San Francisco 8 Support Meeting
Sunday, June 7th 12noon
The A-Space 4722 Baltimore Ave in West Philly
Sponsored by: Philadelphia Jericho/ABCF

Philly Jericho/ABCF invites you to our San Francisco 8 Support Meeting on Sunday, June 7 at 11am and The A-Space, 4722 Baltimore Ave in West Philly. At this meeting we will be planning a local campaign to support the San Francisco 8 including several showings of the film Legacy of Torture.  The preliminary hearings for the SF 8 are coming up this June 11th and the SF8 need as much support as possible!

To learn more about the SF8 scroll below or  visit  http://www.freethesf8.org/

To learn more about Legacy of Torture scroll below or visit  http://www.freedomarchives.org/BPP/torture.html

Showings of the Legacy of Torture, discussion, and special guests will be happening

June 9th, 7pm Wooden Shoe Books co-hosted with coast2coast Clay M. River of First Nations Visibility to talk about displacement and self-determination struggles
www.woodenshoebooks.org

June 10, 7pm The A-Space
www.the-aspace.org

June 17th, 7pm Lava
www.lavazone.org

San Francisco 8
Eight former Black community activists – Black Panthers and others – were arrested January 23, 2007 in California, New York, and Florida on charges related to the 1971 killing of a San Francisco police officer. Similar charges were thrown out after it was revealed that police used torture to extract confessions when some of these same men were arrested in New Orleans in 1973.Richard Brown, Richard O'Neal, Ray Boudreaux, and Hank Jones were arrested in California. Francisco Torres was arrested in Queens, New York. Harold Taylor was arrested in Florida. Two men charged – Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaqim – have been held as political prisoners for over 30 years in New York State prisons. A ninth man -- Ronald Stanley Bridgeforth – is still being sought. The men were charged with the murder of Sgt. John Young and conspiracy that encompasses numerous acts between 1968 and 1973.

Harold Taylor and John Bowman (recently deceased) as well as Ruben Scott (thought to be a government witness) were first charged in 1975. But a judge tossed out the charges, finding that Taylor and his two co-defendants made statements after police in New Orleans tortured them for several days employing electric shock, cattle prods, beatings, sensory deprivation, plastic bags and hot, wet blankets for asphyxiation. Such "evidence" is neither credible nor legal.

Legacy of Torture:  A 28 minute film

In 2005 several former members of the Black Panther Party were held in contempt and jailed for refusing to testify before a San Francisco Grand Jury investigating a police shooting that took place in 1971. The government alleged that Black radical groups were involved in the 34-year old case in which two men armed with shotguns attacked the Ingleside Police Station resulting in the death of a police sergeant and the injuring of a civilian clerk.

In 1973, thirteen alleged "Black militants" were arrested in New Orleans, purportedly in connection with the San Francisco events. Some of them were tortured for several days by law enforcement authorities, in striking similarity to the horrors visited upon detainees in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. In 1975, a Federal Court in San Francisco threw out all of the evidence obtained in New Orleans. The two lead San Francisco Police Department investigators from over 30 years ago, along with FBI agents, have re-opened the case. Rather than submit to proceedings they felt were abusive of the law and the Constitution, five men chose to stand in contempt of court and were sent to jail. They were released when the Grand Jury term expired, but have been told by prosecutors that "it isn't over yet." This is the story to date: of history, repression, and resistance.