Please sign our Color of Change petition to PBS Independent Lens!
To: PBS Independent Lens
Please give more airtime to the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal!Dear PBS / Independent Lens,
We are writing you as fans and supporters of the Independent Lens series. We respectfully ask that you please give more airtime to the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist, activist, and former Black Panther who is widely considered to be a political prisoner.
Abu-Jamal’s case is a story that we want to hear about because it is important to us. We believe that Abu-Jamal’s case deserves the type of high quality and in-depth coverage that the Independent Lens series can provide to the public.
We are disappointed that so far in the promotion and release of the new series “Philly DA” (in the trailers and the first two episodes that have been screened at several locations) there has been no mention of what is arguably the most famous court case in the history of Philadelphia: the 1982 murder trial of Mumia Abu-Jamal for the December 9, 1981 shooting death of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.
We hope that there will be more about Abu-Jamal’s case in in the future episodes of Philly DA. After all, it was DA Krasner himself that discovered six DA file boxes from Mumia’s case that had never been turned over to Abu-Jamal’s defense team. This was one of the biggest news stories from Krasner’s first term as District Attorney. We are hopeful that this story will be featured in the upcoming episodes of Philly DA, but in the meantime, we would like to make a specific request to PBS.
We are writing this petition in support of an April 20 rally being organized in San Francisco at the KQED building to protest DA Krasner’s continued support of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s 1982 conviction. There is also an open letter to KQED from such SF Bay Area figures as Angela Y. Davis and Boots Riley, asking KQED to air the new video statement from blacklisted football player Colin Kaepernick and the short documentary film about Abu-Jamal’s case entitled “Manufacturing Guilt” by Stephen Vittoria.
We support this request made by Bay Area activists to KQED. Now, with this petition to PBS and Independent Lens, we would like to make a separate request for PBS’s entire national audience. Can you please also air the 2009 documentary film about Abu-Jamal’s case, “Justice on Trial?” The film’s co-director Johanna Fernandez has authorized a free screening of her film by PBS. Justice on Trial features interviews with J. Patrick O’Connor (author of “The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal), freelance photographer Pedro Polakoff (who took crime scene photos that were suppressed by the Philly DA), and Lydia Barashango, the sister of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who says shortly before her death from cancer that she and her family suspected that Kenneth Freeman was the actual shooter of Officer Faulkner.
Watch Justice on Trial here.
Another important video that we also hope you will consider airing is the 2010 ballistics test conducted by investigative journalists Dave Lindorff and Linn Washington Jr. Our separate Color of Change petition to DA Krasner cites the 2010 ballistics test as one of many reasons that well-documented police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct has forever destroyed the legitimacy of Abu-Jamal’s 1982 conviction. There is a short, high quality video that accompanies Lindorff and Washington’s written report, providing important visual documentation for their conclusion that that “the whole prosecution story of an execution-style slaying of the officer by Abu-Jamal would appear to be a prosecution fabrication, complete with coached, perjured witnesses, undermining the integrity and fairness of the entire trial.”
Watch the video here.
Read the report here.
Thank you Independent Lens for considering our petition.
We hope that there will be more about Abu-Jamal’s case in in the future episodes of Philly DA. After all, it was DA Krasner himself that discovered six DA file boxes from Mumia’s case that had never been turned over to Abu-Jamal’s defense team. This was one of the biggest news stories from Krasner’s first term as District Attorney. We are hopeful that this story will be featured in the upcoming episodes of Philly DA, but in the meantime, we would like to make a specific request to PBS.
We are writing this petition in support of an April 20 rally being organized in San Francisco at the KQED building to protest DA Krasner’s continued support of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s 1982 conviction. There is also an open letter to KQED from such SF Bay Area figures as Angela Y. Davis and Boots Riley, asking KQED to air the new video statement from blacklisted football player Colin Kaepernick and the short documentary film about Abu-Jamal’s case entitled “Manufacturing Guilt” by Stephen Vittoria.
We support this request made by Bay Area activists to KQED. Now, with this petition to PBS and Independent Lens, we would like to make a separate request for PBS’s entire national audience. Can you please also air the 2009 documentary film about Abu-Jamal’s case, “Justice on Trial?” The film’s co-director Johanna Fernandez has authorized a free screening of her film by PBS. Justice on Trial features interviews with J. Patrick O’Connor (author of “The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal), freelance photographer Pedro Polakoff (who took crime scene photos that were suppressed by the Philly DA), and Lydia Barashango, the sister of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who says shortly before her death from cancer that she and her family suspected that Kenneth Freeman was the actual shooter of Officer Faulkner.
Watch Justice on Trial here.
Another important video that we also hope you will consider airing is the 2010 ballistics test conducted by investigative journalists Dave Lindorff and Linn Washington Jr. Our separate Color of Change petition to DA Krasner cites the 2010 ballistics test as one of many reasons that well-documented police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct has forever destroyed the legitimacy of Abu-Jamal’s 1982 conviction. There is a short, high quality video that accompanies Lindorff and Washington’s written report, providing important visual documentation for their conclusion that that “the whole prosecution story of an execution-style slaying of the officer by Abu-Jamal would appear to be a prosecution fabrication, complete with coached, perjured witnesses, undermining the integrity and fairness of the entire trial.”
Watch the video here.
Read the report here.
Thank you Independent Lens for considering our petition.
(end of petition)
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