“Even on death row, he is still thinking about others!”
Cornel West at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia December 9 speaks in support of Mumia Abu Jamal.
Archive for the ‘prison’ Category
Cornel West on Mumia: His spirit has not been broken! Free him!
Posted by Mike E on December 11, 2011
Posted in African American, anti-racist action, civil liberties, Mumia Abu-Jamal, prison | 1 Comment »
Mumia Abu-Jamal no longer facing execution
Posted by onehundredflowers on December 7, 2011
This was originally posted on NewsOne.
MUMIA SPARED! No Death Penalty For Mumia Abu-Jamal
Written by Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors have called off their 30-year battle to put former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal to death in the killing of a white police officer, putting to an end the racially charged case that became a major battleground in the fight over the death penalty.
Flanked by the police Officer Daniel Faulkner’s widow, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced his decision Wednesday.
“There’s never been any doubt in my mind that Mumia Abu-Jamal shot and killed Officer Faulkner. I believe that the appropriate sentence was handed down by a jury of his peers in 1982,” said Williams, who is black. “While Abu-Jamal will no longer be facing the death penalty, he will remain behind bars for the rest of his life, and that is where he belongs.”
Abu-Jamal was convicted of fatally shooting Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981. He was sentenced to death after his trial the following year.
Abu-Jamal, who has been incarcerated in a western Pennsylvania prison, has garnered worldwide support from those who believe he was the victim of a biased justice system.
The conviction was upheld through years of legal appeals. But a federal appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing after ruling the instructions given to the jury were potentially misleading.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to weigh in on the case in October. That forced prosecutors to decide if they wanted to again pursue the death penalty through a new sentencing hearing or accept a life sentence.
Posted in >> analysis of news, Black Panthers, politics, racism, police, African American, political prisoners, prison, Mumia Abu-Jamal, death penalty, civil liberties, repression | 2 Comments »
Cops part of the 99 percent?! Who do they really serve and protect?
Posted by Mike E on October 22, 2011
Shame: the beating of the people!
The following article, from Party for Socialism and Liberation expresses a long-standing common view held by radical socialists, communists and Marxists on the role and nature of cop. It was written by a participant in the Oct. 1 Occupy Wall Street march on the Brooklyn Bridge, and among the 700 protesters trapped and arrested there.
Kasama is publishing it here to raise two questions: Is this analysis essentially nuanced enough to capture the reality it explores — do cops have a basic role that is fundamentally opposed to progressive and radical politics that they are unlikely to break to of? And if so, how will a generation of diverse new activists come to embrace such views — will it help that they are pressured to adopt them in repeated sharp debates between liberals and radicals, will the common adoption come as pepole learn in practice the loyalties of police and local officials to the capitalist system (and its 1% masters)?
Kasama believe a debate over the facts (the nature of the police) and on method (how we settle differences over this within the movement) deserve to be carried out with some patience, openmindedness and urgency.
Posted in >> analysis of news, Occupy Wall Street, police, politics, poverty, prison, repression, riots | 23 Comments »
DAY OF OUTRAGE FOR TROY DAVIS
Posted by kasama on September 22, 2011
Thanks to Vanissa W. Chan for working to get this around.
WE ARE ALL TROY DAVIS!
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL & ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!!
Location: Union Square, New York City
Time: 5:00 PM Thursday, September 22
Add other local activities in the thread below.
Posted in >> analysis of news, anti-racist action, capitalism, civil liberties, police, political prisoners, prison, racism, repression | 5 Comments »
Troy Davis and the Politics of State Murder
Posted by onehundredflowers on September 20, 2011
This comes from The Nation.
The Killing of Troy Davis
The Editors
If the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has its way, Troy Anthony Davis will be killed by lethal injection at 7 pm on September 21. His body will be carried out of the maximum-security prison in Jackson, the word “homicide” printed on his death certificate—the thirty-fourth US prisoner put to death this year.
