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political prisoners

Trump Pardons Soldier Convicted Of Murder As Julian Assange Rots In Prison For Journalism

May 9, 2019 By Matt Agorist, Activistpost.com ,
Ali Mansur Mohamed was shot and killed in 2008. The man who killed him, U.S. Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna, was found guilty of unpremeditated murder for Mansur’s death and sentenced to 25 years in 2009. Now, years later, president Donald Trump has issued Behenna a full pardon. After taking Mansur in for questioning over a roadside bombing in Iraq in 2008, the U.S. Army decided that they did not have enough evidence to tie Mansur to any crime, so he was released after being held for ten days.

After Nearly Two Months In Jail, Chelsea Manning Submits Powerful Appeal For Release

May 8, 2019 Niles Niemuth, Wsws.org ,
Whistleblower and political prisoner Chelsea Manning submitted an appeal Monday to the federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia asking for her release from jail. Manning has been held in the Alexandria City Jail since March 8. She was detained for contempt of court after she refused to testify before a grand jury impaneled to bring frame-up charges against WikiLeaks publisher and journalist Julian Assange. “She is convinced that to cooperate with this grand jury would be a betrayal of her beliefs about the grand jury process, and this grand jury process in particular,” Manning’s attorneys told the court in a written statement on Monday.

US-Backed Saudi Regime Beheads 37 Political Prisoners

April 26, 2019 Bill Van Auken, Wsws.org , , , , ,
The monarchical dictatorship of Saudi Arabia announced on Tuesday that it had carried out another killing spree, publicly executing 37 people in the cities of Riyadh, Medina and Mecca, as well as in central Qassim Province and in the kingdom’s Eastern Province. One of the headless corpses was then crucified and left hanging in public as a hideous warning to anyone who would even contemplate opposing the absolute power of the ruling royal family. The regime announced that those who were brought into public squares to be decapitated with swords had been punished “for adopting terrorist and extremist thinking and for forming terrorist cells to corrupt and destabilize security.”

Political Prisoners Of Allied Struggles

April 2, 2019 Staff, Earthfirstjournal.org
There are over fifty political prisoners and prisoners of war held in the US, and many more politicized prisoners.  The following are some of those prisoners from struggles that are allied with the Earth First! movement.  See the recommended resources for more information and contacts for additional prisoners not listed on this site, and check out our suggestions for supporting prisoners.

Sotoudeh’s Case Is Iran’s Own Goal

March 28, 2019 Eldar Mamedov, Lobelog.com ,
Last week, the European Parliament joined the international outcry over the sentencing of Iranian human rights defender Nasrin Sotoudeh to a long prison term by voting overwhelmingly for a resolution calling for her release. The European Parliament is particularly sensitive to the fate of Sotoudeh. It awarded her the Sakharov Prize in 2012, the EU’s highest human rights award, in recognition of her outstanding work in this area. It is only politically and morally consistent for the Parliament to express public dismay over her persecution.

Marty Gottesfeld: Another Whistleblower In Solitary Confinement

March 20, 2019 By John Kiriakou, Mintpressnews.com , , ,
Last year I wrote about a whistleblower from New England who took direct action to save a child’s life and who paid for it with his freedom.  Marty Gottesfeld is now serving 10 years in prison for trying to save Justina Pelletier from abuse at the hands of her doctors at Children’s Hospital in Boston. At the age of 14, Justine developed searing stomach pain and inexplicable digestive problems. Her parents took her to a series of doctors until a metabolic geneticist at Tufts Medical Center diagnosed her with mitochondrial disease, a genetic malady that can lead to weakened muscles, neurological problems and dementia.

Keep The Pressure On DA Krasner To Free Mumia!

February 12, 2019 John Leslie, Socialistaction.org ,
On Dec. 28, one day after the decision by Judge Leon Tucker opening the door to further appeals by Mumia Abu-Jamal, employees of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office “found” six boxes in a storage space, while allegedly looking for office furniture. Five of the six boxes are marked with the name McCann, the name of a former head of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office Homicide Unit. Five of the boxes were also marked with Mumia’s name. This discovery was revealed to the public more than a week later in press reports.

Julian Assange Examined By Doctors As MSM And Democrats Push Fake Meeting With Paul Manafort

December 16, 2018 By Aaron Kesel, Activist Post , ,
The facts are contrary to what Moreno stated; the real truth is that Ecuador is trying to sell out Assange in a “deal” with the U.S. for loans, as WikiLeaks tweeted. Ecuador's immediately former president responds to New York Times report that his successor offered to sell WikiLeaks' publisher Julian Assange's to the U.S. government in exchange for debt relief. Subsequently Ecuador received $1.1 billion from US controlled banks.

