Mobilizing for Mumia

No to Legal Lynching!

Mumia Abu-Jamal, the prize-winning journalist and former Black Panther, has been the target of a racist police/judicial vendetta which extends from the Fraternal Order of Police thugs all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mumia has been on Pennsylvania’s death row since being framed for the December 1981 killing of police officer Daniel Faulkner.

On 9 November 2010, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals held a hearing in Philadelphia to consider whether to reinstate the death penalty or order a new sentencing trial. Supporters of the International Bolshevik Tendency participated in the demonstration outside the courthouse as well as in protests held in various cities around the world.

In Oakland, California our comrades took part in a demonstration of over 150 people initiated by the Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. In London, an IBT supporter addressed a rally of 200 people that was organized by the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Defense Campaign UK. In Wellington, New Zealand IBT comrades initiated a small united-front protest. A similar demonstration was organized in Hamburg by the IBT and the Antikrisen-Bündnis. In Toronto, an IBT-initiated united-front rally, endorsed by over 30 organizations, drew more than 250 participants—the biggest Mumia event held in Canada for 15 years.

As a follow-up, on 13 December the IBT, along with Socialist Action (Canadian affiliate of the United Secretariat) and the anarchist group Common Cause, organized a Toronto showing of Justice on Trial, an important new film which presents a great deal of evidence that the courts have refused to hear, including an admission of perjury by a witness as well as photographic proof of police tampering with the crime scene. One thing left out of the film, unfortunately, is the most powerful proof of Mumia’s innocence—the sworn confession of Arnold Beverly that he and an accomplice shot Faulkner (see our pamphlet, The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal).