USA - Pennsylvania. Abu-Jamal Off Death Row: "His present conditions are actually worse than when he was on death row”

Abu-Jamal Off Death Row: "His present conditions are actually worse than when he was on death row”, his supporters say. Abu-Jamal, convicted in the 1981 killing of police officer Daniel Faulkner, was liberated from death row last month when the district attorney in Philadelphia said he would not seek a new death penalty hearing for Abu-Jamal. When Abu-Jamal is transferred to the general prison population, "he'll . . . be permitted to have contact visits for the first time in three decades," the New York Amsterdam News noted on Friday. But according to freemumia.com, "Mumia Abu-Jamal is being held in Administrative Custody ('The Hole' or Solitary Confinement) at SCI Mahanoy, Frackville, PA. Mumia’s death sentence has been dropped, and though he is supposed to be in General Population, he has been held in Solitary Confinement — shackled whenever he’s [outside] his cell (even to the shower), glaring lights 24/7, no regular phone calls, restrictive visits, inadequate commissary, no access to his materials and denied his typewriter." "SCI" stands for "state correctional institution." Prison Radio added this week, "His present conditions are actually worse than they were on death row at SCI Greene. Please join us in our call for Mumia to be immediately transferred into general population." Relayed this description of Abu-Jamal's circumstances, Sue Bensinger, deputy press secretary at the Frackville prison, told Journal-isms by telephone, "I'm not going to discuss in detail one particular inmate," adding that the prison holds thousands. "We just house them. We just care for whatever the court sends us."