29.3.08
US: Death sentence postponed for Mumia Abu-Jamal
By Naomi Spencer
World Socialist Web Site, 29 March 2008
A US federal court issued a ruling Thursday in the case of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted of murder in the 1981 shooting death of a Philadelphia police officer.
Upholding in all respects a 2001 decision, a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit appeals court in Pennsylvania ruled against a reinstatement of Abu-Jamal’s death sentence, while upholding his murder conviction. The latest ruling was in response to appeals from both Abu-Jamal and the State of Pennsylvania after the 2001 ruling.
The court also rejected Abu-Jamal’s request for a new trial. Instead the court called for either a sentencing of life in prison, or a new penalty hearing within six months—at which a new jury could decide only whether Abu-Jamal should be re-sentenced either to death or life without parole.
The appeals court ruled in Abu-Jamal’s favor only in the sense that his execution has again been temporarily delayed. At the same time, the injustice of the case is perpetuated. Indeed, the bulk of the 118-page Third Circuit ruling was devoted to reaffirming the original charges against the longtime anti-death penalty activist, journalist, and former Black Panther Party member, and dismissing overwhelmingly contradictory evidence.
Abu-Jamal, now 53 years old, has been on death row for nearly half of his life. He has maintained his innocence throughout his decades of incarceration, and has become well known around the world as a journalist and opponent of capital punishment.
He was arrested in 1981 after the murder of Daniel Faulkner, a young police officer who had detained Abu-Jamal’s brother in an early morning traffic stop. Abu-Jamal, a taxi driver at the time, happened upon the scene and saw his brother had been beaten. As Abu-Jamal intervened, both he and Faulkner were shot. Faulkner was killed, and Abu-Jamal was hospitalized, charged with murder, and subjected to a trial compromised by false testimony and racism.
Abu-Jamal has appealed his conviction numerous times over the years. In 1989, he challenged that the prosecution had systematically excluded jurors during the selection process based solely on their race. That appeal for rehearing was rejected by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court at the time, but was considered in arguments by the Third Circuit.
The 1982 prosecution relied on witness testimony asserting that Abu-Jamal was the only person on the scene who could have committed the killing, that a gun in his possession was the murder weapon, and that he allegedly confessed to the killing at the hospital.
All of these elements of the prosecution’s case have been contradicted by evidence that emerged in the mid-1990s during a series of review hearings. Among the most damning revelations was the sworn deposition of a man named Arnold Beverly, who said he had shot Faulkner under the pay of corrupt police officers with ties to local mafia, whose activity Faulkner was disrupting.
The testimony of witnesses from the hospital where Abu-Jamal allegedly confessed was also refuted by these same witnesses, including one police officer who admitted that he had originally filed a report stating that Abu-Jamal had made no comments, but changed the report after meeting with prosecutors. Other witnesses admitted they had been coerced by police and the prosecutor’s office into giving false testimony.
In addition, basic facts were omitted from the original trial, including Faulkner’s autopsy, which found that the bullet removed from the police officer’s brain was a .44 caliber. Mumia’s gun was a .38 and could not have fired this larger caliber bullet.
In the March 27 decision, however, all the original distortions remained. Abu-Jamal, the court stated, “shot Officer Faulkner in the back” as he approached the scene, then, “standing over Officer Faulkner, fired four shots at close range.” The court repeated claims that he menaced other officers who arrived, resisted arrest, and bragged in the presence of police about the killing while in critical condition at the emergency room.
The court did rule that the jury decision was influenced by a “flaw” in jury instructions, whereby jury members were told they had to unanimously agree on mitigating circumstances in the case, which would have lessened Abu-Jamal’s sentence.
“The jury instructions and the verdict form created a reasonable likelihood that the jury believed it was precluded from finding a mitigating circumstance that had not been unanimously agreed upon,” chief judge Anthony Scirica wrote for the court. The mitigating circumstance in the case was Abu-Jamal’s lack of a criminal record and long history of activism against violence.
The three judges for the Third Circuit court were somewhat divided in their decision regarding one of Abu-Jamal’s contentions, regarding the racial composition of the jury in the original trial. The court ruled that Abu-Jamal “waived his objection” to the prosecution’s use of challenges during jury impanelment “by failing to make a contemporaneous objection during jury selection.”
