BY JOHN STUDER
DES MOINES, Iowa - "Parole stirs concerns. Parents hope girl's attacker stays away." This was the headline on the front page of the Metro section of the December 22 Des Moines Register.
The article, written by Register crime reporter Tom Alex, who maintains offices both at the newspaper and at the Des Moines police department, repeats the police frame- up case against union and political activist Mark Curtis.
The article is written in the form of an interview with Keith Morris, an area small businessman who is the father of the young Black woman Curtis was framed up on charges of attempting to rape. Since Curtis was arrested in 1988, Morris has collaborated with the police, parole authorities, and political forces supporting the cop frame- up in their attempt to make the prosecution's case plausible and to keep Curtis behind bars.
A prominent six- inch- by- eight- inch picture of Morris is dispayed on top of the story, headed by the quote, "I just hope they don't bring Curtis back and parade him around town when he's released. We'd be back to square one..." The caption under the picture states, "Morris and his wife say the years of torment since the attack have consumed their lives."
For the past seven and a half years, Morris has collaborated in particular with an antilabor outfit known as the Workers League. This group's activities over the last 20 years have focused on a campaign of harassment and disruption of the Socialist Workers Party, which Curtis belongs to, as well as targeting unionists and other fighters involved in working-class struggles - from Eastern Airlines strikers to copper miners in Arizona. Since Curtis's arrest, this group has made a central feature of its activities a campaign to spread the frame- up and to attack anyone who speaks out in support of Curtis.
" `We know the parole board couldn't keep him any longer,' Keith Morris said Thursday as he talked about Curtis' pending release," the December 22 Register article said. " `We are very grateful to the parole board for keeping him locked up as long as they legally could.' "
In the article, Morris repeats the charge that Curtis defenders were out to make money off the case. "Morris says the defense committee made a cottage industry out of Curtis's incarceration, accepting donations for the cause," Alex said.
Alex also quoted from a letter signed by Keith Morris in 1988 and widely distributed by the Workers League.
" `The victim in this case is not Mark Curtis,' Morris wrote," the Register says in its lengthy quote from the Morris letter. " `It is Demetria (his daughter) and my entire family, who have been subjected to a national and international campaign claiming we are part of a police conspiracy to frame up Curtis.
" `I would ask you, why would a black, working class family become involved in such a conspiracy?' "
"The incredible thing about it, Morris said, is `the police actually caught him with his pants down. Literally. He was convicted by a jury. And people still believe he was framed,' " Alex concluded.
This article appeared four days after the Pathfinder bookstore, where the Mark Curtis Defense Committee also holds many of its activities, was the target of an arson attack.
Curtis supporters respond
On January 1 the Register ran two letters from
supporters of Curtis answering Alex's attack. The Register
printed the two letters next to each other under the
headline "Mark Curtis was a political prisoner."
One of the letters, heavily edited by the Register, was written by Harold Ruggless, president of United Auto Workers Local 270, and protested the small amount of coverage given by the paper to the arson attack against the Pathfinder bookstore and office of the Mark Curtis Defense Committee.
"Those of us in the labor movement have often felt that The Register's coverage is slanted in favor of the big companies that seek to attack our wages, our standard of living and our unions to increase their profits and competitive position, all too often forcing us out on increasingly bitter strikes, such as those at Firestone and Caterpillar," Ruggless wrote.
"I urge The Register to give full coverage to this dangerous attack and to lend its weight to urging authorities to conduct a serious investigation, catch those responsible and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law."
The other letter, written by Mark Curtis Defense Committee secretary-treasurer Hazel Zimmerman, took up the accusations in Alex's article.
"This article repeats the slanderous allegation that the Mark Curtis Defense Committee was set up as a `cottage industry' to make money," wrote Zimmerman. "The idea that the community activists, unionists, and other defenders of political rights who formed the Mark Curtis Defense Committee had as their goal to make a profit off Curtis' conviction and more than seven long years in state prison is a ludicrous falsehood.
"The thousands of dollars we painstakingly raised from workers and farmers in Iowa and around the world were scrupulously put to use to pay for legal expenses, for printing literature countering the police frame-up, for mailing that material far and wide, for rent and office expenses, and for traveling to speak before meetings and to win broader support from other fighters for justice - including the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, the defenders of Mumia Abu-Jamal and victims of the British occupation of Northern Ireland.
"The Register article repeats the claim that the Iowa Parole Board kept Curtis `locked up as long as they legally could.' This too is false. The board could have forced Mark to serve out his entire sentence," Zimmerman continued.
"Mark Curtis won his parole because the longer he served the more it demonstrated that he was being treated differently because he was a union and political activist. More and more people were asking, `Why is Mark Curtis still in prison?' "
"The release of Mark Curtis in the next month or so will be an important victory," Zimmerman concluded, "not only for Mark Curtis, but for all our political rights. Mark has applied to be paroled to Chicago, where his wife lives and works and where he has a number of job offers and the support of dozens of backers to help him. He looks forward to putting his victory in winning his freedom to use in support of others struggling for freedom and dignity."
Fund drive
Curtis supporters are campaigning to raise $25,000 to
prepare for challenges to Curtis in the future. The
article in the Register, repeating slanders from the
Workers League, shows there are forces waiting for
Curtis's freedom to find new ways to attack him, his
party, and political rights.
In the last week the defense committee has retained two lawyers in Chicago. Jed Stone, a criminal justice lawyer, will be working with Curtis to secure his parole and to attempt to minimize restrictions placed on him. Matt Piers, a well-known civil liberties and civil rights lawyer, has been retained as Curtis's general counsel to represent him against future attacks on his rights.
So far the defense committee has received a total of $22,204 in pledges and contributions toward the fund drive, of which $18,590 has been collected. To contribute, write to the Mark Curtis Defense Committee, Box 1048, Des Moines, Iowa 50311.