------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 7, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
MUMIA: SYMBOL OF STRUGGLE AGAINST GLOBAL REPRESSION By Monica Moorehead The case of revolutionary African American journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal has evolved into a powerful symbol of the struggle against the racist use of the death penalty in the U.S. Tens of thousands of activists here and around the world have for years proclaimed that Abu-Jamal is innocent and his conviction was a political frame-up. Now an authority on criminology has written on the significance of Abu-Jamal's case and the movement to free him. In an op-ed piece in the Jan. 21 Newsday--a daily newspaper read by millions of workers in the New York region--Paul Leighton, assistant professor of criminology at Eastern Michigan University, writes that "Abu-Jamal's case embodies all that's wrong with the death penalty for both sides of the issue. Supporters see Abu-Jamal as wrongly convicted, an all too frequent occurrence fueling support for a moratorium on executions endorsed by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Abu-Jamal's supporters see the black activist (who has no previous arrests for violence) as a symbol of racial oppression, an articulate defendant personifying the statistics that blacks make up 11 percent of the population, 46 percent of prisoners and 54 percent on death row." Leighton co-authored the book "Class, Race, Gender and Crime: Social Realities of Justice in America." In his Newsday piece, "Death Penalty Flunks Fairness Test," Leighton raises the recent ruling of Federal District Court Judge William Yohn, who was assigned to Abu-Jamal's first round of federal appeals. This past December, Yohn threw out Abu-Jamal's original 1982 death sentence. His decision was based mainly on just one of the 29 constitutional rights violations charged in a brief submitted to Yohn's court more than two years ago. However, Yohn did not overturn Abu-Jamal's conviction. Yohn cites "inadequate" instructions by hanging judge Albert Sabo to the jury in the sentencing phase after the first- degree murder conviction. Yohn did not find that Black people had been illegally eliminated from the jury panel during the original trial, but did allow Abu-Jamal's attorneys to file an appeal for additional hearings on this question. Leighton's op-ed says, "Abu-Jamal's death sentence becomes life imprisonment without parole unless the district attorney starts another sentencing hearing within 180 days of the Dec. 18 decision in this case--a difficult task after 20 years." Unfortunately, Leighton did not raise the question of Abu- Jamal's innocence. The courts have so far refused to hear the 1999 videotaped confession by Arnold Beverly, a self- proclaimed hit man for the mob, who says that he killed Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981. Philadelphia courts have refused to hear other eyewitnesses who now say their original testimony against Abu-Jamal was false, made under police pressure. At least 99 people on death row have been released since 1976 on the basis of suppressed evidence that proved their innocence. Most of these wrongly convicted were released without having to go through a new trial. Leighton presents statistics to prove that the U.S. criminal justice system is riddled from top to bottom with bias against people of color. The U.S. has more people on death row than any other industrialized country--an estimated 3,600. NOT A VICTIM BUT A REVOLUTIONARY Why is the state hell-bent on legally lynching Mumia Abu- Jamal? Even before his imprisonment, Abu-Jamal was an award-winning journalist who wrote groundbreaking articles on police brutality. When he joined the Black Panthers as a teenager, it made him a wanted man in the eyes of the Fraternal Order of Police and the FBI. He continues to write from his tiny maximum-security cell on the struggles here and abroad, while simultaneously mapping out a legal strategy for his state and federal appeals. His columns--thought provoking, inspirational and highly political--expose the contradictions endemic to the capitalist system. Many of his columns are moving solidarity statements with working and oppressed peoples waging heroic campaigns against imperialist and neocolonial domination-- from Palestine to Vieques to the young anti-globalization forces. The most progressive and revolutionary currents see the connection between Abu-Jamal and the struggle against corporate exploitation. Racist and political repression by the courts, police, military and the prisons is meant to terrorize those who have the most to gain from overturning this economic system of making profits at the expense of human needs. This is a reality that Leighton does not understand. He says the death penalty "has to be imposed fairly and consistently or not at all." Abu-Jamal is a class-conscious revolutionary who has allowed the movement for social change and justice to hoist his case high to help expose and resist the rotten worldwide system of capitalism. His words and deeds have propelled millions into activism. The challenge for the worldwide movement for social justice is to effectively engage the masses to embrace all of the issues that embody the struggle to free Mumia Abu-Jamal. This includes demanding the abolition of the death penalty as well as police brutality, like that threatened by New York City police against protesters at the billionaire gathering of the World Economic Forum. [Monica Moorehead is a national coordinator of the Millions for Mumia project of the International Action Center.] - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. 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