H.O.P.E.

Helping Our Prisoners Elevate

	A political prisoner is someone held in prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, because their ideas or image are deemed by a government to either challenge or threaten the authority of the state. In many cases, political prisoners are imprisoned with no legal veneer directly through extrajudicial processes. However, it also happens that political prisoners are arrested and tried with a veneer of legality, where false criminal charges, manufactured evidence, and unfair trials are used to disguise the fact that an individual is a political prisoner. This is common in situations which may otherwise be decried nationally and internationally as a human rights violation and suppression of a political dissident. A political prisoner can also be someone that has been denied bail unfairly, denied parole when it would reasonably have been given to a prisoner charged with a comparable crime, or special powers may be invoked by the judiciary. Particularly in this latter situation, whether an individual is regarded as a political prisoner may depend upon subjective political perspective or interpretation of the evidence. Source: Wikipedia   You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom. --Malcolm X H.O.P.E. supports political prisoner and prisoners of war.  Please read the information and bios below.  Feel free to show the Brothers and Sisters support by writing to them, sharing their information with your community, and joining the fight for their release.   Please click here for an updated listing of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in the United States compiled by Can't Jail the Spirit.   Assata Shakur Under Political Asylum in Cuba   Assata in Her Own Words...   My name is Assata ("she who struggles") Shakur ("the thankful one"), and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of  government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government's policy towards people of color. I am an ex political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984. I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam.  Please click here to read more... Sundiata Acoli (s/n Clark Squire) # 39794-066 PO Box 3000 USP Allenwood White Deer, PA 17887   "There is something about Sundiata that exudes calm. From every part of his being you can sense the presence of revolutionary spirit and fervor. And his love for Black people is so intense that you can almost touch it and hold it in your hand." -Assata Shakur You may have heard about Sundiata Acoli, and may have questions about who he is and why he is jail. This site presents articles by and about Sundiata Acoli, so that you can find out for yourself why this caged Panther MUST BE FREE! Sundiata is a Political Prisoner, a brilliant mathematician, artist and committed freedom fighter for the New Afrikan Nation. Ambushed on the New Jersey Turnpike with Assata Shakur and Zayd Malik Shakur, Sundiata has been unjustly incarcerated for 26 years. Assata remains exiled in Cuba.  Please click here to learn more.... Herman Bell # 79C-0262 Sullivan Correctional Facility Box 116 Riverside Drive Fallsburg, New York 12733-0116 Herman Bell, One of the New York Three In 1995, when my mother became gravely ill, I was not allowed to visit her sick bed, to hold her hand, to ease her pain. And later that year when she passed away, my keepers gave me a ten-minute phone call to learn of her final words from my siblings. Given these long years of being locked down, having to fight each day of them on one level or another, nothing caused me more pain than the passing of my momma and me being unable to look upon her face or hold her hand one final time. She and I had made big plans for when I got out, going fishing at the reservoir was at the top of our list. It was a longstanding deal between us. From childhood, I acquired her love of flowers, especially for red roses. Hers were exceptionally pretty and fragrant, and she would remark: Not bad for a country girl. She had no direct hand in shaping my politics, but her strength of character, gentle spirit, wisdom, and easy laughter had much to do with making me the person I am today; and I miss her so.  Please click here to learn more.... Leonard Peltier # 89637-132 USP Terre Haute U.S. Penitentiary P.O. Box 12015 Terre Haute, IN 47801 Leonard Peltier -- a great-grandfather, artist, writer, & indigenous rights activist -- is a citizen of the Anishinabe and Dakota/Lakota Nations who has been unjustly imprisoned since 1976. A participant in the American Indian Movement, he went to assist the Oglala Lakota people on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the mid-70s where a tragic shoot-out occurred on June 26, 1975. Accused of the murder of two agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Peltier fled to Canada believing he would never receive a fair trial in the United States. On February 6, 1976, Peltier was apprehended. The FBI knowingly presented the Canadian court with fraudulent affidavits, and Peltier was returned to the U.S. for trial.  