Tag Archives: political prisoners

#MUMIAABUJAMAL’s testimony to the #UnitedNations #UNHumanRightsCommittee

Posted on by toddpanther

On the initiative of the UN Human Rights Committee, an international call for written contributions has been launched concerning “the death penalty in relation to the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill-treatment, and also the protection of human dignity.” By clicking on the link below, you can learn more about the relevance and purpose of this initiative: https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2026/call-input-special-rapporteur-summary-extrajudicial-or-arbitrary-executions

This appeal has been relayed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty to its members; the French Collective has been a member of the coalition since its creation and was re-elected to its Steering Committee in 2025.

With the help of Prison Radio (USA), also a member of this Coalition, we requested a statement from Mumia (an iconic figure in the fight for the universal abolition of the death penalty), which we have just forwarded to the Special Rapporteur in charge of collecting contributions, on the basis of which he will present his report to the 62nd session of the United Nations. You can find Mumia’s AUDIO testimony in English by clicking on this link: https://mumiabujamal.com/v2/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2-3-26-Mumia-UN-Submission.mp3 … and transcribed in the attachment.

Best regards,

Jacky & Steve
French Collective LIBERONS MUMIA

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In response to the Special Rapporteur’s call for contributions “on the death penalty in relation to the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill-treatment and the protection of human dignity,” we wish to bring to his attention the situation of Mr. Mumia ABU-JAMAL, who has spent 29 years of his life on death row in Pennsylvania (USA).

An African American journalist, now aged 71, he has his sentence commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Incarcerated for 45 years, below you will find his testimony on the conditions of survival in prison hell and the physical and mental consequences of his fellow inmates awaiting execution or the deterioration of their health exposing them to
death in the case of life sentences.

An iconic figure in the international fight for the universal abolition of the death penalty, Mr. ABU-JAMAL was convicted after a racist and expedited trial without being able to defend his innocence. Denounced by Amnesty International, the European Parliament, and the UN Human Rights Committee, he has still not obtained a review of his trial. Today, the deterioration of his health, like that of the oldest prisoners, would justify his release on humanitarian grounds.

Noelle Hanrahan (USA) nhanrahanlaw@gmail.com, Lawyer of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Director of Prison Radio (USA)

Member of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
Jacky Hortaut (FRANCE) contact@mumiabujamal.com
Let’s Free Co-organizer of the French Mumia Collective
bringing together around a hundred NGOs and the city of Paris
Member of the Steering Committee of the World Coalition against the Death Penalty

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Submission by Mr. Mumia ABU-JAMAL to the United Nations

When we think about death row I must remind you all who hear these words or read these
words it is not a movie. Don’t think of a movie. Instead imagine a reality where for years, for
many years, people are locked down in their cells for 23 hours a day. Which began as 24 hours
a day on the weekends and after years and years, became 22 hours a day.
Also imagine that for what may be the rest of your life you could not hug, nor kiss, nor caress
your children, your wife, your brothers, your sisters, your parents because non-contact was the
rule.
What did that mean in the real world ? And why was it established? What it means is the state
separating you from all people that you love and who love you. And what does it mean? It
meant that this physical isolation, this true solitary confinement, separated you from the people
who naturally care about you. And separated them from you. What is the purpose of that ? The
purpose is simple to dehumanize the accused, the death row person and to separate them from
humanity itself.
In some states, mostly the South, it has become custom that when a death-row prisoner is
escorted throughout the prison the guards usually shout: “ Dead man walking. Get out of the
way. Dead man walking ”. Now that will remind you of a movie, but that only reminds you of a
movie because it happened in real life.
To separate people from other people, it is to deprive people of what it means to be human. To
be social. And this is something that has become “expertise” in American prisons, North, South,
East or West. This tradition continues in much of this country and is designed to make people
lose hope, so that they can be more easily executed, or as the state says ”put to death “.
This too is not just a word or description or even a movie. I’ve known men who spent time on
death row with me who committed suicide, for a variety of reasons.
Sometimes, they were suffering health issues and could not bear to continue to suffer those
health issues. Sometimes they were depressed because they knew that they should have
gotten a new trial, but instead they got a resentencing hearing. I knew a guy who I had played
handball with, up SCI Greene, he was an excellent young handball player, because he’d played
it in the world. And we gave each other a good challenge, the old man and the young guy, and
he was in excellent health. Until his appeal got denied and he was given a life sentence instead
of the new trial that he knew, he knew, he deserved and by law should have gotten. Within a
week he tied himself to some bars in his cell and killed himself. For him, a life sentence, what
people call “ slow death row ” was too much like death row itself, for him to leave death row, it
was another kind of death row. A death row on life row.
I have met people who I have known on death-row who were executed by the government of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. One guy was about two or three cells away from me when we
were at Graterford in Eastern Pennsylvania. He was an older guy, I sent him a note and said “
Listen man, fight your stuff ” And he called down and said “ Jamal, I am tired ; I got nothing
here, I got nothing to live for, I’m ready to go “. And so he did. He volunteered to be executed.
And the State of Pennsylvania took him up on his invitation.
When people are given no way out, given no hope, does it surprise you that men in such
conditions not committed suicide ?
If you think about it this guy commits suicide by the state. The other Puerto Rican brother I
talked about committed suicide because of his deep disappointment that the state could not
treat him according to the law as written in their books.

