Thursday, February 4, 1999
Death sentence of activist gets global attention
FREEDOM: Organizations, people want another trial for journalist
Abu-Jamal
By Derek Seidman
The controversial case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a black journalist
who has resided on Pennsylvania’s death row for the last 17 years,
is causing a wave of sympathy that scales the globe. The demand for
a new trial echoes from the European parliament, Nelson Mandela,
French prime minister Jacque Chirac, Amnesty International and many
more.
Celebrities all over the country have taken an active stance for
his freedom, including Whoopie Goldberg, Alice Walker and Danny
Glover. His name blares from the speakers of Rage Against the
Machine, Tupac Shakur, Krs-One and the Beastie Boys. The Labor
party, the Oakland city teachers union, the United Farm Workers,
the International Longshoreman’s Union and the San Francisco labor
council have passed resolutions to demand his new trial.
Vicious hit-pieces are delivered toward him from shows like
20/20 and the ABC news networks. Who is this man that is receiving
such mass attention?
In 1981, Mumia Abu-Jamal was driving a cab in the middle of the
night when he saw his brother being brutalized by Philadelphia
police officer Daniel Faulkner. Mumia got out of his car and
approached the scene. A few moments later, Mumia lay shot; the
officer had been killed. Mumia was brought to the hospital and was
later tried and convicted for murder.
He was sentenced to death and is now months away from being
executed by lethal injection. At first glance this may not seem to
be anything that would ignite much controversy, but Mumia’s case is
not colored in black and white. He has had a target on his head
ever since he was 14, when he was a founder of the Black Panthers
in Philadelphia. Later, he became a journalist and specialized in
exposing police brutality and government corruption.
Mumia was rapidly gaining prominence in this field until the
night of the crime. After he was brought to the hospital, two
police officers claimed Mumia confessed to the killing – but these
officers did not report this until two months after the incident,
claiming they were "distressed!"
This absurd story was counterpoised by a security guard, who was
with Mumia the whole time. He said, "The Negro male made no
comments." The police also failed to perform rudimentary procedures
that would have proved Mumia innocent, such as testing his gun to
see if it had been fired recently and examining his hand to see if
it had any powder on it.
The most flagrant injustice began at Mumia’s trial. The judge
for his case was Albert Sabo, a former member of the Philadelphia
Fraternal Order of Police, who I believe to be a notoriously
pro-prosecution judge.
Several lawyers have stated that no black man could ever get a
fair trial in Sabo’s court. He has also put twice as many people to
death than any other judge in the country, with 30 out of the 32 he
sentenced being black.
Mumia was appointed an inexperienced attorney, who failed to
interview a single witness and was not even allocated enough funds
to perform any forensics tests. He pleaded to the court, saying he
was not prepared, but this was ignored. When Mumia tried to defend
himself, his right was taken away by Judge Sabo. The jury, which
was all white except for two jurors, convicted Mumia and he was
sentenced to death.
Since the trial, amazing evidence has surfaced that might prove
Mumia’s innocence. The bullet that was found in the dead officer
was a .44 caliber. Mumia’s gun was a .38 caliber, possibly proving
that the fatal bullet could not have been fired from his gun. Now
new evidence suggests that the cops switched the bullet and
replaced it with a shattered one, which would be harder to
read.
Several key witnesses who had testified against Mumia at his
trial have come out and said that they were physically coerced by
the police to state Mumia’s guilt. One especially, Veronica Jones,
has come out on video, claiming the cops threatened to take away
her kids if she didn’t oblige.
The evidence goes on and on, and as you can see, Mumia’s trial
is laced with fraud, discrimination and injustice. But why is his
case drawing such a huge tidal wave of support? Why is the case of
one innocent man on death row, convicted of a murder he did not
commit, so significant?
Mumia is being persecuted because he dared to speak out against
the corruption and racism that is embedded in our society. He dared
to expose the atrocities that riddle his people, the violent
brutality that destroys not only the black community but working
people all over the world. He dared to expose the violent,
profit-driven raiding-of-the-world and a blatant neglect for human
life that is committed by the United States. And now, Mumia dares
to expose the evils and underlying threads of the death penalty and
the prison system.
He has been labeled "the voice of the voiceless." No one says it
better than Mumia, regarding the relentless drive of the government
to murder him: "They don’t want my death, they want my
silence."
The Student Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal meets on
Tuesdays at 7 p.m. at Ackerman 2410. They will be having a video
showing of the award winning documentary "Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case
for a Reasonable Doubt" this Friday in Ackerman 3517 at 7 p.m.
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