Please click here to learn more....  Imam Jamil Al-Amin s/n H. Rap Brown # 1104651 Georgia State Prison 100 Highway 147 Reidsville, GA 39499-9701 My name is Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, the former H. Rap Brown. I am a devoted servant of ALLAH, and an unwavering devotee to his cause. For more that 30 years, I have been tormented and persecuted by my enemies for reasons of race and belief. I ... seek truth over a lie; I seek justice over injustice; I seek righteousness over the rewards of evil doers, and I love ALLAH more than I love the state.  Please click here to learn more....  MOVE 9 Who are the MOVE 9? From Sis. Marpessa Kupendua 7 December 1997 The MOVE 9 are innocent men and women who have been in prison since 1978, following a massive police assault on MOVE Headquarters in Powelton Village, Philadelphia (seven years before the gov't dropped a bomb on MOVE, killing 11 people, including 5 children). MOVE's belief is in Life. MOVE members follow the teachings of their founder, *JOHN AFRICA*. MOVE members have an uncompromising committment to their belief. It is that commit- ment which makes them a strong, unified family despite years of hardship. The August 8, 1978 assault on MOVE was a major military operation enacted by the Philadelphia Police Dept. under the direction of then-mayor Frank Rizzo. The assault followed years of police brutality against MOVE, Rizzo's reputation for racism and abuse of citizens is well documented.  Please click here to read more... Sekou Odinga # 05228-054 USP Florence ADMAX P.O. Box 8500 Florence, CO 81226   Sekou Mgobozi Abdullah Odinga is a prisoner of war that started more than 400 years ago and that rages even today.  “When we say prisoner of war, explains Odinga from behind the walls of Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary, “the obvious questions that should come to mind is, “What war?  is there a civil war going on in this country?”  No, not a civil war, New Afrikan (Black) people are not part of this county.  So, it can’t be a civil war.  Our people were illegally kidnapped and brought to this country more than 400 years ago.  That was an act of war.”   “We have to distinguish first who we war and how we can be at war with the U.S.  government,” says Odinga.  “We are a colonized people, but many of us don’t understand what that means.  A colonized people are a group of nation whose every aspect of life is controlled by another nation.  Please click here to learn more…. Dr. Mutulu Shakur # 83205-012 PO Box PMB - D Unit 105 Altanta GA 30315 Bro. Shakur was most importantly a cofounder and director of the National Task Force for COINTELPRO Litigation and Research which investigated, exposed, and instigated suits against the FBI and other American law agencies for criminal acts, domestic spying, dirty tricks, repression, and counterinsurgency warfare maneuvers against the New Afrikan Independence struggle and others struggling against oppression in the U.S. Because of his work in the National Liberation Movement, his freedom of information files (F.O.I.A.) expose that, from the age of 19, Dr. Shakur's activities in the National Liberation Movement were reported to the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation every three months. These reports contained language clearly indicating a nefarious set of actions against him. He believes through continuing discovery actions, more significant information will be exposed, revealing a classic continuation of COINTELPRO leading to his indictment in 1981. He was charged and convicted, and was sentenced to 60 years, for allegedly perpetrating a conspiracy against the United States government, regarding the activities of the Black Liberation Army/New Afrikan Freedom Fighters; charges which consisted of expropriations of funds, which reportedly went to liberation movements throughout the United States, and throughout the world; regarding the liberation of Prisoners of War inside the U.S. prisons, such as Assata Shakur, and the perpetuation of an underground network.  Please click here to read more... Mumia Abu-Jamal # AM-8335 SCI Greene 175 Progress Drive Waynesburg, PA 15370 Mumia Abu-Jamal is an award-winning Pennsylvania journalist who exposed police violence against minority communities. On death row since 1982, he was wrongfully sentenced for the shooting of a police officer. New evidence, including the recantation of a key eyewitness, new ballistic and forensic evidence and a confession from Arnold Beverly (one of the two killers of Officer Faulkner) points to his innocence! Mumia had no criminal record. For the last 25 years, Abu-Jamal has been locked up 23 hours a day, denied contact visits with his family, had his confidential legal mail illegally opened by prison authorities, and put into punitive detention for writing his first of three books while in prison, Live From Death Row.  