27 March 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Suzanne Ross (917) 584-2135
Gwen Debrow (718) 849-6886
Pam Africa (215) 476-8812

SUPPORTERS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL PROTEST COURT DECISION TO    
DENY HIM A NEW TRIAL AND CALL FOR DEMONSTRATION, FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 5 -7 PM, AT 125TH STREET HARLEM STATE OFFICE BUILDING
       
The Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC) has called on all those outraged by the decision of the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals to deny Abu-Jamal a new trial, to join a street protest tomorrow, Friday March 28th, from 5-7 PM at the Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. State Office Building, 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard. 

The Court did grant Abu-Jamal a new sentencing hearing to determine whether he should be executed or not.  But supporters say the only alternative to execution in such a hearing is for Abu-Jamal to live the rest of his life in prison without any chance of parole, an option they consider totally unacceptable.     

Abu-Jamal was convicted in 1982 for the killing of a cop, in what was widely seen as a farce of a trial.  Mounds of evidence have documented prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, affidavits concocted by the police, and evidence exonerating Abu-Jamal, including recently released photographs shown on the Today Show on December 4, 2007 that contradict the prosecution’s version of what happened in significant ways.  Amnesty International, in its 2000 report on this case, concluded that Abu-Jamal’s trial “clearly failed to meet minimum international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings”.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man who never should have even been arrested let alone convicted and sentenced to death.  A world-renowned journalist and writer, formerly in the Black Panther Party and later a MOVE supporter, Abu-Jamal has been on Death Row for more than a quarter of a century.  His recorded messages and his numerous books have been heard and read around the world.  Calls for a new and fair trial for Abu-Jamal have come from such individuals and organizations as Amnesty International, the Congressional Black Caucus, Harvard University Law School’s Civil Rights Institute, Bishop Desmond Tutu, President Nelson Mandela, President Jacques Chirac, the Japanese Diet, hundreds of British barristers, thousands of artists, writers, and other intellectuals in this country and around the world, as well as millions of young people. 

Reached by telephone, Pam Africa, Coordinator of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, which is based in Abu-Jamal’s hometown of Philadelphia, said, “We will not accept this vicious and outrageous decision to keep an innocent man locked up and silenced.  The conspiracy to kill Mumia even though the government, the judges, the politicians, and everyone involved in this decision knows he is innocent, should be and will be denounced by the whole world. 
The only reason the government wants Mumia killed or locked up for life is because he has been so successful in exposing the hypocrisy, racism, oppression and deadliness of this system”
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