IMAM JAMIL ABDULLAH AL-AMIN (FORMER H. RAP BROWN): PERHAPS A VICTIM OF THE NEW COINTELPRO SHROUDED IN THE U.S. PATRIOT ACT

IMAM JAMIL ABDULLAH AL-AMIN (FORMER H. RAP BROWN): PERHAPS A VICTIM OF THE NEW COINTELPRO SHROUDED IN THE U.S. PATRIOT ACT

By Fahim A. Knight-El

 
 

 

Imam Jamil Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown), I will continue to pray for his health, safety and release  from prison and pray for his family and the personal struggles they are up against. I am always of the opinion, that when someone sends me this type of sensitive information (or topic on one of our Freedom Fighters who made tremendous sacrifices for black people’s liberation and our struggle to be free, perhaps I will always see it as my duty to give some intellectual feedback. Let me be clear, we live in a new legal era and the United States jurisprudence system is reflective and indicative of this recent legal paradigm shift that publically made this  initial transition on September 11, 2001 (9-11). This is when the United States Government transitioned from a government (for the people and by the people into a covert authoritarian dictatorship) that was no longer rooted in the separation of powers pursuant to the three branches of government i.e., the Executive Branch, Legislative Branch and the Judicial Branch (separation of powers and checks and balances) which was brilliantly put into place to insure that our government maintain its founding principles of being built and structured on a Democracy and to insure that no one branch of government had the ability or right to assume an unbalance amount of governmental power (compromising the balance of power) in which would allow for the United States Constitution to be redefined relative to how justice would be dispensed,  in particular in the area of Civil Liberties and mainly, it would lead to the upending of our 14^TH  Amendment right to constitution (due process) and all other constitutional rights (reference: Mike Lee; Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document). This would allow them to use the war on terror to impose more repressive legislation and laws when it comes to the invasiveness of its citizens civil rights and civil liberties, which in the past, the constitution prohibited and forbade the state (law enforcement) and other government enforcement agencies from treading upon its citizens civil liberties, it offered and guaranteed each American citizen equal protection under the law (reference: Jonathan Turley; “10 Reasons The U.S. Is No longer Land of the Free” http://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/15/10-reasons-the-u-s-is-no-longer-the-land-of-the-free/ .   

Thus, after the 9/11 hoax, we allowed them, to transfer all the perceived people's power into the Executive Branch of government in which the president (acting commander-in-chief) now has the power to neutralize the courts and congress by overriding the constitution (this action has rendered the U.S. Constitution a worthless piece of paper) by allowing the president to pass executive orders with no input from the other two branches of government, this further only serves as an act of political tyranny. It has always been a governmental and congressional operational procedure (as well as a constitutional mandate) for the president to consult with congress prior to the declaration of war (just take a moment and look at how the Afghanistan War in 2001 and the Iraq War of 2003 and other recent military skirmishes in the so-called Middle East and Africa have been handled actually President George W. Bush established a new governmental precedent relative to the question of Democracy); but since 9/11, the president has sovereign authority to operate outside of informing and the consultation of congress (a shadow government is overtly running the country) of his national and/or international actions and decisions—he just has to yell, that his political decisions are a matter of national security interest and this alone allows him to circumvent the U.S. Constitution. This is some dangerous ground that we are treading upon (reference: David E. Bernstein; Lawless: The Obama Administration's Unprecedented Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of Law).

 

So we cannot use the same legal strategies and tactics that were used in the 1960s and 1970s to fight the United States Government, it will render your cause ineffective. They, perhaps did not use any legal precedents to change Imam Jamil Al-Amin's legal status from being a state inmate to a federal inmate, which ordinarily, would have required, a hearing of sort (allowing legal arguments to be heard pertaining to such matter) to enhance Imam Jamil Al-Amin's custodial status in order to initially transfer him into the custody of the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Prison and into Colorado Supermax penitentiary officially named: United States Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) where he was held for seven years and housed seven stories underground-no sun light and little to no human contact (solitary confinement) was an atrocious act (but what most of us fail to understand is that when you are a convicted inmate, you are classified as an enemy against the state). How hypocritical is for the United States Government to condemn China, Cuba, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Syria, Iran, etc., on issues of human rights violations and yet, there is no Amnesty International investigating and condemning the U.S. on its human rights violations inside of a government that represent the so-called free word. Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin is being viewed by the U.S. Government no different than the so-called Islamic terrorist being held at Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba in which their legal rights, which used to be guaranteed by the laws established under the Geneva Conventions are being grossly violated and are no longer applicable under this new legal era (New World Order)—many of the Muslim and Islamic detainees have not, been found guilty of having committed any crimes, but are unjustly being imprisoned under U.S. terrorism laws (Military Commission Act). The U.S. Federal Courts (assuming legal jurisdictions in these international procedures are in direct violation of the integrity and legal intent of international law) the U.S. have taking legal jurisdiction over terrorism cases of international ramifications, where crimes of terrorism were alleged to have occurred on foreign lands. But it has been found that many of the foreign Muslim defendants had no evidence of complicity or conspiracy brought against them, nor any provable allegations of terrorism aimed at the United States of America and to not address these international legal issues in the appropriate legal manner are without doubt outside of how the United Nations was structured.

