Democracy Now! covers an attack on free speech. Where is the rest of the media?
There are plenty of people who’d rather the world never heard from Mumia Abu-Jamal. And now the state of Pennsylvania is trying to come up with a way to prevent him from being heard ever again.
Abu-Jamal is currently serving life in prison for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. His case has, of course, been the subject of international attention, with many supporters arguing that his original trial was grossly unfair. While known primarily as a cause on the left, one of the most comprehensive critiques of the trial came from conservative legal writer Stuart Taylor (American Lawyer, 12/95).
Abu-Jamal was a fairly well-known local radio journalist prior to the Faulkner killing; after being sentenced to death, he continued to write and speak from death row, and that work galvanized public interest in his case. He was removed from death row in 2011.
But this most recent controversy began when students at Goddard College in Vermont selected Abu-Jamal to give a prerecorded commencement address. That evidently motivated lawmakers in Pennsylvania to come up with a remedy that is, on its face, flatly unconstitutional. The Revictimization Relief Act, as the Philadelphia Inquirer (10/14/14) reported,
would allow the victim of a crime, or prosecutors acting on the victim’s behalf, to bring a civil action to stop an offender from engaging in conduct that causes the victim or the victim’s family severe mental anguish.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett: First Amendment, Schmirst Amendment (cc photo: Villanova Law)
Another Inquirer story (10/18/14) noted that some state lawmakers spoke out against the bill; one senator called it “the most extreme violation of the First Amendment imaginable.” On October 21, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett signed the bill into law, declaring that “over the years we’ve heard much about the constitutional rights of prison inmates.” Corbett seems proud not to have been listening.
The bill does not appear to have attracted much in the way of press attention, despite its shocking implications for anyone with an interest in a free press. And some of the coverage is unhelpful; the headline over an AP dispatch in today’s New York Times (10/22/14) is “Pennsylvania: Governor Signs Law to Help Protect Crime Victims.”
There are, of course, many people who feel victimized by the actions of other individuals; does the state really think that it can legally prevent those individuals from speaking, writing or being interviewed by reporters?
The story was covered on today’s edition of Democracy Now! (10/21/14), with excerpts of an interview with Abu-Jamal conducted by Prison Radio journalist Noelle Hanrahan:
The press ignores prisoners, as a rule. Most of what happens in prisons are never or rarely reported in the press…. Silence reigns in states all across the United States. But I went to court. I was forced to go to court by the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And I won, in a case called Abu-Jamal v. Price, which gives me the right to write. Now they’re trying to take away my right to read my own writings. How unconstitutional is that?
That point was underscored by Hanrahan:
This is about Mumia Abu-Jamal, but it’s really about all prisoners and what the journalists have to know from inside prisons. Our society really has this incredible incarceration addiction. And we need to know, as journalists, what’s going on inside. So it affects Robert “Saleem” Holbrook, a juvenile lifer who’s in Pennsylvania. It affects Bryant Arroyo, who’s a jailhouse environmentalist and lawyer inside Frackville prison in Pennsylvania. It affects our ability as a community to get the information that we need to make decisions.
This is not the first time there has been an attempt to silence Abu-Jamal. In 1994, NPR abruptly cancelled plans to air commentaries by him it had commissioned to air on All Things Considered.
And the fact that Democracy Now! is covering this story now brings to mind what happened in 1997, when the show was set to begin airing a series of Abu-Jamal commentaries. The radio station at Philadelphia’s Temple University, KRTI, abruptly canceled its contract with Pacifica and Democracy Now! (Extra!Update, 4/97) right before the pieces were to air.
In both cases, there were questions raised about what kinds of pressure were brought to bear on the media outlets. The controversy over NPR led lawmakers like Sen. Bob Dole to muse about the need for “closer oversight.” In the case of KRTI, there were suggestions that state funding could be at risk.
Media outlets that rely on the First Amendment–all of them, in other words–should speak up about the Pennsylvania government’s efforts to silence speech.
I voted for the crime victim amendment seeing nothing but praise. The most I could dig up that was critical was vague hints about government over-reach. Thank you for writing this. Should it pass in Illinois this November I hope it sticks to protecting victims and not unreasonably creating new victims.
I don’t know what it is about Abu-jamal that scares the bejesus out of the FOP in Pennsylvania, but he either knows something or knows someone who has done something and they are making sure that the ‘real truth’ is never heard. This is the closest to the S.A. that I have seen any Order of the Police come, but it is very scary. This is far too reminiscent of the Actions taken against other races, in order to protect the institutionalization of the fascist ideal.
Mumia Abu-Jamal will not stop thinking, reading, writing, and speaking; this new law means to assure that US citizens will no longer be able to read and hear what Mumia writes and says.
