PLEASE SUPPORT 4/19 Mumia Demos!
======================

WE SAY FREE MUMIA NOW!

Be there in PHILADELPHIA

Saturday
APRIL 19
Rally and March

Gather at the Federal Building,
6th St. & Market
11 a.m.
(10 a.m. for
Philly activists)

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC
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On April 19 there is a mass DC neo-Nazi rally for the NSM (National
Socialist Movement) in "commemoration" of both Hitler's birthday and the
Oklahoma City bombing. The Philadelphia chapters are apparently not going
to DC. Instead, there are plans for them to join with the FOP in
countering our demonstration. We are sharing this to inform people and
expose their actions, and the FOP's affiliations. However, the
demonstration will go on, always with the safety of our community as top
priority, and our determination to never back down. We are not terrified
of them or their bald heads. Their parents and grandparents have been
lynching our people, and 20 some years ago wore blue uniforms during their
torture and arrest of Mumia. The march will go on. They just better not
get in our way.

ICFFMAJ wants to thank Philadelphia Anti-Racist Action and the One
People's Project for their work in educating the community about the
Neo-Nazi threat. The link to the flyer below provides detailed
information about the Neo-Nazis planning on counter-demonstrating
Saturday's demonstration for Mumia. As ICFFMAJ has stated before, we've
never been stopped before and we won't be stopped now.

Both KSS and MDS are confirmed as planning to show and attempt to counter.
Philly ARA and One People's Project have put together a flyer about it.

http://www.oppforum.com/images/mumiarallyflyer.pdf

WE SHOULD BE DISCIPLINED AND NOT ALLOW OURSELVES TO BE PROVOKED. THIS IS
HOW THESE GROUPS TRY TO DISRUPT A DEMONSTRATION. WE MUST BE TIGHT AND
PREPARED TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS FROM ICFFMAJ.

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RAINBOW FLAGS FOR MUMIA CALL TO ACTION to The Lesbian, Gay, and Bi & Trans Activist Movement: EMERGENCY NATL MOBILIZATION TO DEMAND FREEDOM FOR MUMIA ABU JAMAL – APRIL 19-20 2008 for PHILADEPHIA & SAN FRANCISCO (& other cities)
To endorse, email RF4Mumia@gmail.com

On Thursday, May 27th 2008, the 3rd circuit court of Pennsylvania denied a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal, renowned African American activist, journalist and the only US political prisoner on death row. Although there is overwhelming evidence proving Mumia’s innocence, this ruling has left Mumia’s only legal options as life in prison without parole or execution by the state of Pennsylvania .
But just like case of South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela, who was sentenced to life in prison, we believe we can and will continue to build an international movement to free MUMIA ABU JAMAL.

Mumia Abu Jamal was a founding member of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Black Panther Party as a teenager. Years later he began reporting professionally on radio stations, such as NPR, and was the news director of Philadelphia station WHAT. Known as the “Voice of the Voiceless”, Mumia won awards for his reporting on police brutality and other social and racial epidemics that plagued communities of color in Philadelphia and throughout the world. In 1981 he was arrested and sent to death row for allegedly shooting Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. In 1999, Arnold Beverly confessed to killing Officer Faulkner. This confession is validated by a lie detector test administered by an eminent polygraph expert. Despite concrete evidence supporting this confession, the Philadelphia District Attorney has refused to investigate, and the courts have not even allowed it to be heard. We know that Mumia remains in jail because he is a political leader.

Rainbow Flags for Mumia (RF4M) is a coalition of lesbian, gay, bi and trans people and organizations that came together in 1999 to demand a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal. RF4M has since continued to organize LGBT contingents at major anti-racist events, linking the struggles against LGBT oppression and racist repression in the United States .

Through his writing, behind the walls of death row, Mumia has shown solidarity with oppressed peoples all over the world. In a 1999 statement denouncing the recent anti-gay murders, including the killing of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyo., Billy Jack Gaither in Sylacauga, Ala., and Henry Edward Northington in Richmond, Va., Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote: “Is it a coincidence that Richmond, the city where a Black man was burned to death and decapitated, follows several months later with the decapitation and torture of a gay man? I think not.”
Rainbow Flags for Mumia calls on all LGBT organizations and activists to endorse and mobilize for April 19 and beyond. With legal options exhausted, it is up to us, by any means necessary, to ensure that Mumia no longer languishes in jail under the threat of execution.

