Pennsylvania governor Thomas Ridge recently signed the warrant for the August 17 execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a prominent radio reporter and political activist who has been on death row for 13 years. The governor's action came just three days before Abu-Jamal's lawyers were to file a petition to appeal his conviction. Working people the world over should demand that this rush to murder be stopped.
Jamal was convicted of killing a Philadelphia cop in 1982. The prosecution's main witnesses were prostitutes who fingered Abu-Jamal in exchange for being able to "work their corner" without any harassment from the cops. Much of their testimony was contradictory. Witnesses who saw another man fleeing the scene at the time of the shooting were effectively silenced by police intimidation and coercion. Abu-Jamal, who was also shot, was beaten by police on the scene and again after he was taken to the hospital.
Although no physical evidence linked Abu-Jamal with the murder, the Pennsylvania prosecutor pressed ahead and today the governor and the cops are pushing to speed up the execution date.
Abu-Jamal is especially dangerous to the government authorities and the cops because he refuses to give up his right to speak out and remain a political person in prison. He earned the enmity of the cops while he was a radio reporter exposing police attacks against the MOVE organization.
The death penalty is a class weapon in the hands of the rulers of this country. To them, the working class, or at least the biggest portion of it, is a criminal class. The capitalist owners of industry and the banks have created an extensive repressive apparatus, which includes the death penalty, to safeguard their domination and property.
The inmates in the country's bulging jails are mostly workers, drawn disproportionately from the most oppressed sectors of the working class. Police harassment and violence is aimed at keeping the exploited in their place, at attempting to squelch any conduct deemed rebellious, unruly, or disorderly - whether it is on the picket line, at a farm gate, or in the streets of the Black community. Mumia Abu- Jamal, who is a political activist and fighter against these injustices, is a bad example as far as the rulers of this country are concerned and they are determined to see him executed.
Supporters of Abu-Jamal and opponents of the death penalty have a big fight in front of us. The government and the cops are also mobilizing to see that the sentence against Abu- Jamal is carried out, and that even his voice is stifled.
Cops from New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia picketed a recent meeting in New York City that was trying to raise funds for the defense effort. Maureen Faulkner, the widow of the slain cop, is spearheading a campaign to deny Abu-Jamal freedom of speech. Faulkner and cop organizations are promoting a boycott against Addison-Wesley for publishing Abu-Jamal's book Live from Death Row.
Activists from around the world have championed Abu- Jamal's cause and demanded that he be given a new trial. Many see the injustice of his trial and sentence, as he was convicted without any physical evidence by a mostly white jury. The judge who gave the activist the death penalty has sentenced more working people to death than any other judge in the country, almost 95 percent of them non-whites.
The cops, courts, prisons, and death rows have one purpose - to repress, intimidate, and terrorize working people - to force them to accept their place in capitalist society with its inequalities and oppression. The thousands of prisoners on death row across the country are victims of class exploitation and racial oppression.
More protests are needed and more opponents of the death penalty have to get involved to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Rallies and press conferences across the country held June 5 from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., were a start in this campaign.
Working people in the United States should emulate the struggle led by the African National Congress in South Africa.
There, as a result of the advancing democratic revolution, the constitutional court voted to abolish the death penalty on June 6. This victory removes a weapon of terror against working people and stands as a conquest for human dignity.
We urge our readers to join in the effort to defend Mumia Abu-Jamal and say no to the death penalty.