The US Will Prosecute For Your Politics
▻http://www.mintpressnews.com/us-will-prosecute-politics/200541
A history of repression
In 1978, then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young told the French newspaper Le Matin that the U.S. has “hundreds of people that I would categorize as political prisoners in our prisons.”
While the exact number of political prisoners in the U.S. is unknown, the National Jericho Movement, a movement that aims to gain recognition of the fact that political prisoners and prisoners of war exist within the U.S., lists 60 current political prisoners on its website.
The list includes First Nations political prisoners, including Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), who was convicted in 1977 of killing two FBI agents. Currently serving two consecutive life sentences, Peltier maintains that he is innocent. Amnesty International has stated that “political factors may have influenced the way in which the case was prosecuted.”
The list also includes people involved in the black liberation movement, including Mumia Abu-Jamal and Sundiata Acoli. Abu-Jamal was convicted in 1982 of the murder of a police officer, but maintains that he was framed. Acoli, a member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, was sentenced to life in prison in 1974 for murdering a New Jersey state trooper. The International Jurist, an outlet that “publishes perspectives and opinions on the current state of international law and its future,” declared Acoli a political prisoner in 1979.
Marshall “Eddie” Conway, a former political prisoner, was released in March after spending 44 years in prison after being convicted of murdering a police officer. Conway, a former member of the Black Panther Party, told MintPress that he was framed for the killing of a police officer because he exposed an agent provocateur in the Black Panther Party.
“I was targeted by COINTELPRO because of that exposure. I ended up being swept up in an arrest that involved two other Panthers in the killing of a police officer,” he said, explaining that he was framed and that a police informant was used to validate the arrest.