07/29/2026
Writer and former Black Panther leader Mumia Abu-Jamal — who has been held as a political prisoner in Pennsylvania for nearly 45 years — is now seeking UN intervention.
On Tuesday, the 72-year-old filed a petition with the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
“Hope is an element of struggle, is it not?” Abu-Jamal said by phone to The Guardian. “As we used to say in the old days, ‘A luta continua.’”
His legal team — including members of the Abolitionist Law Center, ACLU, and Center for Constitutional Rights — argues that he has been denied his fundamental rights under international law due to racial bias, prosecutorial misconduct, and denial of a fair trial.
Abu-Jamal is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole. He was convicted in 1982 of first-degree murder in the death of police officer Daniel Faulkner in Philadelphia. He has always maintained his innocence.
“I’ve rarely, if ever, placed my hope in courts of law,” he said. “But I do trust in people, as people are the ones who build movements and make change.”
The activist’s imprisonment has been protested by celebrities and people the world over, including Maya Angelou, Angela Davis, Spike Lee, and Paul Newman.
