Sketchy Thoughts

Abuse Reports Culminate In Hair-Raising Assault By Red Onion State Prison Guards

2012-01-27T18:53:00.000-05:00

In the following report, Rashid details a vicious racist attack on his person by guards at Red Onion State Prison, which occurred on December 12, 2011. Since this report was written, Rashid's situation has gotten even worse, as earlier this week he was transferred to Wallens Ridge State Prison (Virginia's other supermax), where he was confined between 2000 and 2003, a period when he was repeatedly singled out for abuse by guards (many of whom are still working there). Already, he has been subjected to death threats from guards, has had his food tampered with (i.e. has found metal in it), been given clothes that were sprayed with an irritant, etc.

A subsequent report on this transfer will be posted here shortly.

In the meantime, here is Rashid's January 10 article, detailing the December 12 assault:

Abuse Reports Culminate In Hair-Raising Assault By Red Onion State Prison Guards

Background to the Attack

    On December 12, 2011, a Red Onion State Prison guard, sergeant Tony R. Adams, ripped a large mass of hair from my head, much of it from the roots. At the time I was handcuffed behind my back, leg shackled and held pinned against a locked door by several other guards. The torn out hair covered an area of about 3 inches by 7 inches across the front and side of my head. (See Exhibit A). Prior to the attack I had a headful of dreadlocks approximately a foot and a half long.
    The attack follows a long history of reports I’ve sent out naming Adams as a major source of abuse and cover-ups at the prison. Previously employed in the prison’s dog kennel, Adams was appointed as investigator – from early 2005 through October 2011 – by Tracy Ray, who was Red Onion’s chief warden from October 2004 through October 2011.
    Up through Ray’s appointment as warden, Red Onion maintained national notoriety for extreme brutality, racism and abuse against its predominantly Black prisoner population, by it’s almost exclusively white rural staff. Resulting in several critical reports by human rights organizations, a lot of bad media, U.S. Justice Department probes, and outside protests. As reported in a prior article, Ray came onboard to clean up Red Onion’s image, an agenda shared by Adams, who as investigator was directly responsible for investigating abuse complaints. Adams distinguished himself as a vengeful cover-up artist, who’d retaliate against prisoners who complained of abuses and especially those who challenged and complained against him. In addition to frequently destroying and obstructing our mail, his direct abuses included placing false gang profiles on prisoners including against me, inciting and facilitating violence between prisoners, destroying our property, etc. He quickly became and remained one of the most disliked of all Red Onion guards.
    Subsequently an outside family and I co-founded an advocacy group called SPARC, to help organize exposure and challenge of abuses at Red Onion. Adams took immediate personal interest and counteraction.
    When A----, a SPARC member. contacted the prison’s mailroom clerk in response to a complaint of missing mail from a prisoner D----, Adams personally called her back. He tried various angles to discourage her involvement with SPARC and supporting prisoners. When his efforts failed he then threatened to tell Carter that A---- had lied to him about contacting the prison about his mail issue, so to undermine her and SPARC’s credibility with prisoners. He also threatened to ban SPARC’s correspondences with prisoners by falsely accusing her of passing messages between gang members. He then had much of SPARC’s mail disappeared and blocked from delivery to prisoners, and confronted me with routine threats and harassments.
    He took very personal my persistence in exposing abuses at the prison, involving outside people in doing so, and in effect counteracting his entire agenda of trying to protect the prison’s image. He also took personal offense to my winning support amongst whites and having white visitors whom he disparaged as “nigger lovers”. One frequent visitor and friend he had banned from visiting at Red Onion and another prison close by – Wallens Ridge – under false claims that she was trying to coordinate a prisoner uprising at various prisons. While she was able to have visitation privileges restored at Wallens Ridge, Adams succeeded in permanently banning her from visiting me at Red Onion.
    It was only after several prisoners violently died at the prison under their watch, that Ray and Adams were removed during October 2011 as warden and investigator, respectively. Ray was reassigned to another prison and Adams was restored to his prior rank as a petty sergeant.
    Ray was replaced by Randy Mathena as warden. Mathena was Red Onion’s assistant warden when the prison first opened in 1998 and during the early years when it won nationwide notoriety as one of the country’s most racist and abusive prisons. Mathena’s return has seen a resurgence of open abuse and assaults by guards.

