Vol. 72/No. 47      December 1, 2008

The event, titled “Oppose Attacks on Democratic Rights!” was cosponsored by the Muslim Student Association and the Young Socialists.

Alice Stark, a volunteer with the New York City chapter of Amnesty International, walked through the details of the frame-up of Davis, who is Black and has been on death row in Georgia since 1991 when he was 21 years old. He was accused of killing an off-duty Savannah, Georgia, cop in August 1989. Seven of nine witnesses have recanted, including at least two who said they were pressured by the cops to finger Davis, said Stark, yet the courts have refused to grant him a new trial.

On three different occasions worldwide protests were successful in winning three stays of scheduled execution of Davis, Stark said. The United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta issued the most recent stay while it decides whether or not to grant Davis a new hearing.

“Fahad is my younger brother,” Faisal Hashmi told the meeting. “He was a community organizer from a Muslim perspective, unapologetic in his belief in his religion.”

After graduating from Brooklyn College in 2003, Fahad Hashmi moved to England to study at London Metropolitan University. While there an acquaintance stayed at his apartment. The government claims that this person stored luggage with ponchos and socks at Hashmi’s apartment that was later given to al-Qaeda.

“They charged my brother with material support to terrorism,” Hashmi said. “They put him in solitary confinement and for the past 18 months have not even allowed him to receive books.”

Martín Koppel, a staff volunteer with the Militant newspaper, spoke about the case of Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, and René González, who were arrested in 1998 on frame-up charges of “conspiracy to commit espionage.” They are known internationally as the Cuban Five.

“These are not solely Muslim issues, or immigrant issues, or Black rights and racism issues,” Koppel explained. “These frame-up cases and attacks on democratic rights are a threat to all working people.”

“The case of the Cuban Five is an example of how the government assaults the rights of working people,” Koppel said. “The FBI spied on them for years, tapped their phones, broke into their homes, recorded their conversations, seized personal correspondence, and took files from their computers.

“During the trial the government presented secret evidence that they refused to allow the defense to see,” Koppel stated.

After the five were convicted “they were dispersed to five different federal prisons across the country and, like Fahad, when they were first arrested they were placed in solitary confinement, but the attempt to break their spirits failed,” Koppel said.

The frame-up cases along with other attacks on workers rights, such as the Patriot Act, the death penalty, and immigration raids, have been carried out with the support of both the Democrats and Republicans, he noted.

Koppel encouraged students to join the “resistance and protests that have already begun to the growing economic crisis of capitalism,” along with speaking out against the frame-ups of Davis, Hashmi, and the Cuban Five.
 
 
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