Free The Jena 6

ALERT! FREE THE JENA 6 Rally July 31, 2007

Report Submitted by Eddie G. Griffin

Friday, July 27, 2007

An all-white jury in the central Louisiana town of Jena swiftly convicted a black teenager Thursday for attacking a white student in an incident that capped months of racial unrest and attracted the scrutiny of civil rights leaders concerned about the application of justice in the town.

Jurors convicted Mychal Bell, 17, of aggravated second-degree battery… He allegedly jumped the victim as he emerged from the gymnasium at the local high school on Dec. 4, knocking him unconscious.

This case is important to all African-Americans who are suspicious of disparities in the administration of Justice. A young black man being convicted by an all-white southern jury is nothing new. In fact, the disparities in charging and convicting blacks are so one-side. This case merits shame of white justice upon African-American children, who get caught up in the southern criminal justice system.

The white students started the fight at Jena High School when they hung three nooses across a tree in front of the school. The black students had appealed to the school principal to allow them to sit under the tree. But the display of the three nooses anger the black students. The school administration played it off as a childish “prank”.

It proved to be no prank, as the situation escalated into racial violence over the next several months, culminating in the charging of six Jena black male students with aggravated assault… and, with a “deadly weapon”, to wit, “a pair of tennis shoes worn on the feet of Mychal Bell as he allegedly kicked and stomped a white student”… deadly weapon equal a pair of tennis shoes. How arbitrary can the law be? Is it arbitrary enough to satisfy a blood-thirst revenge of white authority against black youths retaliating for previous violent incidents instigated by white but wholly unpunished?

Mychal Bell, the first of the Jena 6 defendants, is scheduled to be sentenced on July 31, 2007.

PLEASE REVIEW the Michael David Murphy video, if you agree that this is a grievous miscarriage of justice, PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION to the US Justice Department Civil Rights Division. And give your support to FREE THE JENA SIX Campaign organized by Friends of Justice.

We need to ASK the Right People THE RIGHT QUESTIONS:

* Is there a current investigation of this shooting? If so, who is doing the investigating? Where is the Justice Department Civil Rights Division?

Here are the Telephone Numbers for Fulton County Board of Commissioners.

Telephone Numbers for Fulton County Board of Commissioners.

[Previous conversation: Gloria, Secretary to (African-American) Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard (404) 330-6100, said the District Attorney Howard had "just got the case," and she was unable to readily provide a statement about the status of the investigation.]

We must hold law enforcement officers accountable for the actions and culpable to excessive use of force and murder-in-the-name-of-the-law. We have enough proof to show that the State of Georgia has returned to the type of lawlessness and violence against minority like in the days of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Call: Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue: (404) 656-1776

The Sacred Rule Of Law in the South is as much a farce as Jim Crow, which is why African-Americans have always had to call upon the international community for Justice. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 37 provides:

States Parties shall ensure that:

(a) No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age;

(b) No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.