Below is an open letter written to Philadelphia DA Candidate Seth Williams, by Maria Rolon, written about her two cousins Denis Calderon and Julio Maldonado.

Please sign petition to stop the deportation of Denis Calderon and Julio Maldonado: http://www.change.org/actions/view/grant_justice_and_stop_the_deportatio...

More info at: http://www.denisandjulioandfaith.com/

View PDF version of the open letter:

http://www.denisandjulioandfaith.com/PRIVADO/ResponseToWilliams-09-05-20...

OPEN LETTER:

Saturday, September 05, 2009

Dear Mr. Williams,

The trailer for the new film about the Mumia Abu-Jamal/Daniel Faulkner case, titled The Barrel of a Gun has just been released. The title refers to a quote from Mao Zedong, that Abu-Jamal made as the 15 year old information officer of the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther Party in response to the murder of BPP members Fred Hampton and Marc Clark by the Chicago police and the FBI in December 1969: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

In this new article, German author Michael Schiffmann confronts the film's pernicious title and explains why the scenario presented by prosecutor Joe McGill is ballistically impossible.

We, Journalists for Mumia, grant permission to reprint this article, so please help us spread the word in any way you can.

You can watch the trailer for "The Barrel of A Gun" here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2w_WntxpLE

Philadelphia's Dan Berger discusses his new research into US prison movements of the 1970s, which Berger is researching and writing about for his PhD dissertation at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

http://angola3news.blogspot.com/2009/09/video-dan-berger-on-political-pr...

The Coalition to Save the Libraries cover up InPDUM's banner

Hi folks,

Check out my new review of Victoria Law’s book: Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women. Permission is granted to reprint as long as Alternet is cited as the original source.

http://www.alternet.org/story/141474/

Beyond Attica: The Untold Story of Women's Resistance Behind Bars
By Hans Bennett, AlterNet

"When I was 15, my friends started going to jail," says Victoria Law, a native New Yorker. "Chinatown's gangs were recruiting in the high schools in Queens and, faced with the choice of stultifying days learning nothing in overcrowded classrooms or easy money, many of my friends had dropped out to join a gang."

"One by one," Law recalls, "they landed in Rikers Island, an entire island in New York City devoted to pretrial detainment for those who can not afford bail."

Letters in Support of Parole

It is really important that everyone write letters in support of
Leonard's petition for parole. These letters can be quite simple
and should cover the basic points important for parole decisions. A
sample letter follows. Feel free to use it, but know that it's even
better if you write one in your own words. Be courteous and concise.

Get as many people to sign similar letters, as well. Carry a sheaf of

Linn Washington Jr. (a columnist for The Philadelphia Tribune and a professor of journalism at Temple University) speaks at "More Than a Book Party" in Philadelphia at The Church of the Advocate on April 24th 2009. The video is embedded below in three parts.

Hi YPP, check out my new article featured at Alternet:

Please help spread the word, if you can. Permission is granted to reprint anywhere, as long as Alternet is cited as the original source.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/139222/the_angola_three%3A_torture_in_our...

Check out the Spanish language translation here:

http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/tres-angola-tortura-nuestro-propio-tr...

Also, the PhillyIMC article has a few extra videos and photos that I compiled:

http://phillyimc.org/en/angola-three-torture-our-own-backyard

The Angola Three: Torture in Our Own Backyard

By Hans Bennett

(Alternet.org, May 2, 2009)

Check out this strong new statement of support from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund supporting Mumia's appeal at the US Supreme Court. Below is the summary statement on their website, and this link is for the actual amicus brief:

http://www.naacpldf.org/content/pdf/jury/abu-jamal_amicus_brief.pdf

http://www.naacpldf.org/content.aspx?article=1372

March 5, 2009

NAACP Legal Defense Fund Files Brief in Supreme Court in Mumia Abu-Jamal Case

(New York, NY) – Today the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) filed a friend of the court brief in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal's claim of racial discrimination in the selection of the jury for his 1981 death penalty trial. LDF's brief supports Mr. Abu-Jamal's request for United States Supreme Court review of his appeal urging enforcement of the laws that require courts to promptly investigate evidence of discrimination against African American prospective jurors.

I just got this alert from HRC, an important group challenging abuse of prisoners, and this is an ongoing story I've been following for a while. This retaliation can't be allowed. Please help if you can!

http://www.phillyimc.org/en/urgent-action-alert-6-prisoners-assaulted-ca...

On January 20, 2009 guards in the Special Management Unit (SMU) at the State Correctional [sic] Institution (SCI) in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania assaulted six prisoners, reportedly citing as reasons that these men file grievances against guard misconduct and are engaged in civil litigation against DOC officials.

We are asking that you read the alert, become angry, and act accordingly to help protect the men in the SMU and by extension all others subjected to the normalized white supremacist torture occurring on a daily basis inside prisons in the state of Pennsylvania and throughout the U.S.

See below the disturbing email sent out by whoisleonardpeltier.info

For more background on his case, check out Incident at Oglala:

------------------
Dear LP Supporters

Political Prisoner Hugo Pinell To Have Parole Hearing on January 17


--Kiilu Nyasha, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Dan Berger call for support

by Hans Bennett


(Abu-Jamal-News.com)

from http://emergencyresponse.cc

SCI Camp Hill Update—Call for Action, Increased Monitoring, Constant Vigilance

As Pressure Fades, Retaliation Escalates

Prisoners in the Camp Hill Special Management Unit report that the retaliation against them has escalated again. The timing of the reports indicate that the last action alert stayed the hands of the guards for a while, but once the calls died down, the threats, deprivations of food, fabricated misconducts, and other forms of harassment and torture have escalated again.

Michael Edwards, Damont Hagan, and Gary Tucker have been targeted most heavily by prison guards as a result of their efforts to expose racist brutality and maintain their dignity while being subjected to systematic dehumanization.

These men, and the others listed below, need the following from all of us:

1)—Take immediate action (detailed below)
2)—Establish channels of communication with these men; write them letters

Hi folks, this is the one I’ve been working on all night, responding to yesterday’s awful US Supreme Court News. Please be sure and go to this link to get all of the embedded stuff, including links to the new flyers I made, so folks with photo-copy resources can help get the word out in their own communities. This is a crucial time, so anything you can do to help spread the word, will go a long way! Here is the master link, in case they don't all come through:

http://abu-jamal-news.com/article?name=hbpcra

Best,
Hans

Mumia Abu-Jamal Faces US Supreme Court as New Book and Film Expose Injustice

By Hans Bennett

(Abu-Jamal-News.com)

Hi YPP Folks, today I got interviewed on KBOO Radio in Portland Oregon. The radio page says: Prison Pipeline presented an interview between host, Ruth Kovacs and telephone guest, Hans Bennett--a Philadelphia-based independent journalist and co-founder of Journalists for Mumia. They reviewed updated information on pending appeals for Mumia Abu-Jamall and current recent stories about his case.

You can link to it here: http://kboo.fm/node/9541