You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Political Prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal Reports No COVID-19 Symptoms

HeadlineApr 16, 2020

Rumors have circulated online that internationally renowned political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, held at the SCI Mahanoy prison in Pennsylvania, was hospitalized with a headache and trouble breathing. But supporters with the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home reached him Wednesday, and he said the rumors are not true.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: “You heard that I was hospitalized. It is not true. In fact, I haven’t been up medical for about a month. I usually go up three times a week. As I said in a recent commentary, everybody’s locked down. And you get 23 hours in the cell, and then, that last 24th hour, 45 minutes out of the cell. You can do — you can take a shower. You can get a bucket and swab your decks and mop your cell. Or you can call people on the phone, or you can plug up your tablet to the kiosk. But you’re not leaving the block. And they only started yard about a week ago, and that’s one 45-minute period every three days. So everybody in the state is locked down, just like everybody in the United States is locked down.”

That was prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, well-known journalist, speaking with professor Johanna Fernández, denying claims that he was in hospital with COVID-19.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top