For the first time in 20 years of injustice, a judge recently made a substantive ruling in Mumia's favor. The judge ruled that an element of the sentencing phase during Mumia's 1981 trial was against the law. This is the first time that a court has ruled there was anything wrong in the way Mumia was prosecuted. The new court ruling was front-page in every major newspaper in the U.S. and was carried on national TV news shows. Still, the power structure in Philly and others who have sought Mumia's execution declared their determination to put Mumia back on track to execution. And, while there has been this small admission of injustice in Mumia's case by the Federal Courts, the judge DENIED all the issues in Mumia's petition related to his guilty verdict -- without hearing any arguments in open court, without hearing a single witness, and in the face of new evidence pointing to a government frame-up in Mumia's case.

Mumia's case has now moved to a new, critical phase. Our movement has opened a crack in the solid wall of injustice. Let's sieze upon this new development to further build up the movement to stop the government from executing Mumia and to overturn the conviction so that Mumia can be free.

For 20 years revolutionary journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on death row. Without any justice.

For 20 years Mumia has never backed away from his deeply held beliefs and principles... even in the face of death. For 20 years, Mumia has turned his death row prison cell into a trench of resistance and truth.

Through his many writings, interviews and books, Mumia has relentlessly called out the U.S. government's history of racism and present day attacks against people of color. He's never given up in despair or stopped promoting -- from his own perspective -- a revolutionary solution to change the wretched conditions of poor people everywhere. From his prison cell, he has exposed the long epidemic of police brutality in our country. In his book Live from Death Row, Mumia forces us to confront the burden of our history. He asks whether the descendants of slaves will ever have freedom and equality in this America.

Over these same 20 years, when the thousands and millions here and around the world stand up to fight back against their oppression, Mumia has never failed to stand with them, and support them. And this is why Mumia has said "they don't just want my death, they want my silence." He has fought for the people all his life.

At the same time, Mumia's story is the story of every Black man, woman and child who has suffered abuse at the hands of racist courts, judges, and cops. Mumia's 20-year-old railroad points to the injustice of the whole prison system in the United States. A prison system filled with many of our brothers, sisters and friends, whose only crime is being poor, young, Black or Latino.

We live in a society where the youth are treated like criminals. Where prison and police murder are facts of daily life. For many of us fighting to free Mumia, we've learned our conditions of life are not our fault. Or the fault of our parents. Or our people. But the fault of a deeply unjust criminal justice system. The same criminal justice system that is determined to silence a rare voice that recognizes our dignity and our humanity -- Mumia.

If Mumia were to be murdered by the state, he would be the first Black revolutionary legally executed for his political beliefs since the days of slavery. We cannont and must not let this happen! Mumia's conviction must be overturned! He must go free!

In December 1981, Mumia Abu-Jamal was shot by a Philadelphia cop when, as a cab driver, he came upon a street incident where the cop was beating down his brother with a flashlight. During the incident the police officer was shot and killed. Witnesses saw one or more men run from the scene.

When more police arrived, they found Mumia shot and lying in a pool of his own blood, unable to breath. The police never questioned Mumia. Instead, the police rammed Mumia into a pole and kicked in his head, face, chest and back. Police handcuffed and beat Mumia with a police radio in the ambulance. They then took their time taking him to the hospital, hoping he would die on the way. He was brutalized all the way into the hospital, as he fought for breath on one lung. It's amazing Mumia survived.

Mumia was then charged with murder and branded a "cop killer." Why?

In the late 1960's Mumia had been a member of the Black Panther Party, and in the 70's and early 80's, he was sympathetic to the MOVE organization. Mumia was a radio journalist and President of the Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia during the years of the infamous racist mayor, Frank Rizzo. Mumia publicly condemned the intense police violence then targeting the minority communities of Philadelphia. Though Mumia had no prior criminal record, the FBI and Philadelphia police had hundreds of pages of surveillance files on Mumia starting when he was 15 years year old. He was targeted by the political police because he spoke out and fought against racism and police brutality. When the police came upon Mumia that night in 1981, they knew exactly who he was.

Mumia Abu-Jamal, known as the "Voice of the Voiceless", was now in jail on murder charges. The government frame-up then went into high gear with the clear-cut objective of taking down for good a Black revolutionary and an uncompromising political opponent of their racist set-up.

