[Opinion. Did he do it? Only Mumia knows. Does it matter? But 44 years is quite enough. In Canada, a life sentence is 25 years.] Imprisoned writer Mumia Abu-Jamal seeks UN intervention after 44 years behind bars The former Black Panther’s lawyers ask a UN panel to review his detention after US legal avenues were exhausted Ed Pilkington The Guardian: 28 Jul 2026 SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/28/mumia-abu-jamal-un-jail As he approaches the 45th anniversary of his incarceration in December, the Black radical writer and prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is taking his claim that he has been subjected to arbitrary imprisonment for a crime that he did not commit to a new tribunal: the United Nations in Geneva. On Tuesday Abu-Jamal, 72, lodged a petition with the UN’s working group on arbitrary detention, a body within the Human Rights Council. It marks the latest attempt by the internationally-renowned prisoner and prolific author of 15 books to seek relief, having exhausted all domestic channels through state and federal courts. Abu-Jamal was convicted in 1982 of a crime for which he has always protested his innocence – the first degree murder of a police officer, Daniel Faulkner, in Philadelphia. Since then, he has become a lightning rod for both left and right. For progressives, he is arguably the most celebrated political prisoner in America today. For the law and order crowd, led by the Fraternal Order of Police that has pushed relentlessly for his maximum punishment, he is nothing other than a cop killer. “Hope is an element of struggle, is it not,” he said. “As we used to say in the old days, ‘La luta continua’.”
