At War With MOVE

For members of the MOVE Organization. especially those who survived the August 8th, 1978 police attack on their home in Powelton Village in West Philadelphia. the system is always at war with them.

In August of ’78, that war was waged with hundreds, indeed thousands, of bullets, fired into a home with men, women and children. It was waged with water cannons, which flooded their home– almost drowning them.

It was waged with the weapons of law, with biased judges and ambitious DAs, and with unprecedented and unjust prison sentences; of 30 to 100 years.

Today it is being waged by parole agencies, who are government officials using rubber stamps to gothrough the motions of parole hearings; ‘hearings’ where no one hears.

Under the usual protocols, if a prisoner has no major misconducts for several years prior to his/her minimum sentence. they are presumed to have earned parole. Indeed. some prisoners get what’s called pre-release. or a release to a community correctional facility (or halfway house), pending the passage of their minimum. and then parole.

I said. ‘usual’. But. when it comes to MOVE, there is no usual.

New protocols, new procedures, new regulations are placed on the table; new ways of saying ‘no. ‘

Because they’re MOVE. Because of their beliefs.

Today, the 8 surviving MOVE members have spent almost 34 years In prison–4 years over their minimum.

The women are honor prisoners. and have been recommended by the prison staff for parole.

They’ve been denied several times.

Similarly, if the men weren’t MOVE members, they’d have been gone years ago. It’s high time that this long war came to an end.

Thirty-four years for a bogus, trumped-up Third-degree murder is 34 years too much. Contact the MOVE Organization on the web. at: < www.movellja.com >.

Let’s bring our brothers and sistas home where they belong!