Russia: Prisoners stage uprising against conditions

Posted on January 3, 2013 by denverabc

From Libcom.org:

Hundreds of prisoners at Prison Number 6 in Kopeisk, in the Urals region of Russia, have fought fierce battles with screws and security forces and launched a rooftop occupation in a protest against draconian conditions, torture, extortion, and the use of solitary confinement. Four inmates have died at the prison in recent years following beatings from staff. The protest lasted for two days before the police and army special forces managed to regain control.

The trouble started when around 250 prisoners refused to follow the prison rules and routine, demanding the immediate release of those in solitary confinement. An end to barbaric treatment and extortion were the main demands that the prisoners had. Whilst on the roof, the prisoners unfurled placards that read, “Help us”, and “We have a thousand on hunger strike”

Around 300 of the prisoner’s family and friends, as well as many former prisoners, gathered outside the jail, and staged a protest. They were shouting obscenities and throwing bottles at police and prison staff. The police made battered the protesters and made 39 arrests before the protest concluded.

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Colombia: 11,000 prisoners on hunger strike

Posted on August 17, 2012 by denverabc

From Libcom.org:

More than 11,000 Colombian prisoners across 21 jails are now over two weeks into a hunger strike and other acts of resistance.

They are demanding the following:

1) Declare a state of emergency in the country’s correctional facilities and install a National Board of Consultation with inmate representation to develop a plan to address prison conditions.
2) End overcrowding
3) End filthy and unhealthy prison conditions and maintain an adequate system of healthcare.

The prison system in Colombia has been given advice and money from the United States, which has resulted in a legacy of repression and mistreatment.

Water and food within the prison system is in short supply, and is often not fit for human consumption – some of which has been found to contain evidence of faces. In many jails, prisoners still have to shit and piss in buckets or plastic bags

Within recent years, overcrowding in Colombian jails has risen enormously (up to 40% in some areas). The prison estate has a maximum capacity for 78,000 people, yet there are at least 134,000 people currently incarcerated.

Also rising rapidly is the torture and ill treatment of prisoners, and in particularly – political prisoners.

Colombia recognises three types of ‘political prisoner’:

1) Prisoners of conscience – people arrested for political activities and charged with such crimes as, “Rebellion”.
2) Victims of set-ups – persons arrested for political reasons based on false testimonies.
3) Prisoners of war. An estimated 1,000 political prisoners are members of guerrilla groups.

Political prisoners (Colombia has 10,000) are kept in severely restricted conditions. They are often kept in solitary confinement, prevented from sending or receiving mail and the only human contact they are allowed is with prison officers.

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Solitary confinement: Torture chambers for black revolutionaries

Posted on August 11, 2012 by denverabc

From Aljazeera:

“The torture technicians who developed the paradigm used in (prisons’) ‘control units’ realised that they not only had to separate those with leadership qualities, but also break those individuals’ minds and bodies and keep them separated until they are dead.” – Russell “Maroon” Shoats

Russell “Maroon” Shoats has been kept in solitary confinement in the state of Pennsylvania for 30 years after being elected president of the prison-approved Lifers’ Association. He was initially convicted for his alleged role in an attack authorities claim was carried out by militant black activists on the Fairmont Park Police Station in Philadelphia that left a park sergeant dead.

Despite not having violated prison rules in more than two decades, state prison officials refuse to release him into the general prison population.

Russell’s family and supporters claim that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PA DOC) has unlawfully altered the consequences of his criminal conviction, sentencing him to die in solitary confinement – a death imposed by decades of no-touch torture.

The severity of the conditions he is subjected to and the extraordinary length of time they have been imposed for has sparked an international campaign to release him from solitary confinement – a campaign that has quickly attracted the support of leading human rights legal organisations, such as the Centre for Constitutional Rights and the National Lawyers Guild.

Less than two months after the campaign was formally launched with events in New York City and London, Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, agreed to make an official inquiry into Shoats’ 21 years of solitary confinement, sending a communication to the US State Department representative in Geneva, Switzerland.

Full story at Aljazeera

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The Final Straw: North Carolina Prisoners Initiate Hunger Striker

Posted on July 24, 2012 by denverabc

From The Final Straw, via Anarchist News:

This week’s show features a conversation with Francis Delaney about the Prison Hunger Strikes that were initiated on Monday, July 16 at three facilities in North Carolina. This action seems to have the potential to spread to other facilities because of the apparent universality of the demands (better/more food, access to legal literature, human contact, an end to torture, an end to mail tampering, medical care). We discuss some context for the strikes and how folks on the outside can get involved and show solidarity.

