[Though the growth of the prison industry has been well
documented, there is virtually no documentation and even less news
about the imprisonment of many who would be considered political
prisoners by any international human rights standards.]
[[link removed]]

‘IN THE SPIRIT OF MANDELA’: INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL SEEKS TO
CHARGE U.S. GOVERNMENT WITH CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY  
[[link removed]]


 

Bob Lederer and Matt Meyer
October 18, 2021
Covert Action Magazine
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
* [[link removed]]

_ Though the growth of the prison industry has been well documented,
there is virtually no documentation and even less news about the
imprisonment of many who would be considered political prisoners by
any international human rights standards. _

Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, political prisoner, Source: rashidmod.com


 

In this era of police violence, pandemic worries, and economic crisis,
it is no surprise that U.S. (and local) government agencies have a
poor track record of sharing information honestly and
directly—especially information about their own complicity in
actions and policies that are undemocratic, militaristic, racist,
sexist or otherwise oppressive.

Basic truths about the society we live in are actively suppressed and
denied—including truths about the imprisonment of those whose
political views and actions challenge the powers that be.

Though the growth of the prison industry has been well documented,
there is virtually no documentation and even less news about the
imprisonment of many who would be considered political prisoners by
any international human rights standards. This is due to a joint
coverup effort by both the government and corporate media.

BUT THAT COVERUP MAY NO LONGER BE SUSTAINABLE

An historic INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL ON U.S. HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
AGAINST BLACK, BROWN AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
[[link removed]] will take place in New York City on
October 22-25, 2021. It is designed to propel this and related issues
into the forefront of public consciousness.

[[link removed]]

SEE MORE DETAILS ON THE EVENT AT THE END OF THIS ARTICLE

The Tribunal coalesces an unprecedented alliance of attorneys,
academics, and organizers ranging from Black Lives Matter activists,
former Black Panthers, civil rights advocates and the Puerto Rican
decolonization movement, to immigrant rights survivors of the
detention centers, and Indigenous peoples fighting for their
sovereignty against land theft, fracking, and neglect.

This coalition could not have come together—nor can it remain united
and organize for effective future change—without fully understanding
the historic context for this work. December 2021 will be the 70th
anniversary of a similar campaign for human rights launched a few
years after the United Nations was formed. At that time prominent
African American leaders and their allies brought a petition to the
U.N. that boldly stated: “We Charge Genocide!”[1]
[[link removed]] The
2021 Tribunal will reassert this charge and relate it to more recent
efforts oriented towards 21st Century conclusions.

A 1991 article by one of us (Bob Lederer) [see below] reported on the
previous year’s INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL ON THE HUMAN RIGHTS
VIOLATIONS OF POLITICAL PRISONERS AND PRISONERS OF WAR IN THE UNITED
STATES,[2]
[[link removed]] as
well as earlier efforts to internationalize these issues.

Charging the U.S. with Human Rights Violations in the International
Arena – A History 2
[[link removed]]Download
[[link removed]]

Citing past successes from grassroots worldwide organizing, it noted
“[A]ctivists believe that even those facing life sentences may yet
see the light of day.” Indeed, over the past three decades, that has
come to pass for perhaps half of the then-100+ U.S. political
prisoners. While some were released on parole with strong legal work
and minimal mobilizations, most only got out after sustained
grassroots pressure campaigns, often carried out for many years and
including strong international components.

Among the many successes:

* In 1997, after 27 years behind bars and a massive international
campaign, Black Panther veteran GERONIMO JI-JAGA PRATT was released
from prison. After years of effort, Pratt had uncovered indisputable
evidence that FBI wiretaps showed he was 400 miles away from the crime
for which he was convicted.[3]
[[link removed]] With
official recognition that prosecutors had concealed evidence and that
Pratt was a survivor of the U.S.’s illegal Counter Intelligence
Program (COINTELPRO), he was able to win a federal civil rights
lawsuit demonstrating that he was framed and $4.5 million in
damages.[4]
[[link removed]]

[Former Black Panther Elmer 'Geronimo' Pratt dies, attorney says -
CNN.com]

Geronimo Ji-Jaga Pratt [Source: cnn.com
[[link removed]]]