But what was killed, was hope. And that is what it was designed to do. That is what death row is
designed to be. And that is what death row and slow death row really is. Not just in this state
but in several states in a country called ‘the land of the Free’.
I wanted to give you an inside impression. I hope I have been successful.


Love not Phear,


Mumia ABU-JAMAL

The Story Behind The Freedom Of #LeonardPeltier

Posted on by toddpanther

https://www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org/

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https://toddpanther.medium.com/mumia-abujamal-on-leonardpeltiers-freedom-74f822cfa0f9

#LeonardPeltier Is Free(ish)!

Posted on by toddpanther

Commutation/clemency, not pardon. Compassionate.

[JANUARY 21 UPDATE: LEONARD REACTS! https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eVmWW1V7jqU

[PRESS RELEASE FROM NDN COLLECTIVE] Peltier: “It’s finally over – I’m going home. I want to show the world I’m a good person with a good heart. I want to help the people, just like my grandmother taught me.”

[STATEMENT FROM LEGAL TEAM:

]

But regardless of that, this is a day of victory, however tinged.

January 20, 2025
Statement from President Joe Biden
Home
Briefing Room
Statements and Releases
I am issuing pardons to Gerald G. Lundergan and Ernest William Cromartie. I am also commuting the life sentence imposed on Leonard Peltier so that he serves the remainder of his sentence in home confinement.

My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me—the worst kind of partisan politics. Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.

I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics. But baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families. Even when individuals have done nothing wrong and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputations and finances.

That is why I am exercising my power under the Constitution to pardon James B. Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John T. Owens, and Francis W. Biden. The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.

On Background from the White House

Gerald G. Lundergan
The President is pardoning Gerald G. Lundergan. Mr. Lundergan is now 77 years old and suffered a debilitating stroke before serving his sentence. Since his release from prison, he has demonstrated remorse, raised money for an in-patient treatment facility for people recovering from substance abuse, and helped establish a nonprofit foundation dedicated to help inmates reenter the workforce.

Ernest William Cromartie
The President is pardoning Ernest William Cromartie. Mr. Cromartie has dedicated his life to public service. Since his release from prison, he has established a scholarship for underprivileged youth and is active in his church and faith community. Mr. Cromartie’s supporters praise his leadership and compassion.

COMMUTATION

Leonard Peltier
The President is commuting the life sentence imposed on Leonard Peltier so that he serves the remainder of his sentence in home confinement. He is now 80 years old, suffers from severe health ailments, and has spent the majority of his life (nearly half a century) in prison. This commutation will enable Mr. Peltier to spend his remaining days in home confinement but will not pardon him for his underlying crimes.

Mr. Peltier is a Native American activist who is currently serving life in prison for killing two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and escaping from federal prison. Tribal Nations, Nobel Peace laureates, former law enforcement officials (including the former U.S. Attorney whose office oversaw Mr. Peltier’s prosecution and appeal), dozens of lawmakers, and human rights organizations strongly support granting Mr. Peltier clemency, citing his advanced age, illnesses, his close ties to and leadership in the Native American community, and the substantial length of time he has already spent in prison.