However, one judge, Thomas Ambro, wrote that he would have granted Abu-Jamal a hearing on jury selection. “To move past the prima facie case is not to throw open the jailhouse doors and overturn Abu-Jamal’s conviction,” he wrote. “It is merely to take the next step in deciding whether race was impermissibly considered during jury selection.”
Reacting to the ruling Thursday, Abu-Jamal’s lead attorney, Robert Bryan, told the press, “I’ve never seen a case as permeated and riddled with racism as this one. I want a new trial and I want him free. His conviction was a travesty of justice.”
World Socialist Web Site, 29 March 2008
A US federal court issued a ruling Thursday in the case of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted of murder in the 1981 shooting death of a Philadelphia police officer.
Upholding in all respects a 2001 decision, a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit appeals court in Pennsylvania ruled against a reinstatement of Abu-Jamal’s death sentence, while upholding his murder conviction. The latest ruling was in response to appeals from both Abu-Jamal and the State of Pennsylvania after the 2001 ruling.
The court also rejected Abu-Jamal’s request for a new trial. Instead the court called for either a sentencing of life in prison, or a new penalty hearing within six months—at which a new jury could decide only whether Abu-Jamal should be re-sentenced either to death or life without parole.
The appeals court ruled in Abu-Jamal’s favor only in the sense that his execution has again been temporarily delayed. At the same time, the injustice of the case is perpetuated. Indeed, the bulk of the 118-page Third Circuit ruling was devoted to reaffirming the original charges against the longtime anti-death penalty activist, journalist, and former Black Panther Party member, and dismissing overwhelmingly contradictory evidence.
Abu-Jamal, now 53 years old, has been on death row for nearly half of his life. He has maintained his innocence throughout his decades of incarceration, and has become well known around the world as a journalist and opponent of capital punishment.
He was arrested in 1981 after the murder of Daniel Faulkner, a young police officer who had detained Abu-Jamal’s brother in an early morning traffic stop. Abu-Jamal, a taxi driver at the time, happened upon the scene and saw his brother had been beaten. As Abu-Jamal intervened, both he and Faulkner were shot. Faulkner was killed, and Abu-Jamal was hospitalized, charged with murder, and subjected to a trial compromised by false testimony and racism.
Abu-Jamal has appealed his conviction numerous times over the years. In 1989, he challenged that the prosecution had systematically excluded jurors during the selection process based solely on their race. That appeal for rehearing was rejected by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court at the time, but was considered in arguments by the Third Circuit.
The 1982 prosecution relied on witness testimony asserting that Abu-Jamal was the only person on the scene who could have committed the killing, that a gun in his possession was the murder weapon, and that he allegedly confessed to the killing at the hospital.
All of these elements of the prosecution’s case have been contradicted by evidence that emerged in the mid-1990s during a series of review hearings. Among the most damning revelations was the sworn deposition of a man named Arnold Beverly, who said he had shot Faulkner under the pay of corrupt police officers with ties to local mafia, whose activity Faulkner was disrupting.
The testimony of witnesses from the hospital where Abu-Jamal allegedly confessed was also refuted by these same witnesses, including one police officer who admitted that he had originally filed a report stating that Abu-Jamal had made no comments, but changed the report after meeting with prosecutors. Other witnesses admitted they had been coerced by police and the prosecutor’s office into giving false testimony.
In addition, basic facts were omitted from the original trial, including Faulkner’s autopsy, which found that the bullet removed from the police officer’s brain was a .44 caliber. Mumia’s gun was a .38 and could not have fired this larger caliber bullet.
In the March 27 decision, however, all the original distortions remained. Abu-Jamal, the court stated, “shot Officer Faulkner in the back” as he approached the scene, then, “standing over Officer Faulkner, fired four shots at close range.” The court repeated claims that he menaced other officers who arrived, resisted arrest, and bragged in the presence of police about the killing while in critical condition at the emergency room.
The court did rule that the jury decision was influenced by a “flaw” in jury instructions, whereby jury members were told they had to unanimously agree on mitigating circumstances in the case, which would have lessened Abu-Jamal’s sentence.
“The jury instructions and the verdict form created a reasonable likelihood that the jury believed it was precluded from finding a mitigating circumstance that had not been unanimously agreed upon,” chief judge Anthony Scirica wrote for the court. The mitigating circumstance in the case was Abu-Jamal’s lack of a criminal record and long history of activism against violence.
