Spirited SF Protest at KQED/NPR for Showing “Philly DA” That Censors Mumia…..Again

Spirited SF Protest at KQED/NPR for Showing “Philly DA” That Censors Mumia…..Again

On April 20, the day after Mumia’s open heart surgery his supporters in San Francisco held a spirited demonstration initiated by the Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (LAC) to protest the Independent Lens TV series “Philly DA”. Some 50 protesters demanded Mumia’s immediate release from prison and for an end to the continued National Public Radio (NPR) censoring of Mumia for 40 years. We demanded the showing of Stephen Vittoria’s documentary “Manufacturing Guilt” and Colin Kaepernick’s video defending Mumia.

"The LAC sent a letter to KQED signed by Angela Davis, Julia Wright, Boots Riley, a number of ILWU longshore union officials and others. A response was received which circumvented the question of “Philly DA” censoring Mumia.” Krasner is portrayed as the hero of reform but doesn’t mention his egregious opposition to Mumia’s appeal rights granted to him by his first black jurist, Judge Leon Tucker, a Republican. Philly DA Krasner filed his Response brief on February 3, 2021 denying Mumia’s appeal. Because of his intransigent opposition to Mumia’s rights Yale’s Reb Law Conference revoked their invitation for him to address them. Independent Lens did permit extensive postings by our side on the “Philly DA” page including links to videos demonstrating Mumia's innocence. The LAC intends to respond to KQED and it may require more actions.

In 1978, the Philadelphia Police Department’s (PPD) brutally evicted MOVE, a black back-to-nature commune, using a circular firing squad around their house in which one cop was killed and others injured by the cops’ own bullets. Mumia, an award-winning journalist and President of the Philadelphia Black Journalists Association, was dubbed “the voice of the voiceless” because he told the truth about the police attack. NPR fired him in 1981 for a “lack of objectivity”.

At the time of the 1985 bombing of the MOVE house, an act of state terror by the PPD, Mumia was on death row framed for killing a cop, but he continued to use his pen like a sword against the depredations of this racist capitalist injustice system. Ten years later, Congress threatened to cut off funding for NPR if Mumia’s commentary contract wasn’t cancelled. NPR obediently complied and the “voice of the voiceless” was silenced on public radio.

Now the white knight Krasner’s “Philly DA” shows him battling the Fraternal Order of Police which he did and even brought some reforms but it doesn’t address the plight of Mumia, an innocent man who has been framed by the racist criminal justice system from the cops, to the DA’s including Krasner and the jurists like racist Judge Sabo who pledged in his chambers in front of the court stenographer and another judge to “Yeah, and I’m going to help them fry the n…..r”. The New York Times called Mumia “the world’s most well-know prisoner on death row.” Yet, Independent Lens won’t truthfully cover Mumia’s case because Krasner like Sabo has blood on his hands.

As the demonstration took place the day after Mumia’s heart surgery a campaign was begun to stop the barbaric use of shackles on his limbs which is legal in racist AmeriKKKA reminiscent of slaves in chains during the Middle Passage from Africa. Julia Wright, daughter of the noted American author Richard Wright, irrepressibly committed to the struggle to free Mumia from bondage, was singularly able to secure a letter from the UN Human Rights experts. Bravo Julia! The letter deplores the shackling of Mumia and states that his precarious condition is the result of years of medical neglect. It calls on authorities to take all urgent measures to protect his life, but in this exceptionally cruel capitalist system of injustice that’s a bridge too far. However, coming from UN experts it will shed light on the brutality of mass incarceration in the U.S. Perhaps their intervention did have some effect because the latest report is that Mumia, now a few days after surgery, is able to walk.

Recorded messages from Mumia and Kevin Cooper were played at the protest. Speakers included MC Gerald Smith, former Black Panther and LAC, Walter Riley civil rights attorney, Arthur League, former Black Panther, Richard Becker, ANSWER and Party of Socialism and Liberation, Aleta, Panther cub and California4Mumia, Judy Greenspan, Prisoner Solidarity Committee of the Workers World Party, Pierre LaBoissiere, Haiti Action Committee former ILWU Local 6 shop steward, Carole Seligman, Kevin Cooper Defense Committee, and LAC, John Holmes, Peralta teacher, Jabiri Shaw, Universal Negro Improvement Association,and Jack Heyman, ILWU Local 10 (ret.) and LAC. The demonstration was covered by the SF Bay View, Labor Video Project (see their link of the protest below) and CBS-TV Channel 5. The demonstration concluded with the chant of the longshore union, “An injury to one is an injury to all, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!”

KQED censorship of Mumia Abu-Jamal in new documentary ‘Philly D.A.’ https://sfbayview.com/2021/04/protest-kqed-censorship-of-mumia-abu-jamal-in-new-documentaryphilly-d-a/