Date: Wed, 19 Mar 97 20:01:17    
Subject: M-G: Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!



Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!

	The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has denied hearing oral arguments in 
Mumia’s appeal.  This means that the Court will rule on the request for a 
new trial based on evidence presented before the appeal process began.  Most 
likely, the Court will deny Mumia a new trial, and a new death warrant will 
be signed.

	For thousands around the world, the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal stands 
as the prime example of "justice" under capitalism.  People from all walks 
of life have voiced their protest against the repression of the man dubbed 
"the voice of the voiceless."
	In spite of the fact that mountains of evidence and reams of 
documentation exist that prove his innocence, the racist Pennsylvania state 
government — typified by Republican Governor Tom Ridge and egged on by the 
ultrareactionary Fraternal Order of Police — continues to keep Mumia on 
Death Row.
	Mumia has continued his fight in the courts, both appealing his 
conviction of killing a Philadelphia cop and asserting his legal rights as a 
human being.  He has won his right to receive correspondence and talk to his 
attorneys privately.  But, he has yet to win his freedom and — in a legal 
sense — clear his name.
	The racism of the Pennsylvania legal system has been exposed over 
and over again.  Presiding over Mumia’s appeal is "hanging judge" Albert 
Sabo, who also passed judgement at Jamal’s 1982 "trial."  
	Witnesses who had been coerced by the Philly police in 1981 to say 
Mumia was the shooter, have been subjected to continuous harassment by the 
cops and courts.  And, at an October 1996 hearing, one witness, Veronica 
Jones, was dragged off the witness stand in handcuffs.  

Racism and the death penalty
	People who are sentenced to death are very disproportionately 
mentally retarded, more often than not people of color, and almost always 
poor people who have to rely on public defenders. 
	A high number of people sentenced to death are also demonstrably 
innocent, such as Mumia, Gary Graham in Texas, and Jesse DeWayne Jacobs, who 
was executed in 1995 in Texas.  He was killed in spite of the fact that his 
sister confessed to the crime, described it in detail and was arrested for 
it before his execution!
	In the case of Mumia, he has been targeted for death since he was a 
member of the Black Panther Party.  The vendetta continued after he became a 
journalist and intensified when he became a supporter of the MOVE 
organization.  The continued repression of Mumia, the fact that he remains 
on Death Row, testifies to the truth of "American justice."

Free all class war prisoners!
	The frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal is certainly the most blatant 
example of racist justice.  But it is neither the first nor the only case.
	As you read these lines, dozens of other class war prisoners sit in 
America’s prisons.  Former Panther Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt) continues to 
fight for his freedom from California’s "prison house of peoples" even 
though the "key witness" in the case has been exposed as a paid informant of 
the FBI and the Los Angeles District Attorney.
	Dozens of other political prisoners — Black radicals, Native 
American activists, labour militants, etc. — face similar harassment and 
repression from the arrogant "justice system."
	Unlike the liberals and reformists, who appeal to "respectability" 
and continue the ridiculous illusions in bourgeois legality and beg for 
"clemency" and "parole," it is the duty of Marxists to defend the rights of 
all class war prisoners and demand their unconditional freedom.  But our 
methods are not those of relying on the courts and cops to free class war 
prisoners.
	The pressure of mass protest, including the 10,000-strong August 4, 
1995 Philadelphia demonstration, forced the state to grant an indefinite 
stay of execution.  Only such protests, numbering in the hundreds of 
thousands, and under the leadership of the working class, can lead to the 
release of all class war prisoners.
  
	WV



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