Farrakhan: America’s political prisoners and prisoners of conscience will go free

Farrakhan: America’s political prisoners and prisoners of conscience will go free

By Richard B. Muhammad -Editor- | Last updated: Jun 25, 2013 – 10:06:59 AM

Final Call Newspaper

http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_10002.shtml

CHICAGO (FinalCall.com) – The plight of Mumia Abu Jamal, exiled freedom fighter Assata Shakur and so-called gang leaders were raised as Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan again warned America that her evil doing and evil planning against Black people was bringing on her doom.

the_time_12.jpg

Former Black Panther and death row inmate Jamal and others were cited as examples of how the U.S. government and corporate America schemes to stifle dissent and to push Blacks and Latinos into the prison industrial complex.

“Look at how many millions now are bound in the prisons of America and look at the schemes now to put more and more of us behind bars to work us for corporate America, to train us to work for them not outside of the prison where they would have to give us a living wage; but at 23 cents an hour, train us to do all kinds of technical things,” he said. “And then when the time is up for us to come out of prison, there’s no job because we are felons.”

He was speaking June 22 in the 24th installment of his lecture series The Time and What Must Be Done at noi.org/thetime.

Others cited by the Minister as political prisoners or targets of the U.S. government were Leonard Peltier of the American Indian Movement, jailed since the 1970s; Jamil Al-Amin, formerly Black Power activist H. Rap Brown jailed since 2002; and street organization leaders Larry Hoover, a founder of the Gangster Disciples jailed for a 1973 murder conviction, and Chief Malik Ka’bah of the Blackstone Rangers in Chicago. Also known as the Black P. Stones, the group eventually became the El Rukn, under an Islamic conversion. Chief Malik, formerly known as Jeff Fort, was a founder of the Blackstone Rangers. Already jailed for a drug charge, he was convicted in 1987 of conspiring with Libya to perform acts of domestic terrorism.

When Mr. Hoover changed the name of the G.D.’s to Growth and Development, he was targeted while already behind bars, Min. Farrakhan noted. Mr. Hoover “started pushing the members of the Gangster Disciples into school now to get a high school education and go on to do constructive things, he was more dangerous doing that than selling drugs,” the Minister said.

Chief Malik and Larry Hoover could do great work to help change young Black men, he continued. In the early 1990s, a burgeoning political movement among Black youth, inspired by Mr. Hoover, developed in Chicago as 21st Century Vote. The effort attracted thousands of youth and culminated in a 10,000 person turnout downtown, but the effort was roundly condemned, attacked and defeated by authorities and fearful political leaders.

While White and Jewish criminals have second chances, with onetime bootlegger Joe Kennedy’s sons becoming senator and president, such change is denied Blacks, Min. Farrakhan observed.

“Do you remember the name Geronimo Ji-Jaga Pratt, a Vietnam Veteran, member of the Panther Party that the FBI feared because he was decorated as a war hero; you were afraid that he would organize Black youth,” Min. Farrakhan said.

The Black Panther leader was falsely jailed for the murder of a White couple in Santa Monica in 1972.

He languished in prison for 27 years, but was defended in a tireless way by the late Atty. Johnnie Cochran. He was released in 1997 after a retired FBI agent admitted the agency had surveillance tapes that showed Geronimo Pratt hundreds of miles from the murder scene when the crime happened and appeals revealed a major witness in the case was a police informant. The Panther died in Tanzania in 2011. He was working with youth and a longtime Panther Party comrade.

In March 2002, Mr. Al-Amin was convicted of murdering a Fulton County, Georgia Sheriff’s Deputy and wounding another in an incident March 16, 2000. Imam Al-Amin, who was leading Islamic leader in the city and country, steadfastly maintains his innocence. His supporters insist that he was convicted not based on the evidence, but because he is a Muslim, because of his militant past and his former association with the Black Panther Party. They charge he was convicted long before the jury announced its verdict and prosecutors intentionally ignored the truth in order to punish someone with whom Atlanta authorities have had a long-running feud.

“Soon you will be released otherwise would you make God and his Prophets liars. The captives that are bound will eventually be set free,” said the Minister.

He also mentioned the Cuban Five, who came to South Florida to find out who was plotting and planning and bombing hotels and terrorist activity inside Cuba. But after going to the FBI with information about the unlawful acts in Cuba, they were arrested.

“Do you have a cell already setup for me? Your evil has entered the ears and heart of God Himself and  the evil that you do to people, did you not know you have to pay for that?” asked Min. Farrakhan.

The Minister condemned the terrorist designation given to Assata Shakur, who remains in exile in Cuba, after fleeing America in the 1970s. There is now a $2 million bounty on her head and she was convicted of the killing of a New Jersey state trooper. She has long maintained she is innocent and was shot twice in the May 2, 1973 clash between authorities and members of the Black Liberation Army.

“I am really disappointed that our president and our Justice Department, under Mr. Holder, would allow our sister to be named a ‘domestic terrorist.’ but you know there are many political prisoners that I am saying, in the name of Allah and his messiah,’ they have to be set free,” said Min. Farrakhan.

The Time and What Must Be Done can be seen each week at 6 p.m. Central Standard Time at http://www.noi.org/thetime.