Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
Obama's FBI Names Assata Shakur Most Wanted "Terrorist"
Assata Shakur was forced to flee the United States as a target of U.S. racist oppression, orchestrated by the FBI in the 1960’s and 70’s. At that time the U.S. government liquidated the Black Panther Party through the murders of 39 members, including the police shooting of Fred Hampton in his sleep, and through political frame-ups such as that of Geronimo (Ji Jagga) Pratt who was finally exonerated (i.e. found innocent) after 30 years in prison. Other framed Black Panthers still sit in prison and Black Panther Assata Shakur lives in exile, granted political asylum by Cuba, but with a one million dollar bounty put on her head by the U.S. government.
[Photo of a new billboard erected last night in New Jersey targetting political refugee Assata Shakur]
Obama's FBI Has Put Political Refugee Assata Shakur in its Crosshairs
FBI Hands OFF Assata Shakur!
By Steven Argue
In Obama's "post-racial" America, numerous political prisoners of America's racist wars remain in prison, including Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal while others are held without trial for being brown and Muslim at Guantanamo and similar prisons.
Likewise, Obama targets whole families for extra-judicial execution around in brown and Muslim parts of the world.
For exposing U.S. war crimes and crimes against humanity the Obama administration tortured and prosecuted Bradley Manning.
Likewise, in the United States Blacks routinely suffer racist terror from the police, including searches without cause and unprovoked beatings, shootings, and murders. Police impunity to prosecution exists for the murder of Blacks and poor people in America.
In addition, Blacks suffer double the infant mortality of whites and by every other health and economic indicator are worse-off than whites. For Blacks in the United States between 1995 and 2002, the infant mortality rate was 13.9, more than double the rate of 5.9 for whites in the same time period (Center for Disease Control). Life expectancy of Blacks is 5 years less than whites, with 2005 statistics showing whites living on average to 78.3 years of-age and Blacks only living 73.2 years (CNN.com). Obama's opposition to any actual reform of health care, like through single payer; will keep these statistics the same.
Blacks also suffer double the unemployment of whites. Consistent with long-term ratios, 2002 statistics gave a white unemployment rate of 5.2 percent and a Black unemployment rate of 10.7 percent (Robinson).
Similar to the oppression faced by Blacks, Native Americans on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, who supported the culturally and politically nationalist American Indian Movement, faced brutal counter-insurgency tactics complete with FBI-armed and -trained death squads that murdered 61 political activists on the reservation between 1973 and 1976. As part of that terror war against America’s first nations, American Indian Movement member Leonard Peltier was framed by the FBI and remains in prison to this day.
Assata Shakur was forced to flee the United States as a target of U.S. racist oppression, orchestrated by the FBI in the 1960’s and 70’s. At that time the U.S. government liquidated the Black Panther Party through the murders of 39 members, including the police shooting of Fred Hampton in his sleep, and through political frame-ups such as that of Geronimo (Ji Jagga) Pratt who was finally exonerated (i.e. found innocent) after 30 years in prison. Other framed Black Panthers still sit in prison and Black Panther Assata Shakur lives in exile, granted political asylum by Cuba, but with a one million dollar bounty put on her head by the U.S. government.
Like her other comrades in Black Panther Party, Assata Shakur was ambushed for police extra-judicial execution in 1973. In the cross fire, one state trooper was killed by another cop. Sandiata Acoli was framed-up for that death and is still in prison. Assata Shakur escaped prison and then escaped the repression in the U.S. for Cuba where the Cuban people recognize her as a political refugee.
Today, Obama's FBI has put Assata Shakur, a world famous fighter against American racist injustice, in their cross hairs, moving her to the top of their list of most wanted terrorist.
Assata Shakur is not a terrorist, but the FBI and CIA are. In fact, the U.S. has carried out terrorism against the Cuban people, including CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles blowing-up a civilian airliner, Cubana flight 455, killing all 73 people on board. The U.S. shelters this terrorist from justice. While the U.S. government shelters their butcher from justice, allowing him to live on U.S. soil without prosecution, they continue their repression against Blacks who dared to stand up to racist oppression in America.
The Revolutionary Tendency stands in solidarity with Assata Shakur saying:
Thankyou Cuba For Provoding Assata Shakur Exile!
Close Guantanamo and Give it Back to Cuba!
Prosecute the Cops and FBI who Murdered Fred Hampton!
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Sandiata Acoli, Bradley Manning, and Lynne Stewart!