The three judges for the Third Circuit court were somewhat divided in their decision regarding one of Abu-Jamal’s contentions, regarding the racial composition of the jury in the original trial. The court ruled that Abu-Jamal “waived his objection” to the prosecution’s use of challenges during jury impanelment “by failing to make a contemporaneous objection during jury selection.”
However, one judge, Thomas Ambro, wrote that he would have granted Abu-Jamal a hearing on jury selection. “To move past the prima facie case is not to throw open the jailhouse doors and overturn Abu-Jamal’s conviction,” he wrote. “It is merely to take the next step in deciding whether race was impermissibly considered during jury selection.”
Reacting to the ruling Thursday, Abu-Jamal’s lead attorney, Robert Bryan, told the press, “I’ve never seen a case as permeated and riddled with racism as this one. I want a new trial and I want him free. His conviction was a travesty of justice.”
28.3.08
The political issues in the fight to defend Mumia Abu-Jamal
World Socialist Web Site, 26 February 1999
The following statement was issued February 25 by the Socialist Equality Party of the US.
The broadest possible support must be won in the United States and internationally to oppose the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, demand a new trial and fight for the freedom of this political prisoner who has spent more than 16 years on death row.
The case of Abu-Jamal has become a focal point of opposition, both in America and around the world, to the barbaric practice of capital punishment. He is one among thousands sitting on death row in the US.
The assembly-line killings of prisoners, together with the repeated instances of police torture and murder--such as the shooting death of 22-year-old African immigrant Amadou Diallo in New York City--are correctly seen by people around the world as symptoms of a diseased society.
Despite overwhelming evidence of Abu-Jamal's innocence, the authorities are determined to carry out the final act in their vendetta against the former Black Panther Party member. The planned state murder of Abu-Jamal is part of a deepening assault on basic democratic rights. It would be an infamous act, the first execution of a political prisoner since the electrocution of the Rosenbergs in 1953.
The ominous implications of this case were underscored in January, when the Republican governor of New Jersey, Christine Todd Whitman, led a political witch-hunt against a benefit concert in behalf of Abu-Jamal held at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey. New York State Senator Serphin Maltese accused the audience of being "pro-cop killer." Statements by politicians and police officials amounted to thinly veiled incitements to violence against Abu-Jamal's supporters.
This episode revealed the essence of the persecution of Abu-Jamal--the attempt on the part of the political establishment and the media to criminalize opposition to the status quo among working people, the poor and racial minorities. By executing the former radio journalist, they are out to set an example, to intimidate and silence opponents of the right-wing policies being carried out by both big business parties and all of the institutions of the government--Congress, the judiciary and the White House.
As far as the American authorities are concerned, high profile executions, besides demonstrating the repressive power of the state, have an additional political benefit. They are considered an effective means of brutalizing the public. A population which sees the American government put people to death on a daily basis will more easily be inured to accept the violent actions of US military forces around the world and the appalling conditions which face millions of impoverished people at home.
Already the American government drops bombs with impunity on a virtually defenseless Iraq and enforces sanctions that kill thousands of children every month, with little public protest. Within the US, homeless people are treated as criminals, so-called "illegal aliens" are deported, jailed and brutalized, welfare mothers are stripped of their benefits and forced to work for poverty wages. Those responsible for such policies seek consciously to benumb the social and moral sensibilities of the population, as they prepare to escalate their attacks on working people both at home and abroad.
It is undeniable that there is widespread support in America today for the death penalty. This is an expression of the prevailing reactionary political climate and the disorientation of broad layers of the population, who are effectively disenfranchised by a political system dominated by two big business parties. Faced with enormous social problems--declining living standards, economic insecurity, deteriorating schools--and lacking any broad-based, socially progressive alternative in the political arena, sections of the population are vulnerable to demagogues who offer simplistic solutions.
But such political confusion is not permanent. It can and must be overcome. The immense contradictions of American capitalism create powerful conditions for the development of a mass movement against the profit system. Indeed, the systematic effort of the ruling class to build up the repressive powers of the state is driven by fears of a coming social explosion.
The most important social fact of the last quarter century has been the staggering polarization of American society between a wealthy elite, which has enriched itself enormously, and the vast majority of the population, millions of whom already live in poverty, while millions more are struggling just to make ends meet. The wealthy few control the Democratic and Republican parties, the media conglomerates and every official institution of American life. The entire life of the country is organized around their needs.