* In 1999, following a coordinated, years-long effort which included
a global petition signed by a dozen Nobel Peace Prize laureates and
calls for release from across the fiercely divided Puerto Rican
political spectrum, 14 MILITANT ACTIVISTS FOR THE INDEPENDENCE OF
PUERTO RICO (a U.S. colony since 1898) were granted clemency by
President Bill Clinton. Many had been incarcerated for as long as 19
years. Convicted in many cases of the thought crime of “seditious
conspiracy,” they were met by large cheering crowds that greeted
them as heroes.[5]
[[link removed]]
* In 2007, another repressive and vindictive U.S. government attempt
saw six elder former Black Panthers arrested and charged in San
Francisco with conspiracy for crimes that took place decades earlier.
(In 1975 a federal court had dismissed related charges against two of
them based on a court ruling that they had been illegally tortured by
local police.)[6]
[[link removed]] This
was an obvious attempt to spread fear among a new generation of
resisters inspired by the Panthers. A year later, substantial
educational efforts from coast to coast not only exonerated the six
and dropped all charges against them, but also spotlighted the two
additional Panthers indicted in the same case (collectively known as
“THE SAN FRANCISCO 8”[7]
[[link removed]])
who were already serving long prison sentences, and whose efforts for
parole were both ultimately successful in the years that followed.

[Gray Panthers - San Francisco]

[Source: Graypantherssf.igc.org
[[link removed]]]

[DA to fight new appeal for Mumia Abu-Jamal | Local News |
phillytrib.com]

Mumia Abu-Jamal [Source: phillytrib.com
[[link removed]]]

* The case of MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, once described by _The_ _New York
Times_ as the world’s “best known death row inmate,” has caused
protests, letter-writing, and massive campaigns in every corner of the
planet over the past three decades. An award-winning journalist and
still-active author and radio commentator whose 1982 trial has been
found by numerous human rights organizations to have been plagued by
massive police and judicial bias and perjured testimony, Abu-Jamal’s
death sentence was overturned in 2001 by the Federal District Court of
Pennsylvania.[8]
[[link removed]] Though
still fighting for full release, Mumia’s release from death row was
widely celebrated, and the broad international campaign to free him
has intensified as he has faced life-threatening illnesses (see
below).

* RUSSELL MAROON SHOATZ, a former Black Panther and Pennsylvania
Black Liberation organizer pursued by the FBI’s COINTELPRO and
unjustly sentenced in 1970 to life in prison, has been described by
supporters as “implacable,” the word used in the title of an
anthology of his writings. He has been known not only for his
political militancy, but also as a mentor to his incarcerated
colleagues wherever he landed in prison. With two successful escapes,
Shoatz was placed in solitary confinement in 1992 and held there for a
torturous 22 consecutive years! With United Nations experts
designating as torture any solitary confinement lasting more than 14
consecutive days, Shoatz’s case attracted international attention
for its obviously punitive intent and heinous content.[9]
[[link removed]] Returned
to general population in 2014, Shoatz still suffers the effects of
those decades and fights for release from prison under still-draconian
conditions (see below).

[Political prisoner Russell Maroon Shoatz out of solitary confinement
| New York Amsterdam News: The new Black view]

Russell Maroon Shoatz [Source: amsterdamnews.com
[[link removed]]]

* Released on parole after more than 33 years as a political
prisoner/prisoner of war (and initial police torture, including with a
burning cigar, that left him with serious long-term damage), the
success of the case of SEKOU ODINGA, a founder of the International
Chapter of the Black Panther Party, was a product of grassroots,
long-term organizing, legal agitation, and legislative reform of
parole. With growing consciousness about and admiration of the
Panthers from hip-hop artists and cultural workers in the community,
and pressure on lawmakers and politicians to release aging prisoners
whose rate of recidivism and return to crime after decades behind bars
is extremely low, Odinga returned to the community in 2014 and today
sits on the International Tribunal’s Coordinating Committee.[10]
[[link removed]] Other
New York State prisoners, including former Panthers ROBERT SETH
HAYES (who died in 2019)[11]
[[link removed]] and JALIL
MUNTAQIM,[12]
[[link removed]] won
similar parole releases after years of struggle to shift incarceration
policies in New York State and elsewhere.

