This press release went out August 29, 2007 from the Pacifica National Office.

Pacifica Radio Wants Charges
Against Former Black Panthers Dismissed

BERKELEY , CA -- The Pacifica Foundation's National Board of Directors has issued a strongly worded condemnation of the government's arrest of eight former members of the Black Panther Party, and urged that charges against the men be dismissed.

According to the resolution, former Black Panthers Richard Brown, Richard O'Neal, Ray Boudreaux, Hank Jones, Francisco Torres, Herman Bell, Jalil Muntaqim, and Harold Taylor, were arrested and charged based on testimony gained through torture as part of the FBI's infamous Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). "These charges were thrown out of court in 1975 because the state's case was built on testimony gained through torture in New Orleans in 1973," the Board says.

The eight men, arrested last January, were charged in connection with the 1971 death of a San Francisco police officer. On August 22, Superior Court Judge Philip Moscone lowered bail for six of the eight after defense lawyers argued that their clients had been employed for years and posed no risk to the public. The other two, who consider themselves political prisoners, are serving prison time in New York for the 1971 death of two police officers.

In 1975, a judge tossed out charges against Taylor and two others after finding that police had extracted statements after torturing them for several days with electric shock, cattle prods, beatings, sensory deprivation, plastic bags and hot, wet blankets for asphyxiation.

Taylor, 58, says he didn't learn that he was a victim of COINTELPRO until years later. "In 1973 I was arrested in New Orleans and was beaten and tortured for several days," he said later. "In 2003 the detectives that were responsible for my torture came to my house to try and question me. I have not been the same since."

In its motion on the arrests, Pacifica 's National Board pointed to the prohibition of torture enshrined in both US law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "Evidence gained by coercion has been ruled inadmissible in a court of law as violating the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which protects against involuntary self-incrimination, as well as the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment," the Board also noted.

It went on to criticize the Bush administration for attempting to overturn a fundamental human right "by permitting its agents to use torture around the world and inside the U.S., and by attempting to use evidence gathered by torture to support criminal charges."

Pacifica opposes "efforts to bring any charges in a case tainted by torture, and urges that charges against these eight men be dismissed," the resolution says.

The arrested men include San Francisco residents Brown, 65, who has been a Community Court Judge Arbitrator with the San Francisco District Attorney's office for the past six years, and O'Neal, 58, who has worked for the City of San Francisco for 25 years, most recently at the Southeast Community Center in Bay View.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "People who work there said they were stunned by his (O'Neal's) arrest, recalling him as a kind and gentle man who always had a smile on his face and would stay late to fix lights or other things." The dean of the campus called him "a trusted employee."

Torres, 58, is a Vietnam Veteran who has been a community activist since his discharge from the military in 1969. The others are Altadena, CA , residents Boudreaux, 64, and Jones, 70, along with Muntaqim, 55, and Bell, 59. For more information go to www.freethesf8.org.

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Pacifica Foundation
Radio with conscience for 58 years
www.pacifica.org