Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit LOVE AND RAGE Electronic Edition FEBRUARY/MARCH 1993 Part 3 MUMIA ABU-JAMAL RESPONDS TO HENTOFF The accompanying article by Mumia Abu-Jamal was written for Lies of Our Times. We thank them for allowing us to print it before they went to print. The following is some background to the events preceding the letter. Also check out the next World War 3 for further coverage. OCTOBER 2, 1992: GOVERNOR ROBERT CASEY OF Pennsylvania attempts to give a forum with Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice, entitled Can a Liberal Be Pro-Life? Both Casey and Hentoff are males of European descent and are vocal anti-choice advocates. Casey is trying to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal as well as many other African prisoners on death row. The audience was told to submit questions in writing. The pre-planned die-in was scrapped after Casey claimed he didn't know anything of Abu-Jamal's case. He was then booed off the stage and handed thousands of signatures on petitions. [See Love & Rage, Vol. 3 No. 7.] OCTOBER 20: Nat Hentoff writes a column entitled The Perennial Face of Fascism, accusing leftists of being fascists and opposed to free speech. Hentoff quotes Abu-Jamal as being surprised, displeased, shocked, and saddened" by the selfish mindlessness of his anti-free speech supporters. NOVEMBER 3: Nat Hentoff again slanders activists in a column Who Owns Free Speech? He uses the International Workers of the World (IWW) as a model for free speech advocates and insinuates that leftists are the antithesis. BY MUMIA ABU-JAMAL NO ONE WAS MORE SURPRISED THAN I AT THE eruption of protest at New York City's Cooper Union on October 2, 1992, following Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey's aborted address on his pro-life positions. The subsequent editorials denouncing the protesters for their affront to the First Amendment have a distinctly hollow sound, especially to one who has found the First Amendment, as applied, equally hollow; for although it is undoubted that feelings were hurt by the protest, none of the people at Cooper Union face death for their words or past affiliations perhaps the ultimate affront to the First Amendment. ABU-JAMAL'S TRIAL Prosecutor: Mr. Jamal, let me ask you if you can recall saying something sometime ago and perhaps it might ring a bell as to whether you are an executioner or endorse such actions. Black brothers and sisters and organizations which wouldn't commit themselves before are relating to us Black people that they are facing we are facing the reality that the Black Panther Party has been facing which is -- Now listen to this quote. You've often been quoted as saying this: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Do you remember saying that sir? Jamal: I remember writing that. That's a quotation from Mao Tse-Tung. Q: Do you recall making that quote, Mr. Jamal, to Acel Moore [then a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer ed]? A: I recall quoting Mao Tse-Tung to Acel Moore about 12 to 15 years ago. Q: Do you recall saying All power to the people? Do you recall that? A: Yes. Q: Do you believe that your actions as well as your philosophy are consistent with the quote Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun ? A: I believe that America has proven that quote to be true. Q: Do you recall saying that The Panther Party is an uncompromising party, it faces reality ? A: (nods head affirmatively) Yes. [Text taken verbatim from testimony, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania vs. Abu-Jamal, pp. 21-22.] Prosecutor: This is what this is all about, law and order. How do we avoid it if we don't like it, we don't just accept it, and we don't try to change it from within, we just rebel against it. And maybe that was the siege all the way back then with political power, power growing out of the barrel of a gun. No matter who said it, when you do say it and when you FEEL it, and particularly in an area when you're talking about police or cops or shootings and so forth, even back then, this is not something that happened overnight. [From argument by the prosecutor to the jury in favor of the death penalty, verbatim - ibid, p. 68.] CASEY SHOUTED DOWN It is all very well to opinionate about free speech, but it ain't free if it's used to kill you. Seen in this light it can hardly be said that the Cooper Union protestors were, as their critics contended, fascists they demonstrated for the fullest expression of free speech - for the life of one who was, literally, damned for words uttered over a decade before. It is both curious and revealing that none (not one) of the free speech defenders who raged over the desecration of our hallowed First Amendment at Cooper Union made a peep of protest when Philadelphia police darkly threatened to put supporters to death on an electric sofa for daring to exercise their rights of free speech in my defense. Such a threat, coming from those who bombed MOVE men, women, and babies, an entire neighborhood, into oblivion with impunity on May 13, 1985, surely seems a bit closer to the fascistic model than those who spoke out at Cooper Union, but, to date, no single newspaper of general circulation condemned the chilling death threats as fascistic. It is precisely this piecemeal application that allows the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to ignore the full