The following pledge is being circulated by Refuse & Resist!


Stop The Execution!
A Pledge of Conscience

Revolutionary Worker #964, July 5, 1998

This is a new pledge of support for Mumia developed by 
Refuse & Resist together with the International Concerned 
Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal. The pledge allows 
the widest range of people to express their determination 
to oppose the  government's attempt to execute Mumia. 

It is intended to be used by everyone working on the 
campaign as a regular part of our on-going work. It can 
be distributed at programs, through mailings, and printed 
in publications. Groups distributing the pledge can use 
it to develop local mailing lists and emergency response
networks, but the information collected should be 
forwarded to the Family & Friends in Philadelphia. 

Mumia Abu-Jamal is still on death row. His fate, and 
the cause of justice itself, depend on us. 

A decision in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal is coming 
soon from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The chances 
are great that he will be denied a new trial, and the 
governor of Pennsylvania has promised to sign a new 
death warrant immediately. Although a federal appeal 
will stay that execution date, a new death warrant 
would be a major turning point in Mumia's case. It 
would signal that a political decision has been made 
to push ahead with Mumia's execution. A stay is 
nothing but a temporary postponement. 

The trial that put Mumia on death row was a legal 
travesty. Because of the circumstances surrounding 
his conviction and sentencing, his case has become 
a touchstone internationally and in the U.S. 
Therefore: In face of the threat of a new death 
warrant, I pledge to speak out for a new trial and 
to prevent the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal. In the 
event of a new death warrant, I pledge further that 
I will devote whatever effort is needed to prevent 
the first execution of a political dissident in the 
U.S. in over 45 years.

The whole world is watching. 
I will not stand by in silence. 

Why YOU Should Sign the Pledge

In 1995 Mumia Abu-Jamal was only 10 days away from 
execution when massive worldwide protest forced the 
government to grant a temporary stay of execution. 
Today, he awaits one last decision by the Pennsylvania 
Supreme Court. If they decide against him, a death 
warrant will be signed. After this, his case will go 
to federal court. In today's climate of "rush to the 
death penalty," no one can predict how quickly and on 
what terms his case will be decided. 

Mumia's original trial was a travesty. He was denied 
the right to act as his own counsel. His court-appointed 
attorney was so incompetent he was later disbarred. 
Witnesses who could give testimony supporting Mumia's 
innocence were coerced and suppressed. Hundreds of 
Philadelphia cases have been overturned in recent 
years based on federal charges of corruption and 
documented official lying by the Philadelphia police 
department. Even if one were to fully accept the 
police version of the facts, it would not have been 
a first degree murder/death penalty case. It came to 
be so only through political motivations, evidenced 
by the prosecutor arguing for the death penalty by 
reading revolutionary quotes from Mumia's writings ten 
years earlier. 

Indeed, Mumia's case cannot be separated from who he 
is and what he represents. As a high school student, 
he was a founding member of the Black Panther Party 
in Philadelphia. Mumia's FBI file begins at age 15. 
Later, as a prominent radio journalist, he developed 
a style of radio journalism that put the voices of 
the inner city onto the airwaves. He exposed a corrupt 
Philadelphia police department, and its war against 
the MOVE organization, and thus became a police target 
himself--charged with the murder of a police officer, 
which many eyewitnesses testified he did not commit. 

For these reasons, many have come to oppose Mumia's 
execution, and join the fight for a new trial. 


"If you look today at the movement 
to save Mumia Abu-Jamal's life, what 
do you find? You find there are many 
people who believe that he is totally 
and completely innocent, that he is 
in prison because he is an ex-Black 
Panther, because he is a MOVE supporter, 
because of the racism of this country. 
There are plenty of people who believe 
just that. But there are others who know 
about what went on in Judge Sabo's 
courtroom. And they look at how unfair 
that trial was, and they know about how 
the police pressured the witnesses against 
Mumia and they know as time has gone on 
how almost all of those witnesses have 
recanted. And they look at a trial like 
that and they say, we don't know whether 
he is guilty or innocent but we know that 
was an unfair trial and a trial that is so 
unfair can't prove anything. You shouldn't 
even take someone's drivers license away in 
a trial like that, let alone put him on 
death row. And then there are those who 
simply say the death penalty is wrong and 
that this killing has got to stop."

Robert Meeropol,
son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg 

The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal has become a touchstone 
in society. It has come to concentrate a whole political 
atmosphere of blame and punishment aimed at society's 
most oppressed--criminalization of Black men, suppression 
of dissent, expanded death penalty, and the gutting of
defendant's rights. 



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