Sekou Odinga [Source: democracynow.org
[[link removed]]]

* [Former political-P.O.W. Robert Seth Hayes passes | New York
Amsterdam News: The new Black view]

Robert Seth Hayes [Source: amsterdamnews.com]
[[link removed]]

* [A person with a beard Description automatically generated with
medium confidence]

Jalil Muntaqim [Source: wikipedia.org
[[link removed](screenshot).jpg]]

* Puerto Rican political prisoner OSCAR LÓPEZ RIVERA was held for
36 years of his original 55-year sentence for “seditious
conspiracy,” including long stints in maximum-security conditions
described by human rights lawyers as tantamount to torture. During
President Obama’s second term, as the global campaign for his
release reached a fevered pitch, the heads of state of Venezuela,
Nicaragua, and Cuba declared López Rivera to be “the Mandela of the
Americas.”

[A mural dedicated to Oscar López Rivera in Puerto Rico.]

[Source: theguardian.com]
[[link removed]]

With life-size cardboard cutouts of Oscar seen in small towns,
mountain communities, and every major city throughout the island
archipelago, an unprecedented array of pro-statehood advocates, status
quo “commonwealth” supporters, and _independentistas_ joined
forces to demand his unconditional release. After the annual United
Nations Decolonization Committee hearing on Puerto Rico in 2016, the
Committee—in addition to joining the global outcry to “bring Oscar
home”—vowed to form an official U.N. delegation to visit him in
prison if he were not released in the coming year. In 2017, just days
before leaving office, Obama announced the plans for López Rivera’s
freedom; he returned to his country a celebrated national hero.[13]
[[link removed]]

[David Gilbert, photo by Breno Altman]

David Gilbert [Source: kersblebedeb.com
[[link removed]]]

* Despite the constitutionally questionable “felony murder
doctrine” and a scandalous exit from office, New York Governor
Andrew Cuomo commuted the life sentence of white
anti-imperialist DAVID GILBERT during his last twelve hours in
office this year. Gilbert’s history as a peaceful anti-war activist,
his work in prison as a mentor of young men and co-developer of a
trail-blazing AIDS peer counseling program, and his consistent
statements of remorse about the deaths which resulted from a 1981
action for which he was an unarmed driver earned him the support of
the heads of the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ,
Friends (Quakers), and Unitarian Universalists, as well as the
daughter of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., granddaughter of Mohandas
Gandhi, and children of some of those killed in the original
crime.[14]
[[link removed]] Gilbert,
who was previously serving 75 years to life, will have a parole
hearing this month (October 2021).

Nonetheless, three dozen U.S. political prisoners still remain
incarcerated, the majority of them in their senior years and ailing,
in some cases with terminal illnesses. Prison medical care is
substandard at best for all incarcerated people, but political
prisoners have also faced the wrath of a vengeful police apparatus.
All are now the focus of urgent pressure campaigns by their supporters
demanding (depending on the case) immediate parole, clemency, or
court-ordered release.[15]
[[link removed]] Some
examples include:

* RUSSELL MAROON SHOATZ, incredibly called “a risk to escape and a
threat to society” at a 2021 parole hearing despite being diagnosed
with terminal stage-4 pancreatic cancer and having barely survived
COVID-19, being partially blind, dependent on a urinary catheter bag,
and wholly confined to a wheelchair! Shoatz’s supporters, including
Nobel Peace Prize laureates, consider him a prime candidate for
immediate compassionate release.[16]
[[link removed]]
* DR. MUTULU SHAKUR, New Afrikan (Black) liberation activist heavily
targeted by COINTELPRO and a leader of Chinese medicine clinics under
Black and Latinx community control in New York City, had been
scheduled for mandatory release from a 60-year sentence in 2016, but
was held back for punitive and vengeful reasons. Today at age 71, he
struggles with bone-marrow cancer and is in constant pain. Various
legal channels seeking his compassionate release have so far proved
fruitless.[17]
[[link removed]]

[Home -]

Mutulu Shakur [Source: mutulushakur.com [[link removed]]]

* SUNDIATA ACOLI was a noted mathematician employed by the NASA
space program who became a famed member of New York’s “Panther
21” manufactured conspiracy case (in which a jury acquitted
everyone) and later co-defendant of Assata Shakur, arrested in 1973
and unjustly convicted along with her to life in prison (see below).
At age 84, after 49 years in prison, Acoli has been eligible for and
denied parole for almost three decades.[18]
[[link removed]] He
recently survived COVID-19 but has numerous other ailments, some
life-threatening. An urgent campaign for his release continues with
widespread community admiration and the support of even some law
enforcement groups.[19]
[[link removed]]

[support of the fight to release former Black Panther and elder
Sundiata Acoli.]

