Third World Congress
Against the Death Penalty
1-3 February 2007, Paris
Left to right: Niki Adams, Legal Action for Women
(England); Diapha Diallo-Gibert,
Just Justice for Mumia (USA); Dr
Michael Schiffmann,
author of Race Against Death. Mumia Abu-Jamal: a Black Revolutionary in
White America
(Germany); Mr Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel for Mumia Abu Jamal (USA);
Claude Guillaumaud and Jacky Hortaut, Collectif Unitaire National de
Soutien Mumia Abu-Jamal (France).
Speech by Niki Adams,
Legal Action for Women
for Panel “Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Symbol of the Fight Against the
Death Penalty”, organized by
Collectif Unitaire National de Soutien
Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Chairs: Mr Jacky Hortaut
and Mr Robert R Bryan
at 3rd World Congress Against the Death Penalty, 1 February 2007
Legal Action for Women (LAW) is an anti-sexist, anti-racist, legal service, founded in 1982, for low income women and their families based in London.
Together with the Global Women’s Strike (GWS) -- an international network of women in 60 countries -- we have supported Mumia Abu-Jamal for many years. In 2004, Selma James (GWS) and I asked to visit Mumia as we wanted to ask his advice on racism in Philadelphia where one of the US GWS co-ordinating groups is based. The anti-war movement was operating in a city that is 70% Black and therefore overwhelmingly anti-war, but the visible movement was white. He was very glad to be in touch, particularly with Selma, whose writings he had read in prison along with the work of her husband CLR James. In October of that year we visited him.
We were so stunned by him so we decided to work out how we could be helpful. We have some legal expertise so we looked to see what we could do with our particular networks to enhance the international campaign that has kept Mumia alive all these years.
We know that cases are often not won in court, that what happens in a court is very often related to and dependent on what is happening outside of the court, in the street and in the movement generally. Proof of this is Mumia’s campaign which has kept him alive. We also know the importance of scrupulous legal work as we have seen many cases lost that shouldn’t have been because of lazy, incompetent or even corrupt lawyers. So we were glad when Mumia put us in touch with his dedicated lawyer, Robert Bryan, who has managed through his efforts to turn the case around and get it back to court with an appeal which if successful will lead to a new trial.
Robert told us that what was needed was to change the climate of opposition to Mumia in Pennsylvania so that when the case is heard there the court will listen to the evidence and not base their decision on the campaign of misinformation from the police and media. We know that Robert wins cases and we do what a winner says.
We approached Ian Macdonald QC, a distinguished UK lawyer and a good friend of ours. We drafted and he reworked a letter for lawyers to sign acknowledging Mumia as a jailhouse lawyer and protesting at the racism of Mumia’s case. He gave us lists of people to contact for signatures and we circulated it among our wide network of lawyers. The response was extraordinary. Within a week over 100 signed. The letter now has over 150 signatories, including leading criminal lawyers and in some cases household names in the UK as well as those with experience of doing appeals in the Privy Council in death penalty cases from the Caribbean and those experienced in race and gender discrimination cases. Some committed lawyers knew nothing of Mumia’s case until they saw the letter so it was an educational exercise. A number were astonished at the depth of injustice of his trial and treatment. All saw it as a serious initiative against the death penalty and to save Mumia’s life.
The letter stressed the urgency of the Courts redressing the racism in Mumia’s case in the light of the Katrina hurricane disaster, when television viewers in every country of the world witnessed an unparalleled display of racism on a massive scale, allowed (some would say enabled) by the US government.
The letter was sent to the US courts, timed to coincide with amicus curie briefs from the National Lawyers Guild and the NAACP LDF. It is published with signatures in this pamphlet* and has been translated into French, Spanish and German. We are glad to be here to be part of a European network in support of Mumia and to extend that network. We are glad that Claude Guillaumaud from Le Collectif Unitaire National pour le Soutien de Mumia Abu-Jamal (United National Collective for the Support of Mumia Abu-Jamal) was able to speak at our event in London of her work and we want to continue that kind of exchange.
We are dedicated to getting Mumia out because he is part of the same movement as us, the same anti-racist movement, the same anti sexist movement, the same anti-death penalty movement, that is, the same anti-capitalist movement.
We know that Mumia’s case has grave consequences for all of us. If the death penalty lives in the US then it is lurking everywhere. The UK government’s endorsement of the execution of Saddam Hussein under a regime it helps control (despite the belated and mild protests at the way that it was conducted) indicates that, given the chance, it would resurrect legalized murder.
Now with Margaret Prescod, drive-time host on US Pacifica Radio’s KPFK and Women of Colour in the Global Women’s Strike, we are launching a letter for journalists to sign protesting at the targeting of Mumia, for his independent campaigning journalism. It connects the way that Mumia has been targeted with the targeting of many journalists who insist on their right to report what they know and who have lost their lives as a result – many at the hands of the US state. The shooting of Italian Giuliana Sgrena by US troops is just one example as well as the murder of 146 other journalists in Iraq, many by US military. We’ll hear more from Linn Washington of the campaign of misinformation in the press promoted by the police at the time of Mumia’s arrest, trial and since. Unlike the lawyer’s letter which was primarily for UK lawyers to sign, the letter from journalists can be circulated internationally. We urge you to take copies and gather signatures.
This is a moment in time as the movement begins to re-emerge that Mumia can do wonderful work outside for, among others, those inside who we are determined to get out. We are demanding a new trial because we take our direction in our work on his case from Mumia and that is what he is working for. It is a tribute to the quality of the man, to his relentless determination to stay alive in defiance of a genocidal state, that so many of us are gathered here today in his support. We look forward to working more closely together with you and winning justice for Mumia.
Robert Bryan, lead counsel for Mumia Abu Jamal,
USA
with Bianca Jagger, Goodwill Ambassador for the Council of Europe
and campaigner against the death penalty.
