35th Holiday Appeal | Free the Class-War Prisoners!

In January, the Partisan Defense Committee held its 35th Holiday Appeal to raise money for its stipend program for class-war prisoners and their families. This is not charity, but an act of political solidarity from those on the outside to those behind prison walls who stood up to racist capitalist oppression. Benefits were held in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Oakland, drawing leftists, trade unionists and families impacted by racist cop terror.

Since its launch in 1986, the program has sent stipends to over 55 prisoners—including union militants—on three continents. We currently send $100 a month to five prisoners: former Black Panther Party and MOVE supporter Mumia Abu-Jamal; American Indian Movement spokesman Leonard Peltier; Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, Lebanese fighter for Palestinian rights; Chicano activist Alvaro Luna Hernandez (Xinachtli); and abortion rights activist Caleb Freestone.

The events showed the breadth and importance of the causes the PDC has championed. In the lead-up, PDC counsel visited Mumia, who sent greetings, giving “kudos to you all for sending support to people inside of what has been called ‘the iron house’ by our brother and comrade Leonard Peltier.” Framed up for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police officer, Mumia has spent over 43 years (30 on death row) in that “iron house,” explicitly for his political views. Decades ago, Mumia’s cause was taken up by activists and union members around the world. A new generation must regenerate the fight for his freedom.

In February, Peltier was released after nearly 50 years in prison. It’s good that Leonard is with his family and can get needed medical care, but he still has to serve out his life sentence under house arrest. We continue to send him monthly stipends and fight for his complete freedom. In contrast, Abdallah, Europe’s longest-held political prisoner, remains in a French prison. Last year, a court ordered his release, but the government has appealed.

In his greetings, Mumia also praised the “brave young activists” of the Merrimack 4, who received PDC stipends while incarcerated for two months last fall for disrupting a New Hampshire facility of the Israeli arms dealer Elbit. Calla Walsh, one of the Merrimack 4, sent greetings describing how the PDC stipends “made all the difference” in helping them to “stay in touch with the outside world.”

At the Chicago fundraiser, Xinachtli’s representative read his greetings denouncing the U.S. government’s “dirty, criminal war” against Chicanos. In particular, he cited the 1974 slaughter of six Chicano activists in Boulder, Colorado, and the 1973 Dallas police murder of 12-year-old Santos Rodriguez. Salutations also came from former stipend recipient Jaan Laaman, who spent 37 years behind bars as one of the anti-imperialist Ohio 7.

Another statement of solidarity was received from the Committee to Defend Xolani Khoza, a South African trade unionist and member of the Economic Freedom Fighters who faces prosecution for calling for a shutdown to protest the “national unity” government. The committee wrote: “From the Uhuru 3, to pro-Palestine activists in the US and Europe, to youth fighting IMF-dictated starvation austerity in Kenya, Nigeria and other countries of the Global South, leftists and anti-imperialists everywhere are under the gun.” They continued, “Organizing united-front defence against this repression is an urgent necessity to begin turning the tide.”

After the Holiday Appeal, we added Caleb Freestone to the stipend program. Protesting the 2022 Dobbs decision overturning women’s right to abortion, Freestone and three others spray-painted on anti-abortion “pregnancy centers” that aim to manipulate pregnant women into foregoing abortions. He was hit with a 366-day sentence.

This year’s Holiday Appeal also highlighted the campaign, initiated by the Spartacist League/U.S. and PDC, to rebuild the movement against racist police brutality around the demand “Open the Police Archives!” (OPA). In Chicago, speakers included Elizabeth Toledo, whose 13-year-old son Adam was killed by CPD in 2021. The Los Angeles event heard from Mandie Diaz, mother of Jimmy Lopez, killed by Hemet, California, police last July 4. Antwan Glover, who was brutally beaten by Lakeland, Florida, cops in 2022 and has since been a target of police stalking and harassment, spoke at the New York event about his case and others in western Florida.

Oakland speakers included Terry Lovett, whose son Jalani was killed in L.A. Central Jail in 2021, and Kathryn Wade, mother of Malad Baldwin, who was beaten by Antioch, California, cops in 2014. In March, Lovett spoke to the executive board of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10, an OPA endorser, which voted to donate $500 toward an independent autopsy for Jalani and send a letter on his behalf to the state Attorney General. Several family members and OPA activists also made a presentation early in March to the Chicago Area United Auto Workers Civil and Human Rights Council, which agreed to send protest letters.

“We want to take the raw and justified anger against this racist capitalist system and drive for justice among the victims and opponents of cop terror and fuse it with the discontent in the working class by providing a joint way forward,” said comrade Erica, speaking for the SL/U.S. at the NYC event. “These struggles are linked; workers, black people, immigrants are being screwed by the same rotten capitalist system and enemy. What is needed is a socialist program, based on independence from the class enemy, to unite the workers and oppressed in struggle. This Holiday Appeal is very much a part of the same struggle.”

You can donate to the PDC by mail at P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013-0099. For more information on our work, visit partisandefense.org.