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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://blackagendareport.com/"><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:blue;text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=59 height=72 id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.png@01D18E66.70C370C0" alt="Description: Black Agenda Report "></span></a><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:24.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><a href="http://blackagendareport.com/" title="Home page"><span style='color:blue'>Black Agenda Report </span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>News, information and analysis from the black left.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:24.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Raul Castro Should Ask Obama: What About U.S. Political Prisoners? <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Submitted by Glen Ford on Tue, 03/22/2016 - 23:49<o:p></o:p></span></p><ul type=disc><li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></li></ul><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><i><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'> “The United States is holding scores of political prisoners, many of them captured in the 1960s and 70s.”</span></i></b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>President Obama knew it was impolitic to play his hypocritical human rights game while in the presence of Cuban President Raul Castro, in Havana, this week. So Obama had one of his kiss-up White House reporters do the sneak attack for him. CNN’s Jim Acosta, the son of a Cuban exile, asked President Castro why his country kept political prisoners. Castro replied, “<a href="http://journal-isms.com/2016/03/what-political-prisoners-castro-asks-cnns-jim-acosta/"><span style='color:blue'>What political prisoners?</span></a>” and asked Acosta to provide a list of such people. It was an awkward moment – not diplomatic at all – but Obama was clearly enjoying it. And, well he might, because neither Jim Acosta nor any of the other corporate mouthpieces in the White House press corps would dare, or even think, to ask a U.S. president about the plight of American political prisoners.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The U.S. media traveling with Obama have easy access to all sorts of lists of Cubans who are supposedly in prison for opposition to the their government – although even Amnesty International says that the Cubans released their <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-dissident-idUSKCN0RT2O920150929"><span style='color:blue'>last political prisoner</span></a>, back in September.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The United States, on the other hand, is still holding scores of political prisoners, many of them captured in the 1960s and 70s. Their numbers are decreasing only because they are dying of old age – accelerated by the inhuman conditions and practices of the world’s largest prison system. If the corporate media were really concerned about political prisoners, they could go to the web site of the Jericho Movement and see the pictures of <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/prisoners"><span style='color:blue'>50 of them</span></a>. Eighteen were members of the <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/acoli-sundiata-squire"><span style='color:blue'>Black Panther Party</span></a>, the <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/shoats-russell-maroon"><span style='color:blue'>Black Liberation Army</span></a> or the <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/azania-zolo"><span style='color:blue'>Republic of New Africa</span></a>, including <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/abu-jamal-mumia"><span style='color:blue'>Mumia Abu Jamal</span></a>, whose life hangs by a thread because the State of Pennsylvania refuses to treat his Hepatitis C. Black Panther <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/fitzgerald-romaine-chip"><span style='color:blue'>Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald</span></a> has been incarcerated since 1969. There are men and women from the <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/africa-michael-davis"><span style='color:blue'>MOVE</span></a> organization, all with the last name “<a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/africa-debbie-sims"><span style='color:blue'>Africa</span></a>,” whose children were killed and their home bombed by the Philadelphia police. There are <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/luis-v-rodriguez"><span style='color:blue'>Native American</span></a> activists from the <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/chubbuck-byron-shane-oso-blanco"><span style='color:blue'>First Nation</span></a> group and American Indian Movement, including <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/peltier-leonard"><span style='color:blue'>Leonard Peltier</span></a>, who has been behind bars since 1976. There are white <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/dunne-bill"><span style='color:blue'>Class war</span></a>, <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/gilbert-david"><span style='color:blue'>Anti-imperialist</span></a> and <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/hammond-jeremy"><span style='color:blue'>Anarchist Hacker</span></a> political prisoners, and, <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/mason-mariusmarie"><span style='color:blue'>Marie Mason</span></a>, a white Earth Liberation Front woman and Black female community activist <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/powell-rev-joy"><span style='color:blue'>Rev. Joy Powell</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>No Truce in This War</span></b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>There are prisoners who became political after they were imprisoned – which is why they are <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/lake-richard-mafundi"><span style='color:blue'>still there</span></a>. There are <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/hernandez-alvaro-luna"><span style='color:blue'>Chicano</span></a> political prisoners and the great Puerto Rican independence fighter, <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/l%C3%B3pez-rivera-oscar"><span style='color:blue'>Oscar Lopez Rivera</span></a>. There is the former H. Rap Brown, who’s doing life without parole as <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/al-amin-jamil-abdullah"><span style='color:blue'>Imam Jamil Al-Amin</span></a>. There are members of the <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/ford-patrice-lumumba"><span style='color:blue'>Portland 7</span></a> and the <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/hanif-shabazz-bey"><span style='color:blue'>Virgin Island 5</span></a> and the <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/laaman-jaan-karl"><span style='color:blue'>Ohio 7</span></a>. There is the brilliant <a href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/profile/shakur-mutulu"><span style='color:blue'>Mutulu Shakur</span></a>, father of Tupac Shakur, who the feds say masterminded the escape and exile to Cuba of <a href="https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fvoiceofdetroit.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2013%2F05%2FAssata-Shakur.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fvoiceofdetroit.net%2F2013%2F05%2F05%2Fassata-shakur-understanding-the-politics-behind-the-fbis-new-attack%2Fassata-shakur%2F&docid=s18j-7GTZ99H6M&tbnid=0-fsXC75KCE4YM%3A&w=639&h=481&ei=y_3xVpaLA8rVeITVmJAN"><span style='color:blue'>Assata Shakur</span></a>. If Obama could somehow get her back behind bars in the U.S., he’d claim she wasn’t a political prisoner, either.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The Jericho Movement’s pictures do not include lots of other political prisoners, like Rev. Edward Pinkney, who’s serving up to ten years in prison for <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/13/why-is-rev-edward-pinkney-in-prison-another-case-of-political-persecution/"><span style='color:blue'>non-violently standing up</span></a> for the people of Benton Harbor, Michigan.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>President Obama this week told the Cuban people, “I Have Come Here To Bury The Last Remnant Of The Cold War.” But he won’t end the long war against Black people in the United States, a war that has sent <i>millions</i> to prison under a political policy of mass Black Incarceration. In that sense, they are all political prisoners.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>