Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!
October 19, 2022
Whereas Mumia Abu-Jamal, the most prominent political prisoner in the United States, has been defended by the trade unions internationally; and
Whereas Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther, writer, and president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, is renowned around the world for standing in solidarity with workers in struggle while on death row, and for his critique of the ravages of capitalism and worker exploitation, racist repression, and imperialist war; and
Whereas he is innocent of the charge of killing a police officer, and was framed up and sentenced to death in 1982 by a racist judicial system, without any corroborating physical evidence on false testimony by coerced witnesses who said Mumia Abu-Jamal was not the shooter; and
Whereas the courts have kept Mumia Abu-Jamal behind bars despite the sworn confession of another man, Arnold Beverly, that he, and not Mumia, shot the police officer; and
Whereas Mumia Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial before a racist Judge Albert Sabo, known for sending more men to death row than any other judge in the United States, stated during Abu-Jamal’s trial that he was going “to help them fry the [N-word].”; and
Whereas Mumia Abu-Jamal remained on death row for nearly 30 years, saved from execution in 1995 and 1999 by international mass protest supported by trade unions, including the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, with West Coast ports shut down and teachers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil participating in a statewide work stoppage; therefore
Be it resolved that IUPAT Painters Local 10 demands immediate freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal and calls for a policy of working-class struggle through agitation, publicity, protest, and continued coordinated workers action on a national and international scale to free Mumia Abu-Jamal. IUPAT Painters Local 10 calls on workers of all countries to use their power to free our brother Mumia Abu-Jamal.
International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) Painters Local No. 10
Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) #11/AFL-CIO