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On December 6, The People's International Tribunal for Justice
for Mumia Abu-Jamal was held at the Blue Horizon--a huge old
theater in North Philadelphia, not far from where the main
headquarters of the Philly chapter of the Black Panther Party
used to be on Columbia Road. At least 1,200 people came to
the Tribunal, from Philadelphia and from all over the world,
including New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Detroit, Vermont,
Boston, the Virgin Islands, Chicago, Washington, D.C.,
Baltimore, Mississippi, Canada, Martinique, French Guyana,
France, Spain, Egypt, Haiti, Germany, South Africa. Increased
participation by activists and masses from Philadelphia was
particularly significant. And a lot of different forces worked
together to make this important Tribunal happen. Mumia himself
had called for such an event to happen and sent a statement of
support, which ended with "Let our work here stimulate the
natural vibration for liberation that radiates afar!"
One of the goals of the event was to change the terms of debate
around this case from, "Is Mumia guilty?" to "Is the system
guilty?" And the proceedings offered systematic evidence of the
gross human rights violations against Mumia Abu-Jamal and
other victims by a whole list of enemies of the people: Thomas
Ridge, Governor of Pennsylvania; Ronald Castille, Justice of the
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania; the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania; the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections;
Edward Rendell, Mayor of Philadelphia; the Fraternal Order of
Police; the Police Department of Philadelphia; Albert Sabo,
Judge of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas; Lynne
Abraham, Philadelphia District Attorney; Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Janet Reno, United States Attorney General. After
an all-day presentation of the evidence, the international panel of
judges voted to find these authorities guilty of numerous crimes
and proposed that, among other things, Mumia be immediately
released from prison.
As the tribunal began, the theater was abuzz with activity.
Banners hung from the balcony and many political groups had set
up tables. The stage was draped with African cloths and three
drummers beat out a defiant rhythm as people took their seats.
The Mumia Abu-Jamal singers from Swathmore College
performed two songs, one of them in Spanish. They were
followed by the Seeds of Wisdom, a rap group formed by some
of the MOVE kids, who rhymed to Mike Africa's rap, "Just
Because It's Legal Don't Make It Right."
Mumia's sister Lydia greeted the crowd, saying, "It's truly
wonderful to see all of you here. I welcome you to Philadelphia.
My family says thank you, thank you, thank you so much for
being here. It is you that has kept Mumia alive this far. Today we
are about to embark on something very historical for Philadelphia
and we expect it to be grand. We expect good results from this
and we expect you to put everything you have into this. Thank
you for your love and support. Mumia is strong. I talked to him
on the phone and he knows that you'll do the right thing. Peace."
The event was conducted as a formal tribunal. The judges, who
came from all over the world were introduced (see document,
"Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law"). An indictment was
read that detailed the crimes of each of the officials. And the
prosecution then began its case. Evidence was presented in the
form of narratives, oral testimony and videotaped evidence.
Done mostly in chronological order, it covered Mumia's teenage
years, the Black Panther Party and Mumia's role,
COINTELPRO (the government's counter-intelligence
program), the authorities' war on MOVE and Mumia's work as a
journalist now known as "the voice of the voiceless", current
police scandals and abuse, prison conditions and the death
penalty. There was a thorough presentation of the legal evidence
in Mumia's case followed by a summation and deliberations of
the judges.
The opening statement by the people's prosecution described
Mumia's life. It talked about how as a youth, Mumia was beaten
by police for protesting an appearance made by racist Governor
George Wallace. It described how 14-year-old Mumia joined
the Black Panther Party, began to write for its newspaper and
quickly became a target of FBI and police surveillance. Then it
moved through the '70s to Mumia's coverage of the attack on the
MOVE house in Powelton Village. And finally, it described the
fateful December night in 1981 when Mumia and a cop named
Daniel Faulkner were shot on the Center City street and "five
people said they saw someone run from the scene."
Philadelphia-based journalist and teacher Linn Washington said,
"Mumia Abu-Jamal's case is an extraordinary one, indeed. But to
see it solely as an extraordinary case is to miss its real import.
The injustices that animate Mumia's case--misconduct by police,
prosecutors and, yes, judges, occur every day in Philadelphia.
The bottom line on this case is the gross misconduct, the
injustices involving the aforesaid person's affect on Black, brown,
red, yellow and, yes, poor white people, again, every day."
Washington talked about the epidemic of police brutality and
shootings under Frank Rizzo, who was police chief in the late
'60s and '70s. He described how Rizzo ordered a vicious attack
on a demonstration of school children who were demanding the
right to Black studies. A video showed Rizzo saying, "The
Philadelphia police are going to do their job," while behind him,
police were beating kids in the street.
Ronald Hampton, executive director of the National Black Police
Association, spoke of his own experience and knowledge of
police brutality in Philadelphia. Walter Palmer discussed the
"structural racism in our society" that gives rise to systematic
police brutality. Linn Washington ended this section by pointing
out that during the Rizzo years, the mainstream media largely
ignored police brutality, that it was risky to expose police abuse
and that Mumia was one of the few journalists who did.
