University students and faculty, along with community members from across the state, will rally this Friday on the steps of the Capitol in Lansing. Unlike most demonstrators during this fall midterm election season, they will be showing support not for a political candidate or party, but instead for a group whose issues are significantly less visible in the public arena: battered women convicted of murder for killing their abusers.

The Battered Women's Clemency Project was founded by Susan Fair and is directed by a professor at the University, Carol Jacobsen. The Clemency Project works on behalf of women survivors of domestic violence who killed abusive partners in self-defense, but did not receive a fair trial and were convicted of murder and sentenced accordingly, often for life. Injustice in these cases came from the failure of the legal system - prosecutors, judges, jury instructions and even defense attorneys - to recognize these women's acts as self-defense.

During the past few decades, domestic violence has shifted in the public discourse from a strictly private issue to one of public concern. Legal understandings of domestic violence lag behind in this transition, leaving battered women vulnerable. A man kills an assailant in a bar fight, and self-defense seems clear. A woman kills an abusive husband or boyfriend who threatens to kill her if she leaves - and who nearly kills her while she stays - and the criminal-legal system fails to identify this as valid self-defense. The woman is convicted. All her appeals are denied. Only clemency is left.

The Battered Women's Clemency Project currently represents 20 women with petitions for clemency and hundreds of others in various ways, by supporting parole, appeals and adherence to human rights. The petitions will be submitted to Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who will make decisions about whether to grant clemency - which could mean release or shortened sentences - for each case. This summer, Granholm denied all clemency petitions on her desk; this fall, the Clemency Project will submit them again, accompanied with new materials and evidence. It is important that supporters make a strong showing for these women who have been abused by their partners, wronged by the legal system and have served numerous years toward sentences they did not deserve.

Once in prison, abuse continues. Prisons in the state of Michigan are among the worst in the nation, according to reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other organizations. Medical care for prisoners is abysmal: Two women affiliated with the Clemency Project have died within the past month, in part due to neglect of important medical concerns. Many mentally ill prisoners, along with others, are chained down in segregation units. In a recent catastrophe, a young man died in a pool of his own sweat and urine while chained down in a segregation unit that reached 106 degrees at Southern Michigan Prison in Jackson.

Our legal system has failed women; our prisons violate their basic human rights. Along with Clemency Project supporters, students in Jacobsen's Women's Studies/Art and Design 344 "Human Rights and Bodies in the World" class will attend the rally, demonstrating solidarity and calling for change through posters, performance and other projects. The October 6 rally will send a message to the Governor, and bring visibility to these issues. Self-defense is not a crime. Sentencing a survivor of violence to life is not justice, nor is subjecting prisoners to inhumane conditions. These issues have fallen under the public radar for far too long. We must break the silence, and the time is now.

Hooper is an LSA junior, a member of Prof. Carol Jacobsen's class and a participant in the Battered Women's Clemency Project.