The killing of Troy Davis would mark a devastating end to a case that inspired a global mobilization against the death penalty. Davis, 42, has faced execution four times in the past four years for a 1989 murder in Savannah, despite serious doubts about his guilt. His conviction hinged on nine witnesses—no physical evidence linked him to the crime—seven of whom later recanted their testimony. Some described being coerced by police. Others point to a different man—the eighth witness, who first implicated Davis—as the real killer. “If I knew then what I know now,” juror Brenda Forrest said in 2009, “Troy Davis would not be on death row.”
Forrest was one of several people who met with members of the pardons board on September 19 to plead for Davis’s life. Others included Davis’s nephew De’Juan, who grew up visiting his uncle on death row and whose mother, Davis’s sister Martina Correia, has been his most tireless defender, while also battling breast cancer. Davis’s more high-profile supporters range from the pope to former FBI director William Sessions, who wrote recently, “It is for cases like this that executive clemency exists.”
But Davis is a black man convicted of killing a white police officer—and in Southern and Northern states alike, this fact alone will trump all others. “Race is everything in this case,” Georgia Congressman John Lewis declared in September 2008, on a day when Davis came within two hours of lethal injection.
Posted in >> analysis of news, African American, civil liberties, death penalty, police, prison, racism | Tagged: Troy Davis | 8 Comments »
Troy Davis: A Miscarriage of Justice
Posted by onehundredflowers on September 14, 2011
Posted in >> analysis of news, African American, death penalty, police, prison, racism, repression | Tagged: Troy Davis | Leave a Comment »
Stop the Execution of Troy Davis!
Posted by onehundredflowers on September 14, 2011
Posted in >> analysis of news, African American, death penalty, police, prison, racism, repression | Tagged: Troy Davis | Leave a Comment »
Song of the undefeated: Peat-bog soldiers of Nazi camps
Posted by kasama on September 1, 2011
A beloved revolutionary song written as the communist captives (after 1933) endured forced labor at gunpoint – in the first prototype Nazi concentration camps — extracting peat from vast desolate bogs. This became an anthem during the Spanish civil war and has been sung through the anti-Nazi struggle of the following decades.
It was first written and performed by the prisoners themselves (in the grim bog-land Nazi concentration camps of Lower Saxony in Germany).
Posted in political prisoners, prison, video | 1 Comment »
Essay from Prison: Proletarian or lumpen approach for Afrikan liberation in U.S.
Posted by kasama on August 30, 2011
Worker at North Carolina meat packing plant
“The revolutionary worker doesn’t swagger or boast and has little sense of ego. He or she is serious-minded and self-disciplined. The revolutionary knows that like a strike, the revolutionary struggle must be a united mass struggle, and that it will take quite some time to succeed….
“In contrast to the proletarian’s practice and outlook, the lumpen schemes and preys upon others to acquire survival needs and personal wealth, which renders him or her indifferent to the effects visited upon others and society as a whole….
“Translated into the revolutionary movement, the lumpen tendency has some thinking that militant swaggering, posturing, and ”talking shit,” is acceptable behavior for revolutionaries, which is very wrong and demonstrates political immaturity and lack of a true proletarian outlook.”
* * * * * * * *
The following essay recently appeared on the Democracy and Class Struggle — with the following introduction:
“Democracy and Class Struggle publishes this paper of Comrade Kevin “Rashid” Johnson because a lot of the message in this article is relevant to the struggle in Britain in 2011. The question of a Vanguard Party and its engagement with the Lumpen Proletariat is addressed in this article,these are key questions in the current Uprising in Britain in 2011.”
Kasama is sharing this essay here without (as usual) endorsing this specific analysis. We are not previously aware of this organization, New Afrikan Black Panther Party. On Rashid’s own site the original name of this essay is “The New Afrikan Black Panther Party – Prison Chapter: Our Line.” More on Rashid and his writings can also be found on kersplebedeb‘s valuable website.
By Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson (Defense Minister, NBPP-PC)
Introduction
In this paper, we outline the political and ideological line of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party – Prison Chapter.
The NABPP-PC, an all Afrikan people’s revolutionary party, proposes through its work and example to spread its line to the general NABPP on the outside, and to all revolutionary-minded New Afrikans, and Ultimately to expand the Party into a broad international vanguard of all Afrikan people the world over. We are in full accord with the analysis set forward in ‘The Panther and the Elephant,” which this paper intends to further illuminate..