U.S./ FBI Hands Off Assata Shakur!
This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news
To join discussion of the Revolutionary Tendency (no longer part of the SP) check us out on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/steven.argue.1?ref=tn_tnmn#!/groups/RevolutionaryTendency/
Also by this author see:
Forced Sterilizations, Racist Terror, and the Native American Uprising of 1972-1973
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/02/03/18731287.php
For Women’s Liberation through Socialist Revolution!
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/03/08/18733326.php
Cuba Capitalist? A Trotskyist Response to the ISO and LRP
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/07/21/18717965.php
Obama's FBI Has Put Political Refugee Assata Shakur in its Crosshairs
FBI Hands OFF Assata Shakur!
By Steven Argue
In Obama's "post-racial" America, numerous political prisoners of America's racist wars remain in prison, including Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal while others are held without trial for being brown and Muslim at Guantanamo and similar prisons.
Likewise, Obama targets whole families for extra-judicial execution around in brown and Muslim parts of the world.
For exposing U.S. war crimes and crimes against humanity the Obama administration tortured and prosecuted Bradley Manning.
Likewise, in the United States Blacks routinely suffer racist terror from the police, including searches without cause and unprovoked beatings, shootings, and murders. Police impunity to prosecution exists for the murder of Blacks and poor people in America.
In addition, Blacks suffer double the infant mortality of whites and by every other health and economic indicator are worse-off than whites. For Blacks in the United States between 1995 and 2002, the infant mortality rate was 13.9, more than double the rate of 5.9 for whites in the same time period (Center for Disease Control). Life expectancy of Blacks is 5 years less than whites, with 2005 statistics showing whites living on average to 78.3 years of-age and Blacks only living 73.2 years (CNN.com). Obama's opposition to any actual reform of health care, like through single payer; will keep these statistics the same.
Blacks also suffer double the unemployment of whites. Consistent with long-term ratios, 2002 statistics gave a white unemployment rate of 5.2 percent and a Black unemployment rate of 10.7 percent (Robinson).
Similar to the oppression faced by Blacks, Native Americans on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, who supported the culturally and politically nationalist American Indian Movement, faced brutal counter-insurgency tactics complete with FBI-armed and -trained death squads that murdered 61 political activists on the reservation between 1973 and 1976. As part of that terror war against America’s first nations, American Indian Movement member Leonard Peltier was framed by the FBI and remains in prison to this day.
Assata Shakur was forced to flee the United States as a target of U.S. racist oppression, orchestrated by the FBI in the 1960’s and 70’s. At that time the U.S. government liquidated the Black Panther Party through the murders of 39 members, including the police shooting of Fred Hampton in his sleep, and through political frame-ups such as that of Geronimo (Ji Jagga) Pratt who was finally exonerated (i.e. found innocent) after 30 years in prison. Other framed Black Panthers still sit in prison and Black Panther Assata Shakur lives in exile, granted political asylum by Cuba, but with a one million dollar bounty put on her head by the U.S. government.
Like her other comrades in Black Panther Party, Assata Shakur was ambushed for police extra-judicial execution in 1973. In the cross fire, one state trooper was killed by another cop. Sandiata Acoli was framed-up for that death and is still in prison. Assata Shakur escaped prison and then escaped the repression in the U.S. for Cuba where the Cuban people recognize her as a political refugee.
Today, Obama's FBI has put Assata Shakur, a world famous fighter against American racist injustice, in their cross hairs, moving her to the top of their list of most wanted terrorist.
Assata Shakur is not a terrorist, but the FBI and CIA are. In fact, the U.S. has carried out terrorism against the Cuban people, including CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles blowing-up a civilian airliner, Cubana flight 455, killing all 73 people on board. The U.S. shelters this terrorist from justice. While the U.S. government shelters their butcher from justice, allowing him to live on U.S. soil without prosecution, they continue their repression against Blacks who dared to stand up to racist oppression in America.
The Revolutionary Tendency stands in solidarity with Assata Shakur saying:
Thankyou Cuba For Provoding Assata Shakur Exile!
Close Guantanamo and Give it Back to Cuba!
Prosecute the Cops and FBI who Murdered Fred Hampton!
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Sandiata Acoli, Bradley Manning, and Lynne Stewart!
U.S./ FBI Hands Off Assata Shakur!
