Washington, DC – 50 people gathered at Columbia Heights Civic Plaza, July 12, to demand compassionate release for Lynne Stewart. Music and speakers rallied the crowd, reaching thousands of passersby at this busy square during evening rush hour. Undaunted by rain, protesters passed out hundreds of flyers and collected petition signatures urging the release of Stewart, imprisoned on bogus terrorism charges for her work as a defense attorney. Although Stewart has stage four cancer and qualifies for early release based on compassionate grounds, the Bureau of Prisons has refused to release her.

Speakers traveled from New York, Boston, Minnesota and Tennessee to join the growing effort to free Lynne Stewart. The D.C. rally follows actions earlier this week in Los Angeles and New York City and comes in the midst of an ongoing vigil in front of the White House. 23,000 people have signed the petition for her release and supporters are urged to continue collecting signatures and making calls to President Obama and to Attorney General Holder.

A drummer, a guitarist and singers played throughout the rally, performing the Cuban song, Guantanamera, and U.S. civil rights song, Eyes on the Prize. Spirits were high as protesters chanted, “What do we want? Free Lynne Stewart! When do we want it? Now!”

Stewart's husband, Ralph Poynter, opened the rally saying Stewart “knew what her job was: bringing truth and justice to those who never had truth and justice. When I say support those who support us, I'm talking about Bradley Manning. I'm talking about all those people who dared tell us the truth. I'm talking about Julian Assange, he dared to tell us the truth. Snowden, he dared to tell us the truth. And we have Lynne Stewart who dared tell us the truth and we must dare to support her.” He urged people to keep up the fight, “So dare to join me every day all day in front of that White House supporting myself, supporting you, supporting truth, supporting the history that we claim is a just history of a just people. Let us show the world that we have not been intimidated by this government that kills, murders, occupies and destroys around the world.”

Leonard Peltier, a political prisoner from the American Indian Movement, sent a statement that was read at the rally. Another powerful message came from Mutulu Shakur, in jail for liberating Assata Shakur. “My dear sister Lynne, the total disrespect of her personage enrages us. Our lack of ability to affect change in her condition continues to highlight the sad state of our abilities to muster political capital to alter the state of affairs. It begs the question, where can new find the process that is at least more productive than the present one... We have always fought and raised the slogan that health care is a human right. Are there no human rights for my sister, Lynne?”

Kazi Toure, former political prisoner from the United Freedom Front, came from Boston to address the rally. “That brings us back to the struggle that Malcolm was pushing for, the one of human rights, when we were dealing with civil rights. Its 40 years later, and we're still here talking about, can we get some human rights. Animals have more rights than we do. We're gonna have to do something to really save this sister's life – more than vigils, more than signing petitions, we have to do something more, or she's going to die in prison.”

Jess Sundin, international solidarity activist and grand jury resister from Minnesota, also addressed the crowd. “We need to fight back against this injustice, and we need to win. We need to fight like the 30,000 hunger striking prisoners in California. We need to fight like those who beat back apartheid in South Africa – heroes that the U.S. government called terrorists in the 80s, but history will remember as heroes. We need to win, like Carlos Montes, who beat prosecutors’ attempts to jail him for 18 years, spending not one day in prison. We need to win like Assata Shakur, who though she’s on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list, is living free in Cuba today. Like Carlos, like Assata, like Mandela, Lynne Stewart is a hero. It’s time to bring her home!”

Preston Gilmore came from Clarksville, Tennessee, and pledged to mobilize Students for a Democratic Society to join the growing struggle for Lynne Stewart's freedom. He said, “Lynne stands against anti-Muslim bigotry and against imperialism and endless wars. Currently, the U.S. government is waging a campaign of fear to criminalize and imprison Muslims and Arab-Americans at home, in an effort to justify and promote U.S. war and occupation in the Middle East and Asia. They are attempting to deter us from carrying forward the struggle against war and racism and advancing the movement. However, all we have to do is look to Lynne Stewart’s life of selfless struggle to realize the necessity of struggling against this system of injustice.”