dictates of the First Amendment when it forbids the freedom of MOVE people who have been eligible for parole for years, because they refuse to denounce their religion; MOVE people like Carlos Africa and Consuela Africa, who could be free *today* -- if they but renounced their religious convictions. The First Amendment must become more than the shield of the powerful and politically entrenched; to use it as the editorialists suggest is to denigrate and implicitly devalue the speech, the faith, the alleged guarantees of the powerles s and politically outcast. It works for all, or for none. The dry, formulaic parceling of the First Amendment which makes it a cudgel of the strong and a truncheon against the weak; a platform for the established and a trapdoor for the poor; loses any significance when not read in its wholeness, or applied equally. I KNOW NOTHING ! It has been written that I was surprised, displeased, shocked, and saddened, which is true but not for the reasons given. Surprised at the occurrence of the demonstration. Displeased and shocked at the governor's statement that he knew nothing of the case (except what he'd read in the papers!) even though an estimated 40,000 people signed petitions on my behalf and forwarded them to his office, at least four congresspersons wrote letters to the governor, international and American PEN wrote letters; an avalanche of letters from Germany, France, etcand he knew nothing. Nothing. SPIRITUAL DESCENDANTS OF WHOM? Saddened-initially at what was thought to be a lost opportunity, but what was clearly no opportunity, for after the governor professed ignorance, that he knew nothing of my case, what would a bunch of questions have produced? Nothing for he knew nothing. One critic, First Amendment maven Nat Hentoff [columnist for the Village Voice], likened the anti- death penalty professors to fascists, and called them the spiritual descendants of the dreaded bookburners of nazi infamy. When the liberal press can depict people who are literally pro-life as fascists, while people who threaten those people with death are lauded as defenders of law, then words have lost their meaning, and political relationships or power vs. powerless have no relevance. Until the baby-burners of Osage, the death-threateners of Philly, the state officers who utilize past political persuasions as indicators of death sentences are named fascists for their acts, then the term should be retired from the arena of rhetoric. -30- SUPPORT SUNDIATA ACOLI, POLITICAL PRISONER LEAVENWORTH, KS -- SUNDIATA Acoli, an ex-Black Panther, is coming up for parole in early 1993 after twenty years of imprisonment. The parole board plans to keep him locked up for ten more years. Acoli was captured with Assata Shakur in 1973 after a shoot-out on the New Jersey Turnpike in which their companion and a State Trooper were killed. Acoli was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment at Trenton State Prison. There he was confined for five years in a Management Control Unit (MCU) isolation cell. While there, he was exposed to tuberculosis. He was then secretly transferred to the infamous federal penitentiary at Marion, IL, and was confined to an isolation unit for eight years, although he had no federal charges or convictions. Finally, in 1987, he was transferred to the general population at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, Kan. Because of his outstanding record, the New Jersey Department of Corrections restored all of the good time he had lost while confined in Trenton's MCU. This made him immediately eligible for parole. Yet the New Jersey Board (who still has jurisdiction over him) plans to hit him with ten more years when he comes up for parole. For Acoli, already fifty-six years old and infected with tuberculosis, ten more years could amount to a death sentence. Write the Parole Board today and demand that he be released at his parole hearing. Send your letters to: The New Jersey State Parole Board, CN-862 Trenton, NJ 08625, tel (609) 292 4257 Also send a copy of the letter to: The Sundiata Acoli Freedom Campaign PO Box 5538, Manhattanville Station Harlem, NY 10027 -30- KENNY TOLIA FREED [Note: This did not run in the Feb/Mar issue due to editorial and communication problems. It was scheduled to run on the ABC page.] U.S. Political Prisoner Kenny Tolia was freed Dec. 8th '92. He had been falsely inprisoned on riot charges stemming from a police raid on an anarchist May Day concert in New York City in 1990. An international campaign was launched for Kenny which resulted in demonstations from Mexico City to Minsk, and petitions from Brazil, Scotland, and Poland. Kenny thanks the international anarchist community for their support - it made his day. info. from Bob Mc Glynn / OGB. -30- Vacaville Prison Protest: INTOLERABLE CONDITIONS FOR HIV+ INMATES VACAVILLE, CA -- MORE THAN one hundred activists staged a die-in at the gates of the California prison hospital for men in Vacaville, on December 5, 1992, to protest intolerable conditions for prisoners with AIDS and HIV. The World Aids Day protest, called by ACT UP - SF, was in support of prisoners' demands for improved medical care and an end to discrimination inside the prison. Since August more than eight prisoners have died under questionable circumstances, both in their cells and in the hospital, prompting prisoners to begin a medication strike and then a hunger strike to protest