Mumia Abu Jamal-Part II

A true political prisoner

The Black Panthers AND COINTELPRO, Then And Now

Deep thoughts from director Tommy Bunz.

It's funny looking back how the government used a covert program to tap the phones of American citizens, murder them, arrest them when excercising their rights, and place them in prison on trumped up charges, all in the name of national security. Sound familiar? Arabs and Muslims here in America and abroard are being subjected to the same tyranny the Black Panthers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and hundreds of other innocent Freedom Fighters. It never stopped, the target just shifted.

No individual was ever charged with a crime for the abuses under COINTELPRO. People had their lives ruined by false charges. Some had to leave the country to escape prison. Some were murdered in their sleep. Some were tortured, in plain sight ( ask Bobby Seale). The government never admitted responsibility or made any restitution to the affected individuals.

Muslims and Arabs have been subjected to the same treatment. They have been arrested without trial, shipped to foreign prisons to be tortured, had their phones tapped and business records scrutinized. Hell, they even made ass pyramids with prisoners and morally degraded them on camera. Just like fire hosing black folks on Sunday and bombing churches with little girls inside.

Think anyone will be charged for the abuses of power under Bush? My guess is hell no. If Nixon was able to avoid prosecution for COINTELPRO, Reagan and Bush for Iran/Contra, Abu Ghraib and phone tapping will be swept away like a booger on the floor. Hell, they were looking for Bin Laden for Christsakes!

There never has been a fair system of justice in this country. Why expect it now?

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin- AKA H. Rap Brown

This weeks Real Freedom Fighter is Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin AKA H. Rap Brown.

Born October 4, 1943 in Baton Rouge Louisiana. He became known as H. Rap Brown during the early 60s. His activism in the civil rghts movement included involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), of which he was named chairman in 1967. That same year, he was arrested in Cambridge, Maryland, and charged with inciting to riot as a result of a fiery speech he gave there. He left SNCC and joined the Black Panther Party in 1968 where he later assumed the position of Minister of Justice.

He is perhaps most famous for his proclamation that "violence is as American as cherry pie."

After 18 months in hiding on trumped up federal charges, he was convicted of robbery in 1971 and sent to Attica Prison where he converted to Islam. After his release, he opened a Grocery store in Atlanta, Georgia and became a spiritual leader and community activist preaching against drugs and gambling in the West End neighborhood.

On March 16, 2000 two Atlanta police officers went to Brother Al-Amins' grocery store to serve a warrant for failure to appear in court on a traffic citiation for speeding and impersonating a police officer (he had showed a badge he recieved from the city for cleaning up the West End). A shootout took place resulting in the death of one police officer and the wounding of another.

Two years later Al-Amin was convicted of thirteen criminal charges and sentenced to life in prison. Since his conviction, his supporters have asserted that another man, Otis Jackson, who confessed to the shooting (but later recanted) is the real shooter. Brother Al-Amin was transferred from state to federal custody as Georgia officials decided he was too high-profile an inmate for the Georgia prison system.

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin is currently serving time at the ADX Florence supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. Show him some love!