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Column: This #Thanksgiving, #PresidentBiden Should Grant Clemency to #LeonardPeltier

Posted on by toddpanther

As posted from here: https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/27/this_thanksgiving_biden_should_grant_clemency

Column

November 27, 2024

Political prisoner Leonard Peltier is the author of the memoir Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance.

By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan

While many brace for the return of Donald Trump to the White House, let’s remember that until Monday, January 20th, #JoeBiden is still president, with all the power that confers. The Constitution grants the president the “Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States,” to remedy a criminal justice system riddled with faults. One strong candidate for presidential clemency, as recently called for by Amnesty International USA, is 80-year-old Anishinabe-Lakota elder #LeonardPeltier, who has been incarcerated for close to half a century for a crime he maintains he did not commit. This Thanksgiving weekend, when people across the US enjoy a holiday based on the myth of a shared meal between native people of Massachusetts and the English settler-colonists who would later violently displace them, #PresidentBiden should free Leonard Peltier.

The case of Leonard Peltier encapsulates the modern era of indigenous resistance. After centuries of #genocide launched by #ChristopherColumbus and expanded by successive waves of European settlers, by the 1950s most of the surviving indigenous nations in North America had been contained in isolated and impoverished reservations. Hollywood appropriated, caricatured and monetized the vibrant mosaic of indigenous cultures. Many Native people moved to cities seeking economic opportunity but still faced racism and discrimination. Out of this, and amidst the civil rights and other social movements of the 1960s, the #AmericanIndianMovement, or #AIM, was born.

In 1973, AIM went to the #PineRidgeReservation in South Dakota, where a corrupt tribal government was working in league with federal and local authorities to violently suppress a growing movement to restore traditional practices – and to block extractive industries from exploiting traditional lands. More than 50 Lakota people and their allies were murdered there over a three-year period.

On June 26, 1975, Leonard Peltier was present at an AIM camp on the property of a targeted family. The camp was fired upon by unknown assailants, and the AIM members returned fire. In the ensuing minutes, two FBI agents and one young AIM activist were killed.

Two AIM members were later arrested for killing the agents. At trial, the jury agreed that they had fired in self-defense and acquitted them. Leonard Peltier, arrested later, was tried separately and convicted. Peltier’s trial was marked by gross FBI and federal prosecutorial misconduct, with the coercion of witnesses, fabricated testimony, and suppressed exculpatory evidence.

When Peltier was on trial in 1976, Joe Biden, then a young US Senator, was a founding member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The committee was created after the explosive Church Committee hearings that investigated the unconstitutional and criminal conduct of the FBI and its “ #COINTELPRO ” operations against civil rights leaders and organizations, including AIM.

A global movement grew, demanding justice for Leonard Peltier. Human rights icons like South African #PresidentNelsonMandela and #ArchbishopDesmondTutu called for his release, as did one of the federal judges involved, and, years later, one of the prosecutors who tried the case.

#AmnestyInternational has campaigned for Peltier’s release for decades. The group recently sent a letter to President Biden, reiterating their demand.

“Over the decades at Amnesty, we have been calling on administration after administration to do the right thing by Leonard. He was in hospital in June, he was in hospital again in October. It’s time to give him a chance to spend his last days with his family and with his community,” Paul O’Brien, Executive Director of #AmnestyInternationalUSA, said on the Democracy Now! news hour.

In late October, President Biden traveled to the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona to formally apologize for the US government’s treatment of Indigenous children forced into boarding schools.

“All told, hundreds and hundreds of Federal Indian Boarding Schools across the country. Tens of thousands of Native children entered the system. Nearly 1,000 documented Native child deaths, though the real number is likely to be much, much higher; lost generations, culture, and language; lost trust. It’s horribly, horribly wrong. It’s a sin on our soul,” Biden said.

Nick Tilsen, executive director of the Indigenous-led NDN Collective, responded on #DemocracyNow!, saying,

“What this means for Indian Country is that we hope that this is the beginning of an era of repair between the United States government and the Indigenous people, the First People of this land…He [Peltier] was in the Sisseton Wahpeton boarding school, in South Dakota. Leonard Peltier and many people who became leaders in the American Indian Movement were boarding school survivors. They came out of that era, and then they resisted.”

If President Biden’s apology at Gila River was genuine, he could demonstrate it by commuting the sentence of Leonard Peltier. It would be a long-overdue gesture to Indigenous people across the US, for which we could all give thanks.

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