To endorse, email RF4Mumia@gmail.com or call 646-342-9673 or 212-633-6646. Bring your organization’s banners, flags, and placards to an April 19th demonstration in Philadelphia , San Francisco , or a city near you. Form a Rainbow Flags for Mumia chapter in your area; organize a forum or an action to demand Mumia’s freedom. For more information on Mumia visit: International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal MUMIA ABU-JAMAL'S FREEDOM JOURNAL ; Millions for Mumia www.mumia2000. org; International Action Center www.iacenter. org; Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (in NY) http://www.freemumi a.com/


“Our BROTHER MUMIA is UNDER ATTACK” “WHAT DO WE DO?” “ACT UP! Fight back!”
(Chanted nationally by Queer & non-Queer people alike at Mumia Abu-Jamal demonstrations since 1999)

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Partisan Defense Committee
P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013
e-mail: partisandefense@earthlink.net Partisan Defense Committee
Bay Area e-mail: pdcbayarea@sbcglobal.net


PRESS RELEASE – 14 April 2008
Contact: Kevin Gilroy (212) 406-4252
Contact: Karen Allen (510) 839-0982

United-Front Protests Demand Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Immediate Freedom
All out for united-front mobilizations called by the Partisan Defense Committee under the slogans: “Mumia Abu-Jamal Is Innocent! Free Mumia Now! Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!” Oakland, Toronto and London on April 19; Sydney on April 23; Mexico City on April 24; Chicago and Los Angeles on April 26. For more information: Partisan Defense Committee

Against the March 27 decision by the Third Circuit of Appeals, which upheld Mumia Abu-Jamal’s frame-up conviction and ordered a new sentencing hearing that would either entomb him for life in prison or reimpose the death sentence, the Partisan Defense Committee has launched an international campaign to demand Mumia’s freedom. Protests in the U.S. have been initiated by the PDC and the Labor Black Leagues, while the PDC’s fraternal defense organizations have called the international demonstrations. Mumia’s daughter, Goldii, will be speaking at the L.A. protest.

In its April 11 call for the international united-front protests, the PDC stated: “Mumia was framed up because of his lifelong struggle against racist oppression and police terror—first as a Black Panther Party spokesman, then as a MOVE supporter and an outspoken journalist renowned as the ‘voice of the voiceless.’ The cops, prosecutors and courts—with the support of capitalist politicians, Democrats and Republicans—see in Mumia the spectre of black revolt, a voice of defiant opposition to the oppression of black people that is a cornerstone of American capitalism…. It is all the more urgent today to revitalize mass protest to free Mumia on the basis that he is innocent, the victim of a racist and political frame-up, and to link his fight to the struggle to abolish the racist death penalty.”

Responding to those who viewed the decision as a victory, Mumia underlined in an April 7 radio interview on Berkeley’s KPFA that the courts have created “a new rule” to keep him behind bars. He said, “When a court has to make up new rules and make up new law to uphold something that was unjust before, that’s not a victory. It’s not a victory. But we struggle on.” Speaking of the racist rulers’ drive to silence him, Mumia stated, “For many people, especially for those in the establishment, I represent, in many ways, their greatest nightmare,” adding, “what they fear is the black revolution reigniting.” Mumia underlined: “Remember what the elder, Frederick Douglass, taught us: that power concedes nothing without a demand.” The interview can be heard at: http://www.partisandefense.org/media...lashpoints.mp3.

Over the last two weeks, more than 300 organizations and individuals have endorsed the united-front demonstrations. These include trade unions representing hundreds of thousands of workers, such as the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) Local 1422, Charleston, SC; Amalgamated Transit Union Locals 241 and 308 in Chicago; the Victorian Branch of the Maritime Union of Australia; the Aberdeen Trades Union Council in Scotland; SUD Rail Workers Union of Paris Left Bank; the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) Western Cape, which issued a statement declaring, “We will stand with the millions of people across the world that are calling for justice to be done and will join the protest against this travesty of justice.” Other endorsers include the Day-Mer Turkish and Kurdish Community Centre in London, writer Gilles Perrault in France, Cornel West, Cynthia McKinney and Professor Dr. Heinrich Fink, Chairman of the Association of the Victims of the Nazi Regime—Coalition of Anti-fascists, in Berlin. In Mexico, Senator Rosario Ibarra, the head of the ¡Eureka! defense committee and an endorser of the protests, declared: “Tyranny imposes a duty upon us—to fight it. Mumia fulfills that duty.” For endorsers of the various united-front protests, go to: Upcoming Events.

