Journalist and Political Prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal on the Targeting of Lynne Stewart
From Death Row this is Mumia Abu-Jamal. © Mumia
Abu-Jamal 2005
Targeting Lynne Stewart
The conviction of civil Rights attorney Lynne Stewart and her co-defendants
translator Mohamed Yousry and paralegal Ahmed Sattar is a triumph of fear
over reason. The three legal workers were charged and convicted of aiding
and abetting terrorism in connection with their representation of the Blind
Egyptian Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. When the former attorney general Ashcroft
announced the arrest of Stewart he did so on the late night David Letterman
talk show. Certainly an unprecedented venue for such an announcement. And
as it began on TV so it was often prosecuted with a fearsome visage of Osama
Bin Laden beamed to jurors via video tape threatening to attack America on
the Sheik’s behalf.
Even though the judge dutifully instructed the jury that Osama Bin Laden had
nothing to do with the case. How do you wash something like that from the
mind after it has been admitted into evidence? Lynne’s husband activist
Ralph Poynter put the hammer to the nail when he said of the trial “this
prosecution doesn’t have a damn thing to do with terrorism. It has to do
with politics and putting Lynne Stewart away.” Stewart was really targeted
because she ignored unconstitutional rules put in place by the government.
In an interview with Stewart she spoke about what the case was really about.
“The justice department decided that things that I did as a lawyer are now
to be outlawed, are now to be made into crimes, in order to deter other
lawyers from vigorously defending people. What I basically did was, I
issued a press release on behalf of my client. They said that this press
release was materially aiding a terrorist organization, thus making it
impossible for any first amendment right to be protected. And to me that is
the real essence of this work, is that we be permitted to defend people such
as yourself in these cases as political people, not just as defendant
10872.”
Recently black political prisoner Albert Woodfox of the Angola Three talked
about the importance of lawyers in destroying isolation. “I think that this
was a pretty strong shot across the bow as they say, you know if you dare
put forth an honest attempt to uphold the standards of law in this country
we will get you. You know we will destroy you, cause in most cases they are the
only voice to the outside world.”
And now the state has prevailed, sending shock waves through the defense bar
that already shies away from the kind of cases that has been Stewart’s
staple for a generation. She has taken on cases involving members of the
Black Panther Party, the Attica Brothers, Puerto Rican Independence fighters
and since at least 1995 the blind Sheik. In order to put into operation the
draconian special measures of the government the state needs to seed fear
into those who are sworn to protect and provide a full and vigorous defense-
lawyers. But the battle isn’t over. Perhaps what has happened has awakened
many people in this country who would have preferred to slumber? Lynne
Stewart, paralegal Ahmed Sattar and professional translator Mohamed Yousry
plan to stage a vigorous appeal of this outrageous verdict. They will need
your support, now more than ever, it will take work of many to undo John
Ashcroft’s revenge. From Death Row this is Mumia Abu-Jamal. © Mumia
Abu-Jamal 2005
|