Oakland: Lynne Stewart, Michael Ratner, Pam Africa, et al

Dear Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Lynne Stewart,

Below you will find the complete schedule of Lynne Stewart's 21-event, six-day Northern California tour. Michael Ratner, Jeff Mackler and Pam Africa will accompany Lynne for the first three days, February 23-25, during which time the tour will include major meetings and receptions in San Francisco, Berkeley, Marin and Palo Alto, all listed below.

Lynne and Jeff will then be visiting Sacramento, Fresno and Santa Rosa as well as three area law schools and many other events.

We are counting on you to support the tour by sending this email to your email lists, friends and by joining us to meet Lynne and wish her well as she prepares to appeal her horrendous "conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism" conviction and to oppose the prosecution's effort to challenge the 28-month jail sentence imposed by Judge John Koeltl. Government officials are seeking to impose the original 30-year sentence recommended by the U.S. Probation Department.

We are certain that you know that Mumia's case is nearing the final legal proceedings. Mumia has a real chance of winning a new trial that his attorney, Robert R. Bryan, believes will lead to his freedom. As always, however, our job is to create a political climate to make Mumia's freedom, the only political alternative despite a legal system mired in racist and class prejudice. Mumia's innocence will be demonstrated yet gain during this tour with startling evidence that no one has heard before. We cannot allow them to execute an innocent man. Join us and bring your friends!

If you are unable to attend any of the events below, your solidarity check payable to either The Mobilization to Free Mumia or Lynne's new legal defense fund, "Lynne Stewart Organization" is appreciated. Please mail it to: 298 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94103. The tour will benefit the Mobe and Lynne equally.

We have also included an article on the tour for your information and distribution.

Download the flyer, poster and postcard:
http://freemumia.org/events.html


In solidarity,

Laura Herrera and Jeff Mackler
Co-Coordinators, The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
415-255-1085
http://freemumia.org

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Tour Schedule Feb. 23-28, 2007
Michael Ratner, Lynne Stewart
Pam Africa, Barbara Lubin, Jeff Mackler

(For details on all events, admission costs, or requests for additional meetings call 415-255-1085. Michael Ratner will join the tour for Feb. 23-25 events only.)

Friday, Feb. 23:

10:45 am Oakland Press Conference, John Burris Law Offices
12:45 - 1:45 pm, Boalt Law School at UC Berkeley
2:30 pm KPFA interview
5:30 pm San Francisco Reception (Women's Bldg. See below.)
7:30 pm SF Mass Rally, Women's Bldg., 3543 18th St. (between Valencia & Guerrero (near 16th St. BART).

Saturday, Feb. 24:

10 am Prison Radio SF Reception at Noelle Hanrahan's house 415-648-4505
2 pm Marin Rally, College of Marin, Student Services Center (Cafeteria)
835 College Ave., Kentfield 415-302-9440
5:30 pm Berkeley Reception, Middle East Children's Alliance, 901 Parker at 7th, Berkeley, 510-548-0542
7:30 pm Berkeley Mass Rally, Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, 1781 Rose at Grant (near North Berkeley BART).

Sunday, Feb. 25:

1:00 pm, Palo Alto Reception, Fireside Room, Unitarian Church (See below).
2:00 pm Mass Rally, Unitarian Universalist Church, 505 E. Charleston Rd., near Middlefield, Palo Alto, 650-326-8837, peaceandjustice.org

Monday, Feb. 26:

7:50 am: KPFA interview with Ralph Schoenman
10:30 am Gray Panther Reception, SF, 415-552-8800
12:30 pm, University of SF Law School, Fulton at Stanyon, Kendrick
Hall, 646-729-4303
5:00 pm Press Conference, Fresno
5:30 pm Fresno Reception
7:00 pm Fresno Rally, Mennonite Community Church, corner of Olive & Willow. 559-255-9492; maria.telesco [at] sbcglobal.net

Tuesday, Feb 27:

5:30 pm: Reception, wine and cheese, Santa Rosa Peace and Justice Center, 467 Sebastopol Ave., Santa Rosa, 707-575-8902, $20.00
7:00 pm Public meeting with Lynne Stewart and Jeff Mackler, New College of California, North Bay Campus, 99 - 6th Street, Santa Rosa (only a few minutes away from the Center), 707-568-0112, $10.00

Additional sponsors are the P&J Center, Free Mind Media, and Purple Berets.

Wednesday, Feb. 28:
12:00 Noon, UC Davis School of Law, Moot Courtroom, 734-972-1036
5:30 pm Sacramento Reception, 403 21st Street, Sacramento, 916-369-5510 jekeltner [at] aol.com

Michael Ratner, Lynne Stewart,
Pam Africa, Jeff Mackler, Barbara Lubin
"Fighting Back" California tour for civil liberties

"Fighting Back: No one shall be tortured, falsely imprisoned, or denied basic democratic rights" is the theme of the upcoming February 23-28, 2007 San Francisco Bay Area tour of Michael Ratner, Lynne Stewart, Pam Africa and Jeff Mackler.