This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news
To join discussion of the Revolutionary Tendency (no longer part of the SP) check us out on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/steven.argue.1?ref=tn_tnmn#!/groups/RevolutionaryTendency/
Also by this author see:
Forced Sterilizations, Racist Terror, and the Native American Uprising of 1972-1973
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/02/03/18731287.php
For Women’s Liberation through Socialist Revolution!
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/03/08/18733326.php
Cuba Capitalist? A Trotskyist Response to the ISO and LRP
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/07/21/18717965.php
Add Your Comments
Comments
(Hide Comments)
The $2 million of our tax dollars being offered to capture (?) 65-year-old Assata Shakur by Democrat Obama's Justice Department is first and foremost an opening shot at trying to make a deal with Cuba in US imperialism's continuing agenda of reclaiming Cuba for capitalism. This point is well made in the Huffington Post below:
From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-lowndes/hunt-for-assata-shakur-matters_b_3211657.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
Why the Hunt for Assata Shakur Matters
by Joseph Lowndes, May 3, 2013
"Third, further connecting the domestic and international, the placement of Assata Shakur on the FBI's Most Wanted list is a way for the Obama Administration to test the resolve of Cuba in the twilight of the Castro regime, to see how much power it can now wield there through both engagements and threats. As an AP story on the Shakur case thought it worthwhile to note, "This week, the State Department said it has no plans to remove Cuba from a list of state sponsors of terrorism that also includes Iran, Syria and Sudan." This is a move that reverberates throughout the western hemisphere given recent U.S. activity in Bolivia, Honduras, and most recently the U.S.'s refusal to recognize the electoral victory of socialist president Nicolas Maduro victory in Venezuela. "
Secondly, it is an attack on the black community by an African-American president and an African-American attorney general that sends a clear message that voting for a president because he happens to be black and a Democrat does not help the black community at all; it destroys it just as much as voting for a Republican because the Democrats and Republicans both represent the same capitalist class which profits from racism.
Democracy Now, May 3, 2013 had 2 good stories on Assata Shakur, both in print and in video formats. First,
Assata Shakur in Her Own Words at
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/3/assata_shakur_in_her_own_words
Quotable quotes (it is all worth reading):
ASSATA SHAKUR: My name is Assata Shakur, and I was born and raised in the United States. I am a descendant of Africans who were kidnapped and brought to the Americas as slaves. I spent my early childhood in the racist segregated South. I later moved to the northern part of the country, where I realized that Black people were equally victimized by racism and oppression.
I grew up and became a political activist, participating in student struggles, the anti-war movement, and, most of all, in the movement for the liberation of African Americans in the United States. I later joined the Black Panther Party, an organization that was targeted by the COINTELPRO program, a program that was set up by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to eliminate all political opposition to the U.S. government’s policies, to destroy the Black Liberation Movement in the United States, to discredit activists and to eliminate potential leaders.
To make a long story short, I was captured in New Jersey in 1973, after being shot with both arms held in the air, and then shot again from the back. I was left on the ground to die, and when I did not, I was taken to a local hospital where I was threatened, beaten and tortured. In 1977 I was convicted in a trial that can only be described as a legal lynching.
The New Jersey State Police and other law enforcement officials say they want to see me brought to "justice." But I would like to know what they mean by "justice." Is torture justice? I was kept in solitary confinement for more than two years, mostly in men’s prisons. Is that justice? My lawyers were threatened with imprisonment and imprisoned. Is that justice? I was tried by an all-white jury, without even the pretext of impartiality, and then sentenced to life in prison plus 33 years. Is that justice?
Second, the interview with Angela Davis and Shakkur's attorney, Lennos Hinds at
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/3/angela_davis_and_assata_shakurs_lawyer
Hinds:
It is in that context we need to look at what happened on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. What they call Joanne Chesimard, what we know as Assata Shakur, she was targeted by the FBI, stopped. And the allegation that she was a cold-blooded killer is not supported by any of the forensic evidence. If we look at the trial, we’ll find that she was victimized, she was shot. She was shot in the back. The bullet exited and broke the clavicle in her shoulder. She could not raise a gun. She could not raise her hand to shoot. And she was shot while her hands were in the air. Now, that is the forensic evidence. There is not one scintilla of evidence placing a gun in her hand. No arsenic residue was found on her clothing or on her hands. So, the allegation by the state police that she took an officer’s gun and shot him, executed him in cold blood, is not only false, but it is designed to inflame.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Assata Shakur in the film Eyes [of] the Rainbow: The Assata Shakur Documentary. Lennox Hinds, you went to court to change the prison conditions that Assata Shakur was in after she was arrested. Describe what happened to her after she was arrested. I mean, she was near death.
