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For the past several months, we have been speaking with Ralph Poynter, the husband of Lynne Stewart, a lawyer who has defended numerous activists in the anti-imperialist movement.
Lynne Stewart was the attorney for Omar Abdel Rahaman who was convicted of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1995.
The U.S. imperialist court system later convicted Lynne Stewart on charges of conspiracy and providing material support to a terrorist.
Her purported aid to a terrorist was that she passed a press release from her client to Reuters, an internationally recognized news service.
On November 19, 2009, Stewart began serving a 10 year sentence.
Stewart's breast cancer returned after she was imprisoned. Scheduled for surgery for other problems the week she was sentenced, Stewart instead had to wait eighteen months for that surgery.
In the meantime the cancer metastasized to the point that her attending physician called it the worst case he had ever seen.[51] She received chemotherapy in prison but her condition remained terminal.
On June 25, 2013, Stewart announced that she had received a letter stating that Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Charles Samuels had denied her request for compassionate release in spite of her terminal breast cancer diagnosis.
People reached out from around the world to the Obama administration and Federal Bureau of Prisons demanding the compassionate release of Lynne Stewart.
During the Sixth Congress of the African People's Socialist Party – a resolution was put forth regarding Lynne Stewart that read in part:
On December 10, 2013 the following resolution was put forth and passed unanimously:
“Be it resolved that the Sixth Congress of the African People's Socialist Party recommits the Party to the liberation of Lynne Stewart, who we recognize as a political prisoner of the U.S. government.Toward this end the Secretaries General of the African People's Socialist Party USA and the African Socialist International will 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.
On December 31, a U.S. federal judge in Manhattan ordered a “compassionate release” for Lynne Stewart.
Stewart was released later the same day from a prison in Fort Worth, Texas.
This episode of "This Moment in History" was recorded on January 3, 2014 and features Lynne Stewart and Chairman Omali Yeshitela on the morning of her 3rd day of being released from prison.
In this dialogue with Chairman Omali we hear that Lynne Stewart is in the fight of her life, but she has emerged from prison with her spirit intact and her conviction that the power of the people is invincible and of the righteousness of the revolution.
