DRAFT RESOLUTION for the Third World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance:
This resolution has been prepared by International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the International Action Center for the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa scheduled from August 31st-September 7th, 2001
DON'T LET U.S. RACISM LYNCH ANOTHER INNOCENT PERSON
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the U.S. An award-winning radio journalist, he was falsely convicted on a murder charge because he spoke out against police racism and brutality. He has been been on death row for 20 years. New evidence has further proven his innocence. But the Bush Administration and the State of Pennsylvania are pressing to have him executed. The world must act!
DRAFT RESOLUTION for the Third World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance
WHEREAS on November 20, 1963, specifically addressing the question of civil rights in the United States and Apartheid in South Africa, the General Assembly adopted the "UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination"; and
WHEREAS on December 21 1965, it also adopted the "International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination"; and
WHEREAS the second World Conference to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination which convened in Geneva in August 1983 declared that, "Racism and racial discrimination are continuing scourges which must be eradicated throughout the world"; and
WHEREAS this scourge of racism continues to plague the United States despite the legal elimination of segregation, taking forms today which particularly plague the administration of the criminal justice system generally and the application of the death penalty in particular, including but not limited to:
1) The 43% of the persons on death rows in the US who are African American although African-Americans comprise less than 15% of the total US population;
2) The more than 60% of the US prison population of over 2 million are people of color who, due to racism, systematically receive harsher sentences than whites when convicted of similar crimes;
3) The continuing epidemic of racial profiling, police brutality and police killings directed against African-Americans and other people of color, in particular youth;
4) The use of criminal prosecution and penalties as a means of suppressing political dissent, resulting in the incarceration of hundreds of political prisoners in the United States, again overwhelmingly African-Americans and other people of color; and
WHEREAS the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an African-American presently on death row in the state of Pennsylvania in the USA, epitomizes in a dramatic way the manifestations of racism in the above forms and others at every level of his prosecution including his arrest, trial, conviction and imprisonment including but not limited to the following: 1) Abu-Jamal had been the target of attention by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local authorities in the City of Philadelphia since the age of 14 as a result of his outspoken support for the liberation of African-Americans and other oppressed groups and his opposition to racist and repressive practices by city officials;
2) Abu-Jamal was beaten brutally by the police both at the scene of the crime for which he was later convicted and at the hospital where he was taken for the treatment of injuries received at the crime scene to the point that his sister, Lydia, did not recognize him when she came to the hospital and it was, indeed, miraculous that he survived; 3) Abu-Jamal was tried by a notoriously racist judge, before a jury from which African-Americans had been systematically excluded;
4) Abu-Jamal's political writings were used, in violation of the US Constitution by the prosecution during the penalty phase of his trial as a justification for imposing the death penalty;
5) Abu-Jamal has been denied in his attempts in the federal and state courts to have the confession of a self-professed murderer and other exculpatory evidence introduced into the official record of the judicial proceedings that if not introduced and adjudicated would continue to prevent him from effectively proving his innocence;
6) The treatment of Mumia Abu-Jamal at the hands of the state and federal criminal justice systems have violated many of the most fundamental guarantees and safeguards for fairness for defendants in criminal cases, for persons on trial who may face the death penalty, and for members of ethnic minorities found in the various treaties, conventions and covenants of the United Nations; and
WHEREAS a massive campaign of protest both inside the United States and internationally around this case has so far failed to gain relief from the appropriate U.S. and Pennsylvania authorities; and
WHEREAS relief in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal will have a positive effect not only on Mumia's case, gaining his release, but also on the pervasive racist application of criminal justice in the United States, therefore impacting tens of thousands of individuals who are incarcerated and/or have been wrongfully convicted; Therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED that we call for the immediate vacation of Abu-Jamal's 1982 conviction for the shooting of Police Officer Daniel Faulkner and his release from prison; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we call upon the United Nations General Assembly to adopt a similar resolution calling for the release of Mumia Abu-Jamal; and
BE IT ALSO RESOLVED that we declare December 9, the 20th anniversary of Mumia's shooting and false arrest by Philadelphia police officers to be an International Day of Solidarity with Mumia Abu Jamal and with all political Prisoners, the thousands on death row and the hundreds of thousands unjustly Incarcerated because of racism in the United States of America.
Sam Jordan, International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
Pam Africa, International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
Monica Moorehead, International Action Center
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