The Vanguard Party
As a vehicle for coordinating masses of people for action, organization is necessary. Planning is necessary, and so is assigning roles and tasks to those most capable of performing them, and holding them accountable for performing their assigned tasks completely and to the best of their abilities. Coordinating the activities of the active forces of the Afrikan Nation in America towards the achievement of full democracy and national liberation requires a genuine vanguard party based among the masses. No revolutionary or genuine national independence struggle has ever succeeded without a party to organize and coordinate the energy of the struggling people into focused result-oriented action.
Posted in >> analysis of news, Black History, Black Panthers, political prisoners, prison, revolution, vanguard party, working class | 2 Comments »
Dylan and George Jackson: Remembering Black August
Posted by Mike E on August 29, 2011
These are the last days of Black August 2011…. remembering George today and forever.
I can still taste my own tears on the moment we heard the terrible news. I remember our meetings where we asked each other how we could fill his place.
Gina climbed on a table in the factory, stopped the line, and explained to fellow workers the bitter killing that had gone down. In darkness across our city (and many cities) people worked to spread the word — with posters, spray-painting….. And more. There was more.
Posted in African American, anti-racist action, Black History, Black Panthers, cointelpro, communism, fascism, George Jackson, lynching, political prisoners, prison, repression, revolution | 1 Comment »
Joe Hill: Wounded for love, killed for revolution
Posted by kasama on August 28, 2011
Joe Hill
New evidence exposing the state frameup and murder of IWW martyr Joe Hill was reported today in the New York Times.
Examining a Labor Hero’s Death
Hilda Erickson, Joe Hill's love, wrote a letter that might explain what really happened the night of the killing.
August 26, 2011–At Woodstock, Joan Baez sang a famous folk ballad celebrating Joe Hill, the itinerant miner, songwriter and union activist who was executed by a Utah firing squad in 1915. “I never died, said he” is the song’s refrain.
Hill’s status as a labor icon and the debate about his conviction certainly never died. And now a new biography makes the strongest case yet that Hill was wrongfully convicted of murdering a local grocer, the charge that led to his execution at age 36.
The book’s author, William M. Adler, argues that Hill was a victim of authorities and a jury eager to deal a blow to his radical labor union, as well as his own desire to protect the identity of his sweetheart.
A Salt Lake City jury convicted Hill largely because of one piece of circumstantial evidence: he had suffered a gunshot wound to the chest on the same night — Jan. 10, 1914 — that the grocer and his son were killed. At the trial, prosecutors argued that he had been shot by the grocer’s son, and Hill refused to offer any alternative explanation.
Mr. Adler uncovered a long-forgotten letter from Hill’s sweetheart that said that he had been shot by a rival for her affections, undermining the prosecution’s key assertion. The book, “The Man Who Never Died,” also offers extensive evidence suggesting that an early suspect in the case, a violent career criminal, was the murderer.
Hill, who bounced around the West as a miner, longshoreman and union organizer, was the leading songwriter for the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the Wobblies, a prominent union that was widely feared and deplored for its militant tactics. He penned dozens of songs that excoriated bosses and capitalism and wrote the well-known lyric “You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.”
Posted in >> analysis of news, labor, labor history, organizing, political prisoners, prison, repression, trade unions, working class | 19 Comments »
Demand an Evacuation Plan for NYC Riker’s Island Prisoners!
Posted by onehundredflowers on August 27, 2011
This comes from the ALAA Roots site.
Take Action for Rikers’ Island Prisoners! Demand the City Create an Emergency Evacuation Plan
Mayor Bloomberg has announced that in the event of a hurricane, that he will not evacuate prisoners at Rikers’ Island, claiming instead to have a “contingency plan” in place. The experience of prisoners in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina shows that city authorities will abandon the basic rights of prisoners in the face of disaster.
We can’t let Bloomberg get away with this!
(1.) Demand the city create an emergency evacuation plan by 5pm today to evacuate prisoners at Rikers Island in the event that other areas in Zone B or C around Rikers Island are evacuated.
