British Parliamentary showing of "In Prison My Whole Life"
by
Global Women's Strike | 12.22.2008
On Tuesday 9 December, Members of Parliament and the House of Lords, were among over 100 people in the House of Commons for the viewing of In Prison My Whole Life.
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Parliamentary showing of "In Prison My Whole Life"
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On Tuesday 9 December, Members of Parliament and the House of Lords, were among over 100 people in the House of Commons for the viewing of In Prison My Whole Life. The film follows William Francome, who was born on 9 December 1981, the day that Mumia Abu-Jamal – known to millions as Mumia – was arrested for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer, as he explores the background to the case. The film puts the conviction of this award-winning journalist in the context of the "epidemic of police brutality" in Philadelphia at the time, and the racism and injustice which still holds him on death row now.
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| Hosted by John McDonnell MP and co-chaired by Selma James of the Global Women's Strike, the film and discussion that followed kept an audience – about half of whom were Black people – riveted. Organisations represented included Inside Time (national newspaper for prisoners), the George Padmore Institute, the Pan African Society Community Forum, the Black Police Association (who we heard had distributed the details of the event to all their members), Christian Aid, miscarriage of justice campaigns, women's groups and a number of solicitors' firms and barristers' chambers. Claude Guillaumaud-Pujol from Le Collectif Unitaire National pour le Soutien de Mumia Abu-Jamal (Mumia Abu-Jamal National Support Collective) came from Paris and reported on their weekly vigils. |
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| Francome and co-creator Katie Green answered questions on the origin and process of making the film, and the extent to which the film is reinvigorating the movement in support of Mumia. People commented that they were shocked by the film's exposé of the hidden history of police brutality and racism in Philadelphia where Mumia had been a Black Panther working as a journalist before his arrest. A Black woman who had just returned from the US spoke of the entrenched racism, segregation and poverty in the US today. Niki Adams, Legal Action for Women, gave a legal update on Mumia's appeal, which will soon be before the Supreme Court, on the crucial issue of whether Black people were kept off the jury which convicted Mumia of murder and sentenced him to death.
John McDonnell MP committed himself to gathering parliamentary support for an initiative enabling European legislators to express their views on the question of racism in the US judicial system to Barack Obama, whose election, it was agreed, has renewed people's hope and determination for change.
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