Sundiata Acoli [Source: blackstarnews.com
[[link removed]]]

* LEONARD PELTIER, an American Indian Movement elder (now 77) who has
been in prison since 1977, has enjoyed widespread support from members
of Congress, international Parliaments, Nobel Prize laureates, and
countless human rights experts.[20]
[[link removed]] Despite
the fact that all his co-defendants are free, Peltier’s
deteriorating health and the prosecutorial misconduct of his original
case make him one of the most famous U.S. political prisoners still
behind bars.[21]
[[link removed]]

[A person sitting on a toilet Description automatically generated with
medium confidence]

Leonard Peltier [Source: indianz.com
[[link removed]]]

* MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, though well known and widely supported, has
had—after nearly 40 years of incarceration, including lengthy
solitary confinement—a multitude of life-threatening health crises
in recent years for which he suffered blatant medical neglect and
maltreatment. These include a dangerous and painful cirrhosis of the
liver, congestive heart failure, hepatitis C, diabetes, and recently
diagnosed COVID-19. When Abu-Jamal was faced with emergency heart
surgery in early 2021 (and the threat to remain shackled during the
procedure), a group of ten U.N. experts from the Human Rights Council
declared, “This ongoing and continuing cruel, inhuman, and degrading
treatment, including deliberate disregard of his dignity and inhumane
conditions of confinement, is a clear violation of Mr. Abu-Jamal’s
most fundamental rights.”[22]
[[link removed]] Meanwhile,
Abu-Jamal’s supporters proclaimed: The only appropriate treatment
for these ailments is FREEDOM![23]
[[link removed]]

These campaigns are especially urgent in the wake of the deaths in
prison or shortly after release of 21 U.S. political prisoners over
the past 35 years.[24]
[[link removed]] In
many cases, family members and doctors are convinced that, had the
prisoners been freed as they got sicker, they might have had a chance
to survive longer by escaping high stress prison conditions and having
access to better quality medical care.

Meanwhile, several former political prisoners and activists targeted
by the state but not arrested have been living in exile for many
years. The most renowned, former Black Panther ASSATA SHAKUR, was
arrested and shot in the back by police in 1973. She then overcame
seven separate COINTELPRO-orchestrated charges but was ultimately
railroaded to a life sentence on the eighth (along with Sundiata
Acoli, see above)—in a trial her lawyer called “a legal lynching
and a kangaroo court.” (See Rosemari Mealy, ed., “Assata Shakur:
The Life of a Revolutionary,” _CovertAction Quarterly_, Fall 1998
(No. 65)
[[link removed]],
pp. 34-44.)[25]
[[link removed]]

[Assata Shakur was convicted of murder. Is she a terrorist? - The
Washington Post]

Assata Shakur [Source: washingtonpost.com
[[link removed]]]

After surviving an oppressive all-men’s prison in New Jersey, Shakur
escaped in 1979 with the help of clandestine Black and white radical
comrades.[26]
[[link removed]] She
was later granted political asylum by Cuba, where she has been active
in community life. Successive U.S. and New Jersey governments have
boosted the bounty for her forced return to $2 million, requiring her
to be especially cautious to prevent kidnapping by the CIA or a
vigilante.[27]
[[link removed]]

Meanwhile the past three decades have seen a whole new generation of
political prisoners incarcerated, mostly from the newer movements that
have blossomed, though some 1960s activists have also been framed
years later by an FBI determined to punish their longtime adversaries.
Some examples:

