A UK campaign is launched to save the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an award-winning journalist and author, who has been on death row in Pennsylvania for nearly three decades.
William Francome star of a documentary film about the case, ‘In Prison my Whole Life’, will be introducing a screening of this movie in Brixton. William Francome and the organisers of Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Defence Campaign UK will be available to answer questions about the film and the campaign.
Photographs may be taken of the event. Stills and publicity material from the film is also available.
Where: is Karibu Education Centre ?
7 Gresham Road
Brixton
London
SW9 7PH
When: ?
20 July 2010
7pm – 9.30pm
Contact: For further information or to arrange interviews please contact:
Keeley Mudd: mailto:keeleymudd@hotmail.co.uk
Grace Kress: mailto:gracekress@hotmail.co.uk
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a global icon for justice and human-rights. He is also the focus for a worldwide campaign against the death penalty.
His life is more in danger than ever. Mumia’s legal team are engaged in pivotal litigation in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia. At stake is whether Mumia will be executed or granted a new jury trial on the question of the death penalty. The initial brief will be submitted to the Court of Appeals on 28 July 2010.
William Francome was born on the day Mumia Abu-Jamal was arrested. ‘In Prison my Whole Life’ follows his investigation into the arrest of Mumia in an effort to expose the truth about Justice in America for black activists.
A demonstration will be held outside the US Embassy in London on the 28 July 2010 to coincide with the submission of the initial brief.
Notes for Editors:
Mumia was arrested during the early morning hours of 9 December 1981, in Philadelphia for the alleged murder of a police officer. He was tried in 1982 and sentenced to death the following year. The trial was a tragic example of everything that can go wrong in a capital case. The proceedings were marked by racism, inept legal representation, a bigoted and prejudiced judge, a prosecution more intent on winning than seeing that justice was done, and fraud. The defendant was too poor to hire a good lawyer, investigator, or essential forensic experts in such fields as ballistics and pathology.
At the time of his arrest, Mumia was already known as the "Voice of the Voiceless" for speaking on behalf of the dispossessed and against government misconduct and corruption. He was President of the Philadelphia chapter of the Association of Black Journalists. Today his weekly writings and radio commentaries from prison reach people in many countries.
There are significant developments on various fronts in the coordinated legal campaign to save and free Mumia Abu-Jamal. The complex court proceedings are moving forward at a fast pace. Mumia’s life is on the line. Two years ago Mumia’s legal team won the right to a new jury trial, with the federal court finding that the original trial judge misled the jury thereby rendering the proceedings constitutionally unfair. Then in January 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ruling based upon its decision in another case, and ordered the case be again reviewed by the Court of Appeals. At issue is the death penalty.
Other information:
An online petition for President Barack Obama ‘Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Global Abolition of the Death Penalty’, initially in 10 languages (Swahili and Turkish have since been added) has been signed by over 22,000 people from around the globe. Signatories include Bishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa (Nobel Peace Prize); Günter Grass, Germany (Nobel Prize in Literature); Danielle Mitterrand, Paris (former First Lady of France); Fatima Bhutto, Pakistan (writer); Colin Firth (Academy Award Best-Actor nominee), Noam Chomsky, MIT (philosopher and author); Ed Asner (actor); Elliott Gould (actor); Mike Farrell (actor); and Michael Radford (director of the Oscar winning film Il Postino); Robert Meeropol (son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed in 1953); members of the European Parliament; members of the German Bundestag; European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights; Reporters Without Borders, Paris.
For how to help visit Mumia’s legal defence website: http://www.mumialegaldefense.org/
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