The Oakland protest takes place on Saturday, April 19, at 14th and Broadway at 2:30 p.m. Some notable local endorsers include Fred Hampton, Jr. and the Prisoners of Conscience Committee; Willie Ratcliff and the San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper; Renée Saucedo and La Raza Centro Legal/SF Day Labor Program; Robert Allen; Reginald Major; the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (SF8) including Ray Boudreaux and Richard Brown; Yuri Kochiyama; Emory Douglas; and Michael Rossman. Endorsers from the Bay Area labor movement include ILWU Local 10 Executive Board members Jack Heyman and Clarence Thomas, as well as individual officials from AFSCME Local 444, Glaziers Local 718 and SEIU-UHW West.

The PDC and LBL in the U.S. and the Committee for Social Defense in France are also building Class-Struggle contingents that will march in the April 19 demonstration in Philadelphia initiated by the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the protest in Paris on the same day. The contingents will march under the slogans: “Mumia Abu-Jamal Is Innocent! Free Mumia Now! Abolish the Racist Death Penalty! There Is No Justice in the Capitalist Courts! Mobilize Labor’s Power—For Mass Protest!” On April 12, a Class-Struggle contingent of some 80 people built by the Committee for Social Defense in Germany marched in a demonstration for Mumia in Berlin of about 300 people.

PDC counsel Rachel Wolkenstein, who served on Mumia’s legal defense from 1995 to 1999, stated: “The fight for Mumia’s freedom is at a critical juncture. The recent court decision illuminates for any who continued to have illusions in the ‘fairness’ of capitalist justice that there is no justice in the capitalist courts. Every possible legal avenue must be vigorously pursued to challenge the Court of Appeals’ decision. But we cannot afford to have any illusions. The pressure that can make the courts yield is that of mass international protest, crucially based on the power of labor. Working people around the world and all opponents of racist oppression must be mobilized in the fight to free Mumia now!”

United-front protests will take place on the following dates:

Saturday, April 19:

Oakland: 14th and Broadway at 2:30 p.m. For more information, call the PDC: (510) 839-0852 or e-maildcbayarea@sbcglobal.net

Toronto: Across the street from the U.S. Consulate, 360 University Avenue, between Dundas (St. Patrick Station) and Queen (Osgoode Station), at 1 p.m. For more information: (416) 593-4138 or e-mail: pdctoronto@bellnet.ca

London: U.S. Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London W1A, at 1 p.m. For more information: 020 7281 5504 or e-mailartisandefence@yahoo.co.uk

Wednesday, April 23:

Sydney, Australia: Outside U.S. Consulate, corner Martin Place and Castlereagh St., at 5:30 p.m. For more information: Sydney (02) 9281 2181 • Melbourne (03) 9654 4315 or e-mail: pdc.sydney@exemail.com.au

Thursday, April 24:

Mexico City: Fac. de Filosofía y Letras (main entrance), C.U., UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico), at 5 p.m. For more information: je_contacto@yahoo.com.mx

Saturday, April 26:

Chicago: Federal Plaza (Adams and Dearborn) at 12 Noon. For more information call the PDC: (312) 563-0442 or e-mail:chicagopdc@sbcglobal.net

Los Angeles: Westwood Federal Building, 11000 Wilshire Blvd., at 1 p.m. For more information call the PDC: (213) 380-8897 or e-mail: pdc-la@sbcglobal.net

For more information and round-trip transportation from New York City to the April 19 demonstration in Philadelphia, call the PDC: (212) 406-4252 or e-mail: partisandefense@earthlink.net

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The PDC is a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which champions cases and causes in the interest of the whole of the working people. This purpose is in accordance with the political views of the Spartacist League.