Democratic forms of rule are increasingly incompatible with these vast differences in wealth and income. The deepening class antagonism between the ruling elite and the mass of working people is the driving force behind the intensification of police brutality, the buildup of the prisons, the accelerated pace of executions. The victims of the death penalty--white, black, Hispanic or immigrant--have one thing in common: almost without exception they are drawn from the poorest strata of the population.
The Democratic Party, as well as the Republican, is up to its neck in the assault on democratic rights. Clinton campaigned in 1992 as a new kind of law-and-order, right-wing Democrat. So that there would be no doubt about his support for capital punishment, he went back to Arkansas during the campaign to preside over an execution. The Effective Death Penalty Act, a reactionary bipartisan measure signed by Clinton in 1996, blocks federal courts from examining the evidence in state trials, undermining the rights of death row prisoners.
On every front--attacks on the right of habeas corpus, immigrants' rights, free speech on the Internet, increasing the scope of wiretapping--Clinton has lined up with the FBI, the police and the right wing. He is now calling for hundreds of millions of dollars to pursue the fight against "terrorism." This is part of an effort to create an atmosphere of panic in which further inroads against civil liberties can be made.
The Democratic Party has demonstrated its inability to defend democratic rights even when its own immediate interests are threatened, as in the Starr investigation and the impeachment drive against the Clinton White House. Fully aware that the impeachment trial was the product of a right-wing political conspiracy, congressional Democrats and Clinton himself refrained from any effort to expose the neo-fascist elements, both inside and outside the Republican Party, who set these events in motion.
The defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal and other victims of state repression cannot be based on appeals to Democratic Party politicians and liberal circles within the ruling elite, or reliance on a judicial system which is a stronghold of the ultra-right. Democratic rights can be defended only through a struggle to mobilize the great social force that is being driven into battle against the profit system and its political representatives. That social force is the working class.
In order to generate a broad movement both within the United States and internationally against the state murder of Mumia Abu-Jamal, his defense must be linked to the social questions that confront the masses of working people: poverty, economic insecurity, social inequality. On the basis of such a struggle, ever broader layers of the population will come to understand that the same forces victimizing Abu-Jamal are victimizing the entire working class, and that the law-and-order witch-hunt directed against him is aimed at the rights of all working people.
Such an orientation will lay the foundations for a powerful anti-capitalist political movement. Once the working class begins to move as a class, once it begins to sense its strength and identify its independent interests, many questions will begin to be clarified, including the death penalty. Such a perspective is a certain, and, in fact, the only basis for overcoming divisions based on race, nationality and ethnicity.
History demonstrates that only the intervention of wide layers of the population acting on their own program and in their own interests can bring about a radical change in the political and social situation. This, in our view, must be the perspective guiding the defense of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
The following statement was issued February 25 by the Socialist Equality Party of the US.
The broadest possible support must be won in the United States and internationally to oppose the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, demand a new trial and fight for the freedom of this political prisoner who has spent more than 16 years on death row.
The case of Abu-Jamal has become a focal point of opposition, both in America and around the world, to the barbaric practice of capital punishment. He is one among thousands sitting on death row in the US.
The assembly-line killings of prisoners, together with the repeated instances of police torture and murder--such as the shooting death of 22-year-old African immigrant Amadou Diallo in New York City--are correctly seen by people around the world as symptoms of a diseased society.
Despite overwhelming evidence of Abu-Jamal's innocence, the authorities are determined to carry out the final act in their vendetta against the former Black Panther Party member. The planned state murder of Abu-Jamal is part of a deepening assault on basic democratic rights. It would be an infamous act, the first execution of a political prisoner since the electrocution of the Rosenbergs in 1953.
The ominous implications of this case were underscored in January, when the Republican governor of New Jersey, Christine Todd Whitman, led a political witch-hunt against a benefit concert in behalf of Abu-Jamal held at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey. New York State Senator Serphin Maltese accused the audience of being "pro-cop killer." Statements by politicians and police officials amounted to thinly veiled incitements to violence against Abu-Jamal's supporters.
This episode revealed the essence of the persecution of Abu-Jamal--the attempt on the part of the political establishment and the media to criminalize opposition to the status quo among working people, the poor and racial minorities. By executing the former radio journalist, they are out to set an example, to intimidate and silence opponents of the right-wing policies being carried out by both big business parties and all of the institutions of the government--Congress, the judiciary and the White House.
