Original Message ---
"Aqidah Islamic Information Service" Wrote on
5 Apr 2000 10:37:33 -0000
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Aqidah Islamic Information Service - http://www.angelfire.com/journal/aiis
Assalamu aleikum.
The articles below come from the US-based Revolutionary Communist Party's
organ "The Revolutionary Worker" and are stronger than anything
yet written by major US Muslim organisations in defense of Imam al-Amin.
It should be a matter of great concern and deep shame for today's Ummah
that atheistic communists are stronger in defense of our imprisoned
brother than we ourselves.
Moreover, it must be recognised that failure to defend Imam al-Amin, apart
from the clear lack of brotherhood that such failure proves, also enables
secularist forces such as communism to seize the initiative and gain
strength at the expense of the Muslims. These articles prove the danger
that if the Ummah doesn't strongly defend Imam al-Amin, that the
communists and other secularists will try to co-opt his cause for their
own agendas. If they succeed, what will be our answer to Allah (S.W.T.) on
the Day of Judgement?
Please note that 2 articles follow:
- Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin in the Clutches of an Unforgiving System
- Carl Dix on the Persecution of Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin
______________________________________________________________________
(1)
source:
Revolutionary Worker #1049
April 9, 2000
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http://www.mcs.net/~rwor/a/v21/1040-049/1049/alamin.htm
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Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin in the Clutches of an Unforgiving System
Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a Muslim cleric and well-known activist from the
1960s, was captured by an army of FBI agents and police officials in rural
Lowndes Country, Alabama on March 20. He was run down by police dogs in an
Alabama meadow like a fugitive slave.
Al-Amin has now been charged with killing an Atlanta sheriff's deputy and
wounding another. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard is expected
to demand the death penalty. At a federal court appearance in Alabama,
Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin declared that he is innocent of these charges. As
he was taken out of court in leg-irons, under armed guard, he said, "It's
a government conspiracy."
There is every reason to distrust all of the claims and charges made by
the authorities. The police activities surrounding Al-Amin have been quite
suspicious and their version of events has been full of holes.
Al-Amin's lawyer, civil rights veteran J. L. Chester, said, "He said he
did not shoot anyone. He said he did not have a gun. He fled Atlanta to
save his life. He said they had been trying to kill him for years."
Chester added that he believed Al-Amin was targeted "because he's a Black
man who has been fighting the system since he was 16 years old."
Al-Amin, 56, has been a target of the authorities his whole life, and
there is every reason to believe that he remains a target of the
authorities.
In the 1960s, when he was known as H. Rap Brown, Al-Amin was a militant
leader of the Black liberation struggle--known for his outspoken advocacy
of armed self-defense and inner city rebellions. He was targeted by the
FBI's COINTELPRO program. Congress passed a notorious law, the "Rap Brown
Amendment," specifically aimed at stopping Al-Amin and radical activists
like him from organizing resistance among the people. Rap was sentenced to
prison for his militant activities, where he served three years.
Since then, even as he embraced Islam and moved away from revolutionary
politics, Al-Amin has been persecuted repeatedly by police frame-ups and
attacks in Atlanta, Georgia, where he has been living.
Out Front and Fearless During the 1960s
H. Rap Brown was a student from a working class family in Louisiana who
cut short his studies to throw himself into the civil rights struggle
during the mid-1960s. He worked briefly for an anti-government program and
quit in disgust, saying that such programs were designed to buy off
activists emerging from the struggle. He became a leader of the most
militant of the southern civil rights organizations--the Student
Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)--and participated in its
campaigns to organize Black people to overthrow Jim Crow segregation.
He and fellow SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael became spokesmen for the
radicalization of this movement--advocating anti-imperialism, Black Power
and a spirit of "by any means necessary."
Rap, who got his nickname for his powerful speaking style, became a symbol
for the rising revolutionary mood among Black people. He dared say what
needed saying. He strongly upheld the right of the oppressed to use
militant and even armed means to defend themselves and win liberation.
He was openly critical of movement leaders, like Martin Luther King Jr.,
who worked to confine the struggle of Black people to whatever was
acceptable to the U.S. ruling class.
As many young activists stopped upholding non-violence as an absolute
principle, they came under attack for this. Rap answered these
attacks--pointing out that Black people were fighting a system that had
used massive violence for centuries to keep them oppressed, and that was
using such violence on the other side of the world against the Vietnamese
people.
He mocked the hypocrisy of pro-system critics, saying, "Violence is as
American as cherry pie." This famous quote now appears in virtually every
article reporting on Al-Amin--as if this undoubtedly true political
statement was proof of his guilt in the Atlanta shooting 30 years later.
As powerful rebellions broke out in cities across the U.S. in the late
1960s, Rap Brown supported these uprisings--as a just and powerful form of
resistance. He tirelessly traveled the U.S., speaking on campuses and in
Black communities, organizing people to take the struggle higher. He
coined the phrase, "Burn, Baby, Burn!"
The Black Liberation Struggle was the greatest domestic challenge to the
U.S. capitalist/imperialist system in the twentieth century--and the
authorities targeted leaders like H. Rap Brown ruthlessly.
