The Spirit: “A Philadelphia delegation supporting Mumia Abu Jamal traveled to Paris last week to participate in the ninth World Congress Against the Death Penalty.

Abolitionist Law Center Executive Director Saleem Holbrook, and Prison Radio founder and director Noelle Hanrahan, made the trip to speak of Abu Jamal’s continuing struggle for freedom – and raise a critical question before the international death penalty community.

‘There’s been a tremendous amount of progress when it comes to the abolition of capital punishment in the United States,’ Holbrook said, speaking on July 2 on a panel hosted at the gilded Hotel de Lassay in Paris. ‘Progress, though, is not victory. Oftentimes Death-By-Incarceration (DBI) or Life-Without- Parole (LWOP) is positioned as the alternative to capital punishment.’ This, Holbrook and others on the panel said, has to change.

In the global fight against the use of the death penalty, speakers pointed out, there has historically been a lack of unity around the status of LWOP. Part of this is because the United States is an outlier – and not only because of its sky-high incarceration rate.”

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