Long Term American Political Prisoners Remain Incarcerated
Amid the thousands of commutations and pardons recently issued by former President Biden and current President Trump, most of the surviving long term political prisoners remain incarcerated.
That is because they are political prisoners. They are imprisoned for what they believe and for who they are rather than whether or not they are guilty of a crime. In North America these are usually leftist or minority community leaders, criminalized and removed from their communities by imprisonment. Or they are targets of law enforcement programs to terrorize and control the group. In some cases they are forced into crime; in some cases they are innocent.
Former President Biden on leaving office has pardoned the renowned Black leader, Marcus Garvey, for his 1923 conviction on mail fraud. Deported to Jamaica Garvey died in England about 85 years ago. Democracy Now! reports that Biden explained the pardon with “More of our institutions need to look back and acknowledge the harms of the past.”
Image: Garvey c. 1920 (Public Domain)
One of U.S. President Trump’s first acts was to pardon about 1500 white supporters and commute the sentences of 14 others, all involved in the January 6th 2021 attempt at the Capitol to overthrow the government. Some were convicted of violent crimes against the police. By opposition to the government their crimes were “political” but they aren’t accepted by the public as “political prisoners,” because they tried to take over the people’s will in a democracy, by force. Their challenge broke the law, not for symbolic gain or to change unjust laws, but to serve the interests of their group. Few argue that there was a misapplication of the law against them.
I would argue that a country’s political prisoners reveal its conscience.
So I remember here some who have cared, and survived unjust persecution for so many years. Some are well known but others are noted so they won’t be lost to memory, condemned to the anonymity of prison cells.
In addition to community leaders, there are / were the targets of COINTELPRO – the FBI’s program of targeting Black and radical resistance in the 60’s and 70’s. Then some are Muslims used as warnings to the general population in the “war on terrorism,” where a mix of verifiable crimes and crimes of “plotting” or”conspiracy” with no violence committed, extended a U.S policy to Canada; the responses of some Canadian political prisoners are included.
Image: Peltier in 1972 (Public Domain)
As an exception and moment of conscience, in the last minutes of his term in office former President Biden commuted the sentence of Leonard Peltier. Peltier was unjustly imprisoned in 1975 after Canada, where he sought safety extradited him back to the States. Despite Peltier’s plausible claim of innocence, despite the lack of verifiable evidence against him, despite his obvious uses to the system as a scapegoat for American Indian attempts at justice, no President dared free him from prison until now, due to the opposition of law enforcement groups. After almost half a century mistreated in prisons, Leonard Peltier still alive, will be confined to house arrest at Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation, Belcourt, North Dakota. Prison has left him 80 years old, blind in one eye from a stroke, in need of a walker, a diabetic, diagnosed with an untreated aortal aneurism.
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is serving her interminable sentence at Carswell Medical Center Texas. Prey internationally to U.S. covert and overt law enforcement operations, treated outrageously at arrest, her children as well abused by law enforcement, unjustly convicted in New York City and sentenced in 2010 to 86 years in prison – she was basically convicted for being shot in the stomach while in police custody. If you care for justice understanding her case is almost unbearable. The legal system sacrifices her life to keep Muslim political opposition in line. She lives without her children. She should be freed.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, known as “the voice of the poor” and a victim of law enforcement revenge for reporting the truth as a journalist, was subjected to an unjust trial, false witness against him, and a death penalty sentence in 1982. He was eventually spared by the courts but subjected to extreme medical neglect and the ongoing intentional malice of the penal system during a life sentence without parole. Known to the world as an innocent man he continues to write and speak his truth.
Imam Jamil Al-Amin Abdullah (Hubert Gerald Brown – aka Rap Brown) was unjustly convicted and sentenced in 2002 to life imprisonment without parole. The Imam was transferred to Tucson in 2015. A powerful community leader since the 60’s, seeking ways to find justice, safety, freedom, for his community, he is incarcerated 1700 miles from his community, family , home, denied a re-trial to prove his innocence of charges another has confessed to. His value as a teacher and the truths of his wisdom are entirely suppressed by his country.
Syed Fahad Hashmi, a Muslim arrested June 6, 2006, and charged with material support to al-Qaeda, pleaded guilty in a New York City plea deal with a 15 year sentence, April 7, 2010 – to supporting terrorism. He was released July 19, 2019. He is noted on these pages because the charges against him were ridiculous – the materials allegedly supplied were socks and ponchos turned over to al-Qaeda by a friend he lent his apartment to who became an informant to reduce his own sentence in an arrest.