The majority Guantanamo Bay detainees in reality, should not even be held in prisons and detainment camps under the auspices of the U.S. Government (or at least allow these alleged terrorist who are being held in captivity to prove their guilt or innocence). President Barack Obama, the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon know that these Muslims cases should be heard in international courts of law and presided over by a neutral government and the Islamic prisoners of war should at least by now have had their cases heard and decided upon under the international laws and the rules established at the Hague Conventions (reference: Joseph Margulies;  Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power.  They only justified re-categorizing Imam Al-Amin’s prison status by considering him an enemy against the state and under this new legal era just as the so-called Muslim terrorist in Guantanamo Bay, he has no legal rights, they became fearful that the love and solidarity that the Muslim prisoners held for Imam Al-Amin in the Georgia prison system, it was automatically deemed a threat. The Muslim Ummah elected him to serve as Imam over the prison community, which comprise the Islamic inmate population and, thus, the George State Corrections chain of command interpreted this as a possible internal threat to the safety and security of non-Islamic inmates and correctional personnel and signed an agreement with the Bureau of Prisons (Interagency corporation one of the goals of Homeland Security initiatives) that would bring the Imam under their custody (federal jurisdiction although his conviction was considered a Georgia State offense and had violated no federal laws).

Although, the Islamic religion is perceived in U.S. prisons as one of the acceptable faith traditions, but the government within the penal institutions considers the Five Percent Nation or Nation of Gods and Earths as a street gang and is not recognized nor are they allowed to function and organize or assemble in the Belly of the Beast (reference: Michael Muhammad Knight; Why I Am a Five Percenter) . But traditional Islam is allowed to have outside Muslim chaplains to come into the prisons as part of their right to freedom of religion. The First Amendment right to the U.S. Constitution does not apply to prisoners of war inside this new legal paradigm of the United States of America. If Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale were reining today over the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense not only would they have been under more intense surveillance and scrutiny from the FBI and the CIA, they would have been, considered public enemy number one and their political philosophy as revolutionary theoreticians would have also been considered promoting domestic style terrorism and, perhaps they would have even been victimized under the laws of Homeland Security and the anti-Terrorism laws (the government now has more tools to work with in their dirty trick bag since the establishment of Cointelpro). Hoover’s Cointelpro techniques looks like child’s play in the light of the long arm of the U.S. Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act (reference: Bobby Seale; Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton).

How could H. Rap Brown (Jamil Al-Amin) who articulated the Black Power ideology in the 1960s and 1970s, perhaps only second to Stokley Carmichael (Kwame Ture) in passion and militancy get a fair trial in U.S. courts (H. Rap Brown was the face and voice of the social rebellions in 1967-1968 and was a one of the leaders at the Black Power conference held in Newark, New Jersey in 1967) and not to expect the government to look at Imam Al-Amin’s black activism past and the radical political objectives he advocated as head of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee would be a gross tactical error on the part of those who know the reactionary history of the U.S. Justice system (reference: James Foreman; The Making of Black Revolutionaries) and serving as the Minister of Justice for the Black Panther Party in the 1960s and one must not forget that the Black Panther Party was considered a paramilitary organization (reference: Huey P. Newton; Revolutionary Suicide).

These variables and factors in my opinion, were not overlooked, in the case of Imam Jamil Al-Amin versus the State of Georgia and the present treatment, he is receiving relative to his declining health and the lack of appropriate onsite medical care at USP Canaan U.S. Penitentiary in Waymart, PA, which is deplorable and despicable (they are attempting to assassinate Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) by ( medical neglect) and inhumane and should prompt an investigation from the U.S. Attorney General’s Office and the U.S Department of Justice. But under the new legal paradigm, they systematically have stripped the people of some of their basic legal rights and duped them into believing that there was a war on terrorism and that radical militant Islam posed a danger and threat to the United States Government national security and the American people have applauded these gestapo new legal measures being carried out so-called in the name of public safety (they have recently met some stiff opposition from the youth and Black Lives Matter Movement). The corporate control media and talking heads have blamed the Muslims for our domestic and international issues in lieu of our antagonistic relations with Islam and the Muslim world and simultaneously turned our nation into a police state by using propaganda and disinformation to mold and shape public opinion.

