Cindy Sheehan
Friday, June 5, 2009
On Monday, San Francisco will see the opening of legal proceedings in the case
of the seven former members and associates of the Black Panther Party charged
in connection with the 1971 death of Sgt. John Young and conspiracy to commit
murder. This surely will be one of the city's historic trials - if indeed it
goes to trial.
At the heart of this 38-year-old case are confessions obtained under torture.
Much like detainees in Abu Ghraib and Bagram air base, defendants in this case
were blindfolded, covered with wool blankets drenched in boiling water,
subjected to suffocation with plastic bags, beatings and electric shocks to the
genitals.
In this case, the torture was carried out in 1973 in New Orleans. FBI chief J.
Edgar Hoover had deemed the Black Panther Party "the greatest threat to
internal security of the country," and there were no holds barred when law
enforcement retaliated against the Panthers for their challenge to police
brutality in the black community.
The torture of some of the defendants in New Orleans included the participation
of San Francisco police officers, who extracted forced signatures from them on
"confessions" written by the police. All of the men who were tortured
repudiated these documents when allowed to see defense attorneys and a
magistrate.
In subsequent years, courts in Louisiana and California rejected the
admissibility of this tortured testimony.
There is another eerie parallel with the war in Iraq. There, after the United
States could not capture al Qaeda members with provable ties to the terrorist
attacks of 9/11, many innocent Iraqis have borne the brunt of the government's
determination to make someone (who at least looked like the culprits) pay
dearly.
And here in San Francisco, the new attempt to prosecute this old case seems to
have been generated less by any new evidence than by the atmosphere of fear
fostered by the war on terror, led by a government willing to condone torture
in the name of security.
The world is waiting to see if the Obama administration will hold accountable
those high level officials who normalized terror. As a mother and citizen who
has felt the terrible cost of a war justified by officials who claimed to have
intelligence that later proved to be distorted by torture, I cannot stand
silent when the same evil is practiced at home.
I join with the Nobel Peace laureates the Rev. Desmond Tutu and Mairead
Corrigan Maguire, the San Francisco Labor Council, the Center for
Constitutional Rights, and many others in their call to drop the charges
against these men. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has gone on record as
opposing torture. I call on all officials to do so as well, to reject
prosecution based on the results of torture and to defend the human rights of
these men who have been subjected to such injustice.
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Casey Sheehan, an American soldier killed in
Iraq, co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace, and author of "Peace
Mom: A Mother's Journey Through Heartache to Activism."
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/05/EDDV180UHM.DTL
This article appeared on page A - 13 of the San Francisco Chronicle
This runs opposite another opinion piece by former police chief and mayor,
Frank Jordan entitled
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/05/EDDV180UK8.DTL
Hi Everyone,
A huge thank you for all of your help and for being so generous with your time
last week in order to help me and my students on this film project and to
support Richard and the rest of the SF 8. FYI, we screened the film to an
audience in our theatre last Saturday between two other documentary films;
"Juvies" about minors being tried as adults in CA, and "Hip Hop:
Beyond Beats and Rhymes" about the misogyny, violence and homophobia present
in hip-hop.
Here are the links to YouTube. The film is in two parts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMNMxfv-QUw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki018WpD-PY&feature=channel
The student filmmakers served on a panel after the screening and answered a
variety of questions from the audience. Many people present were not
aware of the case and the students did a great job of summarizing the issues
and invited folks to the protest and to come to court.
There are also thank you cards from the students and DVD copies of the film on
the way to your respective mailboxes soon. A few of them are going to be
attending the hearing during the week, as will I.
Again, I have much gratitude for each of you. This project came together
in such a way I can only assume it was meant to happen. If you feel the
film has merit beyond this small group, please feel free!
In Struggle,
Giselle
Giselle Chow
Chair, Visual and Performing Arts Dept.
Lick-Wilmerding High School
755 Ocean Avenue
SF, CA 94112
www.lwhs.org
415.333.4021
_______________________________________________
Please support these brothers by sending a donation. Make checks payable to
CDHR/Agape and mail to the address below or donate on line:
www.freethesf8.org/donate.html
Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR)
PO Box 90221
Pasadena, CA 91109
(415) 226-1120
FreetheSF8@riseup.net
www.freethesf8.org
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Free All Political Prisoners!
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