Tag: Mumia Abu Jamal

Mumia walked through the halls of my school, but no students know about Mumia. I believe that Mumia should be taught in all Philadelphia high schools because he is just as important as Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. The school district of Philadelphia should have Mumia in the curriculum. Mumia inspires me to keep fighting for my rights.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the nurturers, both female and male. Congratulations to all the graduates, beginning this month and continuing through June. Condolences to all the recent victims of state violence and those families and communities affected, especially in Baltimore. Much love, light and wellness to Mumia Abu Jamal; love and light to Brother Albert Woodfox.

Although states across this country have banned executions where the public can freely attend, some contend that the American public is again witnessing the spectacle of a public execution. This current spectacle of governmental killing involves a high-profile inmate in Pennsylvania that evidence indicates is quite possibly experiencing a “slow execution” through calculated medical mistreatment.

Last week, men incarcerated at Ohio’s supermax prison brought a month-long hunger strike to a close. Between 30 and 40 men had refused all meals since March 16 to protest new restrictions placed on already severely limited recreation and programming for those in solitary confinement. On April 15, all but one of the men agreed to suspend the hunger strike after a meeting with the warden at which the prison agreed to lifting some, but not all, of the new restrictions.

Political prisoner and revolutionary journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal has been the victim of criminal neglect by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections for months, and his life is in grave danger. He is weak, in the infirmary, and continues to need a wheelchair to come out to visits. Mumia needs all of us to help now! Sign the petition to help save – and free – Mumia. Also, we need to keep up the pressure with phone calls. No execution by medical neglect! Save Mumia’s life!

The majority of U.S. prisoners are African American and Latino males in their childbearing years, imprisoned in a system that regularly violates their fundamental human rights and ravages their health. Mumia would want us to use his suffering to demonstrate that those relegated to the lowest strata of our society – imprisoned Black, Brown and poor – suffer not only their sentences but illness and death by neglect.

Internationally renowned political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is seriously ill. We call on Governor Wolf and Secretary Wetzel to promptly authorize the independent doctors Mr. Abu-Jamal has chosen to coordinate his diagnosis and treatment plan, and to involve the specialists needed to address his many medical challenges. Given the extensive evidence of Mr. Abu-Jamal’s innocence and that his very life is in danger while in the prison system, we call for his immediate release from prison.

On Thursday, April 9, 2015, I visited my husband, Mumia Abu-Jamal, at SCI Mahanoy. I saw the photos taken of Mumia during the visit on Monday, April 6, but I still wasn’t prepared for how Mumia looked. Seeing him in the prison visiting room, he was worse. I felt my husband is about to die. He was shivering so hard, I put my arms around him and my head to his chest to hear his heart and to bring some warmth to his body because he said he was freezing. We need to keep up the pressure. Let the warden and state corrections secretary know we insist that Mumia have medical specialists of his own choosing examine and treat him.

Mumia struggled to get out of his wheelchair so that we could take a photo of him. We share these photos to give you a sense of the gravity of Mumia’s condition. He has lost over 50 pounds, and his entire body is covered with a hard, leathery layer of jet-black skin, that is bloody, painful and itchy. Yet he chuckled as he read letters from school children. Keep calling to demand that outside doctors of Mumia’s choosing be allowed to evaluate and treat him immediately. A National Day of Action has been called for Friday, April 10. The Bay Area rally is at 4 p.m. in front of the Oakland Federal Building, 1301 Clay St. Be there! And listen to the Block Report Radio interview with Mumia’s son, Jamal.

Guards stood outside the hospital room and one was inside the room with Mumia. I was shocked at his condition: He had lost over 40 pounds, was weak, barely able to sit up and keep his head up, handcuffed to his chair, with labored breathing and dry mouth. I told him about all the love outpouring for him and that the world is watching!