Sponsored by and a benefit for the Northern California-based Mobilization Free Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee, the tour includes some eighteen meetings, rallies, receptions and media events. (See tour schedule on this page). Winning new support for justice and freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal and Lynne Stewart and defending basic civil liberties that are under severe attack today are the central objectives of the six-day tour.

Lynne Stewart, 67, free on bail pending her appeal of a McCarthy-era type post-911 conviction on charges of "conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism," was granted permission to travel to California by presiding District Court Judge John Koeltl.

Koeltl shocked more than one legal observer by sentencing Stewart, a lifelong civil rights and political prisoner attorney, to 28 months in prison in the face of Probation Department and prosecution recommendations that she be sentenced to thirty years.

Stewart's crime? She was the lead attorney defending the blind Egyptian cleric, Shiek Omar Abdel Rachman, who was convicted of conspiracy charges to blow up federal monuments. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and American-Arab Anti-Discrinimation Committee head Abdeen Jabarra, were Stewart's co-counsels. In the course of her defense effort, in a case where the Wall Street Journal argued that Rachman was innocent, Stewart issued a public press release to Reuters News Agency indicating her client's views on the policies of the Egyptian government that was then murdering Rachman's imprisoned Islamic co-thinkers. Federal prosecutors contend that a Bureau of Prison regulation (Special Administrative Measure) prohibited Abdel Rachman contact with outside groups. The government is appealing Koeltl's relatively short sentence while Stewart is appealing her conviction.

Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, will join the tour for its major Feb. 23-25 events in San Francisco, Berkeley, Marin and Palo Alto. Ratner won an historic law suit against the Bush Administration when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that Guantanamo, Cuba detainees, imprisoned and tortured by government interrogators, must be afforded access to U.S. federal courts, that is, granted the right to habeas corpus. This victory was essentially nullified soon after when a bi-partisan Congress passed legislation legitimizing torture, but under a new name. The same legislation effectively denied detainees access to federal courts. The Bush Administration had originally argued before the court that detainees had no rights in U.S. Courts because Guantanamo, Cuba was not a U.S. possession. The more astute Supreme Court rejected this contention, thus reaffirming U.S. colonial rule over Guantanamo.

Ratner is currently in a battle to use the German court system to file war crimes/torture charges against Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and some eight other U.S. officials responsible for torture in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and elsewhere.

Pam Africa is the central national leader of the political defense of Mumia-Abu-Jamal, the award-winning and innocent African-American journalist on Pennsylvania's death row for the past 25 years. Jamal's case is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, with the State of Pennsylvania seeking its third order for Mumia's execution by lethal injection. In 1982, in a trial that has been condemned by groups ranging from Amnesty International and the NAACP to the European Parliament and the presidents of France and South Africa, Jamal was falsely convicted of murdering a Philadelphia policeman. His defense team, headed by attorney Robert R. Bryan, await oral arguments before the court in a major battle that could lead to a new trial and Mumia's freedom.

The possibility of winning a new trial, based on numerous constitutional violations and racist conduct on the part of the presiding Judge and state prosecutor, has rattled the nation's top lawmakers. In December 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives effectively intervened in the judicial proceedings against Mumia by passing a resolution, with only 33 votes in opposition, to condemn the French city of St. Denis for naming a street after Jamal. The resolution, initiated by two Pennsylvania congresspersons, was more intended to pressure the appeals court as it prepares for the final deliberative processes in Mumia's case, than it was to change the view of St. Denis officials. The latter have visited the U.S. on Mumia's behalf on several occasions and have rejected the congressional request, pointing to both the racist nature of the legal proceedings against Mumia and to the heinous U.S. death penalty.

Jeff Mackler, tour organizer and director of the West Coast Lynne Stewart Defense Committee and the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal is a major spokesperson for both defense efforts and has written widely on both cases. Barbara Lubin, Executive Director of the Middle East Children's Alliance will also speak at tour meetings. Lubin is a national leader in the defense of Palestinian rights.

In addition to the immediate Bay Area counties the tour will take the participants to Frenso, Santa Rosa and Sacramento as well as to some five area law schools.

The tour is co-sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild, the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, Middle East Children's Alliance, Vanguard Public Foundation, the Marin Peace and Justice Coalition, and Pacifica Radio Station KPFA. For further information call: 415-255-1085

http://lynnestewart.org/
http://www.freemumia.org
http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/home.asp
The MOVE: http://www.onamove.com/
http://www.mumia.org/freedom.now/