FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 THE PEOPLE’S ORGANIZATION FOR PROGRESS

MOURNS TRAGIC LOSS OF MALCOLM SHABAZZ
CONTACT: Lawrence Hamm 973 801 0001

The People’s Organization for Progress was stunned like so many when we learned of the tragic violent death of Malcolm Shabazz, the grandson of Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz.

We extend our sympathies to the Shabazz family as they face yet another enormous ordeal.

We note with great respect that young Malcolm was trying to become a personal beacon of international human solidarity in his own right and we salute him for that.

Our organization has a special connection to the Shabazz legacy, most especially to Dr. Betty Shabazz, who was one of our most honored guests in the early years of the organization.

In that first historic visit, Dr. Shabazz made a challenge to the organization and to me, personally, that made us both better and more committed to what we do. In short, in that first gathering to honor Malcolm, featuring Dr. Shabazz, our audience wasn’t as large as Malcolm’s legacy deserved. Dr. Shabazz plainly told us that if we ever wanted her to come back and talk about her husband, then we “better” get the audience he deserved. We have since tried to bring that zeal and attention to mobilization detail to all of our work ever since, and it truly has made a difference.

We will continue to salute the legacy of Malcolm X and his family as we always have and should. We urge all other organizations to do the same.

Power to the People!

Lawrence Hamm,

Chairman

The People’s Organization For Progress (POP) calls upon the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to remove Assata Shakur (Joanne Chesimard) from its Most Wanted Terrorists List.  She does not belong on the list because Ms. Shakur was never charged nor convicted of an act of domestic or international terrorism.

To place her on such a list is fundamentally unjust. It is a perversion of justice and involves the ex post facto application of terrorist laws and definitions of terrorism that were not in existence or applied to her case at the time of her arrest and conviction.

Furthermore, she did not commit the crime she was accused of.   She was placed on the list because her conviction connected her to the murder of a police officer. However, evidence in her case shows that she could not have shot and killed that officer.  She became a fugitive because given the circumstances of her case, the atmosphere of repression, and the racism of the criminal justice system she could not get justice in this country and to remain here may have cost her life.

The move to place her on the list and the doubling of her bounty to $2 million has little to do with justice and everything to do with politics. It is an opportunistic attempt to use the criminal justice system to score political points in this highly charged post Boston bombing environment.

Placing Assata Shakur on the terrorists list when she was not convicted of a “terrorist act” is in essence falsely accusing her of a crime that she did not commit. It is the abandonment of the law in the name of enforcing the law.

Like the war in Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, preemptive strikes, and the abandonment of international law, it is the establishment of a false premise as a rationale for violent action, which has no legal basis but for which political support may be imagined or conjured up.  Placing Assata Shakur on the terrorists list sets a dangerous precedent.

With the false premise established what will be next?  Will Cuba be given the ultimatum to give up Shakur like the Afghanistan government was told to give up Osama Bin Laden before the US invasion of that country?  Will there be a drone strike of Shakur’s supposed residence in Cuba?  Will Navy Seal Team “7″ be sent on a covert mission to assassinate Assata Shakur who is an American citizen?

By identifying Shakur as a terrorist the FBI is taking the terrorists list and making it a “political enemies” list, which is an instrument of state terror. And why not?  This fits in perfectly with unjust and illegal trillion dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, extraordinary renditions, black site secret prisons in foreign lands, torture, assassination of US citizens, military courts, secret trials, Guantanamo, elimination of habeas corpus, indefinite detention, government domestic spying, arbitrary arrests, police brutality, racial profiling, stop and frisk, mass incarceration, school to prison pipeline, suppression of dissent, COINTELPRO type operations, ignoring the Constitution, trashing the Bill of rights, and trampling upon our civil liberties.

And let’s look at her accusers. Who is calling her a terrorist?  The FBI who spied on Dr. Martin Luther King. The FBI whose Director J. Edgar Hoover made it his mission to destroy Dr. King. The FBI who engaged in acts of state terror that included assassination against people and organizations in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements.

And the New Jersey State Police who shot up Newark and killed innocent people during the rebellion. The New Jersey State Police who for years engaged in the worst forms of racial profiling.  The New Jersey State Police, a department so rife with racism that the federal government had to put it under a “master” to force it to reform its racist ways.

With this precedent the rights of all Americans are placed in greater jeopardy. Now, anyone can be deemed a terrorist, not because this was proven in a court of law but by fiat, proclamation or declaration by the President, US Attorney General, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, or some other agency of the federal government.

And this can be done not just for transgressions of the present. It can be done retroactively for sins of the past, ten, twenty, thirty, and forty years ago. If the government doesn’t like someone just put them on the terrorist list.

Of course, this exercise of twenty-first century US democracy would not be complete unless accompanied by the economic incentive that American capitalism can provide. In this age of robber billionaires a $1 million dollar bounty on the head of Assata Shakur was not enough. It has been doubled to $2 million.

Who are the $2 million pieces of silver for? Are they for enterprising US citizens? No. Assata Shakur has been given political asylum in Cuba. This pot of gold is to entice elements within Cuban Society to violate the laws and policies of the Cuban government.

The FBI and company hope that in Cuba there are corrupt persons within the police, or criminal elements, or people opposed to the government who will take the bait and do this bit of subcontracting work and keep some of the heat off the bosses in the US.

They hope that there are Hamid Kharzais in Cuba who would like to have bags of money delivered to them on a monthly basis. “Bring Assata Shakur to us and you to can be a millionaire.” Dead or alive has not been specified.

