Hugo Needs Support
by Hans Bennett
(Abu-Jamal-News.com)
January 4, 2009
Earlier in 2008, I interviewed San Francisco journalist and former Black Panther Kiilu Nyasha about political prisoner Hugo Pinell, the only one of the San Quentin Six that is still in prison (Listen to the interview here). This audio interview complements the essay Nyasha wrote previously in 2004.
Today, in an email interview, Nyasha told me that “Hugo L. A. Pinell, nicknamed ‘Yogi Bear,’ will go to Board again on January 17, 2009. His last Board appearance was November 14, 2006 when he was denied two years, despite having no rule infractions for 24 years. Make that nearly 27 years clean time now. One of George Jackson’s closest comrades, Yogi has now been incarcerated in California prisons for almost 45 years, nearly 39 in solitary confinement, the last 19 in the Pelican Bay SHU (Security Housing Unit, or 24/7 lockup). The fact that he is still in great physical shape and hasn’t lost his mind under such prolonged, tortuous conditions is testimony to his amazing spiritual and physical strength. Please write a letter to the Parole Board in support of Yogi’s release — at least to a mainline facility near San Francisco so his mother, 85, and other family/friends can have contact visits, and he can see the sun again.”
As featured in the embedded video above, on January 2, I interviewed Philadelphia-based activist and author Dan Berger, who is featured in the new book Let Freedom Ring: A Collection of Documents from the Movements to Free US Political Prisoners. This segment about Hugo Pinell is part of a longer interview with Berger that will be released in the coming months.
Below is an article written by death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal from 2006, the last time Pinell was eligible for parole (Listen to the radio-essay here).
You can also, listen to the audio and read the transcript from the June 15, 2006 KPOO Prison Focus discussion about Pinell with Luis Bato Talmante, Nedzada [Handukic], Kiilu Nyasha, and Gordon Kaupp.
For more information, go to www.hugopinell.org. Letters can be sent to:
California Board of Parole Hearings
P.O. Box 4036
Sacramento, CA 95812-4036
ATTN: Robert Doyle - Chairman
Ref: Hugo L. A. Pinell - #A88401
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Jalan: A journal of Asian Liberation
Announcing the online publication of Jalan: A journal of Asian Liberation
Jalan Journal is an independent journal written by a multiracial collective of activists who work toward the liberation of Asian peoples from the forces of racism, empire and neo-colonialism.
Asians are Pakistani, Iraqi, Afghani, Korean, Cambodian, Chinese, Palestinians and countless other faces. We are gender-bending men and women, queer and straight. We are fierce and loving. We are what the racists fear. Many of us are also here in the United States.
This journal seeks to promote discussion and provide linkages, to remember the past so as to build for the future. We hope to discuss the struggles of Asian-American peoples in the United States from an anti-racist and democratic perspective in order to build solidarity among our communities and with working folks in Asia. We combat the historical and political roots of the model minority myth that has functioned to divide Asians from other working class people of color, both in the US and internationally. We also critically oppose the statist and oppressive versions of pan-Asian liberation found in Maoism, Bandungism and the Japanese empire of yesteryear.
Today, a new vision is our only option, nourished by everyday struggles for freedom and democracy that Asian peoples wage in the family, at work, in their neighborhoods, and schools. From the relentless Intifadas of Palestinians pushing up against apartheid, to the jam-packed streets of the 2005 Hong Kong WTO protests exploding with fierce South Korean farmers, Filipino activists and Japanese anarchists, we are in action. A new society all around us is breaking out! (read more from our Mission statement: http://jalanjournal.org/mission)
Our contents in this first issue:
Editorials
Asians Against White Supremacy: On the origins of anti-Asian racism and how we have fought back
Stop Dividing the Korean nation: A vision of unity from below
Articles
Rebel Desis of the Hip Hop generation
¡Ya Basta! Reflections on Asian and Latino workers in the immigrant rights movement
Retrieving an Asian American Anarchist Tradition
Book Review
Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution
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Justice for Dorothy Stang
Last week was the 20th anniversary of the death Brazilian environmental activist Chico Mendes. One unfortunate part of his legacy was the slap on the wrist given to his convicted murderers; a trend which sadly continued with the killers of Dorothy Stang.
Stang was a U.S.-born Brazilian missionary who- much like Mendes- was outspoken in defending the Amazon rainforest. Her activism against landowners would lead to her demise in 2005. Though a Brazilian court convicted the two gunmen hired to kill Stang another tribunal freed one of them last May.
Despite the impunity, the case may be reopened against the alleged masterminded of Stang’s murder. Ironically, the arrest of Regivaldo Galvao was over the land that Stang tried to defend before her death:
Brazilian farmer Regivaldo Pereira Galvao, who was accused of masterminding the murder of U.S.-born Brazilian missionary Dorothy Stang in 2005, was re-arrested Friday for swindle.
He was arrested at his home in Altamira, Para state, for trying once more to claim possession of public land in Anapu, also in Para, according to the state’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office…
“Galvao’s attitude of returning to the crime scene and once more declaring himself the owner of public lands demands the immediate intervention of the state,” said Federal Prosecutor Alan Mansur Silva.
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Welcome to the revolution
Anarchist People of Color, anti-authoritarian and radical texts are located at this site. In addition, documents on struggles led by people of color, race, anarchy and other movements are available here. 
