On December 31, 2013, the courageous “peoples’ attorney,” Lynne Stewart, was released from a Texas prison to receive medical treatment for stage four cancer in the loving company of her family. A federal judge in Manhattan ordered a “compassionate release” for Lynne, in response to the worldwide movement demanding her freedom.
Lynne Stewart is a defense lawyer who made it her life’s work to challenge the injustices of the colonial legal system.
As an attorney, Lynne’s clients have ranged from Africans and other colonized people caught in the criminal justice system, to political defendants such as members of the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Army, the United Freedom Front, Larry Davis (an African in the U.S. who was acquitted of the attempted murder of two New York police in a well-publicized case of police brutality) and Muslims being unjustly targeted by the U.S. Department of Justice.
In her most famous case, she defended Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, a cleric who was allegedly involved in resistance against U.S. imperialism. For defending Rahman, Lynne was charged and prosecuted for “aiding and abetting terrorism”, and in 2009, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Lynne had languished in prison where she was suffering from stage four cancer, denied access to quality medical treatment by a cruel and unjust system obviously interested in ending her life.
The African People’s Socialist Party embraces the stance of Lynne Stewart and joined in the global movement of the world’s peoples to demand her release. We salute Lynne’s courageous stance of solidarity with oppressed peoples.
On December 10th, 2013, the APSP USA Sixth Congress adopted a resolution to “immediately initiate a campaign within the USA and throughout the world to develop a phone and social media campaign to U.S. president Barack Hussein Obama, attorney general Eric Holder and Bureau of Prisons director Charles Samuels demanding the immediate release of Comrade Stewart to be effected during the upcoming Christmas holidays and no later than January 1, 2014.”
Ralph Poynter, Lynne’s husband who has been relentless in his dedication to the struggle to free her, represented her at the Congress, reading her statement of solidarity.
Africans and allies from Sweden to St. Petersburg, FL phoned in, wrote letters and sent emails demanding Lynne’s release.
We consider it a powerful victory for all oppressed peoples of the world that Lynne Stewart has been released into the care of her loving family where she can receive medical treatment.
At the same time we recognize that, as Lynne Stewart herself once said, “The struggle does not begin on Monday and end on Thursday. You have to be in it for the long haul.”
The struggle against colonialism and parasitic capitalism continues. The struggle to defend Lynne Stewart is a defense of the right of oppressed peoples to resist, as well as a defense of the right and responsibility of white people to stand in solidarity with anti-colonial resistance.
Free all political prisoners and prisoners of war!
Long live Lynne Stewart!
Victory to Africans, Arabs and the oppressed peoples of the world!
Uhuru!
