News & Public Affairs

Uhurus to protest at World Series listen

10/21/08 Seán Kinane
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Tags: Javon Dawson, World Series, police violence, African American, civil rights, discrimination, racism, Uhurus, St. Petersburg Police

Several groups plan to challenge two new St. Petersburg ordinances before the first World Series game tomorrow night. One ordinance calls for a “Clean Zone” surrounding Tropicana Field, and the other forbids handing out fliers and other activities in street medians. Some groups, including the Justice for Javon Dawson Committee, said this morning that the success of their leafleting campaign to challenge what they call the cover-up of Dawson’s murder by a St. Petersburg Police officer in June ...

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Al-Arian released from prison listen

09/03/08 Seán Kinane
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Tags: Sami Al-Arian, civil liberties, Race, racism, immigration, ICE, Muslims, USF, human rights, terrorism

Yesterday Dr. Sami Al-Arian was released from custody for the first time in more than five years. Even though his criminal sentence ended 16 months ago, Al-Arian had been held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody since a federal judge ordered him released on bail in July.

WMNF spoke with Al-Arian’s daughter, freelance journalist Laila Al-Arian Tuesday night.

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Brother of slain teen says police harassed him listen

09/03/08 Seán Kinane
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Tags: Javon Dawson, police violence, African American, Race, civil rights, discrimination, racism, Uhurus, St. Petersburg Police

In June, teenager Javon Dawson was shot twice in the back and killed by a St. Petersburg Police officer. Yesterday at school, his younger brother, Keon, was pulled out of class and his belongings were searched because the school received a tip that he had a gun.

Dawson’s family and supporters are calling it another example of the St. Pete Police harassing and intimidating people who witnessed his brother’s shooting.

At a press conference Wednesday morning at the Uhuru House in St. Pet...

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Uhurus react to police suspensions listen

08/22/08 Seán Kinane
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Tags: Javon Dawson, African American, Race, civil rights, discrimination, racism, Uhurus, St. Petersburg Police

Two St. Petersburg Police officers were suspended Thursday for allowing their personal feelings to influence a decision to tow a truck in June.

The parked truck displayed posters supporting Javon Dawson, who had been shot and killed by a police officer a week earlier. One officer was suspended without pay for 20 days and the other for seven. Today, WMNF spoke with Nyabinga Dzinbahwe, press secretary for the Uhuru movement.

“I think what would effectively act as a deterrent for police o...

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Judge postpones Al-Arian trial

08/08/08 Mitch E. Perry
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Tags: Sami Al-Arian, civil liberties, Race, racism, immigration, ICE, Muslims, USF, human rights, terrorism

The next trial of former USF professor Sami Al-Arian has been postponed after a judge raised new doubts about the validity of the prosecution.

Al-Arian had been scheduled to go on trial next week in Virginia on contempt charges after refusing to testify to a federal grand jury about a case unrelated to his original terrorist related charges. But today, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema overruled prosecutors' objections and postponed the trial indefinitely. In doing so, she questioned w...

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Al-Arian finally closer to freedom? listen

07/11/08 Mitch E. Perry
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Tags: Sami Al-Arian, civil liberties, Race, racism, immigration, ICE, Muslims, USF, human rights

Yesterday, a federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, order Sami Al-Arian released on his criminal contempt charges, but refused to block immigration authorities from detaining him before he is to be deported.

The U.S. government agreed to "expeditiously" deport Al-Arian in 2006, once he finished serving his criminal sentence in a terrorism support case. He was arrested in 2003.

But over the past couple of years, as he served his time for pleading guilty to one charge of materially suppor...

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Group hires lawyer for shooting witnesses listen

06/12/08 Seán Kinane
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Tags: Javon Dawson, police violence, African American, Race, civil rights, discrimination, racism, Uhurus, St. Petersburg Police

This morning, supporters of Javon Dawson, a teen who was shot and killed by a St. Petersburg police officer last Saturday, unveiled their “Justice for Javon Dawson Committee.”

Omali Yeshitela is the Chair of the African Peoples’ Socialist Party. He said Dawson’s death was unnecessary and blamed the police.

The St. Petersburg Police claim that Officer Terrance Nemeth fired two shots after Dawson aimed a gun at him. They released photographs of a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver with...

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Al-Arian ends hunger strike listen

05/01/08 Seán Kinane
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Tags: Sami Al-Arian, civil liberties, Race, racism, immigration, ICE, Muslims, USF, human rights

Former USF engineering professor Dr. Sami Al-Arian suspended his most recent hunger strike on Monday and has since been moved from solitary confinement to the general population of the Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth, Virginia.

Al-Arian has been in jail for more than five years; he completed his sentence last month yet he remains in jail awaiting the deportation called for in his plea agreement, said Mel Underbakke, who is with Friends of Human Rights.

Al-Arian ended his hung...

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On race and reconciliation listen

05/01/08 Seán Kinane
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Tags: African American, 2008 election, Barack Obama, Charles McKenzie, District 55, Race, Stetson, civil rights, discrimination, history, racism

The racially divisive history of the United States, and more importantly, how the country can heal from centuries of violence and racism, were topics of discussion in St. Petersburg on Wednesday Evening. WMNF’s Seán Kinane reports on the final installment of Studio@620’s Roundtable on Social Justice Series, which addressed race and reconciliation.

During the recent controversy over excerpts of sermons by Barack Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, some have said that the black...

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Attorney General chided over screening of film

02/15/08 Mitch E. Perry
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Tags: racism, Muslim-Americans

Attorney General Bill McCollum met behind closed doors earlier this week with Muslim leaders angry over his having shown a film to employees during office hours that the officials called "anti-Muslim propaganda."

The film, called Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West and it features prominent spokesmen derided by American muslims, such as Steven Emerson, Daniel Pipes and John Loftus.

One of those who attended the meeting was Ahmed Bedier, from the Tampa office of the Council...

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