{"id":51740,"date":"2021-04-29T18:44:20","date_gmt":"2021-04-29T18:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wagingnonviolence.org\/forusa\/?p=51740"},"modified":"2021-04-29T18:44:39","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T18:44:39","slug":"interfaith-call-freedom-mumia-abu-jamal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wagingnonviolence.org\/forusa\/2021\/04\/interfaith-call-freedom-mumia-abu-jamal\/","title":{"rendered":"An interfaith call for the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dear brothers and sisters in the religious community \u2014 clergy, theologians and lay Ppersons,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We write to you at this very challenging moment in history, about the frightening health crisis facing Mumia Abu-Jamal, internationally renowned political prisoner and writer. Mumia has published 13 books during his nearly 40 years of imprisonment and continues to send out hundreds of recorded messages as well as written statements around the world. With heart surgery and other medical emergencies in the picture, this call is more urgent than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mumia, as you may recall, was very ill five years ago as a result of misdiagnosed and untreated Hepatitis C. He was very close to death at that point, and we are sad to report that his situation may indeed be even more precarious now. Despite decades of amazing international and U.S. support, and Mumia\u2019s own great inner strength,\u00a0Mumia’s life is in imminent danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now 66 years old, Mumia was infected with the COVID-19 virus in late February, a condition he immediately recognized but which the prison doctors denied. His health had already been compromised as a result of the Hepatitis C after-effects, including cirrhosis of the liver and a related, very serious skin disease that causes him to suffer from a burning feeling throughout his body.\u00a0The danger to Mumia\u2019s life at this moment is also complicated by congestive heart failure, a condition only discovered during the recent COVID-19 emergency. According to Dr. Ricardo Alvarez, Mumia\u2019s outside-of-prison medical consultant, his continued incarceration subjects Mumia to an average life expectancy of five years. Fifty percent of those suffering from congestive heart failure die within five years. With proper exercise, diet, and emotional support, a higher life expectancy would be predicted; with the opposite conditions (the very conditions that prison life embodies, especially during this pandemic), a significantly lower expectancy is predicted. The doctor, with a detailed analysis of the traumas of racism and violence imposed by the state of Pennsylvania, its officials, and the Fraternal Order of Police on Mumia over these nearly 40 years of incarceration, 30 of them in isolation on death row, states unequivocally that the only treatment for Mumia is freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result of the international outcry that followed his 2016 illness \u2014 reminiscent of the 1995 and 1999 global mobilizations (when his death row execution was scheduled) \u2014 we were able once again to prevent Mumia\u2019s death. We forced the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, or DOC, to provide Mumia with the available cure for Hepatitis C, which it had originally denied him. That powerful movement, which packed the courtroom on three consecutive weekdays in Scranton, when we brought a legal suit against the DOC for refusing to give Mumia the treatment that he needed, which was available, forced the powers that be \u2014 the governor, the commissioner of the DOC, the prison and whoever else \u2014 to provide Mumia with the medical cure he needed.\u00a0 The result was not only a people\u2019s victory that saved Mumia\u2019s life, but it also made the Hepatitus C cure legally available to thousands of Pennsylvania prisoners and others working under the jurisdiction of the state. A victory for Mumia provided a victory for other prisoners and residents of Pennsylvania suffering from the same ailment who had previously been unable to afford this very expensive drug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current international support movement deluged the authorities immediately upon learning of Mumia\u2019s recent COVID-19 symptoms, resulting in Mumia being rushed to a hospital where the COVID diagnosis was confirmed, and some care administered. It was at this time the doctors discovered that Mumia was also suffering from congestive heart failure and\u00a0shockingly \u2014 and reminiscent of practices during slavery \u2014 he remained shackled to his bed with locks that exacerbated his bleeding and skin pain during the four days while hospitalized for the congestive heart failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By any human rights standards, calling this torture would not be considered an exaggeration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mumia is in such grave physical danger; that he and all other prisoners who are aged over 50\u2014or who have particular vulnerabilities to Covid-19\u2014must be of critical concern to us now. Statistics clearly show that these elder prisoners pose no danger to the community. Regardless of their history of conviction, they should be released from prison during this time of pandemic; otherwise, the conditions transform their actual sentencing to a de facto<\/em> slow-motion death sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, as indicated in the legal summary added below, strong factual evidence has repeatedly surfaced showing Mumia\u2019s fundamental innocence of the crime for which he was convicted. He remains a victim of the racist system under which we live, aimed at silencing powerful Black voices, as it has done over decades to other rising Black charismatic individuals including Fred Hampton, Jr., Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the exiled Assata Shakur. The recent film “Judas and the Black Messiah”\u00a0has exposed some of the shocking practices of the U.S. government aimed at stifling dissent, particularly on the part of Black people. The connection between that reality and the imprisonment of U.S. political prisoners, including Mumia, the most well-known of all of them, has yet to be made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We therefore ask that you sign the simple but powerful Religious Call for Mumia\u2019s Immediate and Unconditional Release<\/a>. Please reply to us at: FreeMumiaInterfaith@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Cornel West
Rev. Dr. Emma Jordan-Simpson, Executive Director, Fellowship of Reconciliation
<\/em>The Most Reverend John Eric Stowe, Bishop President, Pax Christi USA
<\/em>Rabbi Alissa Wise, founding co-chair,<\/em> Rabbinic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace
<\/em>Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Board Chair of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity; member, Rabbinic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace
<\/em>Dr. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, founding member, National Council of Elders; Professor Emerita, African American\u00a0Religions & Islamic Studies,\u00a0Univ. of Florida<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span><\/u>Addendum: A synopsis of Mumia’s legal lynching<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judge Albert Sabo, who presided over both Mumia\u2019s original trial and his appeals process (known in Philadelphia as the Post-Conviction Relief Appeal), defined Mumia\u2019s horrendous legal odyssey to this day. Each subsequent court and judge essentially rubber-stamped Sabo\u2019s decisions. Albert Sabo had actually retired by the time Mumia\u2019s case came up.\u00a0 He was taken out of retirement to do this \u201cjob\u201d.\u00a0 He was known as a pro-death penalty judge, who in 14 years as a judge had presided over cases in which 31 defendants were sentenced to death \u2014 more death sentences than any other U.S. judge \u2014 and of those 31, 29 were people of color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His rulings were consistently prejudicial against Mumia and for the prosecution, to list some of those rulings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n