As far as the American authorities are concerned, high profile executions, besides demonstrating the repressive power of the state, have an additional political benefit. They are considered an effective means of brutalizing the public. A population which sees the American government put people to death on a daily basis will more easily be inured to accept the violent actions of US military forces around the world and the appalling conditions which face millions of impoverished people at home.
Already the American government drops bombs with impunity on a virtually defenseless Iraq and enforces sanctions that kill thousands of children every month, with little public protest. Within the US, homeless people are treated as criminals, so-called "illegal aliens" are deported, jailed and brutalized, welfare mothers are stripped of their benefits and forced to work for poverty wages. Those responsible for such policies seek consciously to benumb the social and moral sensibilities of the population, as they prepare to escalate their attacks on working people both at home and abroad.
It is undeniable that there is widespread support in America today for the death penalty. This is an expression of the prevailing reactionary political climate and the disorientation of broad layers of the population, who are effectively disenfranchised by a political system dominated by two big business parties. Faced with enormous social problems--declining living standards, economic insecurity, deteriorating schools--and lacking any broad-based, socially progressive alternative in the political arena, sections of the population are vulnerable to demagogues who offer simplistic solutions.
But such political confusion is not permanent. It can and must be overcome. The immense contradictions of American capitalism create powerful conditions for the development of a mass movement against the profit system. Indeed, the systematic effort of the ruling class to build up the repressive powers of the state is driven by fears of a coming social explosion.
The most important social fact of the last quarter century has been the staggering polarization of American society between a wealthy elite, which has enriched itself enormously, and the vast majority of the population, millions of whom already live in poverty, while millions more are struggling just to make ends meet. The wealthy few control the Democratic and Republican parties, the media conglomerates and every official institution of American life. The entire life of the country is organized around their needs.
Democratic forms of rule are increasingly incompatible with these vast differences in wealth and income. The deepening class antagonism between the ruling elite and the mass of working people is the driving force behind the intensification of police brutality, the buildup of the prisons, the accelerated pace of executions. The victims of the death penalty--white, black, Hispanic or immigrant--have one thing in common: almost without exception they are drawn from the poorest strata of the population.
The Democratic Party, as well as the Republican, is up to its neck in the assault on democratic rights. Clinton campaigned in 1992 as a new kind of law-and-order, right-wing Democrat. So that there would be no doubt about his support for capital punishment, he went back to Arkansas during the campaign to preside over an execution. The Effective Death Penalty Act, a reactionary bipartisan measure signed by Clinton in 1996, blocks federal courts from examining the evidence in state trials, undermining the rights of death row prisoners.
On every front--attacks on the right of habeas corpus, immigrants' rights, free speech on the Internet, increasing the scope of wiretapping--Clinton has lined up with the FBI, the police and the right wing. He is now calling for hundreds of millions of dollars to pursue the fight against "terrorism." This is part of an effort to create an atmosphere of panic in which further inroads against civil liberties can be made.
The Democratic Party has demonstrated its inability to defend democratic rights even when its own immediate interests are threatened, as in the Starr investigation and the impeachment drive against the Clinton White House. Fully aware that the impeachment trial was the product of a right-wing political conspiracy, congressional Democrats and Clinton himself refrained from any effort to expose the neo-fascist elements, both inside and outside the Republican Party, who set these events in motion.
The defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal and other victims of state repression cannot be based on appeals to Democratic Party politicians and liberal circles within the ruling elite, or reliance on a judicial system which is a stronghold of the ultra-right. Democratic rights can be defended only through a struggle to mobilize the great social force that is being driven into battle against the profit system and its political representatives. That social force is the working class.
In order to generate a broad movement both within the United States and internationally against the state murder of Mumia Abu-Jamal, his defense must be linked to the social questions that confront the masses of working people: poverty, economic insecurity, social inequality. On the basis of such a struggle, ever broader layers of the population will come to understand that the same forces victimizing Abu-Jamal are victimizing the entire working class, and that the law-and-order witch-hunt directed against him is aimed at the rights of all working people.
Such an orientation will lay the foundations for a powerful anti-capitalist political movement. Once the working class begins to move as a class, once it begins to sense its strength and identify its independent interests, many questions will begin to be clarified, including the death penalty. Such a perspective is a certain, and, in fact, the only basis for overcoming divisions based on race, nationality and ethnicity.
