Social Media Toolkit
With Subu's final hearing just days away, your voice on social media can have an outsized impact. This toolkit gives you tools to share his story quickly and powerfully: ready-to-post graphics and captions for Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
The graphics to accompany each post are available in the linked Google folder below. Whether you have 50 followers or 5,000, every share expands the circle of people who know Subu's name and his story. We are deeply grateful for your support. It means everything to Subu and his family.
DIRECTIONS:
- If possible, please post one post per day between now and April 1st.
- Please use both the COPY and the suggested GRAPHICS
VERY IMPORTANT: As you share Subu's story, please keep your posts and comments positive and forward-looking. Focus on who Subu is: a man of extraordinary resilience, integrity, and community. Focus on what is possible: that on April 1st, a judge can choose to let him come home.
POST 1 COPY
The state of Pennsylvania stole four decades of Subu Vedam’s life after they hid crucial evidence, now the federal government wants to punish him for a mistake he made when he was 19 years old.
He served 21 times the sentence for selling LSD to a friend in 1982. In that time he tutored hundreds of young men, worked his way through 3 degrees under the harshest conditions, and was a pillar of his community far and wide. A judge now has a chance to let him come home.
Want to show up for Subu? If you're reading this before Sunday, we're holding a free WebEx training this Sunday, 3/29 at 7:30pm ET, for anyone who wants to attend Wednesday's hearing. Sign up for the Training: https://www.mobilize.us/paunited/event/929770/
Reading after Sunday? Visit our website for ongoing updates: https://freesubu.org/
#FreeSubu #WrongfulConviction #ImmigrationJustice #DueProcess #DiscretionToBeKind
RECOMMENDED GRAPHIC:
POST 2 COPY
In 1982, a 20-year-old man named Subu Vedam was accused of a murder he did not commit. Prosecutors had evidence that could have cleared him, and hid it.
He spent the next 44 years in a Pennsylvania prison. He twice turned down the chance for freedom through plea bargains, because he knew he was innocent.
Last August, a judge agreed: Subu's constitutional rights had been violated. His conviction was vacated. The DA dropped all remaining charges against Subu.
The very next day, as he was preparing to walk out after 43 years, he was transferred to ICE custody. Subu is now 64 years old and has been held in an immigration detention center for six months.
On Wednesday, April 1st at 1:30 pm ET, a judge will decide whether he is deported or freed. After 44 years, this is it.
Want to show up for Subu? If you're reading this before Sunday, we're holding a free WebEx training this Sunday, 3/29 at 7:30pm ET, for anyone who wants to attend Wednesday's hearing. Sign up for the Training: https://www.mobilize.us/paunited/event/929770/
Reading after Sunday? Visit our website for ongoing updates: https://freesubu.org/
#FreeSubu #WrongfulConviction #ImmigrationJustice #DueProcess #DiscretionToBeKind
RECOMMENDED GRAPHIC:
POST 3 COPY
This is not a story about what prison took from Subu Vedam. It's a story about what no one could take.
Most people, faced with 44 years of wrongful imprisonment, would survive. Subu Vedam built a life.
He co-founded the prison's first inmate-initiated Literacy Council and wrote a federal grant that turned it into a model adopted by prisons across the nation. He helped hundreds of fellow inmates earn their GEDs.
He counseled younger inmates. He wrote letters, kept up with current events, did yoga, stayed present. All of this in an 8x6 cell, for a crime he didn't commit.
He earned 55 certificates and diplomas and three university degrees, including an MBA with a 4.0 GPA, becoming the first inmate in the prison's 150-year history to earn a graduate degree.
Six months ago, a district attorney officially dropped all remaining charges against Subu.
Immediately after his release from prison, Subu was detained by ICE … before his family even got the chance to hug him.
Wednesday, April 1st at 1:30 pm ET, a judge will make the final ruling: freedom or deportation. After four decades of fighting, it comes down to this one moment.
Subu deserves justice, and your voice can help.
If you're reading this before Sunday: We're holding a free WebEx training this Sunday, 3/29 at 7:30pm ET, for anyone who wants to attend Wednesday's hearing. Sign up here: https://www.mobilize.us/paunited/event/929770/ Reading after Sunday? Visit our website for ongoing updates: https://freesubu.org/
#FreeSubu #WrongfulConviction #ImmigrationJustice #DiscretionToBeKind
RECOMMENDED GRAPHIC:
POST 4 COPY
Subu Vedam's mother visited him in prison every week for 34 years. She passed away in 2016, still waiting for justice.
His father, Dr. K. Vedam, Professor Emeritus of Physics, passed in 2009. Neither lived to see the day a judge finally agreed their son had been wrongfully convicted.
Subu has four nieces. He has stayed close to each of them through 15-minute phone calls, letters, and emails, offering advice on finances, careers, housing, all from a cell the size of a parking space.
He has never stopped being a son, an uncle, a mentor, a friend. He has simply done all of it from behind bars, for something he did not do.
Wednesday, April 1st at 1:30 pm ET, a judge will make the final ruling. After more than four decades of fighting, of appeals, of hope deferred, it comes down to this one moment.
You can help.
If you’re reading this before Sunday: We’re holding a free WebEx training this Sunday, 3/29 at 7:30pm ET, for anyone who wants to attend Wednesday's hearing. Sign up here: https://www.mobilize.us/paunited/event/929770/
Reading after Sunday? Visit our website for ongoing updates: https://freesubu.org/
#FreeSubu #WrongfulConviction #ImmigrationJustice #Justice #DiscretionToBeKind
RECOMMENDED GRAPHIC:
