Wednesday, May 25, 2005
1:30pm
City Hall
On Wednesday, May 25th at 1:30pm, Brooklyn City Councilmember
Charles Barron will be joined by community members and leaders to
hold a press conference on the steps of City Hall condemning a
one-million-dollar bounty offered on May 2nd for the capture of
Assata Shakur.
Im infuriated that a bounty has been put on her, placing her in
danger, said Councilmember Barron who called for Wednesdays
press conference She is a hero to our community, its long overdue
for
her to receive clemency and come home. Barron will also introduce
a resolution later that day at the New York City Council denouncing
this recent move and calling for Shakurs clemency.
In an unprecedented move, on May 2nd the Federal Justice Department,
working side by side with New Jerseys Attorney General, also placed
the 58-year-old grandmother on the Federal Domestic Terrorist list.
Barron and others are demanding that Assata Shakur be removed from
that list, insisting that she is innocent.
This action is being taken 32 years after Ms. Shakur and two
companions were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973 allegedly
for a broken tail light. One passenger, Zayd Shakur, was shot
dead, Assata was shot and wounded, and Trooper Werner Forester also
lay dead. Another Panther, Sundiata Acoli, was later taken into
custody.
In 1979 Assata escaped from a New Jersey jail and seven years later
received political asylum from the
government of Cuba. Assata was granted asylum in Cuba because the
Cuban government understands that she was convicted in a climate
where she and anyone who stood up for the human rights of Black
people was completely criminalized says Kamau Karl Franklin, an
attorney and member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. She
never had a chance at a fair trial in this country.
1:30pm
City Hall
On Wednesday, May 25th at 1:30pm, Brooklyn City Councilmember
Charles Barron will be joined by community members and leaders to
hold a press conference on the steps of City Hall condemning a
one-million-dollar bounty offered on May 2nd for the capture of
Assata Shakur.
Im infuriated that a bounty has been put on her, placing her in
danger, said Councilmember Barron who called for Wednesdays
press conference She is a hero to our community, its long overdue
for
her to receive clemency and come home. Barron will also introduce
a resolution later that day at the New York City Council denouncing
this recent move and calling for Shakurs clemency.
In an unprecedented move, on May 2nd the Federal Justice Department,
working side by side with New Jerseys Attorney General, also placed
the 58-year-old grandmother on the Federal Domestic Terrorist list.
Barron and others are demanding that Assata Shakur be removed from
that list, insisting that she is innocent.
This action is being taken 32 years after Ms. Shakur and two
companions were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973 allegedly
for a broken tail light. One passenger, Zayd Shakur, was shot
dead, Assata was shot and wounded, and Trooper Werner Forester also
lay dead. Another Panther, Sundiata Acoli, was later taken into
custody.
In 1979 Assata escaped from a New Jersey jail and seven years later
received political asylum from the
government of Cuba. Assata was granted asylum in Cuba because the
Cuban government understands that she was convicted in a climate
where she and anyone who stood up for the human rights of Black
people was completely criminalized says Kamau Karl Franklin, an
attorney and member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. She
never had a chance at a fair trial in this country.
