Workers World: “Lawyers for Pennsylvania political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal filed a 20-page petition with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on his behalf on July 28 outlining nearly 45 years of “failures of the criminal legal system” in his case.

The petition, filed by Brett Grote of the Abolitionist Law Center, along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights, argues that multiple violations of international law in Abu-Jamal’s case include an ‘unfair trial, a biased appellate process, decades of surveillance and censorship and a death by incarceration sentence that has been recognized by the U.N. as violating international human rights standards.’ (Truthout, July 28)

Abu-Jamal’s legal team is turning to the U.N. working group for support in part because the body urged the release of federal political prisoner Leonard Peltier in 2022. Following decades of struggle by Indigenous groups and other supporters of Peltier, President Joe Biden commuted Peltier’s life sentence to home confinement in 2025.”

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