Image by Pete Collins, imprisoned at Bath Prison, Ontario, Canada
Follow us on twitter! For fresh updates from the rally & hearing in Sacramento, follow Whitney86 or search #PBHearing.
For a live audio broadcast of the hearing, visit the CA State Assembly’s website: Tues, August 23rd from 1:30-3:30 PST
For a thorough summary of the hunger strike thus far, check out Hunger Strike Recap: CA prisoners Showed the Way!
Tuesday August 23rd, Statewide Mobilization to Sacramento: Day of Action to Support the Hunger Strike & 5 Core Demands!
(Please note the location change to South Steps)
Family and community members across the West Coast will mobilize to Sacramento for a rally and legislative hearing at the State Assembly. Rally starts at 11:30 am on the South Steps of the State Assembly Building. Hearing starts at 1:30 pm, room to be announced. Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition urges everyone concerned about the torturous conditions in California’s prisons to attend this hearing (more ways to support). For more information, email prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity@gmail.com. For carpools from Bay Area, meet at West Oakland BART station at 10am. For more support with transportation (from the Bay Area) call 415.637.8195; (from Southern California) 714-290-9077 or email prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity@gmail.com.
On Wednesday, August 17th, a dozen or so reporters were given unprecedented access to the Secure Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay. Given that there was a near media blackout by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation while the prisoners were actively on hunger strike, this is a testimony to the pressure that’s being placed on CDCR. The tour, coming in advance of the legislative hearing in Sacramento on August 23rd, was also a chance for CDCR to do some damage control in terms of its image.
Some coverage generated by the tour are listed below:
Inside Pelican Bay State Prison’s ‘Secure Housing Unit’: KPCC with Julie Small
To read first-hand information from prisoners about what it’s like to be housed in the SHU, please visit our Voices From Inside Page.
On August 23rd, San Francisco Representative Tom Ammiano and the Public Safety Committee in the State Assembly of CA will hold an informational hearing on conditions and policies of the Security Housing Units at Pelican Bay. This is a major opportunity for supporters outside of prison to support the hunger strike and to pressure state legislators and the CDCR to make substantial changes.
More Info on Statewide Mobilization & Solidarity Actions & Events Nationally
Support families & community members to give testimony on the conditions of the SHUs and amplify the voices of the thousands of prisoners across California!
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
If you’re in California or on the West Coast:
If you’re outside of California:
**For Supporters Everywhere: We encourage all supporters to continue spreading the word about the strike and the upcoming hearing, through emails, facebook, text-messages, twitter–all tools of social media and communication. We also encourage supports to continue writing prisoners and sharing words of support, encouragement, and updates on the strike and statewide mobilization to Sacramento for the hearing. Click here for more info to write to the hunger strike representatives.
We received a letter from Todd Ashker, one of the hunger strike leaders at Pelican Bay, dated July 24th, 2011. He says the hunger strikers are giving the CDCR 2-3 weeks from July 20th to come up with some substantive changes in response to their five core demands. If the CDCR does not follow through, prisoners at Pelican Bay plan to go back on hunger strike. Todd writes:
“It’s very important that our supporters know where we stand, and that CDCR knows that we’re not going to go for any B.S. We remain as serious about our stand now as we were at the start, and mean what we said regarding an indefinite hunger strike peaceful protest until our demands are met. I repeat–we’re simply giving CDCR a brief grace period in response to their request for the opportunity to get [it] right in a timely fashion! We’ll see where things stand soon enough!”
We have also received information from prisoners at other prisons. Many prisoners are just now receiving letters sharing updates on the strike from July 15th. However, supporters outside prison have received confirmation that prisoners across the state are no longer refusing food since the leaders at Pelican Bay agreed to the CDCR’s offer on July 20th. According to prisoners who were striking at Centinela, the majority of hunger strikers work in the prison’s kitchen and lost their jobs for participating in the strike. Many prisoners who were coming up for review by the parole board are now worried their participation and support of the strike will result in denied parole.