* LONGTIME BLACK LIBERATION LEADERS: Two leading Black Liberation
activists and religious leaders, IMAM JAMIL ABDULLAH
AL-AMIN and REV. JOY POWELL, were framed for crimes they didn’t
commit and given long sentences in 2000 and 2006, respectively. Imam
Al-Amin (aka H. RAP BROWN) was a famed civil rights and Black Panther
leader in the 1960s. He was harassed and arrested at FBI direction,
later became a religious leader, and was convicted of a murder in
Atlanta, Georgia, without clear evidence, for which another man
confessed. Now 78, he is serving a life sentence and has been denied
needed medical care in prison.[28]
[[link removed]] Rev.
Powell worked against police brutality and corruption for years in
Rochester, New York, and is now serving two sentences totaling
25-years-to-life in trials rife with prosecutorial misconduct.[29]
[[link removed]]

[Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, the former H. Rap Brown, in front of his
West End Community grocery store on Oak Street in 1990. (Kathryn
Kolb/AJC file photo)]

Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin [Source: ajc.com
[[link removed]]]

* [H. Rap Brown - Wikipedia]

H. Rap Brown [Source: wikipedia.org
[[link removed]]]

* [joy photo 38]

Reverend Joy Powell [Source: freejoypowell.org
[[link removed]]]

[eric-king-1]

Eric King [Source: theintercept.com]
[[link removed]]]

* BLACK LIVES MATTER: Since racist police and vigilante murders
sparked this movement and related justice struggles in 2014, numerous
street protesters and organizational leaders, almost all Black, have
served prison time for felony charges. Possibly the longest sentence
(10 years) is being served by a white solidarity activist, ERIC KING,
who has been isolated and assaulted in prison.[30]
[[link removed]] More
than 350 are now facing federal felony charges, and many more have
received state charges, flowing from the nationwide street uprisings
against genocidal police terror provoked by the May 2020 videoed
lynching of George Floyd in Minneapolis.[31]
[[link removed]] The
National Lawyers Guild and a grassroots coalition in six cities are
leading campaigns, backed by more than 90 organizations, to have those
charges dropped.[32]
[[link removed]]

* INDIGENOUS-LED ENVIRONMENTAL/SOVEREIGNTY DEFENSE: Four water and
environmental protecters from the movement to stop the highly
polluting Dakota Access (oil) pipeline on Lakota land in Standing
Rock, North Dakota, in 2016-17 have served prison time of several
months each.[33]
[[link removed]] RED
FAWN FALLIS, an Oglala Lakota Sioux citizen and supporter of the
American Indian Movement, received the harshest sentence—nearly five
years for charges related to a gun given to her by her then-boyfriend,
an undercover FBI informant.[34]
[[link removed]]

[A picture containing outdoor, person, sky, tree Description
automatically generated]

Red Fawn Fallis [Source: indianz.com
[[link removed]]]

Also, JESSICA REZNICEK, a North American Catholic Worker ally, is
serving eight years for related civil disobedience actions against the
same pipeline in Iowa.[35]
[[link removed]] Since
2020, a similar, Indigenous-led movement against Line 3 (another oil
pipeline encroaching on Native land) in Minnesota has led so far to
several people being charged with felonies. Those cases are
pending.[36]
[[link removed]]

[DAPL Saboteur Jessica Reznicek Sentenced to 8 Years - UNICORN RIOT]

Jessica Reznicek [Source: Unicornriot.ninja
[[link removed]]]

* ARAB AND MUSLIMS ACCUSED OF “TERRORISM”: Hundreds of Arab and
Muslim immigrants and U.S. citizens have been swept up in the
post-September-11th, years-long manipulated fury against the Arabs and
Muslims living in the United States. Several were convicted on
“terrorism” charges, often manufactured or based on
entrapment.[37]
[[link removed]] Most
notorious is the case of DR. AFIA SIDDIQUI, a Pakistani,
U.S.-educated neuroscientist who was rendered from her homeland to the
U.S. by the CIA in 2008 and sentenced to life in prison, where she was
seriously injured in an assault this year.[38]
[[link removed]]

[Dr Aafia Siddiqui sustained 'minor injuries' in assault by fellow
inmate in US prison: FO - World - DAWN.COM]

Dr. Afia Siddiqui [Source: dawn.com
[[link removed]]]