In secret, the FBI developed their "counter-intelligence program"
(COINTELPRO) into a country-wide campaign to disrupt radical organizations
and "neutralize" emerging leaders. Rap was pursued, harassed, spied on,
arrested, and targeted by covert operations.
One FBI memo called for writing unsigned letters to create distrust
between Stokely Carmichael and Rap Brown. Another FBI conspiracy was aimed
at creating bad blood between Southern-based SNCC and the Black Panther
Party that was emerging in California. The FBI was determined to prevent
the unification of revolutionary nationalist forces--and ceaselessly
worked to create divisions, mistrust and even violent feuds. Rap, who
actively supported an alliance of Black revolutionary forces, briefly
accepted honorary membership in the Black Panther Party in 1968.
These unification efforts ultimately collapsed under an intense-but-secret
FBI campaign.
In 1967, H. Rap Brown spoke at a Black community rally in Cambridge,
Maryland and proclaimed, "Black folks built America, and if America don't
come around, we're going to burn America down." A rebellion
followed--during which Rap was wounded in the forehead by a shotgun
pellet.. Several buildings were burned down. Rap Brown was charged with
inciting riot and arson.
When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April 1968, over a hundred
rebellions broke out in Black communities across the U.S. Six days later,
the U.S. Congress passed the notorious "Rap Brown Amendment" which made it
illegal to cross state lines to "incite" rebellions. It was openly
designed to suppress and criminalize the militant views and activities of
H. Rap Brown and Black liberation activists like him.
Al-Amin was indicted for "conspiracy" and put on trial in New Orleans. One
observer wrote, "The courtroom was ringed with armed National Guards.
Every day you had to go through the military to get into the courtroom.
Every night Rap Brown would speak to crowds of 10,000 people in the Black
community. It was a city under a state of siege, practically."
Rap Brown went underground. During a countrywide manhunt, he was put on
the FBI's list of "10 most wanted." In 1971, he was finally captured in an
incident connected to an armed action against a New York City bar known
for its police connections and its distribution of hard drugs in the Black
community. Rap served six years in prison--where he converted to Islam and
took the name Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. After leaving prison in 1976, he
moved to Atlanta's poor Black community of West End Park, where he
operated a grocery store, led a Muslim congregation and worked for
community improvements.
Even though Al-Amin stopped considering himself a revolutionary--he
remained unrepentant about his previous political activities. And he
remained a target of repeated intense attacks from police. As RCP Chairman
Avakian once said: "The people who run this system are completely
unforgiving."
Evidence of Government Targeting
Evidence has started to surface documenting the extent of previously
secret U.S. government targeting of Al-Amin. The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution reported that for at least five years during the
1990s, the FBI, ATF and Atlanta police carried out an intensive
investigation of Al-Amin and anyone they considered associated with him.
As part of their operations, the FBI had paid informants within Al-Amin's
Community Mosque. The Atlanta Police Department's Intelligence Squad
gathered information on over 130 people , many of them members of the
Mosque, and specifically focused on eight Muslim men that police
considered Al-Amin's "inner circle." This campaign of political police
also spied on Muslim circles in New York City.
The FBI conducted their spying operation as part of their country-wide
"anti-terrorism task force"--which continued the FBI's Cointelpro
operations in the 1980s and '90s. The Atlanta police conducted their
parallel operation under the guise of murder investigations.
Police never brought any charges against Al-Amin.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote in its coverage of these government
spy operations: "Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin says the government is out to get
him. For at least five years in the 1990s, that was true."
In 1995, at the height of this political police campaign, Al-Amin was
arrested by a huge force including Atlanta's FBI Anti-Terrorist Task Force
and ATF agents--he was accused of shooting a man in the foot. This police
set-up fell apart when the man announced that the police had pressured him
into accusing Al-Amin.
A Suspicious Case from the Beginning
This current case against Al-Amin started as he was driving while Black in
Georgia's notoriously racist Cobb County on May 31, 1999. The cops stopped
him. They announced that the car (which he had legally bought a few months
before) was reportedly stolen. When Al-Amin got out his wallet, the cop
noticed a badge. Al-Amin had been made an honorary "auxiliary police
officer" from the town of White Hall, Alabama, where he had deep ties
reaching back to the civil rights days. It is a ceremonial badge given for
assisting in community events like parades or football games.
The racist police of Cobb County charged Al-Amin with driving without
proof of insurance, receiving stolen goods and impersonating a police
officer. The whole thing was absurd.
On March 16, the authorities announced that they were hunting Al-Amin.
They claimed that two sheriff's deputies had driven to West End Park to
serve Al-Amin a warrant for failing to appear in Cobb County court. Police
claim they did not find Al-Amin--but that shooting suddenly erupted.
The deputies fired at least ten rounds--and in the firefight, both
of them were hit. One later died.
Police announced that they had found a trail of fresh blood that went from
the scene to an abandoned house a block away. They launched a country-wide
manhunt for Al-Amin, saying that the surviving cop had wounded his
assailant in the stomach.