The Black Panther Party,
Mumia and COINTELPRO
Rosemari Mealey, a former member of the Philadelphia and
New Haven chapters of the Black Panther Party, talked about
her years in the party with Mumia. She described how with each
new challenge or attack on the party, Mumia grew stronger and
his writing did, too. She said, "We all know of Mumia's history
during the middle and later '70s, where his prominent, stellar
journalistic skills as the people's communicator jetted him to
national and international prominence. He was a radical journalist
who never compromised the real import of his profession. He
was the writer who mastered the pen as a sword, hurling it into
the very core of the enemy's path with the truth. On that fatal
December night in 1981 when he was shot, beaten, then arrested
by the Philadelphia police because a cop was allegedly killed by
Mumia, the world nearly lost a voice of truth and reason that
exposed the facts and unmasked the deceptions... When he was
captured, the police knew they had the best, and he had to be
silenced at all costs. This was the collaborative thinking of the
police and the FBI."
Ward Churchill, co-author of Agents of Repression: The FBI's
Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the
American Indian Movement and COINTELPRO Papers, gave
an overview of the U.S. government's COINTELPRO program.
He pointed out that the point of the program was to identify
those individuals who had an "effectiveness to communicate
ideas" and that if you were a "key agitator," you were a
target--like Mumia. Churchill also talked about political prisoner
Leonard Peltier, "who's serving double life sentences in a federal
facility at the present time based not upon the fact that they
believe he actually did that for which he was convicted but based
upon the fact that he serves as a symbol, a symbol of the costs
that will be imposed by this society upon those who dare to
stand up for their basic human rights, to resist and to struggle for
a better world."
Geronimo Ji Jaga added testimony about government
frame-ups--which he has direct experience with. Former Black
Panther and victim of COINTELPRO, he spent 27 years in
prison for a murder he did not commit--finally becoming free last
summer. Geronimo said, "You have to understand that with
Mumia, you're talking about the entire movement and
strengthening the death penalty and they're strengthening it right
now and even without the history of contributions and sacrifices
that our beautiful brother has made, just by the fact alone that we
have a revolutionary that they are about to execute is enough
reason for us to raise the alarm and to prepare ourselves to
defend him and to save his life. It's left to the people out on the
streets to do these things. Cause if y'all wouldn't a did it for me, I
would still be in there...."
The War on MOVE and
the Voice of the Voiceless
One piece of evidence of the government's war on MOVE was a
powerful video in which Ramona Africa described the bombing
of the MOVE house on May 13, 1985. Ramona was the only
adult survivor of the bombing. As she spoke, the video showed
the police attacking the house with high pressure water hoses,
tear gas and then dropping two bombs on the roof. Ramona
described how, when the adults tried to get out of the house,
they were shot at by the police. Eleven men, women and children
died in the inferno.
Walter Palmer, a liaison between MOVE and the authorities
during a 1977 police blockade of MOVE, described how city
officials treated MOVE and how MOVE won concessions
despite ongoing threats. I-Abdul Jon, who's been associated with
MOVE since 1977, introduced Sue Africa, a member of MOVE
whose son Tomasso was killed in the 1985 bombing and who
herself served over 12 years in prison for her defense of the
MOVE house in Poweltown Village. Sue talked about John
Africa's stress on the importance of consistency and unity to win
and how by following this, MOVE won the release from prison
of five of their members in 1978.
Police Brutality
There were four presentations about current police brutality.
Daniel Sterling discussed the 39th District scandal, in which
dozens of cases were thrown out after police were caught
framing people for crimes they did not commit. In 1981, one of
the cops involved in this scandal had asked his girlfriend, Pamela
Jenkins, to say Mumia shot Faulkner, even though she wasn't
even on the scene.
Ellen Sumikawa from Asian-Americans United spoke about
police brutality and said, "There's a campaign to criminalize Asian
youth on a massive scale in this city under the guise of controlling
so-called Asian gangs." Charles Reeves, who lives in Greys
Ferry, where two Black youth were recently beaten by a gang of
racist whites, also gave testimony about racism and police
brutality.
A powerful moment of the Tribunal was when Dona Rosa
DeJesus and her cousin took the stage. Speaking in Spanish,
DeJesus told how her son was murdered by the police. Her
cousin translated: "The 25th District came and they beat her son
and he had an epileptic attack. She had told the officers, but they
wouldn't listen and they kept beating him. And there were like
nine officers that beat him and he died two days later at Temple
Hospital and she says she wants justice and she wouldn't want
this to happen to anybody's children or anybody else in the street
that the police like to abuse. And she wants help to stop this
from happening. And there isn't a day that goes by that she
doesn't remember. She witnessed the police officers beat him.
He was a good person and he was 30-years-old when this
happened to him.... And she's never going to forget this. She
always has her son in her heart and she just hopes that we can
stop this police brutality."
