Mumia must Live. Workers' Liberty #61, February 2000.

Mumia must live!

Mumia Abu Jamal is a radical journalist and author who was framed for the killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. In December 1981, while driving a taxi Mumia saw his brother being beaten by Officer Faulkner. He stopped the cab and rushed to the scene. Subsequently Mumia was shot and critically wounded, while Faulkner was shot and killed.

Mumia has been imprisoned on the Pennsylvania Death Row since his 1982 conviction - now nearly eighteen years of incarceration, confined to his cell for twenty-two hours every day - for a crime he did not commit. His trial was farcical even by the standards of racist US justice. A manufactured 'confession' was produced a full two months after it was supposedly extracted from Mumia as he lay in intensive care, a confession Mumia has always denied. Critical ballistics evidence was suppressed. Mumia's registered handgun was a .38, whereas bullet fragments extracted from Faulkner were .45 calibre. At the time of the shooting Mumia's hands were not tested for gunpowder residue, as called for by standard procedure. Key defence witnesses were disallowed, while key prosecution witnesses were coerced, and their subsequent retractions ignored.

The police targeted Mumia for his political activities. In 1969, aged fifteen, he was a founding member of the Philadelphia chapter of the Black Panther Party (a fact raised by the prosecution - violating Mumia's constitutional rights - during the sentencing stage of his trial.) After the collapse of the Black Panthers under fire from the FBI, Mumia went on to radio journalism, where he focused on exposing racism and oppression, earning himself the sobriquet 'Voice of the Voiceless.'

Mumia's reporting on police brutality against Philadelphia's Black minority attracted the ire of the Philly police. In particular his defence of the MOVE collective against an ongoing campaign of police harassment aroused their antagonism (this campaign culminated in 1985 with an appalling police atrocity when city and federal police contrived to drop a satchel of high explosive onto the commune - the resulting fire burned eleven people to death and several city blocks to the ground.)

Mumia's case is the highest profile example of the death sentence being used as a tool of political suppression and terror since the execution of the Rosenburgs. His fight for survival has attracted a wide range of supporters, from Sting, to Martin Luther King III, to George Silcott (who has first hand knowledge of homegrown police racism), to the International Longshore Workers Union and other human rights and labour organisations. Their efforts and those of thousands of supporters around the world have contributed to Mumia's survival so far, but the fight is far from over.

National demonstration in London: Saturday 4 March, assemble at Embankment 1pm, march to Trafalgar Square for a rally at 3pm.