------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Dec. 19, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
IN BALTIMORE, NEW YORK & IRAQ: GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT By Deirdre Griswold Bernard Webster of Baltimore, three New York teenagers and the country of Iraq all have something in common. They have been punished by U.S. authorities for saying they didn't do it. Webster was released Nov. 7 after serving 20 years in prison for a rape that DNA evidence now proves he did not commit. Webster, jailed since the age of 19, had been denied parole five times. Why did the parole board turn down this model prisoner? Because he wouldn't say he was sorry for something that he didn't do. You have to "repent" to get parole. If you continue to say you're not guilty, you are punished for defying the authorities. Three of the five teenagers convicted in the 1989 Central Park jogger case recanted their forced confessions while in prison and told parole boards they were innocent. Same story. Parole denied for not admitting to their "crime." Now the New York district attorney's office has moved to nullify their false convictions--but only after all of them have finished serving their sentences. That's the way the capitalist injustice system works--at home and in foreign policy. The Bush administration insists that Iraq must be punished because it says it has no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's claim, backed up by 12,000 pages of explanation and documentation, is grounds, according to Bush-logic, for the United States to launch a horrible war of conquest against this ancient--and oil-rich--country. No one in the corporate media seems to notice the absurdity of this position. The similarity of these situations is not a coincidence. For people of color in the racist United States--Webster is African American, the New York youth are Latino and Black--you are guilty until proven innocent, no matter what the law books say. And for the countries that have suffered colonization and imperialism at the hands of the industrialized capitalist powers, the same bias applies. Injustice follows oppression and exploitation as surely as the dollar follows the flag. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
