This week the German Network Against the Death Penalty and to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal released a statement in support of the survivors who were born in MOVE. The text can be read below, or here on their website.
Leaving MOVE - Support for Victims of Sexual and Non-Sexual Abuse
With great distress, we've been following the numerous severe charges raised on the blog "Leaving MOVE" by many (primarily younger) former members of the MOVE organization. They concern a long time period and reveal systematic abuse of power, sexual assault, abusive behavior towards children and young people, and an enormous psychological group pressure which is described as brainwashing by those who were subjected to it.We are shaken. It should never have happened that cult-like structures such as these remained undetected for decades. We want to express our unequivocal solidarity with all those affected. We believe them. We absolutely repudiate the behavior, described so impressively in many contributions to the blog, of the accused leading MOVE members.
We are shattered. As a solidarity movement for Mumia, we have also supported the "MOVE 9" for decades. In 1978, a house in Philadelphia inhabited by MOVE members was attacked by the police. While many shots were fired at the house and the basement was flooded with water to prevent anyone from hiding there, a policeman died in the crossfire. Even though the officer was probably accidentally killed by a colleague, nine MOVE women and men were put in jail for the killing of ONE policeman with ONE bullet. Their judge made the grotesque statement that since the nine regarded themselves as a family, he would also convict them as a family. Two MOVE members died in prison, while the other seven remained in prison for almost forty years.
Mumia Abu-Jamal was almost the only journalist in Philadelphia who reported about things like this by allowing the MOVE people to speak for themselves.
In 1985, the Philadelphia's police commissioner arranged for a bomb to be dropped on the house to which the organization had moved after 1978. Ten thousand live bullets were fired at the house. Both the MOVE house and all other houses of the block burned to the ground. MOVES's neighbors all became homeless and lost their belongings. The adults and children in the MOVE house lost their lives as they were incinerated alive. The only adult survivor - Ramona Africa - was incarcerated for seven years.
We always demanded the release of the MOVE prisoners. Their incarceration was unjust and will always be. Now we are horrified to learn the extent to which members of an organization which has itself repeatedly been the victim of extreme state violence have themselves become perpetrators.
All this causes perplexity and helplessness, and it hurts. Some of us feel reminded of our own experiences. Some of us have also known the enormous pressure to remain silent and to protect the perpetrators instead of being able to call for help.
Reading the blog "Leaving MOVE" indicates to us that there are also many people within MOVE who are no longer prepared to accept this state of affairs. Probably, there are also victims who are simultaneously perpetrators, as is the case everywhere in our society, which is characterized by patriarchal violence.
But it is clear to us that from now on, we will not only denounce the violent actions of the police against MOVE, but that we will also demand an honest accounting of all transgressions and abusive power relations within MOVE. To the victims of the systematic violence within MOVE, we want to express our heartfelt solidarity: Because not to feel alone and forsaken once one has dared to go the first step is of enormous and crucial importance.
Free Mumia - Free them ALL!
Fight Abuse and Power Structures Everywhere!
German Network Against the Death Penalty and to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
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