Mumia Abu-Jamal, one of the most well-known inmates on US death row, has described America’s vast population of “invisible” prisoners in an interview with Reporters without Borders published Friday.
The 55-year-old African American was sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of a white policeman, a crime he has always denied committing, and has become a cause celebre among opponents of the death penalty.
He was the president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists at the time of his arrest and has continued to write from death row, where he has now spent 28 years.
“Prisons in America are vast and the number of prisoners is immense,” he told Reporters without Borders, an advocacy group.
“It’s impressive to see how much money is spent by the US government and how invisible we are. No one knows. Most people don’t care.”
“My reporting has to do with my reality,” he told the group. “They mostly have been focusing on death row and prison. I wish it were not so. There is a spate of suicides on death row in the last year and a half. But this is invisible.”
Abu-Jamal said he believed his career as a radical journalist, and his background as a founding member of the Black Panther movement, had played a role in both his conviction and his failed appeals against his sentence.
“Because I continue to write, this is an element that would have affected the thinking of the judges and made them change the ruling for not giving me a new trial,” he said.
“I think they were thinking ‘You’re a big mouth, you won’t get a new trial.’ You expect a little more from a federal court.”
In 2008, after a fierce judicial battle, Abu-Jamal’s death sentence was commuted to life in prison over procedural irregularities during his trial. But the state of Pennsylvania appealed the decision and the Supreme Court in January ordered a court of appeals to review the commutation.
Asked about coverage of his case, he said the media “should have a role to play here.”
“Millions of people saw what was done in Abu Ghraib. Its leader, smiling on the pictures that have been published, worked here before going to Abu Ghraib.”
“In death row, you have people without a high school degree who can decide whether someone lives or dies,” he added. “These people can make someone’s life a living hell on a wink.”
Some 3,260 people are imprisoned on death row in the United States.
AFP