Chapel Hill Prison Books
Triangle Anarchist Blog
Down: Reflections on Prison Resistance in Indiana

Streamable from The Final Straw from 7/23-7/29/12

Downloadable from archive.org by searching the show title.

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Every Prisoner is a Political Prisoner: Kelly Rose Pflug-Back

Posted on July 24, 2012 by denverabc

From From Crimethinc, via Anarchist News:

On July 19, Kelly Rose Pflug-Back was sentenced to eleven more months in prison for her participation in the 2010 G20 protests in Toronto. She remains unapologetic about her role in the black bloc that caused so much disruption during the summit, demonstrating that the forces that impose capitalism and patriarchy are not invulnerable.

To support Kelly and the millions like her who are imprisoned for the inconveniences they pose to the powerful, we are proud to present her eloquent and thought-provoking memoir of the time she spent incarcerated after her original arrest: “Every Prisoner is a Political Prisoner.” In this account, Kelly powerfully evokes the experience of captivity and the importance of understanding all captives of the state as political prisoners.

Our friends Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness are publishing a book of Kelly’s poetry as a fundraiser to benefit her during her incarceration. Walt Whitman argued that “to have great poets there must be great audiences,” but audiences is precisely the opposite of what there must be. To have great poetry, there must be people who are willing to act on their ideals rather than just watch from the sidelines. We are deeply grateful to Kelly for finding the courage to live her poetry as well as writing it.

Write to Kelly:

Kelly Pflug-Back
Vanier Centre for Women
P.O. Box 1040
655 Martin Street
Milton, Ontario
L9T 5E6 Canada
(more…)

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North Carolina: Prisoners at 3 facilities begin hunger strike

Posted on July 20, 2012 by denverabc

On Monday July 16th, prisoners at Central Prison in Raleigh, Bertie CI in Windsor, and Scotland CI in Laurinburg all began a coordinated hunger strike. The men have issued a series of demands revolving around food, healthcare, abuse by guards, and in particular for a return of prison law libraries, and are encouraging other prisoners to join in with their own actions and demands. They are also calling for the release of those on I-Con status and the abolition of separate control statuses.

Correspondence with the prisoners has confirmed the strike at several facilities, and that at least at Central Prison over 100 prisoners began the strike on Monday. Prisoners have encouraged supporters to call or fax the administrations of these different facilities as well as Director Robert Lewis, to “march or protest in front of Central Prison and others,” “boycott all products being sold in these prisons,” and to “contact media outlets and let them know what we are doing.”

Groups have begun organizing support and solidarity on the outside here in NC, and we are encouraging others around the country to show their solidarity. Numbers for organizing your own call-in day can be found below; any and all actions of solidarity are encouraged. We will do our best to make sure that the strikers are hear about any actions happening on the outside, so please post information about any activities in your own town.

Against Prison Society,
Love for All Prison Rebels,

-some NC anarchists against prisons

Robert C. Lewis, Director of Prisons
phone: 919.838.4000
fax: 919.733.8272

Central Prison Warden Ken Lassiter
phone: 919.733.0800
fax: 919.715.2645

Bertie CI Warden Renoice Stancil
Phone: 252-794-8600
Fax: 252-794-4608

Scotland CI Warden Sorrell Saunders
Phone: (910) 844-3078
Fax: (910) 844-3786

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Georgia: Prisoners now on hunger strike for over a month; situation dire

Posted on July 12, 2012 by denverabc

From Black Agenda Report, via GeorgiaHungerStrike.wordpress.com:

The ongoing hunger strikers in Georgia’s Jackson State prison have reportedly been joined by others in Augusta and Macon. But the 37 rounded up as alleged leaders of the December 2010 strike are still officially not named by the state are believed to have been on 24 hour lockdown the last 18 months, with many suffering brutal beatings and denied medical attention. Why has the state not revealed their identities? Why are there still thousands of children and illiterates in Georgia’s prisons? Why do prisoners still work without wages, and why does Bank of America still extract monthly tolls from their accounts? Why has so little changed?

 

Hunger Strikes Reportedly Continue in Multiple Georgia Prisons, Prisoners Await A Movement Outside Prison Walls

A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

As we’ve told the story over the months in Black Agenda Report, in the wake of the peaceful December 2010 strike by black, brown and white inmates in several Georgia prisons, corrections officials first cut off heat and hot water to prisoners in the dead of winter. After meeting with citizens on the outside who publicly backed prisoner demands for decent food, medical care, educational opportunities, humane visiting policies, transparency in proceedings against inmates and wages for work, the state briefly allowed citizen access to Macon and Smith Prisons, before adopting a systematic and apparently statewide policy of rounding up and brutally assaulting those prisoners it imagined might have been leaders of the strike.

A small number of low-ranking corrections personnel have been fired, indicted or pled guilty to various offenses in the wave of beatings, but in an apparent endorsement of the beatings as state policy, Department of Corrections, local judges, prosecutors and state officials have refused to investigate most of them.

 

State authorities claim to have rounded up 37 from around the state and placed them in close confinement at its massive Jackson State Prison, where it murdered Troy Davis last year. Those 37, as far as anyone outside the prison administration knows, have been in solitary confinement ever since, sometimes for weeks without showers and months without being allowed visits. They have received little or no medical care for the vicious beatings they sustained eighteen months ago.
(more…)

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Colorado: Parole officers accused of forging documents to illegally lengthen parolees jail sentences

Posted on May 4, 2012 by denverabc

From the Westword:

Jeffrey Wells, a Department of Corrections parole officer based in Grand Junction, is well regarded by his fellow employees, who recently named him top employee of the quarter. But he’s less venerated by John Morgan and three other parolees, who are currently suing him for allegedly forging documents in order to keep them behind bars longer than is allowed by law. And their attorney suspects the problem may not stop with him.

“From the documents we’re getting, it seems like a bigger issue,” says Siddhartha Rathod, who also represents four alleged victims in the Denver Diner police brutality case. “I can’t prove this yet, but I think through discovery we’ll be able to prove this has been going on across the board — that parole officers are routinely holding people beyond the allowable time.”

Such accusations are fairly common, Rathod concedes. “I typically get a lot of calls from inmates, but more so from mothers, wives, brothers, fathers saying, ‘My child has been unlawfully revoked on parole.’ And parolees are often on the fringes of society: They’re in custody, so they don’t have a lot of money, and some don’t have a lot of support services. They’re a group of people who, when they’re on parole, can easily be abused.”

Rathod believes that was the case with Morgan and fellow plaintiffs Dustin Cook, Paul Stark and Jerrod Thoele. And he’s got a report from the DOC’s Office of the Inspector General to back up his assertions.

Full Story

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Go to Trial: Crash the Justice System

Posted on March 13, 2012 by denverabc
By MICHELLE ALEXANDER, New York Times

AFTER years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless. But some questions a woman I know posed during a phone conversation one recent evening gave me pause: “What would happen if we organized thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people charged with crimes to refuse to play the game, to refuse to plea out? What if they all insisted on their Sixth Amendment right to trial? Couldn’t we bring the whole system to a halt just like that?”

The woman was Susan Burton, who knows a lot about being processed through the criminal justice system.

Her odyssey began when a Los Angeles police cruiser ran over and killed her 5-year-old son. Consumed with grief and without access to therapy or antidepressant medications, Susan became addicted to crack cocaine. She lived in an impoverished black community under siege in the “war on drugs,” and it was but a matter of time before she was arrested and offered the first of many plea deals that left her behind bars for a series of drug-related offenses. Every time she was released, she found herself trapped in an under-caste, subject to legal discrimination in employment and housing. (more…)

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More than 625,000 women and girls in prison around the world, new report shows

Posted on March 9, 2012 by denverabc

More than 625,000 women and girls in prison around the world, new report published by the International Centre for Prison Studies on the occasion of International Women’s Day shows.

Over 625,000 women and girls are held in penal institutions throughout the world according to the second edition of the World Female Imprisonment List, produced by Roy Walmsley and published by the International Centre for Prison Studies, a partner of the University of Essex. The report can be downloaded here.

The study provides information for most countries in the world about the female prison population and the percentage of the total prison population they comprise. It also includes information about trends in female imprisonment. (more…)

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