Black Liberation Activist Freed After 40 Years In Prison

October 24, 2018 Staff, Telesurtv.net , ,
After 40 years in prison, Mike Africa Sr., of the Black liberation group, Move, has been released on parole. Africa is the second member of the group to be released. His wife, Debbie Sims Africa, was released on parole last year. “It’s kind of surreal that I’m sitting on the porch with my son and his family — my wife is here,” Mike Africa Sr. told teleSUR. “A couple of hours ago I was sitting in a jail cell. I’m just trying to take it all in and get my bearings.” Move, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., was founded in 1972 in resistance to police brutality and environmental destruction. Nine members were arrested in 1978 during a police raid, becoming known as the Move Nine.

NSCAG Debunks Amnesty Claims About Political Prisoners

September 24, 2018 Staff, Nscag.org , ,
In its latest attempt to demonise Nicaragua, Amnesty International once again nails its colours to the mast of the right wing opposition. Its latest ‘Urgent Action’ campaign - see link here - denouncing the ‘wave of detentions of students and activists in Nicaragua’ is yet more proof that Amnesty has given up all pretence to be an impartial source of information about human rights in Nicaragua. Its report completely ignores the fact that those detained are not victims but the perpetrators of violent crimes. In addition to kidnapping, torture and murder, those who have been arrested are accused of sexual assault, looting, theft and the burning and destruction of public and private buildings, including municipal offices, health centres, historical places, private homes, schools and even pre-schools, universities, police stations and public and private transport units.

Sign On: Urge President Obrador To Investigate Human Rights Abuses, Free Political Prisoners

September 18, 2018 Staff, Afgj.salsalabs.org , ,
President-Elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador has shown interest in proposing an Amnesty Law with a final goal of national reconciliation and peace. In Mexico there exist political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, a result of repression by neoliberal governments to quieten political dissidence and the struggle for justice that has, to a greater or lesser extent, provided fertile ground for a greater democracy in Mexico. Currently, the fabrication of crimes and torture, arbitrary detentions and extrajudicial killings still prevail with total impunity. Persecution and forced displacement take place daily, deeds that wound the lives of hundreds of Mexican families and impede a transition to democracy even now.

Ahed Tamimi And Her Mother Are Freed From Jail

July 30, 2018 By Ray McGovern, Consortiumnews.com , ,
When they left prison on Sunday Ahed Tamimi and her mother Nariman received a hard-earned heros’ welcome from Palestinians and others opposed to Israel’s occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands seized in 1948 and enlarged by the Israeli army in 1967. Ahed was 16 years old last December when an Israeli soldier shot her cousin in the face. The next day Israeli soldiers menacingly showed up at her house in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. What would you do? Ahed slapped one of the armed-to-the-teeth soldiers. While some Israeli politicians said she should be put away for life and others demanded a sentence of at least ten years, the Israeli occupiers sentenced her to eight months for the slap seen around the world. She spent her 17th birthday in prison.

Warm Welcome Greets Ahed And Nariman Tamimi Upon Their Release From Israeli Prison

July 30, 2018 Staff, Samidoun.net , , ,
Palestinian teen Ahed Tamimi, 17, and her mother, Nariman Tamimi, were released from Israeli occupation prisons in the morning of Sunday, 29 July 2018 after serving eight-month prison sentences. Ahed and her mother were arrested on 19 December 2017 after a video of Ahed confronting occupation soldiers on the family’s land in the village of Nabi Saleh, including slapping one soldier, went viral on social media. Ahed and her family are leaders in the anti-colonial indigenous land defense movement in Nabi Saleh, where the village’s land and even springs are targeted for confiscation and theft by the neighboring illegal, Jewish-only settlement of Halamish.

More Than 100,000 Call For Freedom Of Political Prisoners In Catalonia

July 16, 2018 Guifré Jordan, Catalannews.com , , ,
Between 110,000 and 200,000 people attended a march held in Barcelona on Saturday to demand freedom for the nine pro-independence leaders jailed. The Catalan capital's local police estimated that 110,000 attended the protest, while organizers raised this figure to 200,000. The people who took the streets of Barcelona included the country's two top authorities, president Quim Torra and parliament speaker Roger Torrent. The host organizations were major pro-independence entities ANC and Òmnium, alongside with another one gathering the relatives of the jailed and exiled leaders. 'Neither prison nor exile, we want you home' The march started in Barcelona's city center at 7pm with a clear motto: 'Neither prison nor exile, we want you home."

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights Ruling Supports Assange Freedom

July 15, 2018 By Adam Garrie, Eurasia Future , ,
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that it is the duty of nations to allow for the passage of successful asylum seekers from embassies to the mainland territory of the state that has granted an individual asylum. For Julian Assange, this would mean Britain has a legal obligation to allow Julian Assange to exit the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in peace. If the UK continues to ignore the court’s decision by insisting that local police will arrest Assange for a breach of bail conditions if he leaves the embassy, this means that the British government will have wantonly failed to uphold Assange’s rights as a legitimate receiver of asylum by Ecuador.
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