History demonstrates that only the intervention of wide layers of the population acting on their own program and in their own interests can bring about a radical change in the political and social situation. This, in our view, must be the perspective guiding the defense of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
The fight to free Mumia Abu-Jamal and the defense of democratic rights
Statement of the Socialist Equality Party of the US
World Socialist Web Site, 23 April 1999
The defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal has become a focal point of the struggle in the United States and internationally against political repression, racism and capital punishment. The issues in his case go to the defense of democratic rights as a whole and the fight for social justice. It is critical that the campaign against the execution of this political prisoner, to secure a new trial and win his freedom, be broadened to involve ever wider layers of working people, youth and students.
Well before his 1982 frame-up, Mumia was targeted for persecution by the FBI, former mayor Frank Rizzo and the Philadelphia police department because of his outspoken opposition to police brutality and racism. Since his imprisonment Mumia has been a courageous and articulate opponent of capital punishment and the inhuman treatment of prisoners.
There should be no illusions about the intent of the authorities. They are determined to carry out the final act of their political vendetta against Mumia and to silence him once and for all. His execution would have far-ranging consequences. Such a high-profile state killing, the first execution of a political prisoner in decades, would signal an intensification of political repression and further restrictions on democratic and civil rights. The authorities aim to make an example of Mumia and create an atmosphere of intimidation and fear to curtail all forms of dissent.
The connection between the persecution of Mumia and the wider attack on democratic rights is underscored by the campaign by politicians and police officials to stop the protest movement against Mumia's execution. Last January New Jersey Governor Whitman led a witch-hunt against the benefit concert for Mumia in East Rutherford. In New York City Mayor Giuliani's police have broken up meetings called to build support for Mumia. Most recently, Philadelphia Mayor Rendell attempted to restrict the number of participants in the April 24 march to 500, and prevent supporters from publicizing the protest the night before in many downtown areas.
In taking forward the struggle to defend Mumia, it is above all necessary to grasp the connection between his case and the social and political crisis in America that underlies it. The growing assault on democratic rights is rooted in the pervasive inequality that plagues American society. The US today has the greatest disparities of wealth of any major industrial country. A small elite headed up by Wall Street speculators, bankers and corporate executives amasses ever-greater levels of private wealth, while the vast majority of working people face an ever more difficult struggle to support their families.
Over the past 20 years workers have seen their living standards stagnate or decline. It takes both spouses working, often holding down multiple jobs and working long hours of overtime, just to put food on the table and pay the rent or mortgage. In the midst of an unprecedented boom in corporate profits and share values on the stock market, huge social problems fester and grow more malignant. The media, in its delirium over the spectacular bull market, ignores the worsening crises in health care (43 million Americans with no insurance), housing and education, and pays little heed to the growth of poverty, hunger and homelessness. The greatest impact falls on young workers and children, whose poverty rates are soaring.
The entire political establishment, including both big business parties, barely makes a pretense of concern for the plight of the great mass of working people. All of its policies are concentrated on sustaining a "business climate" which props up the stock market and favors the rich, through tax cuts for the wealthy and the gutting of social programs.
Beneath the surface veneer of prosperity, the class contradictions of American society are intensifying. In the final analysis such levels of social inequality are incompatible with democracy. A political establishment that is neither willing nor able to meet the needs of the vast majority of the population is increasingly compelled to rely on brute force to defend the economic elite.
It is no accident that the economic changes of the last 20 years have been accompanied by the ascendancy of the politics of reaction and repression: law-and-order, the criminalization of the poor, the prosecution of children as adults. The glorification of the capitalist market finds its most grotesque political expression in the assembly line of state executions, occurring almost on a weekly basis.
Political reaction at home goes hand in hand with the growth of militarism abroad. Is it a mere coincidence that the advanced industrialized country with the highest percentage of its population locked up behind bars is also the world's biggest international bully? The modus operandi of American foreign policy--attacking one weak and virtually defenseless nation after another--is entirely in keeping with the methods of brutality and repression employed against large sections of the population at home. The eruption of US militarism now finds its bloody expression in the NATO war against Yugoslavia.
The Clinton administration is making clear that the war in the Balkans is only the first of many future military interventions around the world which the United States will conduct in the name of "human rights." But as the worldwide campaign against the frame-up of Mumia and the growing international criticism of US executions and police murders demonstrate, America is increasingly becoming the symbol, not of freedom and human rights, but of police brutality, social reaction and racism.