Call NYC Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs at (212) 788-2485
lgibbs@cityhall.nyc.gov
Twitter: @NYCMayorsOffice
(2.) Call on NY1 to investigate the status of the “contingency plan” for Rikers Island prisoners:
http://www.ny1.com/content/contact_us/
Tel.: 212-691-6397
(3.) Submit evacuation plan demand to city’s website:
-Go to http://nycsevereweather.crowdmap.com/reports/submit/ –this is a website set up by the city for people to submit weather-related service problems. Locate Rikers Island on the map and drag the red marker there.
-Copy and paste this text (or write your own!):
Title: Evacuation plan needed
The city has no evacuation plan for Rikers Island, despite its low elevation and its nearly 13,000 prisoners. Please do not let these individuals, or the ones at the nearby floating Vernon C. Bain Correction Center, suffer.
(4.) Please repost:
http://solitarywatch.com/2011/08/26/locked-up-and-left-behind-new-yorks-prisoners-and-hurricane-irene/
Locked Up and Left Behind: New York’s Prisoners and Hurricane Irene
Posted in >> analysis of news, Natural disaster, police, prison | Tagged: Bloomberg, Hurricane Irene, Riker's Island | 2 Comments »
Locked Up and Left Behind: Hurricane Irene and the Prisoners on New York’s Rikers Island
Posted by onehundredflowers on August 27, 2011
Riker's Island endangered and neglected; click on the image for an enlarged view
This comes from Solitary Watch.
According to the New York City Department of Corrections’ own website, more than three-quarters of Rikers Island’s 400 acres are built on landfill–which is generally thought to be more vulnerable to natural disasters. Its ten jails have a capacity of close to 17,000 inmates, and normally house at least 12,000, including juveniles and large numbers of prisoners with mental illness–not to mention pre-trial detainees who have yet to be convicted of any crime.
by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway
“We are not evacuating Rikers Island,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a news conference this afternoon. Bloomberg annouced a host of extreme measures being taken by New York City in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Irene, including a shutdown of the public transit system and the unprecedented mandatory evacuation of some 250,000 people from low-lying areas. But in response to a reporter’s question, the mayor stated in no uncertain terms (and with more than a hint of annoyance) that one group of New Yorkers on vulnerable ground will be staying put.
New York City is surrounded by small islands and barrier beaches, and a glance at the city’s evacuation map reveals all of them to be in Zone A (already under a mandatory evacuation order) or Zone B–all, that is, save one. Rikers Island, which lies in the waters between Queens and the Bronx, is not highlighted at all, meaning it is not to be evacuated under any circumstances.
Posted in >> analysis of news, Natural disaster, police, prison | Tagged: Bloomberg, Hurricane Irene, New York City, Riker's Island | 2 Comments »
George Jackson: Eyes on Communist Revolution
Posted by onehundredflowers on August 21, 2011
George Jackson was first known nationally through his book of letters Soledad Brother – a searing indictment of capitalism and U.S. prisons. However, he felt that his edge had been blunted (i.e. revised away) at the editorial stage. And so he wrote Blood in My Eye — a revolutionary and communist manifesto that defies anyone to misunderstand its purpose.
These works deserve to be engaged by everyone serious about ending forever the criminal rampage of U.S. imperialism. Here are a few quotations from George Jackson followed by a brief biography. We publish this in memory of George Jackson’s assassination by prison guards in San Quentin prison, August 1971.
“[The system] also breeds contempt for the oppressed. Accrual of contempt is its fundamental survival technique. This leads to the excesses and destroys any hope of peace eventually being worked out between the two antagonistic classes, the haves and the have-nots. Coexistence is impossible, contempt breeds resistance, and resistance breeds brutality, the whole growing in spirals that must either end in the uneconomic destruction of the oppressed or the termination of oppression.” (Jackson 1972: 182).
