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Scheduled to
die by injection December 13
Tookie
Williams
From gang leader to children's book
author and peace activist
PressInfo #
229
December
2, 2005
By
Annette
Schiffmann, TFF Associate
In 1971, Tookie
Williams at the age of 19 is
co-founder of the notorious street gang "The Crips" in
Los Angeles, California. In subsequent years, the gang
becomes a model for tens of thousands of disenfranchised
juveniles in the big cities of the United States who now
found their own gangs whose trademark is their brutality,
which they see as "cool."
In 1981 he is
accused of four murders
committed during two robberies and sentenced to death.
He's been on death row in San Quentin, California, ever
since. While Tookie Williams has never denied his role
and participation in the activities of the LA Crips, he
has always insisted that he didn't commit the murders for
which he was sent to death row.
Behind bars, he
renounces his life as a "Crip"
and has since then been a committed worker against youth
violence, gang wars, and drugs, and for the development
of alternatives for street kids.
He approaches the desperate rage
and penchant for violence of many young people,
especially boys and young men, in a constructive way and
weighs in with his whole person and his long experience
in the ghetto streets and in prison. And
this has an enormous impact.
Since then, tens of
thousands of youths and children have written
him, telling him how important
he has become for them, how much he has inspired them to
do something with their lives, and how much they admire
his achievements. How he has become a positive role model
for them.
Thousands of parents, teachers, and
social workers write him to say how grateful they are for
his work, and because of him even commit themselves to
the struggle against the death penalty.
His autobiography "Blue
Rage, Black Redemption" and
the film "Redemption
- Grapes of Wrath" &endash;
which won great approval at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival
- have reached thousands of juveniles and have inspired
more reflection and reversal in them than all
well-meaning appeals and Sunday speeches on violence
prevention combined.
For this commitment, he has been
nominated
several times for the Nobel Peace
Prize.
Tookie
Williams
From Criminal to
Peace Activist
Since the beginning of the 1990s,
among other things Tookie has
• written nine very
influential books for primary and secondary
schoolers
• developed a project for the
termination of gang wars and the support of juvenile gang
members, aiming at the achievement of "peace in the
streets" - The Tookie Protocol for Peace: A Local Street
Initiative. Since this project got off the ground, the
number of violent deaths among juveniles in America's big
cities has declined significantly.
• authored radio contributions
that are aired in the United States and Canada and will
be adopted in Great Britain in the near
future.
His attorneys have formulated a
petition for clemency that was delivered to California
governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on November 7,
2005.
Even after that date,
we're
continuing to collect as many signatures for clemency as
possible.
We demand stopping the execution of
Stan Tookie Williams and clemency for him.
His guilt has never been proven
beyond a reasonable doubt.
On September 10, 2002, even the 9th
U.S. Court of Appeals conceded how
doubtful the evidence against Tookie Williams
was and recommended that he be
granted clemency.
BREAKING NEWS
December 1, 2005
CNN
State's
high court won't spare Williams
Schwarzenegger
could still stop execution of gang
founder
Nonviolence
But what's even more important:
Stan Tookie Williams' commitment is a vital impulse for a
civil approach to violence. His history, personal chance
and initiatives have yielded and will yield more positive
results than all correctional institutions in the United
States and, by their own example, call for a policy
chance that at long last starts to again invest into the
education of young people instead of prison
expansion.
What you can
do
• Read the currently two best
newspaper article "Dead
Man Talking" in The Times
and Clemency
for a Crip in the
International Herald Tribune
• Inform yourself and read
more:
www.tookie.com,
www.savetookie.org,
www.againstthecrimeofsilence.de
Wikipedia
• Sign the petition
for clemency to Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger
Or sign
it here:
• Mail
your own formulations to Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
• Send a fax to Governor
Schwarzenegger: 001-916-445-4633
Below you find our letter to him in
English and German. Copy or change as you please. Write
something entirely different or only your signature. Your
vote could make the difference.
In
English
To the Governor of California
&endash; Arnold Schwarzenegger &endash; Fax:
001-916-445-4633
Dear Mr. Schwarzenegger,
in your mother country Austria as
well as all over Europe the death penalty has been
abandoned, and we are hopefully aware of your deliberate
approach to the issue in general and the case of Stan
Tookie Williams in particular. There are reasonable
doubts concerning strong racist elements during his
trial, and there are reasonable doubts concerning his
guilt, whereas there is no reasonable doubt whatsoever
concerning his positive effect on tens of thousands of
youth in Los Angeles, California, the whole United States
and the world.
We hope and wish that you feel able
to show the courage and humanity to grant him clemency in
spite of the high pressure not to do so from many
sides.
Please stop the execution date for
Stan Tookie Wiliams and grant him clemency.
In
German
An den Gouverneur von Kalifornien -
Arnold Schwarzenegger - Fax: 001-916-445-4633
Sehr geehrter Herr
Schwarzenegger,
Sie sind der erste Gouverneur eines
US-amerikanischen Bundesstaates, dem wir in deutscher
Sprache schreiben können, und wir tun es hier in der
Absicht, Sie an Ihr Herkunftsland und seine Tradition zu
erinnern. In Österreich und in ganz Europa ist die
Todesstrafe geächtet. Wir haben mit Hoffnung zur
Kenntnis genommen, dass Sie sich damit ernsthaft
auseinandersetzen und dass Sie insbesondere den Fall Stan
Tookie Williams sorgfältig überdenken wollen.
Es besteht der begründete Verdacht auf starke
rassistische Elemente in seinem Prozess und es bestehen
begründete Zweifel an seiner Schuld.
An seiner Besserung und seiner
positiven Wirkung auf Zehntausende von Jugendlichen
hingegen bestehen keine Zweifel.
Wir wünschen Ihnen den Mut und
die menschliche Größe, Stan Tookie Williams
trotz starkem Druck von vielen Seiten zu
begnadigen.
Heben Sie den Hinrichtungsbefehl
für Stan Tookie Williams auf und begnadigen Sie ihn
!
Annette Schiffmann,
TFF-Associate
German Network Against the Death
Penalty and to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
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