From: nytransfer@igc.apc.org (Blythe Systems)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: NEWS:Struggle to Save Mumia Abu-Jam
Date: 18 Dec 92 17:11:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1471600068:000:3449
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!nytransfer    Dec 18 09:11:00 1992


From: Blythe Systems <nytransfer>
Subject: NEWS:Struggle to Save Mumia Abu-Jam

/* Written 10:02 pm  Dec 17, 1992 by nyt@nyxfer.UUCP in igc:gen.racism */
/* ---------- "NEWS:Struggle to Save Mumia Abu-Jam" ---------- */
Subject: NEWS:Struggle to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
From: nyxfer!nyt (NY Transfer News)

Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit


STRUGGLE TO FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL HEATS UP

By Andy McInerny 
Philadelphia

Movement for a Peoples Assembly activists from New York and State
College, Pa., joined over 500 people here Dec. 9 to demand 
freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal. The demonstration, timed to coincide
with the 11th anniversary of Abu-Jamal's arrest, was organized by
the Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Supporters traveled from Connecticut, New York, Baltimore and 
Washington for one of the first major regional activities to 
support Abu-Jamal, a revolutionary Black journalist currently on 
death row in Huntingdon, Pa., for allegedly shooting a cop.

Abu-Jamal earned the wrath of the state when he exposed police 
brutality, especially the bloody repression of the Philadelphia 
MOVE organization, in articles and radio broadcasts. Despite 
evidence of his innocence, he was sentenced to death in 1982.

Several former political prisoners, including former Black 
Panther Dhoruba bin-Wahad and MOVE member Ramona Africa, spoke at
the Dec. 9 rally. Jane Henderson of the Equal Justice Project of 
the Quixote Center reported on the legal fight to save Abu-Jamal 
from execution, which civil rights lawyer Leonard Weinglass 
recently joined.

Several speakers vowed to make the cities of the United States 
battlegrounds in the fight against the racist system if Abu-Jamal
is executed.

STRUGGLE GROWS

In July a group of Penn State-area activists formed the Committee
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal as a local project of the Movement for a 
Peoples Assembly. Since then, the campaign has successfully 
spotlighted both his case and the racist character of the whole 
U.S. legal system. Thousands in central Pennsylvania now know of 
Abu-Jamal's case, and many are calling for his freedom.

The Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal opened its campaign with a 
September rally featuring Pam Africa from MOVE. MPA activists 
have since tirelessly worked to publicize the case. They 
confronted Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey on Veterans Day, 
demanding justice for Abu-Jamal.

On Dec. 1, over 100 people attended a forum in State College, 
Pa., co-sponsored by the Committee, the Penn State Black Caucus, 
and Students and Youth Against Racism entitled "Racism, Police 
Brutality and State Terror: From Huntingdon to South Africa." The
forum featured a panel including Monica Somocurcio of the MPA;
Huntingdon prisoners' rights activist Phil Bloch; African 
National Congress member Donnie Jurgens; and former Los Angeles 
police officer Don Jackson, who received national attention when 
he went undercover to expose racist police brutality and was 
subsequently videotaped being thrown head first into a 
plate-glass window by a white cop.

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; email: ww%nyxfer@igc.apc.org; "workers"
on PeaceNet; on Internet: "workers@mcimail.com".)


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