Mumia Ailing in Prison: New Urgency for July Protests Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit -------------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 17, 1999 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------------- MUMIA AILING IN PRISON: NEW URGENCY SEEN FOR JULY3-4 PROTESTS There is a very serious situation," Pam Africa told the crowd at the June 5 Pentagon rally against the war in Yugo slavia. "I went to visit Mumia on Tuesday [June 1]. He had been complaining about pains in his feet and legs. He showed me his ankles. They are very swollen and jet black. I was told by doctors that this could be a heart condition, or diabetes, with a danger of gangrene. "When Mumia went to that prison he was healthy and strong." Pam Africa's words add a sense of urgency to the struggle to free Black journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal from Pennsylvania's death row. Abu-Jamal's supporters have called for a July 4 march and symbolic civil disobedience arrests on July 3 at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. "On July 4th President Clinton, [Secretary of State] Madeleine Albright, Gov. Tom Ridge and Mayor Ed Rendell will be in Philadelphia. Any freedom fighter should be there and let these people know we're not going to take it," Africa said. Ridge campaigned on a platform of carrying out executions. Rendell was involved in the 1985 police attack and helicopter bombing of the MOVE Organization's house, killing 11 men, women and children and igniting a fire that swept through an entire neighborhood leaving over 60 families homeless. PRISONERS FACE HEALTH NIGHTMARES Health care for aging political prisoners--who overwhelmingly have long terms-- as well as for prisoners in general, presents many complications. Most prisoners consider the prison medical system untrustworthy and racist. Mumia has been caged in a cell the size of an average bathroom for 18 years, allowed out only one hour a day on weekdays into a barbed-wire enclosure. He is permitted no human contact and no normal exercise. Other political prisoners--including Native American political prisoner Leonard Peltier and Mutulu Shakur, father of slain rap artist Tupac Shakur--have faced serious health problems in prison. Cleveland political prisoner Ahmed Evans died in prison of cancer. "Everybody who knows Mumia knows he doesn't complain," said John Black, president emeritus of Pennsylvania health care workers' union SEIU Local 1199P, who visits Abu-Jamal frequently. "If he complains it must be quite serious." MUMIA'S DEFENSE CONTINUES In other developments, the U.S. Supreme Court will not respond to Abu-Jamal's first legal appeal before the fall. That decision had originally been expected in mid-June. Justice David Souter granted Pennsylvania an extension on the deadline to file their papers. Three legal issues are being raised in the appeal. First, according to Abu-Jamal's lead attorney Leonard Weinglass, "Mumia was wrongfully stripped of his Constitutional right to represent himself in this death penalty case, though the record indicates he had not committed any wrong doing." Secondly, "when he was banished from the courtroom and he missed over half his trial, the court did not provide him with the means to follow the proceedings in which he had prepared his own case--in short, a death penalty was given to a man tried in absentia." Finally, "Judge Sabo, in his chambers, in the absence of Mumia, removed the only juror Mumia had selected." Abu-Jamal is also part of a larger class action based on a study by University of Iowa Law Prof. David Baldus of racial discrimination in jury selection in death-row cases. Abu-Jamal's legal team is bringing at least two dozen other issues of prosecutorial misconduct before the Federal District Court in Philadelphia in the fall. Those issues range from coercion of witnesses and withholding evidence of innocence to judicial bias. ATTACK ON BLACK UNITED FUND The cops and their allies are retaliating against Abu- Jamal's growing support. Mayor Rendell is refusing to allow city employees to make charitable payroll deductions to the Pennsylvania Black United Fund. The BUF has assisted in managing the donations that have come in from around the world for Abu-Jamal's defense. A broad community-labor coalition held a press conference on June 3 at the AFSCME District Council 33 headquarters in Philadelphia against Rendell's latest attack. Pete Mathews, President of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees DC 33; Tom Cronin, president of AFSCME DC 47; James Roebuck, president of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus; and William Merritt, president of the National BUF, spoke out in support of the Pennsylvania BUF. "These bastards are trying to kill Mumia another way," declared Pam Africa, who is asking for outside medical help for Abu- Jamal. "I'm asking people to get in contact and find out what you can do and I hope to see you on July 4th." The International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu- Jamal can be reached at (215) 476-8812, or readers can call the National People's Campaign at (212) 633-6646. - END - (Copyleft Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info info send message to: info@workers.org. 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