total del país. De los presos
<br>
políticos, más de la mitad son de la población afro-americana. En <br>
sus juicios políticos, el racismo fue un gran factor. Éste también fue
<br>
el caso en el juicio de Mumia Abu-Jamal, en el cual el fiscal Joseph
<br>
McGill usó 10 de sus 15 vetos perentorios para excluir a los candidatos
<br>
negros del jurado y el juez Albert Sabo dijo: “Les voy a ayudar a freír
<br>
el nigger”. <br>
<br>
Durante su campaña electoral, usted se pronunció por un fin a los abusos
<br>
de las libertades civiles y al régimen de tortura. También se pronunció
<br>
por la libertad de los presos políticos de Burma, inclusive la presa
<br>
política Aung San Suu Kyi. Pero no escuchamos una sola palabra suya en
<br>
apoyo a Mumia Abu-Jamal o más de cien otros presos y presas políticos
<br>
que han pasado décadas de tortura, aislamiento y condiciones <br>
denigrantes en las mazmorras de Estados Unidos, condenados por su <br>
activismo político. Ahí están Leonard Peltier, “los 9 de MOVE”, “los 8
<br>
de San Francisco”, “los 3 de Angola”, los independentistas <br>
puertorriqueños, “los 5 cubanos”, los anti-imperialistas, los activistas
<br>
chicanos, los ecologistas, los defensores de animales, los opositores al
<br>
terrible Escuela de las Américas, y tantos otros. Tampoco escuchamos un
<br>
llamado suyo por la libertad de más de 10,000 presos políticos <br>
palestinos que aguantan las torturas en los campos de exterminación de
<br>
Israel. <br>
<br>
De hecho, cuando el columnista derechista Michael Smerconish le preguntó
<br>
sobre Mumia Abu-Jamal durante su campaña, usted dijo que no sabía mucho
<br>
sobre el caso, pero que “si alguien mata a un policía, él merece la <br>
pena de muerte o cadena perpetua” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 10 de octubre,
<br>
2008). ¿Debemos creer que un defensor de los derechos humanos no conozca
<br>
el caso de uno de los presos políticos con mayor apoyo popular en el
<br>
mundo y que no conozca las múltiples violaciones de derechos <br>
constitucionales en su proceso, señaladas por una larga lista de grupos
<br>
de derechos humanos, inclusive Amnistía Internacional? <br>
<br>
¿Usted está de acuerdo con los motivos políticos de la Organización <br>
Fraternal de Policía y de oficiales como el gobernador de Pennsylvania,
<br>
Edward G. Rendell, la fiscal Lynn Abraham, y el juez principal de la
<br>
Suprema Corte del estado de Pennsylvania, Ronald D. Castille para <br>
incriminar a Mumia Abu-Jamal del homicidio? Ellos son los que siguen en
<br>
poder y obstaculizan cualquier esfuerzo para lograr justicia y libertad
<br>
en su caso. O ¿a caso cree usted que su militancia en los Panteras <br>
Negras en los años ’60 y su simpatía con la organización MOVE <br>
constituyen un crimen? <br>
<br>
Presidente Obama, usted tiene la gran oportunidad de promover justicia y
<br>
libertad para Mumia Abu-Jamal y todos los presos políticos de su país.
<br>
¿Qué piensa hacer al respecto? <br>
<br>
Amig@s de Mumia, México <br>
<b> <br><br>
<br>
</b></font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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