But little do the masses know and/or understand, that today it's Muslims they are prosecuting and discriminating against, but tomorrow, it could easily be Christians and/or just ordinary citizens who dared to be different. So they use the 9-11 hoax to create illusionary enemies in Osama Bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda, but the real strategy was to turn the United States Constitution into an ineffective and powerless legal document, as well as, render the representatives of the people, which was supposed to be the United States Congress (535 members voted and elected by the people) into a powerless entity. This has allowed the Executive Branch of government to usurp the balance of legal power and legal authority that was guaranteed to the people by the original framers and signers of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, which was designed to insure that the three branches government will forever create a necessary balance of power inside our political apparatus (reference: Lori Peek; Behind the Backlash: Muslim Americans After 9/11) . . (reference: Zak Kondo; Conspiracys (Conspiracies): Unravelling the Assassination of Malcolm X).

I believe, the revealing of these classified FBI documents (some have already been revealed via the Freedom of Information Act) will provide proof that Imam Jamil Al-Amin had been unjustly under government surveillance for perhaps over fifty years, and his arrest and conviction of allegedly murdering a Fulton County Georgia police officers and seriously wounding another in which on March 9, 2002, nearly two years after the shooting took place, Al-Amin was convicted of 13 criminal charges, including the murder of deputy Ricky Kinchen. Four days later, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Many of Imam Al-Amin’s supporters viewed his conviction as a government ploy right out of the playbook of Cointelpro. I know Imam Al-Amin's legal team already know some of these things (and I am probably preaching to the choir), but it appears Imam Al-Amin's case and fight still have not been embraced nor told on a larger public scale.

For example, Mumia Abu Jamal (reference: Mumia Abu Jamal; Death Blossoms: Reflections from a Prisoner of Conscience), he turned his case into an international human rights issue and he was nowhere on the same national leadership level as was H. Rap Brown (Imam Jamil Abdullah Amin) as an activist and he got white people and human rights activist throughout the world involved in his case (and this has prolonged his life as a death row inmate and former black nationalist activist). Yes, he still remain on death row, but entertainers and athletes (money people and influential people have joined the free Mumia Abu Jamal struggle and campaign) and now the young Hip-Hop culture knows something about Mumia Abu Jamal (reference: Mumia Abu Jamal; Live from Death Row). But very few know anything about Imam Jamil Al-Amin, which means the enemy, has very little external pressure on them and they can treat the Imam in any manner they please.

There are a lot of black and white independent filmmakers (in Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States) and since the Imam's imprisonment, he should have had three or four documentaries done by white liberals telling his story and bringing more public attention to this honorary Black Panther member and former Black Power advocate. I know since his conversion to Sunni Islam, he has always tried to separate his Black Power activism history and at times it appears he has had difficulty in trying to reconcile his Islamic theology with his past militant and revolutionary style black nationalist politics (reference: Jamil Abdullah AI-Amin; Revolution by the Book). He often publically dismissed this part of his history, which was a tactical and strategic mistake because the U.S. Government never disconnected him from his radical and militant past (even as he led his Islamic mosque in Atlanta the government sent agent provocateurs around him and closely monitored his activity unknowing to him) (reference: H. Rap Brown; Die Nigger Die!: A Political Autobiography of Jamil Abdullah al-Amin). 

 

Moreover, whatever resources, he and his followers have he need to write five to ten more books from different intellectual angles (create intellectual exposure and interest by telling his story) and getting this material in young activist hands and college students who have never heard of H. Rap Brown (Imam Al-Amin). Also, encourage some of the young Muslims and non-Muslims to write thesis and dissertations on the man and his mission. We need to entice young law students to review his case and make them aware of the shoddy case law that was used to convict the Imam and maybe inspire these innocence commissions to take a hard look at the Imam's case and his ties to Cointelpro and did this prohibited him from attaining an impartial and fair trial. His case must be viewed as the government having a sinister vendetta against the Imam that extended back to the 1960s whom they (J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI) recognized (as a radical militant hate teacher who espoused anti-government sentiments) of having the ability unify and electrify the black masses and this was deemed a threat under the United States Government counter-intelligence program (Cointelpro).
 