There are so many political prisoners it’s not likely you’ll remember them all, and with the article’s point made, you may want to stop reading here. Or consider:
Bill Dunne. He is serving a 90 year sentence (44 years so far). He was convicted of freeing an anarchist prisoner, with additional time for an attempted escape of his own. He didn’t kill anybody. He has survived many federal maximum security prisons. At his parole hearing in 2014 he was dealt a 15 year hit, in other words he would not be eligible for parole for another 15 years, basically for being white and maintaining his beliefs, principles and contacts with anarchist groups. He is not allowed a life in freedom because of what he thinks.
Jeff Fort (Abdul Malik Ka’bah) is serving his 168 year sentence at the maximum security prison ADX Florence, Colorado, under a “no-human-contact order” since 2008. He is a political prisoner because the sentence is inhuman. With deep roots in his community, he was founder of the Blackstone Rangers, the Black P. Stones gang and El Rukn in Chicago. The system is very scared of him. A powerful leader who provably improved his community, he is considered a mobster rather than political prisoner. Part of his sentence derives from plotting attacks in the U.S. financed by 2.5 million dollars from Gaddafi in Libya. He could be considered a prisoner of war. His family is now being allowed to see him but his 2023 plea for leniency under the “First Step Act” was flatly refused by a Chicago judge. 168 years is not a rational sentence.
Edward Poindexter died at Nebraska State Penitentiary, December 7, 2023. Age 79, a Vietnam veteran victim of law enforcement persecution and target of COINTELPRO, sentenced in 1971 to life in prison, where he spent 53 years while maintaining his innocence of the crime he was convicted of, and as evidence subsequent to his trial could prove. The chance of any re-trial was denied him.
Tarek Mehanna grew up in Sudbury Massachusetts. He was sentenced in 2012 to 17 and a half years for terrorist related offenses, including writing online that Muslims should defend their own countries. He was imprisoned in the supermax ADX Florence, and tranferred to FTC Oklahoma City. Charges against him relied on plotting-to rather than the commission of any act of violence. He rejected the FBI’s offer to become an informant and spy as an alternative to his prosecution. He thought he was speaking and acting within his rights and the ethics he was raised with. Wikipedia reports he was released on August 20, 2024, but otherwise he has been thoroughly silenced and his release is difficult to verify.
Ruchell Cinque Magee (Ruchell Lewis), born in 1939, after the age of 16 was imprisoned most of his life on charges that are impossible to separate from racial prejudice. Objecting all those years to the convictions against him he became a jailhouse lawyer for others. In 2023 he was freed under the compasionate release program in California, and died 81 days after. For many years he was the longest held U.S. political prisoner of record.
Said Namouh, an immigrant to Canada from Morocco in 2003, he became a Canadian victim of a propaganda trial with a propaganda punishment. In 2007, he was found guilty of conspiring to commit various ‘terrorist’ activities without actually doing anything, and was sentenced to life in prison. His ‘crimes’ hinge on propaganda actions for the Global Islamic Media Front, considered al-Qaeda-related. The Parole Board of Canada denied him parole in 2024, without review until 2029, because they decided he was still angry.
José Ibrahim Padilla (Abdullah al-Muhajir). Serving at ADX Florence Colorado, born in Brooklyn, convert to Islam in Florida, he was arrested in 2002 and turned over to the U.S. military as an “enemy combatant.” He was held in solitary for over 3 years while court cases were fought to see if holding him was legal. He was suspected of plotting a ‘dirty bomb’ attack. His solitary confinement was thought to jeopardize his subsequent ability to mount a defense at trial. Under civilian jurisdiction in Miami he was sentenced in 2008 to 17 years (subsequently increased to 21 years), for crimes of conspiracy, of plotting to harm people and of material support to terrorists. His release is expected in 2026. A difficulty with his case is that his human rights were at points entirely ignored, and whatever they said he was plotting he didn’t really do anything.
Xinachtli (Alvaro Luna Hernandez) is a Chicano/Mexicano/Latino/Native American community force in Texas. He was sentenced in 1997 to fifty years for disarming a police officer (aggravated assault). The sentence was a result of his previous history with law enforcement which had monitored him, targeted him, framed, criminalized and removed him from community leadership. Supporters claim he has been held in solitary confinement for 22 years.
Zakaria Amara, thought to be a leader (at twenty) of the Toronto 18, was tried in Toronto and sentenced to life imprisonment when he pled guilty in 2006 to plotting to plant bombs at the Toronto Stock Exchange. In 2022 after a two day voluntary interrogation with the RCMP revealed the de-radicalization necessary for his parole, he was granted 3 months parole to a half way house in preparation for an extended parole which has continued.
There are many others who at least wanted to make things better. Even those called criminals are allowed to dream. And with the crimes our society has stumbled into or entered in pure greed, have we who have lived carefully within the law, cared as much?
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J.B.Gerald is a writer who lives and works in Montreal. He writes the Gerald & Maas nightslantern website concerned with the prevention of genocide. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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