The following statement was issued March 8, 2001
by the Executive Committee for Refuse & Resist!

Mumia Abu-Jamal, the internationally known political prisoner
on Pennsylvania’s death row, has filed a motion to dismiss his legal
team. According to Pam Africa of International Concerned Family and
Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the background for this is that defense
attorney Dan Williams wrote a book that is soon to be published about
Mumia’s case that "breached attorney-client privilege" and that "Mumia
has never seen."

In our view, Mumia’s right to counsel of his choice must be
upheld and recognized by the courts.

Further, we think it was a serious mistake for Dan Williams to publish
such a book, even if written with the best of intentions, without consulting
Mumia.

In a radio interview, Leonard Weinglass, Mumia’s lead attorney for many
years, said in response to Mumia’s decision that "the important thing
is that Mumia must be free…I remain available to do whatever I can."

At a time of transition, it is important to keep focused on
the essential issues. Mumia was tried before a notorious pro-police judge
who had sentenced more people to death row than any other, in a city --
Philadelphia -- infamous for its persecution of Black political
dissidents. They denied Mumia the right to defend himself. They not
only saddled Mumia with an utterly unprepared attorney whom he did not want,
they drew this attorney into their plot to railroad Mumia. They worked
to strike Black people from the jury. They intimidated and/or bribed
witnesses and they had cops and a security guard cook up a story of a
phony confession. They brought up Mumia’s political statements in the
sentencing phase of his trial to argue for the death penalty.

For 19 years Mumia has sat on death row as a result of this
travesty. During that time, against great odds and under unimaginable
pressure, he has transformed his 6 x 8 prison cell into a platform from
which he has exposed the many injustices that are brought down on
people and upheld the people’s right to resist injustice. For these reasons
Mumia occupies a special place in our hearts, and we join tens of thousands
of people in saying that Mumia MUST NOT be executed. Moreover, we pledge
to continue our work, together with many, many other people and
organizations, to grow those tens of thousands into hundreds of thousands and even millions, and to force the authorities to not only drop their plans to
execute Mumia, but to free him once and for all. For ultimately the
most decisive thing in this battle will be the united resistance, in many
different forms, of the people themselves.

Refuse & Resist! has stated that the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal
has become a battleground in society precisely because it concentrates so
many elements of the reactionary agenda riding high in the U.S. These
include the criminalization of Black men, the suppression of dissent, the
expanded death penalty, the gutting of defendants’ rights, and a whole political atmosphere based on blame and punishment of the most oppressed.

The battle to win justice for Mumia is one of the defining
battles of this generation. Like all great battles it must constantly face new
challenges and summon up new strength to meet those challenges. We
call on all to stay focused on our goals, to make this story of towering
injustice and heroic resistance even more broadly known, to unite even more
diverse organizations and social streams in this struggle, and to step up our
determination.

On behalf of the
National Office of Refuse & Resist!
305 Madison Ave., Suite 1166
NY, NY 10165
 http://www.refuseandresist.org
 info@refuseandresist.org
Tel: 212.713.5657