Please click here to learn more.... The Cuban Five   The Cuban Five are five Cuban men who are in U.S. prison, serving four life sentences and 75 years collectively, after being wrongly convicted in U.S. federal court in Miami, on June 8, 2001. They are Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González. The Five were falsely accused by the U.S. government of committing espionage conspiracy against the United States, and other related charges. But the Five pointed out vigorously in their defense that they were involved in monitoring the actions of Miami-based terrorist groups, in order to prevent terrorist attacks on their country of Cuba. The Five’s actions were never directed at the U.S. government. They never harmed anyone nor ever possessed nor used any weapons while in the United States.  Please click here to learn more.... Veronza Bowers, Jr. #35316-136 FCI Medium C-1 P.O. Box 1032 Coleman, FL 35521-1032   Veronza Bowers, Jr. is an inmate at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in Coleman Florida. He has been incarcerated U.S. Federal prison system since 1973. Veronza was a member of the Black Panther Party in the San Francisco Bay Area during the late Sixties. The experience of the Black Panther Party, targeted by the FBI and Federal Government in its infamous Cointel Operation during this era of intense opposition to racial injustice and the War in Vietnam, is a chapter in American history that bears careful review. Many members of the BPP have languished in prison for decades convicted of crimes they did not commit.  Please click here to learn more....  Sekou Cinque T.M. Kambui (s/n William Turk) #113058 P.O. Box 56 (SCC) (B1-32) Elmore, AL 36025-0056 At present my own Support Group is in the midst of a Petition Drive/Support Letter Drive for my parole hearing in April of this year. We actively encourage your participation and support by mail, fax, or phone contact. Copies of all petitions and/or letters should be sent to m support group in Birmingham as well as to the Parole Board at the address listed below. My four-year long lawsuit against the Parole Board, citing racial discrimination, lack of due process, and arbitrary/capricious rulings was just dismissed a few weeks ago; the appeal is now in process. Ultimately, however, my fate and the fate of all of us rests with the people, not with the racist courts, parole boards, and thousands of other government agencies/entities. Now is the time for us to come together with one another, to organize, to speak out and speak up on behalf of each other. There is no time to waste, while we debate, define, and discuss; the enemy continues his genocidal plan. We need to bear in mind the Ashanti proverb: "Two men in a burning house must not stop to argue."  Please click here to learn more.... Jalil Muntaqim (aka Anthony Jalil Bottom) # 77A4283 Auburn Corr. Facility 135 State Street, P.O. Box 618 Auburn, NY 13024 On August 29, 2006 , Jalil will have served 35 years in prison.  He was convicted, along with Herman Bell and the late Albert Nuh Washington (who died in prison) of the May 21, 1971 homicide of two police officers in New York City later claimed by the Black Liberation Army.  He was convicted after two trials and even state and federal courts have noted illegalities that occurred in both but have refused to vacate his conviction, claiming "harmless error".  His trial occurred during the times of COINTELPRO.  While none of the murderers of the over 30 members of the Black Panther Party killed during COINTELPRO have been arrested or charged, Jalil and other former Panthers remain in prison, denied basic justice.  Please click here to learn more..... Kevin Cooper C-65304, 3-EB-82 San Quentin State Prison San Quentin CA 94974 Kevin Cooper is an innocent African-American man on San Quentin’s death row. He was sent to San Quentin’s notorious East Block on trumped-up charges that held him responsible for the brutal 1983 San Bernardino, CA slaying of the Ryen family and a family friend. On February 10, 2004, Kevin was scheduled to die by lethal injection in San Quentin’s execution chamber, but a massive, international movement to stop the execution was successful in forcing the courts to issue a last minute stay of execution. Just 3 hours and 42 minutes before Kevin was to be strapped to the gurney, the word came to him in San Quentin’s so-called death holding cell that he would be spared. Today Kevin is still fighting for his life as well as his freedom.  Please click here to learn more....