Social inequality and political repression at home, imperialist war abroad--these conditions will inevitably produce great struggles within the United States. There are already many indications of rising popular discontent. Thousands of working people and youth in the US and internationally are participating in protests and work stoppages to demand Mumia's freedom. In New York City numerous protests have been carried out against the police murder of the 22-year-old African immigrant, Amadou Diallo. Despite the lies of the Pentagon, the White House and the news media, there is growing discontent over the war in the Balkans.
Those who wish to defend Mumia Abu-Jamal and oppose the abuse of democratic rights must find the means to link his case in the consciousness of broad layers of the population to the great social issues which masses of working people confront. The central issue is question of program, perspective and leadership. On what political basis must this struggle be pursued?
The great lesson of the movements of the 1960s is that the evils of American society cannot be redressed simply through protests and moral appeals to the powers-that-be. As long as the economic and political power remains in the hands of the ruling elite, social justice cannot be attained.
The Clinton administration has been the clearest proof of the dead-end of a political perspective that accepts the domination of the working people by the two big business parties, and bases itself on appeals to the Democratic Party in particular. Clinton has championed the death penalty and law-and-order repression, while embracing anti-democratic proposals from the Effective Death Penalty Act, to so-called anti-terrorism bills, to attacks on immigrants' rights. Nor can the judiciary, which has become a bastion of the ultra-right, be relied on to provide justice.
The great social force that has the potential to fundamentally change society in the interests of the vast majority of the people is the working class. But this can only occur when working people unite as an independent political force by breaking with the Democrats and building a mass political party of their own. Such a party, based on a socialist program, must fight for economic justice and social equality, for an end to racism and an expansion of democratic rights, above all by establishing the democratic control of the working people over society's resources.
The key to building a movement to free Mumia is to turn to the masses of working people on the basis of an independent political program that addresses the great social issues of the day: the fight for jobs, housing, education and health care, and the struggle against militarism. On the basis of such a struggle, ever broader layers of the population will come to understand that the same forces that are victimizing Mumia are victimizing the entire working class, and that the law-and-order witch-hunt against directed against him is aimed at the rights of all working people.
No one should underestimate the determination of the authorities, or the seriousness of the struggle that lies ahead. In so far as the fight to defend Mumia identifies itself with the broadest layers of working people and provides them with a political road forward, the struggle to save him will be enormously strengthened.
World Socialist Web Site, 23 April 1999
The defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal has become a focal point of the struggle in the United States and internationally against political repression, racism and capital punishment. The issues in his case go to the defense of democratic rights as a whole and the fight for social justice. It is critical that the campaign against the execution of this political prisoner, to secure a new trial and win his freedom, be broadened to involve ever wider layers of working people, youth and students.
Well before his 1982 frame-up, Mumia was targeted for persecution by the FBI, former mayor Frank Rizzo and the Philadelphia police department because of his outspoken opposition to police brutality and racism. Since his imprisonment Mumia has been a courageous and articulate opponent of capital punishment and the inhuman treatment of prisoners.
There should be no illusions about the intent of the authorities. They are determined to carry out the final act of their political vendetta against Mumia and to silence him once and for all. His execution would have far-ranging consequences. Such a high-profile state killing, the first execution of a political prisoner in decades, would signal an intensification of political repression and further restrictions on democratic and civil rights. The authorities aim to make an example of Mumia and create an atmosphere of intimidation and fear to curtail all forms of dissent.
The connection between the persecution of Mumia and the wider attack on democratic rights is underscored by the campaign by politicians and police officials to stop the protest movement against Mumia's execution. Last January New Jersey Governor Whitman led a witch-hunt against the benefit concert for Mumia in East Rutherford. In New York City Mayor Giuliani's police have broken up meetings called to build support for Mumia. Most recently, Philadelphia Mayor Rendell attempted to restrict the number of participants in the April 24 march to 500, and prevent supporters from publicizing the protest the night before in many downtown areas.
In taking forward the struggle to defend Mumia, it is above all necessary to grasp the connection between his case and the social and political crisis in America that underlies it. The growing assault on democratic rights is rooted in the pervasive inequality that plagues American society. The US today has the greatest disparities of wealth of any major industrial country. A small elite headed up by Wall Street speculators, bankers and corporate executives amasses ever-greater levels of private wealth, while the vast majority of working people face an ever more difficult struggle to support their families.
