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San Francisco Eight: court persecution of former Black Panthers is an attack on all dissidents
hazem2 | 10/22/2008 - 03:51
By Yolanda Alaniz
From Freedom Socialist Newspaper
In January 2007, a few months after the 40th Anniversary Conference of the Black Panther Party, eight former Panther members or supporters were rounded up and charged with the murder of a San Francisco police officer in 1971 and with a blizzard of acts of conspiracy between 1968 and 1973.
One of the current San Francisco 8 and two other men were originally charged with the cop killing. Those charges were thrown out in 1973, however — after it came to light that police obtained confessions from the men by using prolonged torture!
Exploiting the post-9/11 climate. The timing of the nightmarish reappearance of this case in 2003 is no coincidence. The “war on terror” has provided new tools and political cover for a heightened assault on dissenters — whether of today or of years long past.
Claude Marks is a leader in the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR), the SF 8 defense group. In comments to this writer, Marks said, “The purpose of this case is to rethe Black Panther Party, to legitimize the government’s use of torture in prosecuting the progressive movements, and to continue the use of COINTELPRO under the PATRIOT Act.”
COINTELPRO was one of the govern’s main weapons against social change in the heyday of the 1960s-era liberation struggles. The infamous program encompassed everything from infiltrating activist groups to sowing dissent through disinformation and murdering leaders.
The Panthers were a special COtarget because of their militant defense of the Black community — besieged, then as now, by daily racism, unemployment, lack of educational opportunities, and police harassment.
The CDHR and SF 8 defense attorneys have exposed the rebirth of COthrough the Phoenix Task Force, which brings together heavy hitters such as the FBI with the San Francisco Police Department. This is the umbrella organization responsible for reopening this case and a number of others from the same period, convening several grand juries in the process.
The prosecution, which so far has not come forward with any new evidence against the Eight, apparently hopes that the torture-induced confessions thrown out in 1973 will be accepted today. As the CDHR writes, “This case could set an intolerable moral standard and a disastrous legal precedent.”
Prosecution tries to wear down public support. The Eight, ranging in age from 55 to 70, have won some battles. The prosecution has been forced to withdraw a number of the conspiracy counts, resulting in the dropping of all charges against Richard O’Neal this February.
Five of the remaining defendants are out on bail. They are Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Henry W. Jones, Harold Taylor, and Francisco Torres.
Two others, Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Bottom), were already in prison in New York and have been transferred to San Francisco. Bell was framed for the murders of two New York policemen and has been a political prisoner since 1973. Muntaqim, arrested in 1971 on weapons charges and later falsely implicated in the same murders as Bell, is a founder of the Jericho Amnesty Movement to Free Political Prisoners.
The prosecution is now employing tactics to drag the case out. As the date grew near this year for a preliminary hearing to decide whether enough evidence exists for the case to go forward, the prosecutor did a “doc dump,” giving the defense thousands of pages of documents and a list of 180 potential witnesses. When the defense asked for a delay in order to have sufficient time to review the new materials and interview witnesses, the prosecutor willingly agreed. (A new date is still to be scheduled.) The intent is obviously to try to deflate public interest and put the brakes on the defense mobilization.
Adding insult to injury, case judge Philip Moscone agreed to a vindictive prosecution request to refuse to allow Bell and Muntaqim to be transferred temporarily back to New York for their parole hearings. In so doing, Moscone reversed his own earlier decision.
The upshot of the ruling is that these two political prisoners, who each have already served over 30 years in prison, may lose their chance at parole for years. Despite this cruel setback and especially restrictive jail conditions for Bell and Muntaqim, Claude Marks of the CDHR says that they remain in good spirits, and that all of the SF 8 remain unified.
This solidarity dates back to grand jury investigations in 2005, before charges were brought, at which current defendants were called to appear. All of them refused to testify, and five were jailed for contempt of court for the duration of the grand juries.
Don’t let them get away with it! These attacks are meant to intimidate in order to stop political dissent. The government is using the SF 8 as an example of what happens if you step out of line.
But the opposite is happening. The Eight are showing the way for current and future activists by refusing to be silenced and by organizing to win their case. Their cause has been taken up by supporters as diverse as the Berkeley City Council and Nobel Peace Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mairead Corrigan Maguire.
When people of all colors join to demand freedom for political prisoners, we are taking a united step to free ourselves from the racist system. There is nothing like exposing a common enemy to encourage all of the oppressed to stand together against the growing police state harming all our communities.
This is a fight worth joining! People in the Bay Area can show their solidarity by attending a short hearing on Nov. 4. (See www.freethesf8.org for details.)
Supporters can also help by visiting the Web site and signing a letter addressed to the California attorney general urging him to drop the charges. And the CDHR is asking people to make donations, write to the defendants, and spread the word about the case at school, at work, and in their organizations.
Said Marks, “We must remember all of the other political prisoners and build a movement to fight to free them as well. Activists not only need to be aware of this case, but also of the importance of organizing and opposing this political and racist prosecution. Our ability to organize will ultimately win against political repression.”
Contact Yolanda Alaniz, coauthor of Viva la Raza: a History of Chicano Identity and Resistance (Red Letter Press), at yvalaniz@yahoo.com.