* “GREEN SCARE” ACTIVISTS: As new movements have targeted
corporate destruction of the natural environment and clear-cutting
logging operations, factory farms, fur manufacturers,
agribusiness-related labs researching eco-harmful GMOs (genetically
modified organisms), and animal-abusing medical testers, the U.S.
government has charged dozens with felonies, often using new laws
criminalizing eco/animal protests and heightening penalties.[39]
[[link removed]] Since
the early 1990s, more than 50 activists have done lengthy prison time
on such charges. Three remain imprisoned today. One of those, a
transgender man named MARIUS MASON serving 22 years in federal
prison since 2009, was first held in a restrictive control unit based
on his politics and then struggled for many years before he obtained a
medical diagnosis that finally allowed him to seek hormone therapy and
transfer to a male prison.[40]
[[link removed]]

[Support Marius Mason]

Marius Mason [Source: supportmariusmason.org
[[link removed]]]

* PLOWSHARES PROTESTERS: More than 200 activists from the largely
religious “Plowshares” movement, led by the Catholic Workers, have
been imprisoned since 1980 – two were sentenced to 18 years – for
100+ civil disobedience actions symbolically damaging and pouring
blood on nuclear weapons, war jets, and military bases to demand
nuclear disarmament and an end to U.S. militarism.[41]
[[link removed]]

[On this day in 1980, the Plowshares Movement began when eight
activists entered a weapons factory and smashed the cones of two
missiles with hammers and prayed for peace. The name comes]

Protest in Philadelphia in 1980 demanding release of Plowshares 8.
[Source: reddit.com
[[link removed]]]

* MILITARY RESISTERS AND WHISTLEBLOWERS: Many U.S. military personnel
have served prison time since 1991 for resisting or disclosing war
crimes (whistleblowers) in the Gulf War (1991), Afghan
invasion/occupation (2001-2021), Iraq invasion/occupation (2003-date),
and other illegal U.S. attacks against nations in the Global
South.[42]
[[link removed]]

Most notably, army soldier CHELSEA MANNING spent seven years in
military prisons, during which a U.N. Rapporteur found her to have
been tortured. After many grassroots campaigns, protests and honors in
LGBT Pride marches, President Obama granted clemency in 2017.[43]
[[link removed]] Later
that year, under Trump, she was reincarcerated for 12 months for
refusing to collaborate with a grand jury investigation.[44]
[[link removed]] During
her initial incarceration, she came out as trans and had to sue to
obtain gender-affirming care.[45]
[[link removed]]

[Chelsea Manning - Life, Jail & Facts - Biography]

Chelsea Manning [Source: biography.com
[[link removed]]]

In a related case, WikiLeaks publisher and Australian citizen JULIAN
ASSANGE is now facing extradition to the U.S. from the U.K. and
possible life in prison for publishing data on war crimes, repression
and corruption released by whistleblowers. (See _CovertAction
Magazine_, Sept. 7, 2020
[[link removed]]_._)
A British judge has denied extradition on grounds that U.S. prisons
could not adequately protect him from the risk of suicide (following
his years of U.S. and British persecution).[46]
[[link removed]] _Yahoo
News_ reported in September 2021 that, in 2017, the CIA discussed
possible plans to kidnap or assassinate the journalist in London.[47]
[[link removed]]

[Ecuador releases Julian Assange for rudeness, spying, and poop - Vox]

Julian Assange being transported to Belmarsh Prison. [Source: vox.com
[[link removed]]]
 

Pursuing freedom or at least less life-threatening conditions for all
of these prisoners, the various support organizations have used a
variety of techniques (in addition to the people’s tribunals
described below): petitions, mass email campaigns, demonstrations at
courts and prisons, packing court proceedings, civil disobedience
actions, lobbying, and more.

Importantly, efforts have continued to bring some of these cases, and
the larger movements against genocide and eco-cide from which they
developed, to international bodies. In 2001, the National Black United
Front, December 12th Movement, and others brought charges of genocide
against Black people to the U.N. World Conference Against Racism in
Durban, South Africa.[48]
[[link removed]] For
years, the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva has heard
consistent testimony from the U.S. Human Rights Network (USHRN) and
others, who have filed documents at the Universal Periodic Review
sessions conducted for all nation-states.[49]
[[link removed]] The
USHRN has utilized other U.N. mechanisms to bring U.S. human rights
abuses before United Nations-affiliated bodies.

