by Another gain against the unjust American legal system.
This is amazing news to me. Everyone should read more into this. I have been torn on the issue for a long time but always felt that death row was the wrong place for Mumia. Regardless of his innocence or guilt, his literature on the american prison system and discussions on the American government are educated and valuable. To give you some background here is some info from Mumia’s Wikipeda:
“Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook[1] on April 24, 1954) was convicted of the 1981 murder ofPhiladelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death.[2] He has been described as “perhaps the world’s best known death-row inmate”, and his sentence is one of the most debated today.[3] Before his arrest, he was an activist and radio journalist who became President of thePhiladelphia Association of Black Journalists. He was a member of the Black Panther Party until October 1970…
…In 1991 Abu-Jamal published an essay in the Yale Law Journal, on the death penalty and his Death Row experience.[83] In May 1994, Abu-Jamal was engaged by National Public Radio‘s All Things Considered program to deliver a series of monthly three-minute commentaries on crime and punishment.[84] The broadcast plans and commercial arrangement were canceled following condemnations from, among others, theFraternal Order of Police[85] and US Senator Bob Dole (R–KS).[86] Abu-Jamal sued NPR for not airing his work, but a federal judge dismissed the suit.[87] The commentaries later appeared in print in May 1995 as part of Live from Death Row.[88]
In 1999, he was invited to record a keynote address for the graduating class at The Evergreen State College. The event was protested heavily.[89] In 2000, he recorded a commencement address for Antioch College.[90] The now defunct New College of California School of Lawpresented him with an honorary degree “for his struggle to resist the death penalty”.[91]
With occasional interruptions due to prison disciplinary actions, Abu-Jamal has for many years been a regular commentator on an online broadcast, sponsored by Prison Radio,[92] as well as a regular columnist for Junge Welt, a Marxist newspaper in Germany. In 1995, he was punished with solitary confinement for engaging in entrepreneurship contrary to prison regulations. Subsequent to the airing of the 1996 HBOdocumentary Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case For Reasonable Doubt?, which included footage from visitation interviews conducted with him, thePennsylvania Department of Corrections acted to ban outsiders from using any recording equipment in state prisons.[27] In litigation before the US Court of Appeals in 1998 he successfully established his right to write for financial gain in prison. The same litigation also established that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections had illegally opened his mail in an attempt to establish whether he was writing for financial gain.[93] When, for a brief time in August 1999, he began delivering his radio commentaries live on the Pacifica Network’s Democracy Now!weekday radio newsmagazine, prison staff severed the connecting wires of his telephone from their mounting in mid-performance.[27]
His publications include Death Blossoms: Reflections from a Prisoner of Conscience, in which he explores religious themes, All Things Censored, a political critique examining issues of crime and punishment, Live From Death Row, a diary of life on Pennsylvania’s death row, and We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party, which is a history of the Black Panthers drawing on autobiographical material.
Mumia on Democracy: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAmHdAJb0Ck[/youtube]
Rage Against the Machine: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkJq75__OXE[/youtube]
Interview with Mumia about the prison system: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37u3sPHjrro[/youtube]
His books are all a good read, whether you think they are bullshit propaganda or not, go pick them up and use them for reference.