These updates from Pelican Bay and Centinela mean the legislative hearing coming up on August 23rd is incredibly important, and a serious opportunity for outside supporters to apply pressure on the CDCR and state legislature to make substantial changes. Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity and hunger strike supporters throughout California are calling for a statewide mobilization to Sacramento for the Legislative Hearing, and for supporters everywhere to continue supporting the strike. Click here to hear more ways people can support the strike and statewide mobilization to Sacramento.
Today supporters in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago and New York are holding rallies and speak-outs as part of a national day in support of the hunger strike, asking for all five core demands to be met, and for no retaliation against any and all prisoners who participated in the strike.
Supporters are also continuing to show support by participating in rolling fasts, writing letters to legislators, and words of encouragement and support to prisoners. Last week, more than 150 religious communities of Roman Catholic nuns mailed in letters of support of the prisoners’ requests to the governor of CA. The communities ranges from the Congregation of St. Joseph to the Loretto Sisters to the Sisters of Mercy. Each religious community represents from 100-18,000 nuns nationally and internationally. These representatives say: “We are with each of the prisoners and their supporters and loved ones in this struggle and extend our prayers of love, peace and support.”
Tactics of extreme isolation, social deprivation and torturous conditions are used throughout the US. [At least 60 super-maximum security prisons are operated in 44 states of the US]. People locked up throughout all prisons continuously resist repression and torture everyday, often working together in forms of both spontaneous and well-organized massive resistance.
Days within the Hunger Strike in CA ending, the Department of Corrections in Indiana put all the state prisons on lock-down in response to a stabbing no doubt instigated by guards. Prisoners in Indiana’s SHU joined together in resistance once the prison administration cut off all electricity and water in the prisons. Supporters are calling for an emergency call-in day today & tomorrow in solidarity with the Wabash protesters.
As we approach the 40th Anniversary of the Attica Rebellion this September, we’re reminded of the decades before us of prisoners working together across prison-manufactured racial divisions, resisting brutal conditions of isolation, torture and imprisonment. We’re reminded of the long and tireless fight for humanity to be recognized. The hunger strike that started at Pelican Bay and swept across CA’s prisons system has rejuvenated years and years of anti-prison and human rights’ work throughout the US and internationally, galvanizing support and collaboration inside and outside prison walls.
After hunger strike leaders reached an agreement last week with the CDCR to end the hunger strike that swept across California’s prison system, prisoners have started to transition to eating food again. However this transition is both brutal and confusing.
After not eating for four weeks, it is very hard to begin eating solid food again right away, so many prisoners are in need of more medical care than the prisons can provide. Medical staff at the prisons were already overwhelmed by general conditions of overcrowding in the state’s prisons, and even further overwhelmed by this massive protest. While the medical staff supposedly need to follow certain protocols assisting hunger strikers’ transition to eating solid food, provision of basic medical care is exhausted, unreliable and ineffective.
Family members and supporters are anxiously waiting confirmation on whether or not prisoners are continuing the strike at other prisons. When the hunger strike spread to at least 13 prisons, and at least 6,600 people across the state were participating, it was clear that prisoners joining were doing so in solidarity with the demands from Pelican Bay due to the brutal conditions they are held in resembling the conditions of Pelican Bay. For instance, prisoners at Calipatria have explained that they joined the hunger strike specifically in protest of the torturous formal and informal policies of group punishment, gang validation and debriefing–practices also imposed at Calipatria. Prisoners at Calipatria are now transitioning to eating food again, according to family members of prisoners participating in the hunger strike.
There has been some mention of prisoners at Corcoran and Tehachapi continuing the strike to expose specific issues at these particular institutions, but supporters do not have confirmation, such as how many prisoners are still refusing food and for what specific reasons or demands [In the early days of the hunger strike, prisoners at the SHU in Corcoran released this statement explaining why they were in solidarity with the demands from Pelican Bay, but we have not heard of other specifics beside medical updates since]
Outside community organizations that correspond with prisoners are scurrying to send in updates on the strike and confirming the agreement between the strike leaders at Pelican Bay and the CDCR, but since the CDCR relies heavily on denying mail as a tool of isolation and political repression, supporters are unsure if their messages are getting through.