In addition, between 1992 and 2001, a variety of coalitions led by
Black, Brown and Indigenous freedom organizations built on the
successes of previous efforts to convene international tribunals on
U.S. human rights violations and genocide:

* [Anthropology | Alexander Street, a ProQuest Company]

[Source: search.alexanderstreet.com
[[link removed]]]

* [Indigenous Peoples Day]

[Source: ipdpowwow.org [[link removed]]]

* 1992 – The INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND
OPPRESSED NATIONS was held in San Francisco. The Tribunal challenged
the 500th anniversary of the “discovery of America” by
Christopher Columbus and discussed the massive, systematic violations
of human rights and international law against people of color. It
included perspectives from Black people, Puerto Ricans, Native
Americans, Mexicans/Chicanos, and white anti-imperialists.[50]
[[link removed]]

* 1993 – THE KA HO’OKOLOKOLONUI KANAKA MAOLI TRIBUNAL marked
the centennial of the U.S. overthrow of Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani
and visited each island illegally seized and annexed by the U.S. It
centered the Indigenous Kanaka Maoli claim for sovereignty on an
international stage.[51]
[[link removed]]

[Source: jerichony.org [[link removed]]]

* 1998 – Based on a call by Black Liberation political prisoner
Jalil Muntaqim (who also called for a “Spirit of Mandela”
coalition in 2018),[52]
[[link removed]] a
successful JERICHO MARCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE, attended by over 5,000
and organized by the newly formed and now ongoing National Jericho
Movement, demanded recognition and amnesty for all U.S. political
prisoners across lines of race and nationality.[53]
[[link removed]]

* 2001 – The INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON INQUIRY in San Juan,
Puerto Rico, found repeated U.S. government violations of human rights
in suppressing protests and civil disobedience actions against the
U.S. Navy’s 60-year occupation and frequent life-threatening and
environment-destroying bombing practice on the island of Vieques.[54]
[[link removed]] The
strong verdict was one of many sparks that forced the Navy’s
withdrawal and return of the island to full Puerto Rican sovereignty
in 2003.

THE 2021 INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL:

IN THE SPIRIT OF NELSON MANDELA

OCT. 22-25, 2021

Livestreaming at tribunal2021.com [[link removed]] and
on Facebook
[[link removed]]

and online via Zoom

REGISTER HERE
[[link removed]]

Schedule of Events [[link removed]]

The 2021 International Tribunal itself derives from a historic legacy
and trajectory, initiated by a U.S.-based coalition_, In the Spirit of
Mandela_. Created in 2018, the coalition recognizes and affirms the
rich history of diverse global activists, including Nelson Mandela,
Winnie Mandela, Graca Machel Mandela, Ella Baker, Dennis Banks, Cesar
Chavez, Fannie Lou Hamer, Fred Korematsu, Lolita Lebron, Rosa Parks,
Ingrid Washinawatok, and many more in the resistance traditions of
Black, Brown and Indigenous Peoples. Though separate and independent
from the _In the Spirit of Mandela _coalition that called for the
Tribunal, the Panel of Jurists (see below) recognizes the important
historical precedents that have shaped the charges against U.S.
government agencies.

The year 2021 marks the 70th anniversary of the campaign in which
African American human rights leaders Paul Robeson and William
Patterson, with the support of eminent sociologist Dr. W.E.B. DuBois,
presented the “We Charge Genocide” petition to the burgeoning
United Nations headquarters in 1951.[55]
[[link removed]] Then
in 1964, Minister Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik el-Shabazz) formed the
Organization of Afro-American Unity, in part to bring the case of U.S.
human rights abuses to the attention of the U.N.[56]
[[link removed]] The
2021 Tribunal verdict itself will be delivered in front of U.N.
headquarters, but hearings and community testimony will take place at
the site of Malcolm X’s assassination, the now-refurbished and
Columbia University-affiliated Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz
Memorial and Educational Center in Harlem.

