Judith Alice Clark is freed from prison. Sentenced to 75 years in retribution for the deaths of a security guard and police in the Brinks robbery of October 20, 1981, she didn't fire a weapon but was an accomplice to a resistance action. With evidence of her re-forming her life and priorities New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo granted her clemency in 2016 which allowed her parole; there was considerable protest from police groups; the Governor's mercy was not immediately honored. At her parole hearing of April 2017 parole was denied. At her parole hearing in April 2019 parole was granted and on May 10 she left prison. David Gilbert remains in prison. Sentenced to life in prison for being part of the Brinks robbery he's eligible for parole in 2056 (Wikipedia). He was found guilty of three counts of felony murder, which is to say he's considered complicit in the deaths of the shootouts though he didn't commit them. The severity of his sentence under mitigating circumstances is understood as 20th Century punishment for the black and white alliance of the action, and his concern for people as opposed to the system. From his court statement on September 13, 1982: The government that dropped napalm in Vietnam, that provides the cluster bombs used against civilians in Lebanon, and that trains torturers in El Salvador calls us 'terrorists.' The rulers who have grown rich on generations of slave labor and slave wages...label us as 'criminals.' The police forces of Amerika who have murdered 2,000 [people of color] over the past five years and who flood the communities with drugs say that we 'have no respect for human lives.' / We are neither terrorists nor criminals. It is precisely because of our love of life, because we revel in the human spirit, that we became freedom fighters against this racist and deadly imperialist system. [David Gilbert. Love and Struggle Oakland: PM Press, 2012].
Sundiata Acoli: (please note previous). Sundiata Acoli became a prisoner in 1973 after surviving a shootout with police which killed an officer and fellow Panther.  Sundiata Acoli was charged with their death and convicted. Assata Shakur also survived the shootout and was convicted of killing the same police officer. She subsequently escaped from prison. Sundiata Acoli was eligible for parole in 1992, with court ordered parole in 2014, but the state appealed and in 2017 the appeals board again refused his parole. His next parole hearing date would be 2032. The length of his incarceration and reversals of parole at his age are cruel and unusual punishment. His closeness to Assata Shakur and his recent parole board hearing's focus on extracting information suggest parole is withheld to make him provide information. Dr. Mutulu Shakur, whose convictions include helping Assata Shakur escape, also remains in prison without parole as the government attempts to make him confess to masterminding the escape. His release is similarly denied. Marilyn Buck, whose convictions included aiding Assata Shakur's escape, contracted cancer at FCI Dublin, suddenly, was slow to be treated and died soon after in 2003 (she was allowed to die outside confinement).
Imam Jamil Al-Amin: on May 3rd in Atlanta oral arguments were presented the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals requesting Al-Amin be granted a re-trial. He was convicted of a crime someone else confessed to and where as a suspect he was falsely identified. He was sentenced to life without parole. In the south persecution of COINTELPRO targets deprived victims of any federal protection to balance the systemic racism. News reports of Al-Amin and his condition remain heavily suppressed by U.S. media. A leader of SNCCand the Black Panther Party as H. Rap Brown in the old days, while serving time in Attica he became a devout Muslim, and subsequently a deeply respected Imam.
Dr. Rafil Dhafir, moved while infirm to be among the many New York City prisoners subject to freezing temperatures at the particularly toxic Riker's Island prison in New York (previous), was subsequently moved to a maximum security unit in Pennsylvania. He was moved again to a minimum security unit in Pennsylvania. The doctor was convicted for financial crimes after providing through the charity he founded medical supplies to Iraqi children victims of U.S. bombing while U.S. sanctions were in place. These were not sanctions as an alternative to 'bombing Iraq into the stone age' but post bombing sanctions which deprived a starving people recovery, food, medical supplies. Dr. Dhafir tried to stand against an attempted genocide of the Iraqi people when few others would confront the issue. In Spain an attempt to open a case at the Audiencia Nacional de España, 2009, alleging genocide in Iraq by British and U.S. leaders was not successful. Dr. Dhafir was convicted in 2005 to 22 years; on appeal his resentencing in 2012 reinstated his original sentence and according to the FBI required $865,272.76 in restitution. For nonviolent action as an affirmation of life and compassion, his early time was served at ADX Florence, a maximum security prison where prisoners were kept in 23 hour lockdown and required to be in shackles when they left their cells. Constructed next to a toxic nuclear waste dump known to be leaking throughout the 1980's, ADX Florence is considered by prisoner reports as particularly dangerous to health (Other political prisoners confined at ADX Florence have included Oscar López Rivera, Raymond Luc Levasseur, Imam Al-Amin, Abu Hamza al-Masri, Fahad Hashmi).
I include here one of many Mexican political prisoners imprisoned in Mexico showing a standard tactic of unjust government which criminalizes and neutralizes community leaders of oppressed minorities. Librado Jacinto Baños Rodríguez, community legal defender and attorney, defender of indigenous rights, campesino rights, the rights of those with African ancestry, community rights, was falsely arrested in Oaxaca Mexico by 50 Mexican military and police cadre on August 25, 2013, despite protests by the villagers. During his imprisonment described as physical and psychological torture the legal defender lost his eyesight. The UN has protested his false arrest and that of other legal rights defenders in Oaxaca. He was acquitted on a charge of kidnapping. Treatments of legal rights and human rights defenders in Mexico is entirely suppressed in the English speaking media. In late October 2018 Librado Jacinto Baños Rodríguez and Felipe Rojas Orduño were released from prison.

Partial sources online: Wikipedia; "Former Black Panther serving life sentence for murder denied release," Renée Feltz, Nov. 29,2016, The Guardian; "Free Imam Jamil Al-Amin!" Dianne Mathiowetz, May 9, 2019, /Mundo Obrero / Workers World; "Legal campaign launched for Imam Jamil Al-Amin," Askia Muhammad, April 2, 2019, The Final Call; "México: Librado Baños finalmente en libertad tras más de 5 años de detención arbitraria," Oct. 23, 2018, Federacion Internacional por los Derechos Humanos; "Dhafir Ordered to Serve 264-Month Jail Term on Resentencing," Press release, feb. 3, 2012, Albany Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation; "How prisons are poisoning their inmates," Michael Waters, July 23, 2018, The Outline; "The Environmental Concerns of Closing a Toxic Island," Caitlin Hickey, Nov. 22, 2017, Fordham Environmental Law Review.



- J.B.Gerald, Gerald and Maas nightslantern.ca