The Death Penalty
Tonya McClary of the NAACP Legal Defense & Education
Fund gave testimony about the death penalty, noting that while
many countries around the world have abolished capital
punishment, the United States has stepped up executions. She
told the panel that 40 percent of those executed in the U.S. are
Black, far exceeding the percentage of Black people in the
population. She also said a person was five times as likely to
receive the death penalty if they were Black and killed someone
white than the reverse. Terry Rumsey said African-Americans
are 61 percent of those on Pennsylvania's death row while they
make up 11 percent of the population. Rumsey also told the
judges 90 percent of those on Pennsylvania's death row are
poor. And he said "99 death warrants were signed by Governor
Ridge in three years" and called Philadelphia the "death penalty
capital of the United States" because this one city "sent more
people to death row than 37 states in the entire country."
The Frame-up of Mumia
There was a detailed recounting of the evidence that shows
Mumia is innocent, evidence which has already appeared in the
pages of the RW*. This was presented by Mumia's lead attorney,
Leonard Weinglass and Attorney Michael Tarif Warren. During
his presentation, Warren held up a 1972 FBI photo of Mumia on
which they had written the word, "dead." Steven Hawkins, a
member of Mumia's legal team and the National Coalition to
Abolish the Death Penalty, documented the bias of Judge Albert
Sabo, who heard both Mumia's original so-called "trial" and his
Post-Conviction Relief Appeal. Hawkins went into how during
the sentencing phase of Mumia's trial, the prosecution used
political statements made by Mumia, more than 10 years earlier,
like quoting Mao saying "political power grows out of the barrel
of a gun," as an argument for why Mumia should received the
death penalty.
Videotaped statements from eyewitnesses at the murder scene
were shown, including one where Veronica Jones described how
she lied on the stand at Mumia's trial after two detectives
threatened her with 15 years in prison. In 1996 Jones was found
by Mumia's defense team and testified that she saw two men run
from the murder scene--the same story she had originally told the
police. After the videotapes were shown, Veronica Jones came
up on the stage. The entire audience rose to their feet and
applauded, and Jones thanked people for welcoming her.
Voices for Mumia
As part of documenting the significance of the voice the
government is trying to silence, there were readings from
Mumia's books Live from Death Row, Death Blossoms, a
commentary by Mumia, the RW interview with Mumia, and the
video "Prison Industrial Complex." Readers included Francis
Goldin, Mumia's literary agent; Mark Taylor, professor at
Princeton University and coordinator of Academics for Mumia;
Sabrina from the D.C. coalition; Tommy Montero, a North
Philadelphia resident; author and Temple University Professor
Sonya Sanchez; Professor and Attorney Soffiyah Jill Elijah, who
also brought greetings from Kwame Toure (AKA Stokely
Carmichael). There were videos which showed Mumia, as well
as the brutal conditions in the prison where he is being held.
Henry Richards performed a spoken word poem about Mumia.
A fundraising pitch was shared by Pam Africa, Geronimo Ji Jaga,
Kathleen Cleaver and Ishakamusa Barashanga. Safiyah Bukhari
of the N.Y. Mumia Coalition announced the call for Jericho '98,
a demonstration to be held in Washington, D.C. on March 27
aimed at winning recognition and freedom for political prisoners
in the U.S. There were solidarity messages from political
prisoners Leonard Peltier, Assata Shakur, Eddie Conway, Silvia
Baroldini, Sekou Odinga, Matula Shakur and Marilyn Buck.
Rosa Escobar from Pro Libertad brought greetings on behalf of
15 Puerto Rican political prisoners and prisoners of war. A
group of activists from Vermont were joined by MOVE children
in a performance piece called, "The Truth." King Hector of the
Latin Kings brought a message of support from his group.
Monica Moorehead of the National Peoples Congress read
statements of support from former U.S. Attorney General
Ramsey Clark and a group of prisoners in Huntsville, Texas
known as Panthers United for Revolutionary Education. And
Leon Williams, who ran against Lynn Abraham for DA last fall,
said he supported a new trial for Mumia.
After six hours of testimony and close to an hour of deliberation,
the judges brought back their verdict: The authorities are guilty of
the crimes as charged in the indictment.
A press release after the tribunal said, "Their conclusions were
summarized in a three-page document that stated the named
agencies and officials blatantly violated Mumia Abu-Jamal's
constitutional and human rights, which led to `his unjust
conviction, unlawful incarceration, and illegal death sentence.' "
The document also recommended holding a thorough, impartial,
international investigation into the conduct of the Philadelphia
Police Department, the Counter-Intelligence Program
(COINTELPRO) of the FBI, the 1985 bombing of the MOVE
headquarters in Philadelphia, and that those public officials found
responsible for violation of Mumia Abu-Jamal's human rights
should be removed from office."
On Wednesday, International Human Rights Day at the UN, the
findings of the Tribunal were presented to an assistant of the UN
High Commissioner on Human Rights by Gamal Nkrumah, Julia
Wright and Ramona Africa.
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