Over the past 20 years workers have seen their living standards stagnate or decline. It takes both spouses working, often holding down multiple jobs and working long hours of overtime, just to put food on the table and pay the rent or mortgage. In the midst of an unprecedented boom in corporate profits and share values on the stock market, huge social problems fester and grow more malignant. The media, in its delirium over the spectacular bull market, ignores the worsening crises in health care (43 million Americans with no insurance), housing and education, and pays little heed to the growth of poverty, hunger and homelessness. The greatest impact falls on young workers and children, whose poverty rates are soaring.
The entire political establishment, including both big business parties, barely makes a pretense of concern for the plight of the great mass of working people. All of its policies are concentrated on sustaining a "business climate" which props up the stock market and favors the rich, through tax cuts for the wealthy and the gutting of social programs.
Beneath the surface veneer of prosperity, the class contradictions of American society are intensifying. In the final analysis such levels of social inequality are incompatible with democracy. A political establishment that is neither willing nor able to meet the needs of the vast majority of the population is increasingly compelled to rely on brute force to defend the economic elite.
It is no accident that the economic changes of the last 20 years have been accompanied by the ascendancy of the politics of reaction and repression: law-and-order, the criminalization of the poor, the prosecution of children as adults. The glorification of the capitalist market finds its most grotesque political expression in the assembly line of state executions, occurring almost on a weekly basis.
Political reaction at home goes hand in hand with the growth of militarism abroad. Is it a mere coincidence that the advanced industrialized country with the highest percentage of its population locked up behind bars is also the world's biggest international bully? The modus operandi of American foreign policy--attacking one weak and virtually defenseless nation after another--is entirely in keeping with the methods of brutality and repression employed against large sections of the population at home. The eruption of US militarism now finds its bloody expression in the NATO war against Yugoslavia.
The Clinton administration is making clear that the war in the Balkans is only the first of many future military interventions around the world which the United States will conduct in the name of "human rights." But as the worldwide campaign against the frame-up of Mumia and the growing international criticism of US executions and police murders demonstrate, America is increasingly becoming the symbol, not of freedom and human rights, but of police brutality, social reaction and racism.
Social inequality and political repression at home, imperialist war abroad--these conditions will inevitably produce great struggles within the United States. There are already many indications of rising popular discontent. Thousands of working people and youth in the US and internationally are participating in protests and work stoppages to demand Mumia's freedom. In New York City numerous protests have been carried out against the police murder of the 22-year-old African immigrant, Amadou Diallo. Despite the lies of the Pentagon, the White House and the news media, there is growing discontent over the war in the Balkans.
Those who wish to defend Mumia Abu-Jamal and oppose the abuse of democratic rights must find the means to link his case in the consciousness of broad layers of the population to the great social issues which masses of working people confront. The central issue is question of program, perspective and leadership. On what political basis must this struggle be pursued?
The great lesson of the movements of the 1960s is that the evils of American society cannot be redressed simply through protests and moral appeals to the powers-that-be. As long as the economic and political power remains in the hands of the ruling elite, social justice cannot be attained.
The Clinton administration has been the clearest proof of the dead-end of a political perspective that accepts the domination of the working people by the two big business parties, and bases itself on appeals to the Democratic Party in particular. Clinton has championed the death penalty and law-and-order repression, while embracing anti-democratic proposals from the Effective Death Penalty Act, to so-called anti-terrorism bills, to attacks on immigrants' rights. Nor can the judiciary, which has become a bastion of the ultra-right, be relied on to provide justice.
The great social force that has the potential to fundamentally change society in the interests of the vast majority of the people is the working class. But this can only occur when working people unite as an independent political force by breaking with the Democrats and building a mass political party of their own. Such a party, based on a socialist program, must fight for economic justice and social equality, for an end to racism and an expansion of democratic rights, above all by establishing the democratic control of the working people over society's resources.
The key to building a movement to free Mumia is to turn to the masses of working people on the basis of an independent political program that addresses the great social issues of the day: the fight for jobs, housing, education and health care, and the struggle against militarism. On the basis of such a struggle, ever broader layers of the population will come to understand that the same forces that are victimizing Mumia are victimizing the entire working class, and that the law-and-order witch-hunt against directed against him is aimed at the rights of all working people.
No one should underestimate the determination of the authorities, or the seriousness of the struggle that lies ahead. In so far as the fight to defend Mumia identifies itself with the broadest layers of working people and provides them with a political road forward, the struggle to save him will be enormously strengthened.
