On January 5th, 2021, Eric was once again placed on a 6- month communication restriction in response to a New Year’s Eve noise demo that was held outside of FCI Englewood by various groups in Denver, a demo that happens every single year at prisons worldwide. After being accused of organizing the demo, the BOP finally admitted that they are aware  that Eric had nothing to do with the noise demo. Despite this fact, the BOP North Central Regional office instructed  Englewood to restrict Eric’s communication.   

Apparently, in the BOP prisoners will be held responsible for anything anyone may do. It is interesting though that in 2017 when the right-wing Bundy family attempted to force their way into the prison to visit a prisoner they stood in solidarity with, driving around the parking lot, evading guards, blasting music… there were no disciplinary actions or restrictions enforced on the prisoner. This must be another special BOP rule that only applies to anti-fascists. 

Eric can no longer correspond with anyone outside his family and lawyer. He is again cut off from communication from anyone that might offer him support and strength and solidarity during a global pandemic. He is again isolated from all contact with friends that matter deeply to him.

If folks want to help, he can receive books. These can be a great distraction for him and all of the prisoners he passes them onto, especially during this next level federal lock-down.  

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/OEWNQ9RMQGZR?ref_=wl_share

Donations to the bad ass lawfirm who has stepped up for him in a real way can be made, to help ensure they have the resources to continue to stand behind folks who are fighting oppression in real ways. Donate here.

Via Kings Bay Plowshare 7 page on facebook.

Many of you have asked about the addresses for our KBP7 (now) prisoners of conscience. Here are the addresses for Carmen, Martha, and Patrick. Fr Steve Kelly is in transit so there is no address currently for him. Clare reports to FCI Alderson on February 12th; Mark is scheduled to be sentenced on February 19th. Liz has finished serving her sentence, and lives with her family in New London, CT. Please go to our website for current updates https://kingsbayplowshares7.org/

Carmen Trotta #22561-021
FCI Otisville-Satellite Camp
PO Box 1000
Otisville, NY 10963

Martha Hennessy #22560-021
FCI Danbury
Route 37
Danbury, CT 06811

Patrick O’Neill #14924-018
FCI Elkton
PO Box 10
Lisbon, OH 44432

#swordsintoplowshares#kingsbayplowshares

Be sure to bookmark NYCABC’s political prisoner birthday calendar. There are loads of birthdays coming up! https://nycabc.wordpress.com/pppow-birthday-calendar/

by Alice Speri , The Intercept.

MONTHS AFTER NEW York had become a global epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic, state officials began quietly moving dozens of elderly men with underlying health conditions from prisons across the state to a facility close to the Canadian border.

The transfers, which began in June 2020, after the virus had spread widely and caused several deaths among the state’s incarcerated population and prison staff, were ostensibly intended to protect the most vulnerable from Covid-19. But defying both public health recommendations and common sense, prison officials moved the men from different facilities, including some with large outbreaks, without first testing them, transporting them on crowded and poorly ventilated buses. They then mixed them at the Adirondack Correctional Facility in Ray Brook, New York, without quarantining them. Since then, officials have tested the men only sporadically, even after some were exposed to the virus inside the prison, and have taken minimal steps to promote hygiene and social distancing. When a man incarcerated at the facility was discovered to have contracted the virus, prison officials ordered the guards who had come in contact with him to quarantine at home for two weeks. But they took no measures to test and isolate the incarcerated people with whom he had also been in close proximity.

Read the rest at https://theintercept.com/2021/01/08/covid-new-york-prison-nursing-home-lawsuit

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing
WHEN: 7pm, Tuesday, December 12th, 2021
WHERE: YOUR HOME
COST: Free

NYC Anarchist Black Cross is promoting virtual letter writing to elder political prisoner David Gilbert who has been in New York State prisons since 1981.

“It’s our first every-other-week political prisoner letter-writing event of 2021 and we are starting off by writing to David Gilbert–someone close to us, both physically and in spirit. For this first event of the year, NYC ABC and Page One Collective are asking you to continue to write to from home, staying safe, while also keeping our imprisoned comrades front and center.”