“Our purpose here is to understand the essence of this living, moving thing so that we will understand how to move against it.” (Blood in My Eye)
“Revolution is against the law….. I am an extremist, a communist (not communistic, a communist), and I must be destroyed or I will join my comrades in the only communist party in this country, the Black Panther Party. I will give them my all, every dirty fight trick in the annals of war.” “Classes at War,” Blood in My Eye
“To the slave, revolution is an imperative, a love-inspired, conscious act of desperation. It’s aggressive. It isn’t `cool’ or cautious. It’s bold, audacious, violent, an expression of icy, disdainful hatred! It can hardly be any other way without raising a fundamental contradiction. If revolution, and especially revolution in Amerika, is anything less than an effective defense/attack weapon and a charger for the people to mount now, it is meaningless to the great majority of the slaves. If revolution is tied to dependence on the inscrutabilities of `long-range politics,’ it cannot be made relevant to the person who expects to die tomorrow.” (blood in my eye)
“Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it’s cowardice.”
Posted in African American, anti-racist action, communism, George Jackson, organizing, police, political prisoners, prison, racism | Leave a Comment »
Prison hunger strike update: All out for August 23
Posted by kasama on August 21, 2011
drawing by Kevin "Rashid" Johnson, who has been held in segregation in the Virginia prison system since 1994. To see more of Rashid's artwork and writings, see www.rashidmod.com
Kasama received the following from Hungerstrike News.
All Out for Sacramento Hearings, August 23rd
Tues, August 23rd 11:30am: Statewide Mobilization to Sacramento: Day of Action to Support the Hunger Strike &5 Core Demands!
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 North 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.
Recent press coverage
- “Give Us in Here the Strength to See This Thing Through”: A Chronicle of the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike
by Sal Rodriguez, Solitary Watch August 17, 2011
- Prison officials move to improve inmate isolation conditions
by Michael Montgomery, August 18, 2011, California Watch
- Touring the SHU
Triplicate, August 18, 2011.
- Raleigh Stages Anti-Prison Demo
triANARCHY, August 16 2011
- Aug. 23: Solidarity Action With Pelican Bay Strikers
People Of Color Organize!, August 2011
Posted in >> analysis of news, politics, prison | Leave a Comment »
The George Jackson Tribute Mixtape
Posted by onehundredflowers on August 20, 2011
This was originally on I Mix What I Like!
The George Jackson Tribute Mixtape
We’ll start our Black August celebration a little early this year by re-posting our 2006 George Jackson FreeMix Radio Mixtape. This mixtape features DC-area artists and activists reading portions of Jackson’s work and a bunch of good music from folks like Public Enemy, Dead Prez, Blitz, Hasan Salaam, Asheru, Head-Roc, Black United Front, Wise Intelligent, Immortal Technique, Mos Def, Lil’ Wayne, RZA, Ghostface Killah, and many more. We also borrowed of few minutes from the classic Freedom Archives audio documentary Prisons on Fire: George Jackson, Attica and Black Liberation and a Bay Area television documentary Day of the Gun.
Listen and download here: The George Jackson Tribute Mixtape
Posted in >> analysis of news, African American, anti-racist action, Black History, Black Panthers, George Jackson, music, police, political prisoners, prison | Leave a Comment »
Mutope Duguma: Letter from Pelican SHU Hunger-striker
Posted by Mike E on August 17, 2011
July demonstration Santa Cruz, photo by Bradley Indybay
This letter was received by the San Francisco Bay View on Aug. 12. The author is the writer of ” The Call,” the formal announcement that alerted the world to this massive hunger strike, in which 6,600 prisoners participated, according to CDCR’s own records. As the strike was about to begin, he wrote ” SHU prisoners sentenced to civil death begin hunger strike,” explaining the reasons for the strike.
This Hungerstrike is Far From Over
by Mutope Duguma (s/n James Crawford)
It is a sincere pleasure to once again extend my hand to my beautiful New Afrikan people. I have been recuperating from not eating for 20 days straight and I can tell you based on my personal experience that it was hell! I could feel the life gradually being sucked out of me.
It had been as cruel as I imagined it would be, but we had guys falling out every day and me and my celly lost 40 pounds. My celly is Sitawa (R.N. Dewberry), who sends his regards. He had to be shipped out to Corcoran SHU due to how frail he had gotten. He’s 6 feet 1 inch and weighed 206 pounds, and he went all the way down to 166 pounds. And I am a 6-foot-3-inch frame, weighing 250 pounds. I went down to 210 pounds.
