On Wednesday, March 25th, the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement led a press conference and demonstration outside Philadelphia City Hall following the pretrial hearing for Diop Olugbala and Shabaka Mnombatha - aka the City Hall 2 - organizers for the Uhuru Movement who were brutally attacked and arrested by police for peacefully protesting a City Council session unveiling Mayer Nutter's 2010 budget on Thursday, March 19th.
(See video of the protest and attack HERE)
The following is the solidarity statement delivered at the press conference by Uhuru Solidarity Movement organizer Alison Hoehne:
On behalf of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, an organization that works in the white community under the leadership of the African-led Uhuru Movement, we want to make a statement in solidarity with the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement’s demand: Hands Off the City Hall 2!
We join in condemning the mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, Police Chief Ramsey, District Attorney Lynne Abraham, and the entire city government, for the brutal assault against the African working class here in Philadelphia. When Nutter sicked his thugs on InPDUM International Organizer Diop Olugbala and on Shabaka Mnombatha in the gallery of City Hall, on Thursday, March 19th because they were exercising their democratic and constitutional right to peacefully protest the mayor, he exposed just how threatened this system is, and his administration is, by the African working class speaking out for their rights. Mayor Nutter attacked the African leadership standing, holding signs, and protesting the 2010 budget. He didn’t send his goons to arrest any of the many other protesters also holding signs and also speaking out on various issues.
Why is it that the neocolonial Nutter administration is so threatened by the voice of African working people? Because they expose the truth about what this city and country are based on; they raise the real issues: that Nutter’s entire budget is a War Budget, as InPDUM has said, that is based on exploiting, on attacking, and on terrorizing African people. Just like the U.S. military is in Iraq, and Afghanistan and around the world. They exposed that this city spends over a billion dollars every year on the criminal justice system, organized to criminalize and lock up African people, to fuel a massive prison system, as we just witnessed in the kangaroo courtroom that we were just in. It’s the basis of the entire economy in Philadelphia; it gives jobs to all these young white kids at Drexel and other universities. They’re all going into law to lock up African people.
Philadelphia has the highest imprisonment rate in the world, Philadelphia has the highest rate of poverty in the world, and Philadelphia has the highest rate of police murders in this country. Already this year, 9 African people have been murdered by the Philadelphia police. Nobody else will speak out about this but the Uhuru Movement and the African community!
The Uhuru Movement has exposed the Nutter administration as a brutal, neocolonial regime. Nutter himself has built his career on attacking African people and deepening their poverty and misery. Through the “Stop & Frisk” campaign, over 200,000 African people were stopped and attacked, just last year. The 98% increase in the foreclosure rate right here in Philadelphia, where almost 16,000 families have lost their homes in the African communities of West Philly and North Philly predominantly, just this past year. Nutter gives money to his Penn cronies to gentrify North & West Philly as the African community is being pushed out.
The Uhuru Movement exposes that Nutter has no interest in solving the problems of the African community. He’s about closing schools, closing health clinics, closing the pools so African children have nowhere to go in the summer. And this city is attempting to rescue itself from the deep economic crisis it is experiencing, by deepening the attacks on the African community and the poor population here. Through the property tax increase, where 16,000 people have lost their homes just last year, and now Nutter wants to increase the property taxes by 19% - making it more impossible for African people to keep their homes. The parking tickets, the garbage tickets, every possible way he’s attacking African people.
As the Uhuru Movement has said, this is economic and military warfare, and will only create a worse situation, a more violent situation for the people in Philadelphia, and a more intense situation of poverty for the people. We say the real criminals are the ones who dropped the bomb on the African community in 1985, who are now, as the Uhuru Movement has said, dropping an economic bomb on the African community. The real criminals are the ones who just stole 170 billion dollars of the people’s money to give to Wall Street and corporate America. The real criminals are the Pennsylvania judges who just stole $2.6 million from private juvenile prisons, to lock up thousands of mostly black children for profit. The real criminals are the narcotics officers framing African people all over North and West Philly, and they’re in court getting overtime right now, lying on African people.
This is a criminal system and it’s in crisis. The African working class is not trying to rescue the slave master from its crisis, but to get rid of the slave master once and for all, so African and colonized people can be free, and control over their own resources and lives once again! We want the same thing! We reject the city giving resources, opportunities, and jobs to us in the white community, at the expense of African people’s lives! Saving a library or saving city employees’ jobs isn’t going to solve the economic crisis that Philadelphia and the U.S. is in. The politicians care nothing for any of us; we are expendable and we refuse to participate in this war against African and Puerto Rican people any longer. If we truly uphold justice and democracy, we must defend the right of African people and all oppressed and colonized people to resist their oppression. We call on all freedom-loving North American people in this city to join the Uhuru Solidarity Movement and work under the leadership of the African working class for REAL solutions!
End the Billion Dollar War on the African Community!Give a billion dollars to the African community itself for real economic development; for schools, for healthcare, for housing! Jail the killer cops! Jail the real criminals – Nutter, Ramsey, and Abraham! Reparations to African people!
Hands off the City Hall 2! The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement calls for people to join the Campaign to Free the Philly City Hall 2 and stop Philadelphia’s billion-dollar war against the African community and to unite with the following demands:
- All charges against Diop Olugbala (aka Wali Rahman) and Shabaka Mnombatha (aka Franklin Moses) be dropped immediately.
- Impeach Mayor Nutter
- Fire the police thugs who attacked Shabaka and Diop
- Reparations to all the people injured by the police thugs at City Hall on March 19th.
UHURU!
Join the Uhuru Solidarity Movement:
uhurusolidarity.org
philly@uhurusolidarity.org
215-387-0919
PHOTO CREDITS: RAY SKWIRE phillyphoto.wordpress.com