For David to come home, he would need Governor Andrew Cuomo to grant him clemency (release or make him parole eligible). Please write Cuomo and urge him to grant clemency to David Gilbert (#83A6158):

Email: https://www.governor.ny.gov/content/governor-contact-form
Call: (518) 474-8390
Tweet: https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo
Write: Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224 .

Help save the life of former Black Panther & political prisoner Kamau Sadiki/Freddie Hilton. Tweet @GovKemp & call the Augusta State Medical Prison at (706) 855-4700 to demand he be taken to the wound care clinic ASAP.

https://twitter.com/GovKemp
https://gov.georgia.gov/contact-us

Send him a message of hope and healing:
Freddie Hilton #0001150688
Augusta State Medical Prison
3001 Gordon Highway
Grovetown, GA 30813 

Sadiki has spent more than four decades fighting for Black people. At seventeen, he joined the NYC Black Panther Party. He been imprisoned since 2002 for refusing to aid in the capture of Assata Shakur.

Learn more about his story http://freekamau.com

Despite Rattler’s compassionate release being denied by the federal courts, and the prison as well as federal probation offices refusing to look into Rattler’s legal change of address to be housed with family during the pandemic, Rattler was made to get on a public plane (regular commercial airflight, not Bureau of Prisons personal airlines) despite his attorney being physically present to pick him up to have safe travel and limiting exposure during the pandemic.

We are unsure if he was tested again for COVID before being put on the plane, but he has reported having no more symptoms since his contraction of COVID at Sandstone federal prison last month. He is now in ND heading for the halfway house for the next 6 months.

We will update his mailing address for support mail. Any donations can be added to his Support Committee- PayPal www.paypal.me/siouxic and messages for him can be sent to this Facebook page. Please pray for those stuck in federal halfway houses, local jails, and state/federal prisons because they are ALL affected by COVID. #stillnodapl#strugglecontinues

More via
https://www.facebook.com/FreeRattler
https://www.freerattlernodapl.com

Veronza was a member of the Black Panther Party, convicted in the murder of a U.S. Park Ranger on the word of two government informants, both of whom received reduced sentences for other crimes by Federal prosecutors. There were no eye-witnesses and no evidence independent of the informants to link him to the crime.

At trial, Veronza offered alibi testimony, not credited by the jury. Nor was testimony of two relatives of the informants who insisted that they were lying. The informants had all charges against them in this case dropped and one was given $10,000 by the government according to the prosecutor’s post-sentencing report. Veronza has consistently proclaimed his innocence of the crime he never committed, even at the expense of having his appeals for parole denied for which an admission of guilt and contrition is virtually required.

Write:
Veronza Bowers, Jr. #35316-136
FCI Butner Medium II
PO Box1500
Butner, NC 27509

Birthday: February 4
More information: veronza.org
Tri-fold flyer
Info was taken from NYC ABC’s Illustrated Guide to Political Prisoners.
More PP addresses here.

Check out the latest Prison Break column for January 2021 by the Certain Days collective on Its Going Down. From the intro:

“With The Marshall Project reporting that 1 in 5 prisoners in the U.S. have had COVID-19, we are beginning the new year with an intense struggle ahead. In the last few weeks it was announced that political prisoners Russell Maroon Shoatz, Mutulu Shakur, Eric King, Rattler,Jaan Laaman, and Joe Dibee have tested positive for COVID-19. Since April, other political prisoners including Marius Mason, Sundiata Acoli, Reality Winner, Jeremy Hammond, and Jalil Muntaqim have also contracted the virus. Elder political prisoners Imam Jamil Al-Amin, Ed Poindexter, David Gilbert, Chip Fitzgerald, Leonard Peltier and numerous others face acute risks due to their continued confinement. “

Read more at https://itsgoingdown.org/prison-break-jan-2021/