The Attack
    On October 27, 2011, Adams confronted me with threats that he was going to shut me up, that he had a better opportunity to do this now since he was “no longer the investigator”, and Mathena was warden. I made record of his threats by filing two emergency grievances, log numbers 030238 and 030239.
    Subsequently, on December 12, 2011, he accompanied several other guards in confronting me on a segregation exercise yard while I was locked inside an exercise cage, claiming falsely that I’d refused to come off the yard when I had not. He immediately began threatening that he was going to “get” me, wanted “a piece of” me, was going to “fuck [me] up”, etc., obviously attempting to provoke me into actually refusing to allow myself to be handcuffed and leg shackled to come off the yard, so removal by force could be “justified”.
    A portable audio video camera was brought out to film what followed, which made apparent they were expecting an altercation.
    Ignoring the threats and provocation attempts, I allowed the guards to apply the handcuffs behind my back and shackles, and was then escorted from the exercise yard cage by two guards, holding both my arms and with palms against my shoulder blades. (See Exhibit B. This method of “escorting” segregation prisoners is used ostensibly so guards can maintain complete control while remaining behind the prisoner so he cannot butt, spit or otherwise assault them and can be easily maneuvered to place and pin against a wall. During such escorts guards are to remain behind and to the side of the prisoner.)
I was “escorted” in this manner from the cage to a doorway leading into the unit. The door was closed and locked. I was walked up to the door at which time the guard operating the audio video camera took the camera off of me. Adams then quickly stepped directly in front of me and in a low voice threatened to “fuck [me] up”. At that point he, claiming I attempted to head butt him, grabbed and proceeded to forcefully rip out handsful of my hair from the front and left side of my head. I never did, indeed I could not, resist, as the other guards shoved me face-first into and held me pinned against the locked door.
    As Adams ripped out my hair I repeatedly stated so the camera could record it that he was ripping out my hair for no reason which he continued to do.
    After he completely ripped out an area of hair about 3" x 7", they then threw me sideways to the ground and piled on top of me. I was at all times handcuffed behind my back and shackled at the ankles.
    After several moments I was physically lifted from the ground, and observed a large mass of my ripped out hair lying on the ground where I’d been previously standing. I repeatedly asked that it be filmed showing how much hair was torn out and dropped right where I’d stood previously pinned securely against the door, before some four guards, including Adams threw me to the ground unresisting. They refused to film it.
    I was then taken into the unit’s hallway, made to kneel, then stripped completely naked in direct presence of a female nurse, which I protested as an illegal and unwarranted cross-gender strip search. I was then, because verbally protesting the assault and cross-gender strip search, chained up in handcuffs and shackles inside a cell ‘til the next day. Guards claimed my protests were perceived as “threats”.

