Dear friend,
Dateline May 17th 2015: Danville, PA
We have not seen or spoken to Mumia Abu-Jamal for a week. He is being held incommunicado in a hospital without access to visits of any kind or the phone. They won’t even confirm where he is being held.
This is deeply troubling.
On Tuesday May 12th in the evening Mumia was taken from the prison infirmary to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville PA. An infirmary nurse called his wife at 8:30 pm noting that he was transferred because he had a fever and blistering open sores. He was last visited on Saturday.
Since Tuesday Mumia Abu-Jamal has been isolated from his family, his lawyer, and his doctor. Wadiya Jamal, his wife, has been trying to get into the hospital.
Call, write, fax continue to keep the pressure on demand freedom & medical care for Mumia
- Demand that he has access to his lawyer, his family, and his phsycian.
- Demand that diagnostic testing be done. And that he be given medically indicated treatment immediately.
- Demand that he be released from prison.
As one prison radio listener said to us in an email: “It maybe be easier to get Mumia released from prison than get him health care inside prison”. We agree that it is past time for Mumia Abu-Jamal to be released. He has served 33 years, (30 on death row). His conviction needs to be overturned, and he needs to be freed immediately.
Every Action Matters. Letters, Faxes, Phone calls.
We are asking folks this week to call the hospital and the prison:
- Geisinger Hospital : (570) 271-6211 (570) 271-7907 Dannville, PA
- Superintendent John Kerestes (570) 773-2158; press Zero, SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Road, Frackville, PA 17932
bit.ly/rise4mumia
For more numbers and places to call visit www.prisonradio.org
The Legal and Medical Team have been working 24/7
Bret Grote, Esq, (Abolitionist Law Center) and co counsel Bob Boyle are preparing an emergency court action to be filed in Federal Court. They have been calling the prison and the hospital demanding access. Bret Grote, notes
“The DOC is once again demonstrating its contempt for human rights and proper health care by holding Mumia Abu-Jamal incommunicado from his family and lawyers. Instead of recognizing the value of family support and legal consultation in protecting and improving his health, the DOC is treating Mumia like a piece of property that it can withhold access to and information about arbitrarily and with impunity. People around the world have been fighting like hell for Mumia for more than 33 years and we are all needed once more to push back against another attempt to silence him. Demand that Mumia be permitted visits and phone calls with his wife, family, and lawyers.”
Diagnostic Treatment demand letters have been sent to both the Department of Corrections and the Chief Medical Officer at Geisinger Hospital.
Prison Radio has raised $47,269 from 801 donors. Even though we don’t actually have the $ yet (it is on its way from Indie GoGo), we have already sent 20K to the lawyers, and spent thousands on expenses, doctors, medical records, and travel. We just purchased a full page add in the nation magazine. We are pulling out all the stops. Can you call, can you write? Can you give? bit.ly/rise4mumia
Activist, Journalists, and Religious People have been attempting to see Mumia
A delegation from Collectif Français ‘Libérons Mumia’ (Claude Guillaumaud-Pojol, Jacky Hortaut, and Jonathan Lere), from Paris, France went to the hospital & the prison. On Sunday, the prison guards denied their visit. On Saturday Mark Lewis Taylor, a professor at the Princeton Theological Seminary went to the hospital as a spiritual advisor. He was turned away after hours of negotiations with security officials.
Keeping Our Eyes on Mumia
Preventing Mumia Abu-Jamal from speaking with his private physician is disturbing. Mumia’s doctors have outlined the medically indicated steps that need to be taken to find out what is driving Mumia’s chronic serious and now life threatening health conditions. Considering our recent experience detailed below, Mumia need his doctor’s advice and his families care.
In the past two weeks, Mumia’s doctor has identified seriously inadequacies in the medical care provided by the infirmary. Mumia’s doctor stressed that a cat scan was needed. The prison said it was fine. After we obtained the records, it was obvious that there were serious medical issues raised by the troubling cat scan results. Then Mumia was given a topical cream that was on the warning label counter indicated to the very specific and rare potential cancer that is a possible cause of his extreme skin ailment. Clearly, a biopsy was called for and that demand was made. Upon hearing that on Monday a biopsy would be conducted, Mumia’s doctor immediately specified that it should be taken from his trunk area. Mumia was given this information. But because Mumia’s doctor has been prevented from speaking with any prison health care professionals and the treating physicians he could not tell them this. The DOC was informed that the biopsy should be performed from the maximailly advantageous place. When Mumia told the Physician’s assistant who conducted the biopsy at the infirmary, he could not change the standing order which was to take the biopsy from his arm. The concern is that what might be driving the extreme skin condition is subcutaneous T cell lymphoma – a treatable cancer. We cannot rule that out or confirm that until the appropriate tests are given. Mumia was told that the physicians at SCI Mahanoy in March were prevented from ordering additional tests by officials of the Wexford Corporation, which has the contract for medical care in PA prisons. The PA division is named “Correct Care Solutions”.
Clearly Mumia needs an immediate diagnosis, and then a competent treatment plan. Please join us in keeping Mumia alive, and then seeing him free.
Noelle Hanrahan, P.I. Director Prison Radio