This is record of the campaigns outside the USA that are supporting the 'Ad Hoc Coalition against Racism and the Death Penalty's demand for an immediate Moratorium of the death sentence as a first step towards eliminating the death penalty completely.
The death sentence is a barbaric, racist, anti working class tool of the US Government. It must be stopped. Join the call for an immediate Moratorium (Ceasation) of the death sentence, the release of Mumia Abu Jamal and all other imprisoned black Activists.
Thousands of people are on death rows in the USA. Thousands more are brutalised and murdered by the state forces each year. The death penalty in America is a form of racial genocide and class warfare against the poor, the worst form of repressive social control. The US has more people in prisons (1.6 million) and is the last major industrialised nation to still put people to death.
A moratorium is an immediate stoppage of the carrying out of the death penalty warrants by any state officials. In contrast to a 'stay' of execution which is a legal postponement of execution whilst a point of law can be resolved, a moratorium is a long term stoppage and can only be won by mass protest worldwide. This would be the first step towards eliminating the death penalty completely.
In May this year there was a conference called to unite grassroots activists in to a movement for a moratorium. It was organised by the AD HOC COALITION AGAINST RACISM AND THE DEATH PENALTY with about 200 people attending representing some 50 organisations.
It was agreed that such a mass movement was needed and that whilst each group is autonomous and will do work locally, in addition to local work against the death penalty, there is a need to work together around political prisoners, police brutality and prison issues generally. One of their first joint actions was to send Lorenzo Komboa Ervin to speak at meetings in Britain and Belgium as a start of moves to increase pressure on the US government from abroad.-The US government are sensitive to their image abroad and any support from comrades around the world will be vital to gaining the victory we need.
'Political prisoners like Ex Black Panthers Marshall Eddie Conway Geronimo Ji Jaga and many others face the possibility of serving over three decades of political imprisonment All of this is happening at a time when Black youths are being criminalised by the US government, and one in every three Black youth in their twenties is incarcerated by the penal system. All of this happens in the face of a deep and social catastrophe generally, which has devastated our communities bought on by the government's racist policies, and conscious under-development of the ghetto, barrio and other non-white neighbourhoods by literally starving them of resources.'
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CALL FOR A MORATORIUM ON THE DEATH PENALTY
by Lorenzo Komboa Ervin
Geronimo ji-jaga Pratt was freed in June after 27 years
Page on Death row prisoners
Ireland
Dublin
PO Box 1528 Dublin 8 Ireland Zapatista Action Project C/O LASC 5 Merrio Row Dublin 2 ARC c/o GoD 3 Castle st Dublin 2Belfast
Britain
Birmingham
Birmingham Prisoners Solidarity PO Box 3241 B'ham B8 3DPEdinbrugh
phone 0131 557 6242London
London ABC, 121 Railton Rd SE24 (tel 0171 274 6655)or
Red & Black Club,
BM Hurricane London WC1N 3XX (tel 0181 691 2456 - answerphone)Sheffield
ABC POBox446 Sheffield S1 1EN
Edinburgh: meeting at ACE at noon then outside old G.P.O. Waterloo Place at 1pm, before handing in petition at consulate and then leafleting on Princes street
Dublin: Picket at US Embassy (Ballsbridge) at 5.30, 4th July
London: noon to 4pm, US embassy Grosvenor Square. Nearest tubes are Bond ST and Marble Arch
Sheffield: Sheffield Anarchist Group will be having a stall in the Markets area of the city with information about the day and other related topics on the 4th of July in the a.m. The afternoon will be a visit to hand out Taking Liberties and info about the campaign outside Wakefield Prison..
There will also be a showing of the Lorenzo video sometime next week at the Sheffield red and black centre, date to be confirmed.
Belfast: Picket of the US Consulate
Who gets killed, this study demonstrates the racist nature of the Death Penalty
Geronimo ji-jaga Pratt on the Black Panthers
Prison activists mailing list
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