Staged Investigation
    On December 15, 2011, I was taken to the prison’s video-court area to meet with Johnny Acosta, an investigator from the Virginia Department of Correction’s Inspector General’s office, a.k.a. Internal Affairs Unit. The very same office with whom Adams had worked for years covering up abuses at the prison.
    Acosta stated he was there to investigate the December 12th incident. I recognized his appearance to be a swift official move at damage control, to extract a statement from me that might be used later against me, and to formally rationalize the assault to counter or answer any outside protests likely to follow. According to sources, news of the attack was already circulating on the outside.
    In addition to the fact that Acosta is a VDOC employee himself and his office routinely worked with Adams on “investigations” at Red Onion that always absolve abusive guards of wrongdoing, Acosta himself has a bit of baggage that further renders an “objective” investigation by him dubious at best, which I’ll detail below under a separate heading.
    Prior to “interviewing” me, Acosta showed me a box containing what he conceded to be “a lot of hair”. It looked to be all of my ripped out hair. He had a guard take still photographs and videotape of my head and scalp where the hair was torn out, noting numerous bald patches across the area – a lot of my hair had broken off near the scalp, other of it was pulled out from the roots.
    Acosta animatedly showed me a pair of leg shackles which he said the guards claimed were the ones I was wearing during the assault. He promptly demonstrated several times that the shackles had a faulty locking mechanism, by locking them then yanking them back open. He repeated over and over that the guards claimed I’d “gotten out of the shackles” apparently as their justification for throwing me to the ground after I was securely pinned against the door.
    I told him I believed the guards were lying since I didn’t recall the shackles coming off during the attack. I pointed out that the shackles had a prison identification number on them, and suggested that he check the equipment logs from the control booth in the unit where the attack occurred, to see whether the number on the shackles actually matched ones kept in that control booth. This because a daily record is kept for all equipment kept and checked in and out of each building’s control booth. If the malfunctioning shackles he had were actually ones I’d worn on December 12th, the unit logs would show their being assigned by number to that booth and when and if they were checked out that day, and by whom. He reacted very defensively to my suggestion as though it were an absurd proposal. He stated emphatically that he’d made no such inspection, commented that I was “very observant” for having taken notice of the identification number on the shackles, then quickly changed the subject. This suggested he knew the faulty shackles may in fact not have been the ones I’d worn on December 12th. I then told him I’d submit to a polygraph test on the incident and the fact that the shackles hadn’t come off. I asked him to ask each guard would they do the same and document their reply. He said he would. I don’t believe him.
    He then gave several scenarios to “explain” how my hair had possibly “fallen” out, several of them patently ignorant, racist stereotypes, often heard to disparage Black/ New Afrikan culture. First he suggested I may have pulled the hair out myself and had it “sitting” atop my head before the incident occurred. He abandoned that line when I pointed out he had extensive video footage of me leading up to the attack which showed my hair firmly attached to my head at close range. Then he suggested that dreadlocks are dryrotted hair that easily falls out. I explained and demonstrated to him how absurd this was and racist in its implications. He also claimed he’d heard dreadlocks are bound together by dirt and filth and are worn by people who don’t wash their hair. He ended in admitting neither account could be true since he’d filmed, photographed and examined my scalp and hair and found them “very clean” and “healthy”, showing no evidence of dirt nor even dandruff, nor was there any foul odor to my hair and scalp. I pointed out that dreadlocks are actually strong like rope consisting of not only hair still attached at the root but also the shedded hair that most people comb or brush out. So they are thicker and more dense than even plaits. He acted not to comprehend how they form. I explained very simply that Black people’s hair is of a thick tough texture that naturally forms into small tight curls. If left alone it will entangle into thick tight masses, which separate into cords called dreadlocks. That nothing has to be done to make it do this, although some people use cosmetic methods (which I don’t) to make dreadlocks form quicker than the many months it takes them to begin to form naturally, or to make them all in a uniform small size. My dreadlocks were/are naturally formed and range in thickness, some several inches thick. I added that I wash my hair at least bi-weekly and take care to keep lint and other foreign matter out of it. Acosta, a white male, wasn’t secretive about his personal dislike of dreadlocks, expressing that because I wear them “it’s obvious you don’t care how your hair looks”.
    He conceded a great deal of force was needed to rip out as much of my hair as was in the box. And it was difficult to imagine that level of force being justified under the circumstances of December 12th, even if I did attempt to butt Adams as they’d alleged. He avoided explaining why Adams would step so closely and directly in front of me, given the security requirements governing remaining behind prisoners being escorted, specifically to avoid any such potential danger. Acosta admitted despite what they claimed I did, the force used could still only be such as was needed to control the situation and no more. That if I were pinned to the door, the hair pulling and multiple guards throwing me to the ground were grossly excessive. He also admitted that as I’d observed just before Adams attacked me, the guard operating the camera took it off me so it didn’t film when Adams stepped in front of me and ripped out my hair.
    Acosta didn’t film nor have a nurse check my shoulder and collarbone which I informed him had been dislocated when I was thrown to the ground and piled upon, nor other reported injuries.
    The interview statement he prepared seemed focused on constructing the incident in a way that could be used to corroborate the guards’ false version of events, and to leave leeway for further “adjustments” in their story. But Acosta did admit knowing Adams personally disliked me, which he countered by expressing several times how he “couldn’t help” commenting that I come across as an extremely likeable and intelligent person. Also that he saw me as someone willing to put his own safety in jeopardy to try to help and expose others being abused. He didn’t record any of this however. I declined to sign the statement and again requested a polygraph test.