The American people via the war on terrorism lost everything that the constitutions used to stand for (most of all the legal avenues to justice). It appears that Sister Karima Al-Amin his wife and legal counsel and one of Imam Al-Amin's close confidante Imam Khalil Abdur-Rahman, need to work diligently to reclassify Imam Jamil Al-Amin as a U.S. prisoner of war (first step no compromise in getting this status applied to him in name and legal status or implied intent even if only the public viewed him as such, it would be a major legal and political step to justice) and his being denied the adequate medical treatment or any other rights must be viewed under Habeas Corpus laws assigned to all political prisoners of national and international status, but this argument would have to be built on the premise that Imam Al-Amin has been a long standing target of Cointelpro and demand that the U.S. Government turnover all the complete FBI files and dossiers without any blackout (or white outs) deletions or omissions that pertained to H. Rap Brown (Imam Jamil Al-Amin) FBI files and hidden case. J. Edgar Hoover former F.B.I director, ordered the forty-one FBI offices at that time to intensify their efforts, "to expose, disrupt, misdirect, and otherwise neutralize" Black nationalist organizations and their leaders. Primary targets of the Counterintelligence Program, Black Nationalist-Hate Groups, should be the most violent and radical groups and their leaders.  We should emphasize those leaders and organizations that are nationwide in scope and are most capable of disrupting this country. These targets, members, and followers of the: The Student Nonviolent coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Nation of Islam, and above all, the Black Panthers were specifically targeted, as were, among many Blacks, Stokley Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Elijah Muhammad, Fred Hampton, Mark Clarke, Assata Shakur, etc. (reference: Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall; The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States .

They have redefined justice in the United States of America since 9-11, and they have placed new terms into the legal lexicon such as Enemy Combatant and homegrown terrorism, but if the Imam legal team cannot work to show and prove that Cointelpro has been ongoing under the guise of the United States Patriot Act and Homeland Security, which has even allowed the U.S. Government to expand its powers, authority and scrutiny over the American citizens with little legal oversight from the people or the courts, it will remain a difficult battle and an almost insurmountable legal hill to climb. We must be able to prove that Cointelpro was a violation of the United States Constitution. And illegally caused irreparable damage to all the victims and their organizations, which was built on disinformation and propaganda that led to the murder, false imprisonment, character assassination, social isolation, etc., of innocent freedom fighters and that the Black Power movement was only an extension of the Civil Rights Movement and must be viewed from the same context of the goals and objectives that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the nonviolent movement were fighting for, which was to obtaining freedom, justice and equality for the so-called American Negro during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. Another one of Cointelpro goals and objectives: Prevent the RISE OF A "MESSIAH" who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement.  Malcolm X might have been such a "messiah;" he is the martyr of the movement today.  Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael and Elijah Muhammed all aspire to this position. Elijah Muhammed is less of a threat because of his age.  King could be a very real contender for this position should he abandon his supposed "obedience" to "white, liberal doctrines" (nonviolence) and embrace black nationalism.  Carmichael has the necessary charisma to be a real threat in this way. (reference: Zak Kondo; Conspiracys (Conspiracies): Unravelling the Assassination of Malcolm X.

J. Edgar Hoover mission also was to: Prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining RESPECTABILITY, by discrediting them to three separate segments of the community.  The goal of discrediting black nationalists must be handled tactically in three ways.  You must discredit those groups and individuals to, first, the responsible Negro community.  Second, they must be discredited to the white community, both the responsible community and to "liberals" who have vestiges of sympathy for militant black nationalist [sic] simply because they are Negroes.  Third, these groups must be discredited in the eyes of Negro radicals, the followers of the movement. This last area requires entirely different tactics from the first two. Publicity about violent tendencies and radical statements merely enhances black nationalists to the last group; it adds "respectability" in a different way (reference: Kenneth O'Reilly  Racial Matters: The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972) and Black Americans: The FBI File

I was at the 20th year anniversary of the Million Man March convened by Minister Louis Farrakhan and granted I got there a little late, but I did not hear or see any speaker up on the dais speaking on behalf of Imam Jamil Al-Amin and I did not see fliers and information being circulated about his case. The mobilization and organizational efforts have to be intensified in order bring international attention to the Imam's case. The youth are communicating via Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Vine, etc.; and they could tell his story to a far and wide range audience via social media. Free Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin.

Fahim A. Knight-El Chief Researcher for KEEPING IT REAL THINK TANK located in Durham, NC; our mission is to inform African Americans and all people of goodwill, of the pending dangers that lie ahead; as well as decode the symbolism and reinterpreted the hidden meanings behind those who operate as invisible forces, but covertly rules the world. We are of the belief that an enlightened world will be better prepared to throw off the shackles of ignorance and not be willing participants for the slaughter. Our MOTTO is speaking truth to power. Fahim A. Knight-El can be reached at fahimknight@yahoo.com.

Stay Awake Until We Meet Again,
Fahim A. Knight-El