Jeri Mullan
Chicago, Illinois
 
 
Attack on benefits
A little-published fact is that extensions for unemployment benefits have been abolished by Congress as of December 21. After six months one no longer has benefits while previously there had been a three-month extension. These brutal cuts affect all unemployed workers, including this airline worker.

Rick Young
Chicago, Illinois
 
 
Solidarity with miners
Twenty prisoners at the Hudson County Corrections Center in Kearny, New Jersey, signed and sent a message of solidarity January 14 to the coal miners on strike against CW Mining near Huntington, Utah. (See front-page article.) They also sent a copy of their letter to the Militant, asking that it be published. Excerpts from the message appear below.

Two of the men—Farouk Abdel-Muhti and Abdul Hamid—sent personal letters of support to the miners at the same time. Excerpts from these letters also appear below.

All of these prisoners were jailed under accusations of violating U.S. immigration law. Farouk Abdel-Muhti’s campaign against this injustice is known to readers of the Militant. He is an outspoken advocate of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination who was arrested in April 2002 and has been held without charges ever since.

Abdel-Muhti has gained wide support for his fight to be released from prison and against Washington’s effort to deport him. Letters demanding his release should be sent to David Venturella, Office of Detention and Removal, Department of Homeland Security: fax (202) 353-9435; tel. (202) 514-8663; e-mail: david.venturella@dhs.gov, with copies to the defense committee at freefarouk@yahoo.com.

—Editor

Message from 20 prisoners

We want to send our heartfelt support to the miners in Utah. They are engaged in a just strike, and are courageously claiming their right to return to their jobs and demanding recognition as unionists organized inside the UMWA [United Mine Workers of America] with the right to be treated with respect on the job…. The treatment handed out to the miners seems to us abusive, as they were suspended from their jobs and thrown out into the streets to swell the numbers of the unemployed; in our eyes, these actions by the Co-Op owners are undemocratic and antiquated.

These exploiters are holding off the formation of a union, when the right of free association is a right won many years ago and is accepted and recognized by the whole world. This backward attitude shows that they want to go on exploiting and abusing the workers, and violating their rights.

The right to organize in the UMWA is…a natural right of humanity; the bosses are still living in the epoch of the cave-dwellers, and we are obliged to wake them up to reality…. To be able to defend this right it is necessary to organize against this feudalistic company, which is backed by the Sheriff and by the system manipulated by the imperialist administration in Washington.…

We call on all people of principles and with true humanity, on students, professionals, housewives, and all the workers of the country and the entire world to support these valiant miners with funds, food, medicines, publicity, and legal assistance (especially to the immigrants) so they can continue their battle.

We are sending this message from the immigration prison in Hudson County Correctional Center, Unit B100 West, in Kearny, New Jersey, where we are detained awaiting deportation.

Go forward with courage!

Farouk Abdel-Muhti, Palestine
Abdul Hamid Wady, Colombia
Gianni, Italy
Hemnauth Mohabis, Guyana
Sory Soeun, Cambodia
Pantaleon Remigio, Dominican Republic
Traore Aboubacar, Guinea
Francisco Espinoza, Cuba
Nuo Li, People’s Republic of China
Ricardo Ventura, Brazil
Juanoc Vosye, Ukraine
Pedro Rodríguez, Cuba
Nic Vong, Laos
Marcelino Pons, Cuba
Renaldo Izquierdo, Cuba
Noor Mohammed, India
Antonio Martin, Cape Verde
Edward Morgan, Jamaica
Luis Pardo, Colombia
Glen Salcedo, Ecuador
 
 
Farouk Abdel-Muhti:
To my brothers and comrade mine workers of Utah. The valiant Palestinian people are fighting with the intifada to free their occupied lands and obtain their independence, sovereignty in the territories occupied on June 4, 1967, and the return of their refugees, who have been crucified for 55 years, to their homes in the historic land of Palestine.

I link arms with your resistance, to the just and dignified demands you have raised as workers and lovers of liberty, equality, and peace with justice.

 
 
Abdul Hamid Wady:
I am Colombian and 64 years old, 30 years dedicated to the union movement in Colombia, and my experience in the union allows me to say that the only weapon of the working class that can defeat the exploiting bosses and reactionaries is the strike—that’s what hurts them most and is most likely to force the irrational ones to locate their powers of reason.

To vanquish or to die! Never on our knees!

The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of interest to working people.
Please keep your letters brief. Where necessary they will be abridged. Please indicate if you prefer that your initials be used rather than your full name.

Donate to the Prisoners Fund
The ‘Militant’ receives many requests from readers behind bars. The Prisoners Fund makes it possible to send them subscriptions at a reduced rate. A prisoner can buy a six-month subscription for $6 and a one-year subscription for $12.

The Spanish-language monthly magazine ‘Perspectiva Mundial’ offers prisoners a six-month subscription for $3 and a one-year subscription for $6.

To help cover the cost of these special offers, please send a check or money order, earmarked “Prisoners Fund,” to the Militant, 306 W. 37 St., 10th Floor, New York, NY 10018.  
 
 
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