Last week the Pennsylvania Legislature fast-tracked this bill to give unlimited discretion to district attorneys, the state’s Attorney General and crime victims to silence prisoner speech by claiming that such speech causes victims’ families “mental anguish.”  This politically-charged legislation was introduced on behalf of the Fraternal Order of Police and its allies after they failed to stop Pennsylvania prisoner and radio journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal from delivering his Oct. 5 commencement address to Goddard College in Vermont.  

The RRA would deny prisoners’ rights to free-speech under the First Amendment by allowing for the filing of civil lawsuits to prevent their speaking, reaching the media or recording radio commentaries.  Media outlets that disseminate prisoners’ voices could also be targeted with punitive monetary damages under the act.  PA Sen. Daylin Leach (D., Montgomery) called this law “the most extreme violation of the First Amendment imaginable.”  In seeking to silence the legally protected speech of prisoners the state also damages the publics’ right and freedom to know at a time when more attention is being focused on mass incarceration, police brutality and an unjust legal system. 

This is an emergency. Think about how you were personally transformed when you first heard Mumia speak either on Prison Radio or live via speaker phone at a meeting. While the new bill silencing Mumia and all other PA prisoner voices is an attempt to end this powerful experience, it is also a vengeful attack on Mumia, on the emerging movement to free political prisoners, stop police brutality and end mass incarceration.