(AMARC/IFEX) – AMARC joins in international solidarity in demanding a fair trial for US political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, recently granted a stay of execution on the death warrant issued for 2 December 1999. **Updates IFEX alerts of 20 September, 8 August, 7 August, 26 July, 19 July, 14 July and 7 July 1995** According to […]
(AMARC/IFEX) – AMARC joins in international solidarity in demanding a fair
trial for US political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, recently granted a stay of
execution on the death warrant issued for 2 December 1999.
**Updates IFEX alerts of 20 September, 8 August, 7 August, 26 July, 19 July,
14 July and 7 July 1995**
According to Jamal News Service, Federal Judge William H. Yohn, Jr. granted
a stay of execution for Jamal in the Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania.
The stay was granted thirteen days after Governor Ridge of Pennsylvania
signed Jamal’s death warrant and will last until the end of the proceedings
in Federal District Court.
On 15 October, the defendant’s lawyers filed a habeas corpus petition of 150
pages citing some thirty violations of the American constitution that
occurred in Jamal’s trial and appeal.
The stay entitles Jamal to be released from the Phase Two area of the state
correctional institute, Greene County, where he was sent when his death
warrant was signed on 13 October. In Phase Two, Jamal has been under 24-hour
surveillance, subjected to strip searches, a cell with lights on 24 hours a
day, and limited to only one book. Jamal was not allowed any visitors
outside his immediate family and attorneys. Jamal will now return to death
row and await further proceedings before Judge Yohn.
The Philadelphia and Pennsylania Bar Associations’ recently called for a
moratorium on all executions until the state’s death penalty system was
proven just. One of the systemic inequalities has to do with racial
prejudice. While 9% of Pennsylania’s total population is African-American,
the percentage on death row is 62%, or nearly seven times that of the total
population. This is the largest racial disparity of any state in the United
States, reports Jamal News Service.
Since its creation in 1983, AMARC has worked to promote the democratization
of communications. It fulfills its mandate by fostering cooperation and
exchange among community radio stations throughout the world. The AMARC
General Assembly passed a resolution at its World Conference in 1998 to
support the international movement’s work to suspend the death sentence for
Jamal, and to grant him a fair trial.
AMARC member, the Confederation nationale des radios libres (CNRL) brought
the resolution to the table and has been bringing this issue to public
attention internationally for more than ten years. At the announcement of
the death warrant set for 2 December, the CNRL launched an appeal “to refuse
the logic of this crime” and is urging international solidarity to stop the
execution of Jamal.
Jamal, journalist and ex-Black Panther leader, also known as the “voice of
the voiceless”, is the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice and has been
locked in prison for eighteen years, accused of killing a white police
officer in December 1981. He is on death row, condemned as a result of “one
of the most incredible trials in recent history,” according to his lawyer,
Leonard Winglass. The defendant has always claimed his innocence. Jamal is
an award-winning writer acclaimed various times for his work denouncing
racism, the death penalty, the penal system, and acts of repression against
previous members of the Black Panther Party.
Jamal also escaped execution on 28 August 1995, achieved with the help of an
unprecedented international mobilization effort ten days before his
scheduled death. AMARC calls for international solidarity again to ensure
the current stay of execution lasts beyond the Federal Court proceedings,
and that Jamal is finally granted a fair trial.
Recommended Action
Send appeals to authorities:
Appeals To
William (Bill) Clinton
President of the United States of America
Fax: +202 456 2461Janet Reno
Minister of Justice
Fax: +202 514 4371Nicole Fontaine
President of the European Parliament
Fax: +32 2 230 9793Amnesty International
London, United Kingdom
Fax: +44 17 19 56 11 57 / 44 171 413 57 27Copy your correspondence to:
International Support Committee for Political Prisoners
Fax: +45 79 88 44
E-mail: cosimapp@yahoo.fr
Web: www.wasadugu.org
Please copy appeals to AMARC if possible.
