In Pennsylvania, imprisoned journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal has been taken to the intensive care unit of a local hospital after he was removed from prison for a medical emergency without notification to his family, friends or lawyers. Friends say they were told he was in “diabetic shock,” but they have so far been unable to visit him or obtain any details. Noelle Hanrahan, producer of Prison Radio, which distributes Abu-Jamal’s commentaries from prison, spoke to Democracy Now! from the hospital.

Noelle Hanrahan: “We are standing in the ICU waiting room. We are at the nurses’ desk. We can see his room. We cannot see him. I am looking at phalanx of police officers. Four are guarding his room. The curtain is pulled across. He is trying to access whatever healthcare they have for him, and it has been woefully inadequate, and we are deeply, deeply concerned about this. They don’t take people to outside hospitals. This is not standard operating procedure. You have to be extraordinarily sick to be moved, period.”

Abu-Jamal’s transfer came the same day as a court hearing on a Pennsylvania law he says tramples his free speech. The law was introduced after Abu-Jamal gave a pretaped commencement address at Vermont’s Goddard College. It authorizes the censoring of prisoners’ public addresses if a judge agrees the speech would cause “mental anguish” to victims.