LENNOX HINDS: She was near death. She was chained to her hospital bed. After she recovered, she was placed in an all-male prison. She was under 24-hour surveillance by male prison guards who were watching and monitoring her very personal needs during that time period. We went into federal court and challenged the conditions of her confinement, where she was kept in solitary confinement for two years. We won that case. And they—that is, the Middlesex County Correctional Department were forced to place her in a women’s facility. But that was a horrible situation amounting to torture.
AMY GOODMAN: Your case went to the Supreme Court, how you were treated in the court?
LENNOX HINDS: Well, there’s the illusion—you know, I wrote a book called Illusions of Justice. There is the illusion that we have justice in the United States. I made the mistake of thinking that lawyers enjoyed a First Amendment right, and I called a press conference, and I criticized the trial judge at the trial and said that the case was a legalized lynching. And before you know it, I was facing disbarment. They attempted to disbar me by bringing charges against me. And they asked me to come and explain myself. I refused. I sued the judge. I sued the prosecutor. And I sued all of the members of the Ethics Committee, forced them to come to my office. I took their depositions. And the case went all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. United States Supreme Court said, "Well, Hinds could not have understood the seriousness of the charges; otherwise, he would not have made that sort of statement." They sent the case back to New Jersey. The New Jersey Supreme Court agreed and tossed it out.
******
You will note that Assata listed all the struggles she participated in. There was one that is crucial to ending capitalism that is not on the list, namely labor organizing. That is because since 1950, there has not been a serious labor movement in this country, which unites the entire workingclass, those of us who sell our labor for less than $80,000 a year, regardless of color, gender, sexual orientation, etc. That is the tragedy of the first generation that came of age after 1950. We are now seeing the beginning of a long overdue labor movement as people cannot survive on low wages and there are no other jobs, so they are organizing the fast food restaurants. We finally saw nationwide general strike on May Day 2006 to stop the anti-immigrant Sensenbrenner bill, and it succeded.
If you support the Cuba revolution, freedom for Assata Shakur, labor general strikes, civil rights and civil liberties, and all the other things that are constantly opposed by the Democrat-Republicans, you have to register in, not just occasionally vote for, Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party, to keep these 2 parties on the California ballot after 2014.
Register online at:
https://rtv.sos.ca.gov/elections/register-to-vote/
Peace & Freedom Party
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/
Green Party
http://www.cagreens.org/
http://www.gp.org/index.php
From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-lowndes/hunt-for-assata-shakur-matters_b_3211657.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
Why the Hunt for Assata Shakur Matters
by Joseph Lowndes, May 3, 2013
"Third, further connecting the domestic and international, the placement of Assata Shakur on the FBI's Most Wanted list is a way for the Obama Administration to test the resolve of Cuba in the twilight of the Castro regime, to see how much power it can now wield there through both engagements and threats. As an AP story on the Shakur case thought it worthwhile to note, "This week, the State Department said it has no plans to remove Cuba from a list of state sponsors of terrorism that also includes Iran, Syria and Sudan." This is a move that reverberates throughout the western hemisphere given recent U.S. activity in Bolivia, Honduras, and most recently the U.S.'s refusal to recognize the electoral victory of socialist president Nicolas Maduro victory in Venezuela. "
Secondly, it is an attack on the black community by an African-American president and an African-American attorney general that sends a clear message that voting for a president because he happens to be black and a Democrat does not help the black community at all; it destroys it just as much as voting for a Republican because the Democrats and Republicans both represent the same capitalist class which profits from racism.
Democracy Now, May 3, 2013 had 2 good stories on Assata Shakur, both in print and in video formats. First,
Assata Shakur in Her Own Words at
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/3/assata_shakur_in_her_own_words
Quotable quotes (it is all worth reading):
ASSATA SHAKUR: My name is Assata Shakur, and I was born and raised in the United States. I am a descendant of Africans who were kidnapped and brought to the Americas as slaves. I spent my early childhood in the racist segregated South. I later moved to the northern part of the country, where I realized that Black people were equally victimized by racism and oppression.
I grew up and became a political activist, participating in student struggles, the anti-war movement, and, most of all, in the movement for the liberation of African Americans in the United States. I later joined the Black Panther Party, an organization that was targeted by the COINTELPRO program, a program that was set up by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to eliminate all political opposition to the U.S. government’s policies, to destroy the Black Liberation Movement in the United States, to discredit activists and to eliminate potential leaders.