As mentioned yesterday, the hunger strike leaders at Pelican Bay released a written statement providing some explanation for their reasoning behind accepting the CDCR’s deal. Their concerns include not wanting fellow prisoners to die. At least 17 hunger strikers at Pelican Bay, including 3 of the 11 leaders, were transferred to Corcoran for supposed medical reasons, however the CDCR failed to mention that Corcoran got clearance to begin forced-feeding days before hunger strike leaders accepted the CDCR’s offer, a clear threat of what could happen to the leadership and their comrades if they did not agree to the CDCR’s terms.
While the concessions may seem too small to claim a victory, it’s important for people outside prison to understand the weight for prisoners who have been held in the SHU for decades of now being able to stay a little warmer, and to be able to keep track of time since they have no windows and the fluorescent lights are on 24 hours of every day. More so, worldwide support and momentous courage of thousands of prisoners to risk their lives effectively pressured the CDCR to sit at the same table and look prisoners in the face and offer a deal, after refusing to negotiate for weeks and insisting prisoners are less-than human.
Yesterday, dozens of supporters gathered on a continental conference call in support of the hunger strike, and discussed how to move forward now and keep pressure on the CDCR to implement the necessary changes brought to the world’s attention by the strike.
One focus of the conference call became mobilizing for the legislative hearings on August 23rd, a hearing on the SHU at Pelican Bay that will be held by the Public Safety Committee of the CA State Assembly in Sacramento. Many supporters are focusing on coordinating (inter)national days of action leading up to the legislative hearing periodically throughout the next few weeks. If you are interested in coordinating an action in a city or town near you in coordination with events in other cities, please contact us and we’ll get you in touch with other supporters organizing days of action. Read notes from the conference call here.
World Can’t Wait is calling for an International Day of Action on Monday, August 1st. Click here for more information.
As we work to consolidate a growing movement against solitary confinement, torture and all violence, we need to support all prisoners and political leaders locked up in prisons, jails and detention centers internationally. In the next few days, make sure to support Leonard Peltier, who has been locked up for more than 30 years and is currently in solitary confinement in Pennsylvania, by calling and emailing prison officials and demand that Leonard Peltier be immediately released from solitary and returned to the general population at USP-Lewisburg. Click here for contact information
The Short Corridor Collective, representatives of the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike leaders, released a statement explaining their reasoning behind accepting the CDCR’s offer and ending the hunger strike. Click here to read the full statement.
As this struggle enters a new phase post-initial-negotiation with the CDCR, supporters outside prison are called on to carry this fight and make sure that the CDCR follows through with its offer of good faith. Supporters everywhere are called on to continue to amplify prisoners’ voices, and to strengthen our ties and connections to better consolidate a growing movement against imprisonment, torture, and all violence. Please keep encouraging everyone you know to refer to this website as a source for information regarding the hunger strike, and the ongoing work to win the five core demands presented by the Pelican Bay hunger strikers. Click here for upcoming events and actions.
The message from Hunger Striking prisoners across California this week is clear: Support from people on the outside is more important than ever.
As reported earlier today, mediators from Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity’s Mediation team spoke with hunger strike leaders at Pelican Bay and confirmed the leaders have accepted an offer from the CDCR.
At the same time, hunger strikers in other prisons continue to refuse food – in at least CCI Tehachapi, Corcoran and Calipatria. It is unclear how long they will continue, if they are aware of the agreement or even believe anything the CDCR claims given their history of deliberate misinformation campaigns.
What is clear is that any and all actions planned in support of the Hunger Strike and the prisoner’s demands needs to go forward as planned. We need to exert even greater pressure on the Governor’s office to force him to recognize the victories declared by leaders at Pelican Bay, the continuation of strikes throughout the system, and the need to implement real, measurable improvements to conditions as soon as possible.
Please check back here for updated information about specific demands. As family members and attorneys get ready for a full slate of weekend visits, we will share updates as we have them.
