In the Spirit of Mandela: International Tribunal On Human Rights Violations & U.S. Held Political Prisoners
To: All Prisoner Advocacy Organizations, Campaigns & Individuals
From: National Jericho Movement - Spirit Of Mandela Coalition, Outreach Committee
Re: 2021 International Tribunal On Human Rights Violations & U.S. Held Political Prisoners
Greetings Friends, Families, Comrades & Supporters Of U.S. Captured Freedom Fighters,
Jericho is spearheading the “In the Spirit of Mandela” IT (International Tribunal) 2021 campaign proposed by co-founder of the National Jericho Movement Jalil Abdul Muntaqim. This initiative appeals to the international community, including the International Commission of Jurists, to call for special hearings within the United Nations to review the cases of Political Prisoners. In collaboration with interested others, much headway is being made regarding organizing and media efforts. The campaign “In the Spirit of Mandela” has almost completed the research, and the academic team will meet with the lawyers for an initial review of the condensed summary points. Collaborating, attending working sessions, media prep, among other activities continue.
Set your calendars now:The International Tribunal on U.S. Human Rights Violations and Political Prisoners (ITUSHRPP) is set to take place in October 2021.
We intend to document, in detailed evidentiary form and utilizing all available contemporary human rights precedents, the gross violations faced by colonized people and those who have defended basic self-determination principles. But this will not be a narrow or dry legalistic affair. This people’s Tribunal is designed to both educate and mobilize, so renewed fight back movements can emerge and be strengthened.
We Are Aware That We Stand On Formidable Shoulders
In the 1940’s, W.E.B. DuBois first petitioned the newly-formed United Nations regarding the rights of U.S.-born people of African descent; in the 1950’s Paul Robeson was one of a number who “Charged Genocide” against the U.S. government to the global body.
Minister Malcolm X’s formation in 1964 of the Organization of Afro-American Unity was part of a direct campaign to put the case of “the 22 million Black people who are the victims of Americanism” before the Organization of African Unity and the U.N. On Human Rights Day 1978, attorney Lennox Hinds— working on behalf of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the Commission for Racial Justice of the United Church of Christ, and the National Alliance Against Racism—petitioned the UN’s Human Rights Commission, resulting in a team of seven international jurists investigating cases of gross violations pertaining to U.S. political prisoners.
Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s, Dr. Luis Nieves Falcon and a wide array of petitioners held a variety of Tribunals in Europe, the U.S., and Puerto Rico, with verdicts indicating further abuses of the U.S. prison, police, political, and military systems. And in 2014, the UN Human Rights Committee issued a report criticizing the U.S. for 25 distinct violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. We are aware that the people’s voice-including the voices of our long-incarcerated elders—must be heard!
Dr. Mutulu Shakur asserted the need for a U.S. process of truth and reconciliation, and many have begun to discuss and implement grassroots forum for truth-telling, where witnesses listen and reflect upon voices “from the margins” to organize for an end to structural and militarized state violence. Jalil Muntaqim has called for campaigns “In the Spirit of Mandela,” where the international social and political context which helped revise the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners in 2015 be utilized in the case of those incarcerated in the U.S. Our International Tribunal will call for testimony from both sides of the wall, both on issues of the torturous conditions of political imprisonment and on the root colonial and neo-colonial conditions and repression which inevitably lead to growing numbers of political prisoners. We will not separate the work to free our prisoners with the work to free the land, and for ultimate liberation of all.”
Get Ready for I.T. 2021! I.T. 2021 (International Tribunal October 2021) Dear Friend, Please begin to prepare for the “International Tribunal” organized by the In the Spirit of Mandela Coalition. At this early date we solicit your assistance in the brainstorming, planning, and donating. We value your input and what you do and have done for the movement and championing real issues impacting communities across America, prisons, and people of color. The “In the Spirit of Mandela” initiative is the brainchild of Jericho’s co-founder Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Bottom). Hopefully, you will agree to assist, and if you do, please feel free to engage at your own level of comfort and capacity.
Dates: Friday, October 22nd – Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Location: New York City (Venues TBA)
Formally indicting the United States government and its States with historical, systematic, and ongoing human rights violations against people of color, working class people, and the planet! Outcomes Reparations Establishment of People’s Senate International Solidarity Truth & Justice Commission to Free All Political Prisoners.
Contact your local Representative or:
Jihad Abdulmumit, Outreach Committee Representative
804-304-8595
Jericho meets virtually to work on the campaign “In the Spirit of Mandela/I.T. 2021”. Due to Covid19, our meetings are online. For future meetings contact nycjericho@gmail.com if you are interested in becoming involved. We invite you to support this initiative. Everyone is encouraged to check out the website http://spiritofmandela.org. In the Spirit of Mandela, activists across the country are urged to join and support in whatever way they are able in political solidarity toward the building of the National Coalition for the Human Rights of Political Prisoners”. Please read our invitation below and contact us if you are interested in endorsing, sponsoring, or otherwise becoming involved in “The Spirit of Mandela” initiative.
“Greetings of Peace! “It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” Nelson Mandela “The government can become so elitist and concentrate on elitist interests. To help the government, you must constantly hold its attention.” - Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
The IN THE SPIRIT OF MANDELA coalition invites you to join our campaign to develop an International Coalition to acknowledge, recognize and push for the release of US held Political Prisoners. The conditions under which US political prisoners are forced to live, and the length of their sentences violates international law and the UN Nelson Mandela Rules. In December 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted its landmark resolution 70/175 entitled “United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules”) (https://www.penalreform.org/priorities/prison-conditions/standard-minimum-rules/). These Rules condemn the United States’ policies and practices of punitive solitary confinement, medical neglect and long-term solitary confinement.
This particular international initiative stems from a call from co-founder of the National Jericho Movement to Free All Political Prisoners, Jalil Abdul Muntaqim. Although efforts to present our issues in the international arena certainly are not new—Malcolm X urged such in the 1960s—this Initiative begins with a much-needed renewed energy, focus and commitment. While constantly organizing and soliciting endorsers and sponsors, our first campaign objective was contacting the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) (https://www.icj.org) to initiate a formal investigation into the holding of Political Prisoners in the United States. Representatives from the ICJ had come to the United States before in 1979 to visit Political prisoners Sundiata Acoli and Ed Poindexter. Some forty years later these prisoners still remain in prison.
Ultimately, we hope to use this investigation to bring the following results: • Generate international awareness and attention • Implore the United Nation to convene a Truth and Reconciliation Tribunal to explore, expose and address the social, economic, and political historic conditions of people of color, and particularly black people in the United States, revolutionaries and movement organizations that struggle against these conditions, and the government’s brutal and illegal response to those organizations and people resulting in the deaths and incarcerations of hundreds • Build political and legal pressure to call for the release of Political Prisoners We realize that we have a difficult job ahead, but the more national and international solidarity we garner, the greater the chances for victory.
We hope you will join the campaign by -
1. Agreeing to support by clearly identifying your organization and contact person;
2. Providing your accurate email and phone number (We will keep you informed of developments of this initiative); and
3. Partaking of the unique experience of collectively brain storming strategies to bring this struggle to the international arena and to the United Nations.
Your input is valued at any level.
In Solidarity,
Sadiki "Bro. Shep" Olugbala, Tribunal Outreach Committee for
The National Jericho Movement In the Spirit of Mandela Coalition