The placing of Assata Shakur on the terrorist list while portrayed as a noble act in the attempt to get justice for a slain police officer is in fact a shameful act of revenge, opportunism, political manipulation, and authoritarianism.  It is part and parcel of a corrosive trend eating away at the democratic processes and institutions in our country for half a century and which has accelerated since 9/11.

Assata Shakur should not be on the terrorist list. She should be removed from that list just as Nelson Mandela was removed from that list several years ago. When the threat of terrorism and the terrorist label is misused in this manner the victims of real acts of terror are dishonored.

-END-

When: May 10th, 2013 at 4 pm

Questions? Contact: Delores Sarfo-Darko – sarfodde@shu.edu, Jessica Townsend – townseje@shu.edu, Wallace Weaver – weaverwa@shu.edu or Larry Hamm 973 801-0001

On May 2nd, imprisoned black revolutionary Mumia Abu Jamal will make a live call into a meeting of the People’s Organization For Progress. This is an extraordinary event.

The meeting will take place this Thursday, May 2, 2013, 6:00pm at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, 224 West Kinney Street, Newark, New Jersey. Mumia Abu-Jamal is expected to call in around 7:30pm.

I am making a personal appeal to all POP members, supporters, and friends, and everyone who wants freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal to attend tomorrow night’s meeting.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is probably the best known death row inmate in the world today. In 1981, he was convicted of murdering a Philadelphia police officer and was sentenced to death. However, last year his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Mumia Abu-Jamal has always asserted his innocence. Many believe that he was railroaded, did not receive a fair trial, was wrongly convicted of a crime he did not commit, and that he should be released from prison.

Over the years a world wide campaign has emerged to free Abu-Jamal from prison. The Campaign To Free Mumia, who was on death row for more than 30 years, is a decades long effort that has become an international movement.

A controversy erupted in Newark, New Jersey last week concerning a film about the life of Abu-Jamal. The critically acclaimed documentary Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary, produced by Newark Native Steve Vittoria, was scheduled to be shown at the City Plex 12 theater on Friday, April 26.

However, a decision was made by the theater’s owners and management to cancel the film just days before its opening. This caused an outcry from a coalition of Mumia supporters and grassroots groups including the Newark based People’s Organization For Progress.

Last Friday, on the day the film was supposed to be shown, the coalition held a rally and press conference at the theater to condemn the film’s cancellation. The possibility of future action is being discussed.

Arrangements are being made so that during his call into Thursday night’s POP meeting those in attendance will be able to hear Mumia Abu-Jamal speak and he will be able to hear the audience.

Please make every effort to attend tomorrow night’s General Assembly meeting. On Thursday night we can make it eminently clear that the Free Mumia Movement is strong in New Jersey.

Let’s pack the meeting so that we can show Mumia that he has a lot of support from the People’s Organization For Progress and many other organizations and individuals in our area. Let’s not only get there on time, let’s get there early so that we can start the meeting promptly at 6:00pm and get our routine business out of the way, and be ready when Mumia calls.

We must get the people out. Please make calls from tonight and urge people to come. At a minimum try to find at least one person who can attend. Let’s see If we can get 200 people to be there.

Please forward the information on this event to our email lists, post on our website and Facebook pages, and send out in the form of press releases to all of our media contacts. Please distribute it as widely as possible.

Please wear your POP sweatshirt or t-shirt weather permitting. Call 973.801-0001 for more information.

Thank you. Free Mumia! Power To The People!

Lawrence Hamm
Chairman
People’s Organization For Progress

Hands Off Social Security, Veterans Benefits, Medicaid and Medicare

Tuesday May 7, 2013
12 Noon

IN FRONT OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE
274 SPRINGFIELD AVENUE, NEWARK, NEW JERSEY
(Between BEDFORD AVENUE & HAYES STREET)

Get the new flier here! HANDS OFF SOCIAL SECURITY 5.7.2013 Rev,

After her arrest, Miss Colvin became active in the Montgomery NAACP Youth Council organized by Mrs. Rosa Parks, so she had multiple sources of inspiration, though she was taken off the bus and busted some nine months before Mrs. Parks herself was arrested.

Read the rest here.

THE PEOPLES ORGANIZATION FOR PROGRESS

PO BOX 22505

NEWARK, NJ 07101

973 801 0001

www.njpop.org

April 13, 2013

POP HOSTS EMERGENCY RALLY

IN DEFENSE OF SOCIAL SECURITY,

MEDICARE, MEDICAID AND VETERAN’S BENEFITS!

On Tuesday, April 16^th, the People’s Organization for Progress will host an emergency rally in defense of social security, medicare, Medicaid and veteran’s benefits.

This very important rally will take place at 11:30am at the Newark Social Security Office, located at 274 Springfield Avenue between Bedford Avenue and Hayes Street in Newark.

This rally comes on the heels of recent federal budget negotiations where President Obama expressed a willingness to make cuts in these critically needed programs to move the process of securing a new federal budget.

“Aren’t people on fixed income and low income already bearing more than fair share of this economic crisis,” asked a passionately cynical Lawrence Hamm.

“That’s why these issues were also core issues in our recent 381 day campaign for jobs, peace, equality and justice,” he finished crisply.

For more information, please call 973 801 0001.

The People’s Organization for Progress meets every Thursday evening at Abyssinian Baptist Church, 224 West Kinney Street, Newark at 6:30pm.

 Download flyer here!

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She was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala, in 1955 when black people were routinely treated as second-class citizens and had no rights. When she put her foot down, 40,000 blacks wouldn’t ride city buses for 381 days during a boycott that ushered in the civil rights movement with the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. leading the way.

 Read the rest here: http://blog.nj.com/njv_barry_carter/2013/03/forgotten_unsung_civil_rights.html