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March 31, 2015

Mumia Abu-Jamal Hospitalized in Intensive Care Under Heavy Guard 
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In Pennsylvania, imprisoned journalist and former Black Panther Mumia
Abu-Jamal has been taken to the intensive care unit of a local hospital
after he was removed from prison for a medical emergency without
notification to his family, friends or lawyers. Friends say they were
told he was in "diabetic shock" but they have so far been unable to
visit him or obtain any details. Noelle Hanrahan, producer of Prison
Radio, which distributes Abu-Jamal's commentaries from prison, spoke to
Democracy Now! from the hospital.

Noelle Hanrahan: "We are standing in the ICU waiting room. We are at the
nurses desk. We can see his room, we cannot see him. I am looking at
phalanx of police officers. The curtain is pulled across. He has tried
to access the healthcare they have for him and it has been woefully
indadequate and we are deeply concerned about this. They don't take
people to outside hospital. It is not standard procedure. You have to be
extraordinarily sick to be moved, period."

Abu-Jamal's transfer came the same day as a court hearing on a
Pennsylvania law he says tramples his free speech. The law was
introduced after Abu-Jamal gave a pretaped commencement address at
Vermont’s Goddard College. It authorizes the censoring of prisoners’
public addresses if a judge agree the speech would cause "mental
anguish" to victims.

 

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