From Freedom Socialist Newspaper
In January 2007, a few months after the 40th Anniversary Conference of the Black Panther Party, eight former Panther members or supporters were rounded up and charged with the murder of a San Francisco police officer in 1971 and with a blizzard of acts of conspiracy between 1968 and 1973.
One of the current San Francisco 8 and two other men were originally charged with the cop killing. Those charges were thrown out in 1973, however — after it came to light that police obtained confessions from the men by using prolonged torture!
Exploiting the post-9/11 climate. The timing of the nightmarish reappearance of this case in 2003 is no coincidence. The “war on terror” has provided new tools and political cover for a heightened assault on dissenters — whether of today or of years long past.
Claude Marks is a leader in the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR), the SF 8 defense group. In comments to this writer, Marks said, “The purpose of this case is to rethe Black Panther Party, to legitimize the government’s use of torture in prosecuting the progressive movements, and to continue the use of COINTELPRO under the PATRIOT Act.”
COINTELPRO was one of the govern’s main weapons against social change in the heyday of the 1960s-era liberation struggles. The infamous program encompassed everything from infiltrating activist groups to sowing dissent through disinformation and murdering leaders.
The Panthers were a special COtarget because of their militant defense of the Black community — besieged, then as now, by daily racism, unemployment, lack of educational opportunities, and police harassment.
The CDHR and SF 8 defense attorneys have exposed the rebirth of COthrough the Phoenix Task Force, which brings together heavy hitters such as the FBI with the San Francisco Police Department. This is the umbrella organization responsible for reopening this case and a number of others from the same period, convening several grand juries in the process.
The prosecution, which so far has not come forward with any new evidence against the Eight, apparently hopes that the torture-induced confessions thrown out in 1973 will be accepted today. As the CDHR writes, “This case could set an intolerable moral standard and a disastrous legal precedent.”
Prosecution tries to wear down public support. The Eight, ranging in age from 55 to 70, have won some battles. The prosecution has been forced to withdraw a number of the conspiracy counts, resulting in the dropping of all charges against Richard O’Neal this February.
Five of the remaining defendants are out on bail. They are Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Henry W. Jones, Harold Taylor, and Francisco Torres.
Two others, Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Bottom), were already in prison in New York and have been transferred to San Francisco. Bell was framed for the murders of two New York policemen and has been a political prisoner since 1973. Muntaqim, arrested in 1971 on weapons charges and later falsely implicated in the same murders as Bell, is a founder of the Jericho Amnesty Movement to Free Political Prisoners.
The prosecution is now employing tactics to drag the case out. As the date grew near this year for a preliminary hearing to decide whether enough evidence exists for the case to go forward, the prosecutor did a “doc dump,” giving the defense thousands of pages of documents and a list of 180 potential witnesses. When the defense asked for a delay in order to have sufficient time to review the new materials and interview witnesses, the prosecutor willingly agreed. (A new date is still to be scheduled.) The intent is obviously to try to deflate public interest and put the brakes on the defense mobilization.
Adding insult to injury, case judge Philip Moscone agreed to a vindictive prosecution request to refuse to allow Bell and Muntaqim to be transferred temporarily back to New York for their parole hearings. In so doing, Moscone reversed his own earlier decision.
The upshot of the ruling is that these two political prisoners, who each have already served over 30 years in prison, may lose their chance at parole for years. Despite this cruel setback and especially restrictive jail conditions for Bell and Muntaqim, Claude Marks of the CDHR says that they remain in good spirits, and that all of the SF 8 remain unified.
This solidarity dates back to grand jury investigations in 2005, before charges were brought, at which current defendants were called to appear. All of them refused to testify, and five were jailed for contempt of court for the duration of the grand juries.
Don’t let them get away with it! These attacks are meant to intimidate in order to stop political dissent. The government is using the SF 8 as an example of what happens if you step out of line.
But the opposite is happening. The Eight are showing the way for current and future activists by refusing to be silenced and by organizing to win their case. Their cause has been taken up by supporters as diverse as the Berkeley City Council and Nobel Peace Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mairead Corrigan Maguire.
When people of all colors join to demand freedom for political prisoners, we are taking a united step to free ourselves from the racist system. There is nothing like exposing a common enemy to encourage all of the oppressed to stand together against the growing police state harming all our communities.
This is a fight worth joining! People in the Bay Area can show their solidarity by attending a short hearing on Nov. 4. (See www.freethesf8.org for details.)
Supporters can also help by visiting the Web site and signing a letter addressed to the California attorney general urging him to drop the charges. And the CDHR is asking people to make donations, write to the defendants, and spread the word about the case at school, at work, and in their organizations.
Said Marks, “We must remember all of the other political prisoners and build a movement to fight to free them as well. Activists not only need to be aware of this case, but also of the importance of organizing and opposing this political and racist prosecution. Our ability to organize will ultimately win against political repression.”
Contact Yolanda Alaniz, coauthor of Viva la Raza: a History of Chicano Identity and Resistance (Red Letter Press), at yvalaniz@yahoo.com.
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