Leading into trial, Mumia's brother was put in jail for protesting Mumia's persecution by police and another eyewitness who said Mumia was innocent was harrassed by police and driven out of town. Other witnesses were threatened and coerced into changing the stories of what they saw that night. Two months after the shooting incident the police suddenly put forward the phony story that Mumia had "confessed" in the hospital emergency room -- claiming they "forgot" to include this in their police reports at the time of the incident. In fact, police reports state "the male negro made no comment." And, this fabricated "confession" was countered by the emergency room doctor who said Mumia made no statement whatsoever.

The government claims Mumia killed the cop with a gun he carried with him for protection while driving a cab at night. But the authorities never checked whether Mumia's gun had recently been fired. And though a test for residue on Mumia's hands could have conclusively determined whether he had fired the gun that killed the cop, these tests were convienently not done by the government.

Amnesty International has called Mumia's trial a "travesty of justice." Jury selection was blatantly unconsitutional, as the Philly District Attorney knocked almost all Black people off the jury. Mumia was denied the right to represent himself. He was forced to accept an unprepared court-appointed lawyer who was later disbarred. Mumia was barred from most of his own trial for protesting the railroad. Vital evidence pointing to Mumia's innocence was suppressed, withheld from the defense, and never presented before the jury. During trial, the police never established the fatal bullet came from Mumia's gun that he carried with him for protection.

That Mumia was targetted for his political views was made clear when the prosecutor argued for the death penalty by reading to the jury revolutionary quotations from a published interview with Mumia from ten years earlier. Mumia was sentenced to death by Judge Albert Sabo. Judge Sabo, known as the "hanging judge," has sent more Black men to death row than any other judge in this country.

Fast forward to the year 2002. 20 years have now passed since the state locked Mumia down on death row -- for a crime he did not commit.

A powerful movement has arisen all over the world to demand justice for death row revolutionary political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. From the U.S. to Germany, Italy, France, and England, to South Africa, Brazil, India, and Mexico, tens of thousands of people have protested Mumia's unjust conviction and demanded his freedom.

Mumia has faced an execution date twice, once in 1995 and again in 1999. Both times the execution was stopped by the actions of people here and around the world. The fight for Mumia has shown that the people must struggle to win justice and this is all the more true at this moment.

We are now in the final rounds of this fight... in a new time... with new challenges. The United States is at war internationally and here in the U.S. repression against the people is rapidly intensifying and taking on unprecedented dimensions. There is an atmosphere of intimidation, suppression of dissent, and the super-glorification of the police. Basic rights of the people are being erased by new laws and presidential order. People are not supposed to question the rounding up of Muslims, Arabs and other immigrants and their "indefinite detentions." Racial profiling is considered legitimate and necessary in the interest of "security" and "safety." This repression has to be resisted and stopped.

What would it mean at this time -- in this hour of decision -- to stop the execution and force the government to overturn the conviction of Mumia and win his freedom?

It would mean the government could not get away with silencing a powerful voice of resistance... and they will not be able to silence the resistance of the people. It would mean the power of the people is ultimately greater than the power of this government and it's repression.

It would mean that millions would have joined together from all walks of life to pave the way for a different and better future, for Mumia, and for all of us. We would be more unified, stronger, and more determined than ever to fight for a better world.

What will it take to free Mumia? YOU. And many others like you. It will take nothing less than the power of the people.

What is needed to save Mumia's life and set him free is a movement that is broad and diverse, because no one section of the people has the power to make the government back down. It requires the efforts of all: Youth, Black people, working people of all nationalities, celebrities, artists, the movement against the death penalty, and massive international pressure. When all these different forces come into action in a determined way, the tables become turned. The government can be put on the defensive in every sector of society, and threatened with defection and disorder. Such a threat is what the government has to see and hear, loud and clear.

Mumia must be freed, because his conviction was fraudulent and this vicious government has no right to take the life of anyone. Especially Mumia... a man who represents the aspirations of people for justice and liberation.

"We all about to be launched into a new century whose benchmark appears already to be disruption, pain, and acute anxiety about the trustworthiness of leaders and of life itself. We are about to leave everything that has been familiar to us, and go off into the unknown.

"Who do we want to go with us? The so-called wise ones who believe you can stop a war by dropping a bomb? Or do we want, instead, to be holding the hand of our brother who clearly loves us, Mumia Abu-Jamal? We demand the opportunity to walk into the future with this man. Free Mumia Abu- Jamal!"
- Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple

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