Now is the time for everyone to actively jump into the movement full force. We must mobilize the way we did in 1995 and 1999 to stop the execution. We must use all of our energy to immediately demand proper medical care for Mumia and push for his full release. Keep calling the heads of Corrections and of Mahanoy Prison. Contribute to Mumia's Emergency Medical Fund. All who can are urged to join the caravan Monday, April 6, to Corrections Secretary Wetzel's office. And all who cannot be there are urged to CALL 717-728-4109, especially before 8 a.m. Monday. See Sunday night update.

“My father is in pain,” Mumia Abu-Jamal’s son Jamal Hart related to his uncle and Mumia’s oldest brother, Keith Cook, after a brief 10-minute visit with Mumia Wednesday at the Schuylkill Medical Center. “He was having trouble breathing and wasn’t doing as well as he was yesterday.” Nevertheless, Mumia was transferred back to the infirmary at SCI Mahanoy – the same prison infirmary that failed to identify his diabetes, gravely misdiagnosed him and gave him severely detrimental treatment. Readers are urged to call and contribute.

Imprisoned journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal has been taken to the Intensive Care Unit of Schuylkill Medical Center in Pottsville, Penn., without any notification to his family, friends or lawyers. Abu-Jamal’s longtime friend, Professor Johanna Fernández, said, “We were told he was in diabetic shock and taken to the hospital.” Listen to an interview with Professor Fernández recorded by Block Report Radio at about 8 a.m., March 31, and an interview with Mumia's brother, Keith Cook, recorded this morning, April 1. This story is being updated frequently.

Who can question whether President Barack Obama is a master when it comes to speeches? Such a quality literally put him on the map when he mesmerized a crowd at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He did it again in the Selma, Alabama’s 50th anniversary at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. His central message: No one can doubt things are better since Selma. No one. His speech, delivered with quiet passion, was a master work. And yet … and yet.

Departments of corrections and state legislatures are putting into place chilling bans on free speech and expression by prisoners, formerly incarcerated persons, family members, friends, journalists, advocates and activists. Pack the courtroom for the hearing on Abu-Jamal v. Kane, challenging Prisoner Gag Law SB 508, on Thursday, Feb. 26, 10 a.m., in U.S. Courthouse, 228 Walnut St., Courtroom 2, Harrisburg, Penn.

There is a trick that the California prison administration pulls on African Americans in prison. It is to charge them with gang activity if they refer to “George Jackson” or any of his writings or ideas or to the “Republic of New Afrika” or the politics of New Afrikans. Thousands of people, mostly Black and Brown, have been held in solitary confinement for years and even decades, because “gang activity” constitutes a “security threat to the prison,” according to the Administration.

Sin Barras organized the Cages Kill-Freedom Rally to save lives after six people locked up in the Santa Cruz County Jail have died since August 2012. The Jan. 24 rally was endorsed by a wide range of local, statewide, national, and international groups, demonstrating that murder and torture is happening in jails and prisons everywhere, not just in Santa Cruz. Stop the abuse and torture in the Santa Cruz County Jail and jails and prisons everywhere!

In the wake of the Senate Intelligence Select Committee’s report on CIA torture of terror suspects, we are reminded how little Americans know about how the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency rolls in the real world. So, did they torture people? Yup. Did they kill people? Yup. Did they violate laws? Yuuuup. But guess what? Under the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2001 they’re immune from prosecution.

The Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition announced her passing on the afternoon of Dec. 17: “It is with deep sadness that we share the news about the transition of Goldii. From a daughter’s perspective, she was a dynamic spokesperson, speaking stirringly of the impact incarceration has on children and families. She was also a staunch advocate on behalf of her father’s innocence."

Keith Cook delivered this speech on Dec. 5 at “Cops vs. Free Speech,” a public forum organized by the Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia: Thank you for inviting me again to be a part of this essential, timely discussion that we should be having across our nation. Free speech – for most of us who are activists, what does the Fraternal Order of Police, commonly known as the FOP, have to do with it?