Posted in >> analysis of news, political prisoners, prison, racism, repression | Leave a Comment »
Solitary Confinement: Isolation as Torture
Posted by onehundredflowers on July 27, 2011
This was originally written for The New Yorker.
One of the demands of the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike is an end to prolonged solitary confinement. It’s long been argued that solitary confinement is the only way to deal with extremely violent prisoners. However, most prisoners in solitary are not there for violent behavior, but for punitive reasons such as breaching prison rules. Study after study has shown that it has no measurable benefits, but it does decimate one’s sense of identity and ability to re-integrate into society. In its intent and effects, it is effectively legalized torture.
Hellhole
by Atul Gawande
Human beings are social creatures. We are social not just in the trivial sense that we like company, and not just in the obvious sense that we each depend on others. We are social in a more elemental way: simply to exist as a normal human being requires interaction with other people.
Children provide the clearest demonstration of this fact, although it was slow to be accepted. Well into the nineteen-fifties, psychologists were encouraging parents to give children less attention and affection, in order to encourage independence. Then Harry Harlow, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, produced a series of influential studies involving baby rhesus monkeys.
He happened upon the findings in the mid-fifties, when he decided to save money for his primate-research laboratory by breeding his own lab monkeys instead of importing them from India. Because he didn’t know how to raise infant monkeys, he cared for them the way hospitals of the era cared for human infants—in nurseries, with plenty of food, warm blankets, some toys, and in isolation from other infants to prevent the spread of infection. The monkeys grew up sturdy, disease-free, and larger than those from the wild. Yet they were also profoundly disturbed, given to staring blankly and rocking in place for long periods, circling their cages repetitively, and mutilating themselves.
Posted in >> analysis of news, Human rights, prison | Tagged: hunger strike, Pelican Bay, solitary confinement | Leave a Comment »
From CA to PA: Stop Prison Abuse
Posted by Rosa Harris on July 21, 2011
This was originally posted on PhillyIMC
Banner Drop in Solidarity with the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike
This morning, July 18, 2011, two banners were dropped in Philadelphia in solidarity with the courageous actions of the Pelican Bay hunger strikers and the 6600-plus prisoners throughout the state of California who have joined the strike.
The banners read “Philly Supports the Pelican Bay Prison Strike” and “From CA to PA: Stop Prison Abuse.”
Posted in >> analysis of news, civil liberties, death penalty, police, prison | Tagged: hunger strike, Pelican Bay | Leave a Comment »
Pelican Bay Hunger Strike: Repression Breeds Resistance!
Posted by Rosa Harris on July 21, 2011
This was originally posted on Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity
On July 1st, inmates at Pelican Bay prison began an indefinite hunger strike and put forth 5 demands: 1) Eliminate group punishments, 2) Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria, 3) Comply with the recommendations of the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in Prisons (2006) regarding an end to longterm solitary confinement, 4) Provide adequate food, 5) Expand and provide constructive programs and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates.
Since then, the strike has spread to several prisons, demonstrating that inhumane conditions, akin to torture, are endemic to the US prison system. Despite the efforts of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), the strike continues to gather support.
Repression Breeds Resistance!
Reaching at least 6,600 prisoners across 13 prisons, this massive and inspiring act of solidarity and people power across prison-manufactured & exacerbated racial and geographic lines has dumb-founded the CDCR.
While the daily numbers of hunger strikers fluctuates, the CDCR is certainly under-estimating how many people inside prison are participating in and supporting this strike.
In the first days of the strike, the CDCR said “less than two dozen prisoners” were hunger striking, but then were forced to admit at least 6,600 prisoners were participating in the strike. Now the CDCR has publicly announced that four prisons continue to strike. Advocates are currently aware of hunger strikers at Pelican Bay, Corcoran, Tehachapi, Folsom and Calipatria. Supporters also know that prisoners at Valley State Prison for Women, Centinela, San Quentin, and RJ Donovan have also been participating in the strike, and may still be refusing food. It is safe to assume the CDCR is still dramatically under-counting participation.
Posted in >> analysis of news, civil liberties, death penalty, police, prison | Tagged: Pelican Bay | Leave a Comment »
