Tag: Vijay Prashad

Terrible pictures arrive onto social media of refugees from Syria and elsewhere, washed up on the shores of Europe. One in particular is particularly ghastly – the body of young Aylan Kurdi. He was only 3. He was from the Syrian town of Kobane, now made famous as the frontline of the battle between ISIS and the Kurdish militias (largely the YPG and PKK). Aylan Kurdi’s body lay in a fetal position. Few dry eyes could turn away from that photograph.

After nearly three decades on Pennsylvania’s death row, former Black Panther Party member and world-renowned journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal was moved off Death Row on Dec. 11, following an announcement by Philadelphia DA Seth Williams that he would no longer seek Abu-Jamal’s execution. "On Thursday, Dec. 8, I attended the Fraternal Order of Police rally, a shocking display of naked calls for harm to Mumia," said Noelle Hanrahan. "What a dramatic contrast to the defense rally the next night at the Constitution Center. One was all about love, the other all about hate."

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the Philadelphia district attorney’s attempt to reinstate the death penalty on Brother Mumia! In order to reinstate the death penalty at this point, the DA would have to call for a new trial on the question of the sentence, with a new jury having to decide on whether to reinstate the death sentence. Otherwise, the sentence of life in prison – without parole – remains. Now on to freeing Mumia!

On March 15, Salvadorans headed en masse to the polls and by 9:30 that night Mauricio Funes, presidential candidate of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), had been elected the very first leftist head of state in the country's history.