By ABOLITIONIST LAW CENTER (PRESS RELEASE)
CONTACT:
Connease Warren, Abolitionist Law Center, 713-304-8990, connease@alcenter.org
PHILADELPHIA—For more than 44 years, U.S. citizen Mumia Abu-Jamal has been arbitrarily detained in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Today, Abolitionist Law Center and a national coalition of other human rights organizations – American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Constitutional Rights, California Coalition for Women Prisoners, and Release Aging People in Prison Campaign – submitted a petition to a United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention seeking relief. The submission provides evidence of the state of Pennsylvania violating international standards by consistently denying Mr. Abu-Jamal a fair trial and appellate process, by applying torturous conditions of confinement, and condemning him to a death by incarceration sentence that prevents him from ever leaving prison alive.
Mr. Abu-Jamal, a 72-year-old award-winning broadcast journalist and prolific author, has been incarcerated for more than four decades, since December 1981….
The July 28 submission to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention can be found at alcenter.org.