these deaths at Vacaville. The medication strike, which was undertaken by over 150 prisoners, is one of the most organized expressions of prisoner protests ever. Prisoners, risking their lives, are refusing their medications to bring attention to the emergency conditions for prisoners with AIDS. Vacaville has been without any HIV-AIDS medical staff since March, when three excellent doctors quit because the prison interfered with their attempts to treat the prisoners. -30- CAMPAIGN FOR ANARCHIST PRISONERS IN SPAIN We have begun a campaign to free two anarchist companeros:Pablo Serrano Serrano and Andres Torrijos Artes. They have been constantly harassed by the State (Spain). It's not only that their sentences - eight and eleven years respectively - exceed those of others, (fascist of course), but that they have had to survive the aggression they have faced in jail. Andres Torrijos Artes, who until now had been kept in the Huesca Prison, has been subject to reprisals and transferred to the Puerto 1 Prison in Cadiz, supposedly for having organized a meeting after a prisoner was beaten by the guards. The true motive is his constant denunciations of the Director and Administration of the prison. Our companero has been publishing them in the local press. As soon as he arrived at Puerto, he started to have problems with the administration, for instance, they took away his typewriter. Pablo Serrano Serrano, who has completed a quarter of his sentence, has a long history of activism, marked by successive battles and firings ever since his initiation into the world of labor. He is also known for his work with the Assembly of the Unemployed, which carries out more radical actions (such as expropriating food from supermarkets and eating in the Corona Hotel and leaving the bill for the Minister of the Economy. More recently he has moved on to other forms of struggle; accused of placing bombs in a pub where Yanquis meet, and of the death of an administration advisor. Once in jail, Serrano denounced the corruption there, leading to the retirement of the director of the Torrero jail. He participated in hunger strikes demanding better conditions. He was moved to Tenerife, for acting in solidarity with the hungerstrikers demanding unification of all political prisoners. YOU CAN: send telegrams and letters, demanding freedom for Pablo and Anres, and an end to the repressive measures against them. Sr. Daniel Samperez (dir. of the Terrero Prison in Zaragoza) Avenida America, 80 50007 Zaragoza, Espana Sr. Ricardo Perez Rabinal (Dir. Puerto 1 in Cadiz) Apdo de Correos 555, 11500 Puerto de Santamaria. Cadiz, Espana. Organize demonstrations in front of Spanish Consulates around the world. To coordinate demos in New York or other US cities, contact Love & Rage / Amor & Rabia. In Mexico contact Amor y Rabia support groups. FOR THE FREEDOM OF OUR COMPANEROS AND THE ABOLITION OF ALL PRISONS. Received from the C.N.T., Bilbao, Espana via the Anti-Prison Collective. -30- HELP POLITICAL PRISONERS IN NIGERIA HUNDREDS OF IMPRISONED workers and students -- four are members of the Nigerian anarchist-revolutionary syndicalist Awareness League -- are being held under the notorious Security Detention of Persons Decree. Two Awareness League coordinators, Samuel Mbah and Ifeanyi Chukwu, have been forced to go underground. Demonstrate the week of February 22 - 26 for their release. Peaceful pickets at Nigerian embassies and consulates are being called by the US Workers Solidarity Alliance (WSA) and by Neither East Nor West - NYC (who are coordinating the international campaign). Petitions are available from WSA, and letters of protest are encouraged. Send both to the WSA address below. Please also send in photos and accounts of your actions. For More Information: Workers Solidarity Alliance 339 Lafayette St, Rm 202 NY, NY 10012 tel (212) 979 8353 The Awareness League desperately needs financial support - international Money Orders or UK bank checks: Awareness League c/o Samuel Mbah PO Box 28,Agbani, Enugu State,Nigeria -30- POLITICAL PRISONERS: CONTACTS FOR ACTIVISTS To learn more about political prisoners, prisoners of war, and prisons in North America, write to any or all of the following groups: Bulldozer PO Box 5052 Station A Toronto, ONT M5W 1W4 CANADA Through The Walls 472 Albert St Kingston, ONT K7L 3W3 CANADA Project 1313 PO Box 1313 Lawrence, KS 66044 Anarchist Black Cross San Lorenzo PO Box 215 San Lorenzo, CA 94580 Prisoner's Legal News PO Box 1684 Lake Worth, FL 33460 The ANTI-WARior 48 Shattuck Sq. Berkeley, CA 94704 Leonard Peltier Defense Committee PO Box 583 Lawrence, KS 66044 Committee to End The Marion Lockdown PO Box 578172 Chicago, IL 60657 Friends of Liberty Box 95686 Seattle, WA 98145-2686 Minneapolis ABC PO Box 581354 Mpls. MN 55408-1354 -30- @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @ _Love & Rage_ is a Revolutionary Anarchist newspaper produced @ by the Love and Rage Network. The Love and Rage Network is a @ continental network of groups and individuals in Canada, Mexico, @ and the United States. Subscriptions to the newspaper cost: @ $13 for first class (fast, envelope), $9 third class (slow, no @ envelope), $13 international (outside of United States), free for @ prisoners, GI's, published bimonthly. @ Please write to us at POB 3, NY, NY 10012 @ email: lnr%nyxfer@igc.apc.org @ or: loveandrage@igc.apc.org @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@