To make a long story short, I was captured in New Jersey in 1973, after being shot with both arms held in the air, and then shot again from the back. I was left on the ground to die, and when I did not, I was taken to a local hospital where I was threatened, beaten and tortured. In 1977 I was convicted in a trial that can only be described as a legal lynching.
The New Jersey State Police and other law enforcement officials say they want to see me brought to "justice." But I would like to know what they mean by "justice." Is torture justice? I was kept in solitary confinement for more than two years, mostly in men’s prisons. Is that justice? My lawyers were threatened with imprisonment and imprisoned. Is that justice? I was tried by an all-white jury, without even the pretext of impartiality, and then sentenced to life in prison plus 33 years. Is that justice?
Second, the interview with Angela Davis and Shakkur's attorney, Lennos Hinds at
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/3/angela_davis_and_assata_shakurs_lawyer
Hinds:
It is in that context we need to look at what happened on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. What they call Joanne Chesimard, what we know as Assata Shakur, she was targeted by the FBI, stopped. And the allegation that she was a cold-blooded killer is not supported by any of the forensic evidence. If we look at the trial, we’ll find that she was victimized, she was shot. She was shot in the back. The bullet exited and broke the clavicle in her shoulder. She could not raise a gun. She could not raise her hand to shoot. And she was shot while her hands were in the air. Now, that is the forensic evidence. There is not one scintilla of evidence placing a gun in her hand. No arsenic residue was found on her clothing or on her hands. So, the allegation by the state police that she took an officer’s gun and shot him, executed him in cold blood, is not only false, but it is designed to inflame.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Assata Shakur in the film Eyes [of] the Rainbow: The Assata Shakur Documentary. Lennox Hinds, you went to court to change the prison conditions that Assata Shakur was in after she was arrested. Describe what happened to her after she was arrested. I mean, she was near death.
LENNOX HINDS: She was near death. She was chained to her hospital bed. After she recovered, she was placed in an all-male prison. She was under 24-hour surveillance by male prison guards who were watching and monitoring her very personal needs during that time period. We went into federal court and challenged the conditions of her confinement, where she was kept in solitary confinement for two years. We won that case. And they—that is, the Middlesex County Correctional Department were forced to place her in a women’s facility. But that was a horrible situation amounting to torture.
AMY GOODMAN: Your case went to the Supreme Court, how you were treated in the court?
LENNOX HINDS: Well, there’s the illusion—you know, I wrote a book called Illusions of Justice. There is the illusion that we have justice in the United States. I made the mistake of thinking that lawyers enjoyed a First Amendment right, and I called a press conference, and I criticized the trial judge at the trial and said that the case was a legalized lynching. And before you know it, I was facing disbarment. They attempted to disbar me by bringing charges against me. And they asked me to come and explain myself. I refused. I sued the judge. I sued the prosecutor. And I sued all of the members of the Ethics Committee, forced them to come to my office. I took their depositions. And the case went all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. United States Supreme Court said, "Well, Hinds could not have understood the seriousness of the charges; otherwise, he would not have made that sort of statement." They sent the case back to New Jersey. The New Jersey Supreme Court agreed and tossed it out.
******
You will note that Assata listed all the struggles she participated in. There was one that is crucial to ending capitalism that is not on the list, namely labor organizing. That is because since 1950, there has not been a serious labor movement in this country, which unites the entire workingclass, those of us who sell our labor for less than $80,000 a year, regardless of color, gender, sexual orientation, etc. That is the tragedy of the first generation that came of age after 1950. We are now seeing the beginning of a long overdue labor movement as people cannot survive on low wages and there are no other jobs, so they are organizing the fast food restaurants. We finally saw nationwide general strike on May Day 2006 to stop the anti-immigrant Sensenbrenner bill, and it succeded.
If you support the Cuba revolution, freedom for Assata Shakur, labor general strikes, civil rights and civil liberties, and all the other things that are constantly opposed by the Democrat-Republicans, you have to register in, not just occasionally vote for, Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party, to keep these 2 parties on the California ballot after 2014.
Register online at:
https://rtv.sos.ca.gov/elections/register-to-vote/
Peace & Freedom Party
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/
Green Party
http://www.cagreens.org/
http://www.gp.org/index.php
For more information:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-lownd...
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$255.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network