[A red book cover Description automatically generated with low
confidence]
[[link removed]]

[Source: peoplesworld.org]

The Panel of Jurists is composed of nine members, with representatives
including a former South African Member of Parliament; a board member
of the distinguished Nobel Peace Laureate organization with a dozen
Nobel Peace officer awardees; a Puerto Rican legal scholar who serves
as an expert for the U.N. Committee on Decolonization; a U.N.
representative of the oldest inter-faith pacifist organization in the
world; an internationally accredited expert on genocide; the director
of the only people-centered U.S. human rights network with ECOSOC
status and consistent U.N. advocacy; the youngest elected Chair of the
Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and leader of UNITY/the United National Indian
Tribal Youth; and the former Chair of the United Nations Working Group
on People of African Descent and a judge of the Permanent People’s
Tribunal. They are majority women and majority Global South-rooted,
from India, Eritrea, Haiti, France, Puerto Rico, the USA and
elsewhere. (See list at tribunal2021.com/panel-of-jurists
[[link removed]].)

These jurists will preside over two days of testimonies from impacted
victims, expert witnesses, and attorneys with first-hand knowledge of
specific incidents raised in the charges/indictment.

At the Tribunal, a team of experienced human rights attorneys, acting
as prosecutors on behalf of U.S. Black, Brown, and Indigenous people
as a class, will be charging the U.S., state and local governments
with human and civil rights violations under the following five
sections:

* Racist police killings of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people,
* Hyper/mass incarcerations of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people,
* Political incarceration of Civil Rights/National Liberation era
revolutionaries and revolutionaries and activists, as well as
present-day activists,
* Environmental racism and its disparate impact on Black, Brown, and
Indigenous people,
* Public health racism and its traumatic and disparate impact on
Black, Brown, and Indigenous people.

As a result of the historic and systemic charges of all the above, the
overarching charge of genocide will also be argued, based on 18 USC
Sec. 1091 (the U.S. statute making genocide a felony
[[link removed]]) and
the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention of Genocide
[[link removed]].

The Panel of Jurists will deliver its Verdict following deliberations
and discussions, planned for delivery at the Church Center for the
United Nations on Monday, October 25, 2021.

Between the Verdict of the independent Jurists and the ongoing work of
the _Spirit of Mandela_ coalition, the lessons of the past will be
brought forward to build U.S.-based human rights movements into the
future. With these bold visions and newly produced tools, organizers
hope that continued repressive measures, including the warehousing of
political prisoners, will be left in the past as we step back from the
specter of genocide and struggle together for lasting liberation.

BACKGROUND ON THE 2021 TRIBUNAL AND PLANNED NEXT STEPS ARE HERE.
[[link removed]]

For more on efforts to free U.S. political prisoners from the 1980s to
2008, see _Let Freedom Ring: A Collection of Documents from the
Movements to Free U.S. Political Prisoners, _Matt Meyer, ed.
(Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2008). See also the National Jericho Movement
website [[link removed]] and  the Northeast
Political Prisoner Coalition’s Facebook page
[[link removed]].

Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, political prisoner.
[Source: rashidmod.com
[[link removed]]]

_The authors thank Alejandro Molina, Daniel McGowan, Moira
Meltzer-Cohen, Paul Magno, and karl kersplebedeb for research
assistance.  [NOTE: FOOTNOTES INCLUDED IN ORIGINAL COVERT ACTION
ARTICLE]_

_BOB LEDERER is a progressive print and radio journalist, longtime
queer anti-racist and anti-imperialist activist, and member of the
grassroots collective Resistance in Brooklyn.  He has extensively
covered and supported U.S. political prisoners for over 35 years and
contributed to the book Let Freedom Ring: A Collection of Documents
from the Movements to Free U.S. Political Prisoners
[[link removed]].  In 1985
he was a grand jury resister and political prisoner himself, and was a
cofounder of the 1990s group Queers United in Support of Political
Prisoners.  Bob can be reached at: [email protected]._

_MATT MEYER is an internationally noted author, historian, and
organizer, re-elected in 2021 as Secretary-General of the
International Peace Research Association.  Meyer is the Senior
Research Scholar of the University of Massachusetts/Amherst’s
Resistance Studies Initiative, working primarily in solidarity with
the still-occupied peoples of Puerto Rico, Palestine, West Papua,
Western Sahara, Kashmir, and Ambazonia in Central Africa._

_Matt is the editor of the book Let Freedom Ring: A Collection of
Documents from the Movements to Free U.S. Political Prisoners
[[link removed]]. His local
work with Resistance in Brooklyn, the Northeast Political Prisoner
Coalition, and the Spirit of Mandela Coalition focuses on freeing all
political prisoners.  Matt can be reached at: [email protected]._

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