For your "Peace Park" files, Ellen (sent to you personally).--Tom


Friday March 27 2:49 PM EST

Thousands demand release of prisoners

   WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) _ Some 2,000 protesters marched past the
   White House, using the timing of President Clinton's visit to a
   historic South African prison to demand freedom for some 150 U.S.
   ``political prisoners.''

   The protest in Lafayette Park today was organized by a coalition of
   political activist groups calling themselves ``Jericho '98,'' which
   contends that U.S. political prisoners have been neglected for as long
   as 30 years.

   They marched and rallied as South African President Nelson Mandela,
   thousands of miles away, walked Clinton through the prison on Robben
   Island, just off the coast of Cape Town, where Mandela was held for 18
   of his 27 years in jail.

   Safiya Bukhari, national coordinator of ``Jericho '98,'' said, ``It
   took 27 years of imprisonment for Nelson Mandela to gain his freedom
   and lead South Africa into the 21st century.

   ``One of our objectives is to make sure that the United States
   government itself does not continue to get away with denying that
   political prisoners exist in this country.''

   The demonstrators cited some 150 jailed blacks, Puerto Ricans, native
   Americans, Mexican Americans, Hawaiians and others.

   They include members of the Black Panther party, which was founded in
   1966 as an advocate of ``self-defense'' for black people in the face
   of racist assaults by police and other government agents.

   Members of such groups were investigated and tried in the 1960s and
   1970s under the FBI program known as ``COINTELPRO,'' or counter-
   intelligence program.

   _-

   Copyright 1998 by United Press International.

   All rights reserved.

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