This amounts to government censorship, the deprivation of all US citizens’ rights to listen to uncensored speech and to read an uncensored and free press.
The government is also adding a new penalty to Mumia’s, sentence without benefit of the due process of a new trial. This would seem a usurpation of the judicial system, a determination that the court did not sentence him as harshly as the legislature now finds desirable.
The Constitution, in Article I, Section 9, Subsection 3 states “No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.”
A bill of attainder is an act of a legislature declaring a person guilty of some crime and punishing him without privilege of a judicial trial.
An ex post facto law is a retroactive law. It would mean you can do something that was legal at the time, but it’s declared illegal after the fact and you’re still held accountable
Big Brother is not only watching, but listening.
When I was a little kid, back in the early ’50s, there was a TV show about “Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.” Is this idiot the same guy?
Someone needs to fight this (so obviously unconstitutional) law in court. From state Supreme court to the Circuit court all the way up to SCOTUS, if necessary (but hopefully not). Whatever it takes to get it struck down.
You kill a cop in broad daylight in front of people and you lost your rights.
Obama ought to have gotten off his scared-of-media-backlash (they already attack him over EVERYTHING – and pardon ALL the political prisoners in this country. Mumia would be one, Don Seligman (I believe the former Governor of Alabama? who was wrongly imprisoned by a Karl Rove stunt), and Leonard Pelletier. These people were all fighting for civil rights and against the injustices that were the ruling establishment that was retaliating viciously to their dissent, and successfully imprisoned resistance and now want to silence freedom of speech. Shit,when corporations are people, but are never jailed, and they have a right to free speech, this is a sick twist and perversion of our nation’s heritage of advancing freedom and that we don’t actually have? C’mon Obama. Do something really significant in your presidency besides uphold the ruling elites and the 1% power over the rest of us. Our economic, our spiritual, our physical, and our mental future freedom are all at stake here.
It was the middle of the night, Mike. Just saying.
@Mike e, Mr. Abu-Jamal did not receive a fair trial. Witnesses coerced and backed down from original statements, but no re-trial. Fair Statement Mike e, would be If you’re Black and ACCUSED of gunning down a (White) Police Officer, you lose your rights.
How long does one have to be locked up before he’s paid for his crime? Playing the devil’s advocate, suppose Jamal were guilty of the crime he’s accused. Thirty years in the slammer is not vengeance enough for the state? And, if the state is all hep on wreaking its vengeance on murderers, then how come the George W Bush regime isn’t in the slammer for murder on a genocidal scale? Black people like Jamal, and there’s near 2.3 million of them, are in prison because they have the misfortune to be born with the wrong-color skin, and are thus, presumed from birth to be guilty of something. Anything. Whatever. Predetermined. That Jamal is still in prison 30 years later, is an outrage of epic proportions; but not a bit surprising given the fascist society we live in. And speaking of mass murderers, how about Slick Willie Clinton? He presided over 2/3 of the thirteen year US-led, UN sanctions regime that killed 1.5 million Iraqis, half of them children under five. How come he isn’t in prison? But rather, runs around with his even more war-mongering adulterous wife on the 2016 campaign trail. Newsflash nepotists. That was supposed to be my seat. “ You kill a cop in broad daylight in front of people and you lost your rights.” But when cops viciously gun down young black men over and over again, the cop stays fully vested, even militarized lately, with every weapon in the cabinet. I’m an atheist, but I ask, where’s the Christian charity and forgiveness?
EDITOR: It’s spelled “passed”, not “past.” Other than that, good story.
Mike e: No, nobody loses their rights as a human being, even if they have committed a crime. Not sure what country you are from, but here in the US, it is a long-cherished tradition that we do not abuse prisoners and other accused with cruelty (see the Bill of Rights if you doubt this).
In practice, unfortunately, this is often not executed faithfully, thanks to small-minded ignorance of the Constitution and BofR such as the position you are advocating. Killing a cop is a terrible crime, indeed. But so is killing any other person outside the law. Cops killing citizens is a horror as well, and it seems, a growing epidemic.
Shutting down civil rights due to individual prejudices and beliefs is not a system that can ensure ongoing justice. We must defer to the rule of law, not the rule of some individual. We cannot be judge, prosecutor, and jury all. We need to restore the judicial process.
The problem with this article is lack of balance. The essence of all law is the balance of rights and responsibilities. For example the right to privacy is balanced against the right to know. The right of free speech is balanced against public safety – you can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre. In criminal cases the convicted felon cannot profit from the crime by receiving royalties from books or movies. I have not thought about this particular case, but it seems the rights of victims deserves attention in our increasingly media saturated world. I would have preferred a more thoughtful analysis instead of a one-sided view. Isn’t that what FAIR should be all about?
http://vimeo.com/110741387
http://vimeo.com/110741387