Posters featuring “Lynne Stewart, radical lawyer, jailed in New York for fearlessly defending her client; Palm Island Indigenous leader, Lex Wotton, jailed in Queensland for leading a protest against a police killing; Leonard Peltier, Native American elder, framed by the FBI and held in numerous U.S. prisons for 33 years; Mumia Abu-Jamal, framed by racist police and currently on death row in Pennsylvania” formed a backdrop to a rally called by Anarchist Black Cross (ABC), Freedom Socialist Party (FSP), and Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (MACG) on Saturday.
From the callout (posted to this site http://indymedia.org.au/public-speak-out-free-all-political-prisoners):
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MUMIA IS INNOCENT!
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!
Abolish the Racist U.S. Death Penalty
In the United States and Australia, activists are incarcerated for the --crime-- of opposing injustice. Come to a speak-out to demand that revolutionary journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, and all other political prisoners,
....
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man, framed and convicted for the killing of a police officer in Philadelphia, USA, in December 1981 and sentenced to death. He was targeted for the frame-up because of his long history of political activism in the black community and opposition to police
brutality.
Mumia--so trial was a travesty of justice. The prosecution rigged the jury to minimise the number of black jurors, the judge openly displayed his racism and his contempt for the defence, and Mumia was assigned an incompetent lawyer. Numerous witnesses were corrupted or intimidated into silence.
Since the trial in 1982, Mumia--so innocence has been proven comprehensively.
The entire prosecution case has been discredited, from the ballistics evidence, to the intimidated witnesses, to the supposed --confession-- he made in hospital.
Mumia has been fighting his conviction, both inside the courts and out, for nearly 30 years. The US courts, however, have systematically sided with the police.
While his death penalty was commuted in 2001, the courts have refused to listen to evidence of his innocence and the US Supreme Court, on appeal from the prosecution, has now opened the way for the death sentence to be re-imposed.
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Speakers included Greg from MACG, Peter Murray from FSP, Marisa and Peter from ABC, Cheryl from ISJA, Alison Thorne from Radical Women, and Neil from ILC/Spartacist League. There is a full account with more photos on Melbourne Protests - http://melbourneprotests.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/public-speakout-mumia-...