Four days, later, Al-Amin was captured in Alabama. Police were embarrassed
to discover that Al-Amin was not wounded and so could not have left the
trail of blood leaving the scene. Atlanta police spokesman John Quigley
quickly re-wrote the official explanation--now claiming that the trail of
blood was probably from some unrelated incident that same night, and
probably came out of the abandoned house, not into it, and so on.
The media has mocked the idea that this manhunt and arrest could possibly
be the result of a government conspiracy--as Al-Amin has charged.
Columnists and government officials insisted this is the "New South"--and
claim that a political persecution of Al-Amin is unlikely because of the
many Black people in high office in Atlanta--including the mayor and the
head of the Sheriff's department.
But in fact, the rise of "Black faces in high places" has not ended the
oppression of poor and working people across the Deep South. As Jim Crow
was legally abolished, the discrimination and exploitation of Black people
have continued, in both new and familiar forms. The impoverishment of both
rural areas and urban communities, the "separate but unequal" school
systems, the heavy and disrespecting tactics of the police, the continuing
exploitation in textile mills, factories, and in the fields--none of this
is gone, even though now some of it is administered by Black figures on
behalf of the system.
In interviews with the media, people in West End Park have spoken out
about the abuse they suffer constantly at the hands of the police. And, in
a vivid example of this, the police launched Gestapo-like raids on the
community on March 16. The police openly claimed that Al-Amin was probably
being shielded among the people--an admission of the respect and support
he was known to have both in Atlanta and in rural areas of Alabama. And
their attack at West End was both a manhunt and punishment of the
community. Police sealed off the community and a hundred cops with police
dogs went house to house--while helicopters aimed searchlights from above.
Since March 16, many people have spoken out in support of Al-Amin and
against the media hysteria that has attempted to demonize him and the
Black Liberation movement he once symbolized. Muslim leaders in Atlanta
issued a statement calling on the press not "to accuse, try and convict
Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin."
A defense fund has been established, and legal forces have stepped forward
to help with Al-Amin's defense.
The RW will report on future developments in this important case.
______________________________________________________________________
(2)
source:
The Revolutionary Worker
Revolutionary Worker #1049
April 9, 2000
-http://www.mcs.net/~rwor/a/v21/1040-049/1049/carldx.htm
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl Dix on the Persecution of Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin
Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, is in the clutches
of the state, facing extradition from Alabama to Georgia. The authorities
say he killed a cop and attempted to kill another cop. This isn't the
first time the police have pursued this brother. In the late 1960s, police
departments in different parts of the U.S. were lining up to take a crack
at framing him up for the crimes of calling out Amerika for being the
violent oppressor that it was (and still is) and calling on the people to
rise up in righteous resistance to this oppression.
When Black people, enraged by brutal oppression, rose up and spread the
flames of rebellion from one end of the U.S. to the other, H. Rap Brown
stood firmly with the people. While the oppressors tried to suppress this
rage, with help from handkerchief head water carriers, Rap said, "Burn,
Baby, Burn!" Earlier, Rap had organized Black people in the South to
resist Jim Crow segregation and violent suppression by the KKK and
red-necked sheriffs. This brother has a long-respected history of standing
with the people against the attacks of the oppressors. This gives the
authorities a lot of reasons to want to go after him and punish him. The
people have as many reasons to want to uphold him and stand with him.
We don't know exactly what went down in the confrontation in Atlanta that
led to one cop being killed and another wounded. The authorities have
their propaganda machine working overtime to slander Jamil as a long-time
criminal and to try and convict him in the media before the facts come
out. They want to use their legal system to murder him. We already know
that their story has holes in it. Right after the confrontation, they said
the shooter had been wounded and even talked about following his blood
trail. Now that Jamil is in custody, and we can see that he wasn't
wounded, they're backing off that claim because it doesn't fit reality.
What other lies are they running in their attempt to get Jamil?
What stand we take on this case is critical. Jamil is locked
down in their dungeon. He has already said he's innocent, but he isn't in
a position to counter all the lies they're running and get his side of the
story out. It's crucial that we not buy into the story they're running and
fall for their game of trial by capitalist propaganda machine. Look at
what's coming out into the light of day about the LAPD. How those --------
framed up and even murdered innocent people. Look at how the cops and the
courts used lies to frame up Mumia and railroad him onto death row.
Look at how Mayor Giuliani and his N.Y.------ Dept. are lying about Patrick
Dorismond, the Haitian brother recently murdered by the cops. And I could
go on and on. After all these lies, why should we believe a damn thing
this system has to say.
In little more than a year, we've seen Tyisha Miller, Amadou Diallo,
Latanya Haggerty, Robert Russ, Gideon Busch, Malcolm Ferguson, Patrick
Dorismond and many, many more unarmed victims gunned down by cops. None of
the cops responsible for these murders are in jail. Most of them are still
out there, patrolling our hoods, with a badge and a gun. After all these
cases of people murdered for nothing, if Jamil defended himself against
some cops who stepped to him with murderous intent, that doesn't bother me
at all. As far as the capitalists who rule over us are concerned, they and
their enforcers can murder countless numbers of people, but if anyone
defends themselves against their murderous assaults, that person is
labeled a horrible criminal. We need to reject that logic.
_____________________________________________________________________
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