October 8, 2003 -- The
French-fried brains of Paris have stooped to yet another low - bestowing the
title of honorary citizen on notorious convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
The last time the wacky weasels handed out the title was in 1971 - to
Pablo Picasso.
"Mumia is a Parisian!" Socialist Mayor Bertrand Delanoe shouted as he
pumped his fist to the cheers of the crowd of about 200 mostly left-wing
activists in a bizarre city ceremony over the weekend.
Abu-Jamal - a radical former Black Panther whose real name is Wesley Cook
- was convicted in 1982 for the fatal, coldblooded shooting of Philadelphia
city cop Daniel Faulkner during a routine traffic stop.
His death sentence was overturned in 2001, after years of outcry from
everyone from international rights groups to a slew of Hollywood stars.
He remains on Pennsylvania's death row while an appeal is pending.
Delanoe claimed that the move to honor the U.S. felon was done to show
support for France's opposition to the death penalty. The land of the
guillotine abolished capital punishment in 1981.
"As long as there is a place on this planet where one can be killed in
the name of the community, we haven't finished our work," Delanoe said,
referring to the death penalty as "barbarity."
But one U.S. political analyst called the move merely a Parisian poke at
Americans.
"[It's] a chance for France to tweak America's nose and try to proclaim
their cultural superiority for not having capital punishment," Sterling
Burnett, of the National Center for Policy Analysis, told Cybercast News
Service.
Angela Davis, also a former Black Panther and now a professor at the
University of California in Santa Cruz, accepted an honorary medal and
certificate from Parisian officials in Abu-Jamal's name.
In doing so, Davis hailed the convict's "profound sense of humanity"
while ripping U.S. "racist attacks against immigrants," as well as its
"aggression against the Iraqi people."
With Post Wire Services
