Prison witness.

I'm proud to be publishing excerpts from Mumia Abu-Jamal's book, Live from Death Row. The minute the manuscript crossed my desk I wanted it in The Progressive. I was struck by the vividness of the writing, the power of its witness, and the urgency of the issues it raises.

Here at The Progressive it is one of our missions to give voice to the voiceless. In our society, no one is more voiceless than prisoners. The material they read is censored; the material they send out is censored. Their conversations are monitored. Their views are discounted. Our society shoves them behind bars, hoping never to hear from them again.

Mumia Abu-Jamal insists on being heard. The Peabody Award-winning radio journalist and civil-rights advocate was convicted in 1982 of killing a Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner. Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death for this crime he denies committing. Leonard Weinglass, Abu-Jamal's lawyer, shows in the book's afterword that the judge and jury were biased and the defense shortchanged.

You might have heard about the case last year when National Public Radio agreed to broadcast some of Abu-Jamal's commentaries that make up Live from Death Row. But in another great moment for the free press, NPR backed down in the face of criticism. The alternative radio network, Pacifica, to its credit, went ahead and aired a few of the commentaries.

I admire the folks at Addison-Wesley, the house that is publishing Live from Death Row, for having the guts and good sense to get this book into print. For their efforts, they are under assault.

"The only thing I'm interested in Mr. Jamal saying is good-bye," said Rich Costello, president of Philadelphia's Fraternal Order of Police.

Philadelphia police, along with other officers and victims'-rights advocates around the country, have been putting heat on Addison-Wesley. They object that Addison-Wesley paid Abu-Jamal a $30,000 advance for the book. Fortunately, Addison-Wesley has withstood the pressure, and the book will be on sale in May.

This is a free-speech issue, plain and simple. I believe gag rules on prisoners are a violation of First Amendment rights generally, but in this instance, they are particularly loathsome. Abu-Jamal is not trying to profit off his crime. He is trying to hold a mirror to the horrors of death row. With his words, Abu-Jamal resists the mistreatment that is commonplace behind bars, and he sheds light on our society's hideous--and increasingly common--practice of capital punishment.

Two friends and former Progressive colleagues are also behind bars: Bonnie Urfer and Sam Day. Bonnie, the director of Nukewatch here in Madison, is serving a six-month sentence for contempt of court after she failed to pay fines for her protests at Project ELF in northern Wisconsin. ELF stands for Extremely Low Frequency. It's a radio transmitter for nuclear war, designed to relay firing instructions to Trident submarines.

In a letter from prison to Teri Terry, our long-time administrative secretary, Bonnie describes herself as "a common criminal with a long rap sheet." She is hardly that. She's one of the few genuine heroes I've ever met--a fearless resister, and a magical human being.

Sam Day is another. He, too, is serving a six-month sentence but for a different crime. On President's Day, Sam performed an act of civil disobedience at Offutt Air Force Base, headquarters of the U.S. Strategic Nuclear Command, south of Omaha. He was handing out a leaflet explaining why the targeting of U.S. nuclear weapons violates international treaties to which the United States is a party.

"Your honor," Sam told the court, "I came here to say with my body what I have been saying with words for almost half a century. I came here to alert this court to our government's preparations for waging war.... And I chose to come here now because, contrary to public opinion and despite the end of the Cold War, our government has not relinquished one iota of its capacity for waging nuclear war, and it has no intention of doing so....

"I beg for mercy--not for myself but for the many millions who may someday perish under the fiery mushroom clouds of nuclear weapons launched, in effect, from this very district.

"I pray for mercy for the children, the old and the sick, the disadvantaged and the disabled who suffer daily, even in the absence of nuclear war, because public funds that should be spent for them are rather siphoned into the coffers of corporations and military services that profit from preparations for nuclear war.

"And I beg for mercy for the Earth, suffocating and dying bit by bit under its mounting burden of permanent, deadly radioactive poison."

I'm grateful for Sam Day, Bonnie Urfer, and Mumia Abu-Jamal--prison witnesses all.