To support Lynne Stewart, Sign the petition at LynneStewart.org and call to urge these offices to grant her compassionate release:

White House, President Barack Obama: 202-456-1414 Attorney General Eric Holder: 202-514-2001 Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Charles Samuels: 202-307-3250

#WashingtonDC #PoliticalPrisoners #LynneStewart #InjusticeSystem #RalphPoynter

Lynne Stewart, a heroic and long-time progressive lawyer, is serving a ten-year prison sentence in Fort Worth, Texas for ‘material support of terrorism,’ after serving as defense attorney for Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman. On June 9 Fight Back! spoke with her husband, Ralph Poynter, about her case. Poynter is a Black community leader and retired New York City teacher.

Fight Back!: At the Left Forum, you organized a panel on political prisoners. How does Lynne's story relate to the general problem of political repression today?

Ralph Poynter: Lynne’s story is the same as all other political prisoners. Those who want to work toward a more decent society – no matter what way they work on it, by telling the truth, or acting on the truth – have become the automatic enemies of a destructive, corrupt state, and they act in that manner.

So Lynne is a political prisoner who defended those who were not supposed to get a defense. That is, the poor, the people of color and those involved in acts that did not harm anyone else, but the prohibition acts of certain drugs – and they left out alcohol and cigarettes, which are responsible for more deaths than all the others put together. And so Lynne defended these people, and she is paying the price.

Fight Back!: What is going on with Lynne's case today?

Poynter: Her legal case, we’re putting it before the Supreme Court, they call it certiorari. We’ve sent papers to see if the court is going accept the case. No one has challenged the Patriot Act through the Supreme Court on First Amendment rights, et cetera. This is one of the things that Lynne is doing legally.

And we’re asking for compassionate release because she is dying in prison. We want to get her out and get her to a facility in New York City. In Lynne’s own words, “If you are white, have a reasonable amount of economic support and certain notoriety, medical care is available to you in New York City.” We can have her survive long enough to carry her case to the Supreme Court, if she gets out of prison now, so she can access this medical care that is available to her in New York City.

Now, it is a race, no matter where she is. It’s a race for her life, and every day she’s in jail, it cuts down on her possibility of winning it.

Fight Back!: A lot of people know about Lynne’s case and there has been an outpouring of support for her, and for her compassionate release. What has been the impact of that support?

Poynter: We are hoping – today is Sunday – we are hoping that Monday we have a response from the government. We are hoping, but we are also planning Tuesday to have meetings to see our next step. We know the government knows about it. She has passed all of the legalities of compassionate release; she qualifies as the bill was written. But we also know that when Lynne went to prison, she was scheduled for an operation, and it was 18 months before they scheduled the operation in Fort Worth, Texas. So, they are in no hurry, and as I say, they are looking to kill her. And as the attending physician said, it was the worst case she’d ever seen, due to the delay. So this is nothing new.

We say we want treatment for her cancer. They’re delaying. We said we wanted treatment for her other physical problems, they delayed. This is death by lack of medical treatment in prison. But that makes Lynne no different than all the other political prisoners who are in jail. They suffer the lack of physical medical treatment.

Fight Back!: You’ve said people should keep making calls for Lynne. Tell us about those calls, and what else our readers can do to help Lynne now.

Poynter: The calls are going to the Office of the President, the Office of Eric Holder and the head of the prisons, Samuels. But the interesting thing is, she’s already qualified. Samuels said yes, the prison warden in Fort Worth said yes – that’s all that’s required by the statute of compassionate release and yet Lynne is still in jail.

And so we say, 'hey, it’s someplace. They just forgot about it, or they set it aside, or they’re waiting for her to die.'

So keep on calling. Keep on signing that petition in two places – change.org and iacenter.org

Keep on signing and calling until we change strategy, because we are running out of possibilities. Or we have to create some new possibilities, new actions, to make this government move. We have people fasting. Maybe we have to boycott something, maybe we have to pick a strategic place, maybe we have to block highways. Who knows what we will have to do? But the government will decide how far we have to go, because we’re running out of time very quickly.

Fight Back! urges our readers to answer this call for continued support.

Call and urge immediate compassionate release for Lynne Stewart:

Attorney General Eric Holder – 202-514-2001

White House President Obama – 202-456-1111 or 202-456-1414

Bureau of Prisons Director Charles Samuels – 202-307-3250

Follow the campaign, and sign the petition for Lynne’s compassion release at http://lynnestewart.org

#UnitedStates #PoliticalPrisoners #OppressedNationalities #Racism #LynneStewart #InjusticeSystem #RalphPoynter