US death
row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal honorary citizen of Paris
PARIS
(AFP) - The city of Paris made an honorary citizen of celebrated US death row
inmate and black activist Mumia Abu-Jamal, sentenced to die for the 1981 murder
of a white Philadelphia policeman.
It
is the first time Paris has bestowed the honor since Pablo Picasso was made
honorary citizen in 1971, Socialist mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoe told an
audience of 200 people, taking the occasion to attack the "barbarity"
of the death penalty.
Abu-Jamal,
a former Black Panther civil rights activist and journalist who has maintained
his innocence, had his death sentence overturned in December of 2001 but that
decision is currently on appeal.
In
attacking the "barbarity called the death penalty," the mayor said
"as long as there is a place on this planet where one can be killed in the
name of the community, we haven't finished our work."
Raising
his fist in a sign of solidarity, Delanoe then shouted "Mumia is a Parisian!"
as the crowd of mostly-leftist activists cheered and applauded.
Black
activist Angela Davis, a former member of the Black Panthers and the Communist
Party, hailed the "profound sense of humanity" of Abu-Jamal, attacking
American "unilateralism" and racist attacks against immigrants.
The
movement to free Abu-Jamal "takes on a new sense in face of American
unilateralism, the aggression against the Iraqi people and the racist attacks
against immigrants which can only further gnaw away at the vestiges of democracy
in the United States," Davis, a professor at the University of California
in Santa Cruz, said.
Abu-Jamal,
sentenced to death 21 years ago for the murder of Daniel Faulkner, has always
insisted he was innocent, and scores of movements and organizations have sprung
up around the world in his defense.
His
opponents view him as an unrepentant murderer.
His
case has provoked particularly vivid debate in France, which abolished the death
penalty in 1981. French school children are required to study the case as part
of their education.