Acosta, Himself A Broken Victim of The System He Serves
    Acosta told me he was selected to conduct the investigation because his superiors felt he was the only agent I’d talk to. This because a decade ago an investigation by him led to three ranking guards who’d beaten a prisoner at Wallens Ridge being prosecuted. But the system turned on him, and the 3 guards were all acquitted in a scheme that saw the whole staff body at Wallens Ridge come together to exonerate the 3, and made Acosta the target of a subsequent lawsuit by the guards. I was confined at Wallens Ridge during that time and followed the entire drama. An experience it’s highly likely he’d be unwilling to repeat. Halfway through the interview I reminded him of his experience. He was visibly pained by the memory.
    Here’s what occurred:
    During 2001 a Black prisoner, last name Plummer, was brutally beaten by several guards at Wallens Ridge. Wallens Ridge is located a few miles up the road from Red Onion and employs guards drawn from the same rural communities as Red Onion. Both prisons have shared notoriety for racism and abuse. Indeed, a documentary film called “Up The Ridge” was made about the abuses at Wallens Ridge.
    Acosta was called in to investigate the attack. His investigation concluded that three ranking guards had beaten Plummer. They being Captain Isaac Hockett, Lieutenant Jeffrey Compton and Sergeant Matthew Hamilton. They were criminally indicted and put on trial. Regularly appearing on the local news these three guards were featured tearfully professing their innocence, while the prisoners were collectively demeaned. This to win local sympathy for the guards and provoke animosity towards the prisoners.
    Then came the real scheme.
    The guards’ attorneys had the judge order that the jury be allowed to tour the prison under criminal procedure that entitles the trier to view the crime scene. Wallens Ridge’s entire staff body closed ranks to give the jury an experience they’d not soon forget, to demonize the prisoners as beasts who posed mortal danger to the guards, thus justifying the violence used by the three ‘well-intentioned local good ol’ boys on Plummer. The plan quite literally was to terrorize the jury.
    Almost an entire housing unit was emptied out of prisoners a few days before the scheduled jury tour. Wallens Ridge officials hand-picked a group of flunky inmates to move into the unit, whom they’d bribed to act out in front of the jury. Some were “paid” with extra meal trays, one was given a job cleaning showers, others were given extra telephone calls for the month, etc. in exchange for agreeing to create a disturbance for a group that they were told was a “scared straight” tour. They were told to do everything in their means to “scare” the group. All were assured they’d receive no disciplinary charges for misbehavior and should use their imaginations in devising ways to scare them.
    Guards announced to everyone at the appointed time when the group was about to come in and to start acting out, which they all did on cue. The shocked judge and jury got a taste of pure pandemonium, with the prisoners doing everything from screaming vulgarities and threats of violence and rape at them, to deafeningly kicking and banging on their doors, to exposing themselves naked and smearing body waste in and on their cells door windows etc.
    Staff of all ranks, including the warden Stan Young, went around the prison for weeks recounting and laughing about the scene and the jury’s utter shock, to anyone who’d hear. And they really laughed at how the jury returned to court to quickly acquit all three guards. Many of the guards, nurses and counselors, took great pleasure in mocking how easily they’d manipulated a few toady inmates to help exonerate guards caught red handed for abuse. The day after the jury tour all the prisoners who’d been moved around to stage the disturbance for the jury were placed back in their old cells.
    The acquitted guards returned to Wallens Ridge radiating arrogance, and sued Acosta for his “false” investigative findings and causing their “wrongful” prosecution.
    As I recounted these events to Acosta he remarked, admitting in a disconsolated tone several times, “I know what they did”, “I know what happened”. He remarked too, “You have a good memory”. I pointed out that all of what they’d done to create the scene to terrorize the jury is in prison records. That their moving numerous prisoners around just before and after the jury tour, and bringing the jury into the very unit where all these conspicuous moves had been made, all to influence the jury was blatant contempt, obstruction of justice, etc. And it involved the entire staff’s participating or knowing about it. One could easily also consult court records to identify and interview the jurors about the experience. He didn’t seem interested to expose or challenge it. The experience obviously took the fight out of him. He looked beaten, often spaced out and glassy-eyed as I described the incident.
    So I asked him, how he expected me to have any confidence in his or any other official investigation or anything tangible coming out of it. “Look how an entire prison staff came together to cover up an assault, discredit your findings, protect their corrupt peers, then counterattack you, and it’s obviously affected you deeply”. I pointed out to him. He had no response. “Does it strike you as ironic”, I asked him, “that you’re expecting me to trust your role and intentions when the very guard who assaulted me was himself an investigator just like you?”
    Knowing these things, only a fool would put confidence in such a system.
        I rest my case.
        All power to the people!

Kevin “Rashid” Johnson is a long-time revolutionary prison organizer, accomplished artist, Marxist theoretician, and the Minister of Defense of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter (NABPP-PC). Some of his writings have been published in the book Defying the Tomb (Kersplebedeb, 2010), available from AK Press and leftwingbooks.net. Other of his writings and artwork are featured on his website rashidmod.com.

Rashid has been held in segregation for the past 19 years, since 1993. Six weeks after the above-detailed assault, Rashid was suddenly transferred to Wallens Ridge State Prison, Red Onion's "twin" supermax, and the site of numerous human rights violations, as detailed in the Appalshop documentary, Up the Ridge. This transfer is doubtless a result of Rashid's exposure of conditions at Red Onion; what the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) plans to do next remains anyone's guess. For the time being, Rashid can be contacted at:

Kevin Johnson #1007485
Wallens Ridge State Prison
P.O. Box 759
Big Stone Gap, VA
24219

Supporting Prisoners and Acting for Radical Change (SPARC) is a non-sectarian revolutionary mass organization based in Virginia and Washington DC, focused on building effective opposition to the prison-industrial complex. SPARC is demanding that the staff of Red Onion and VDOC cease their consistent campaign of targeted physical violence, harassment, and administrative repression against the cadre of the NABP-PC, which is clearly being carried out with the intention of suppressing the basic human and democratic rights of prisoners in VDOC facilities. Indeed, the assault on Rashid detailed in this article comes just months after a September 3 incident where NABPP-PC cadre Kelvin “Khaysi” Canada was beaten by four officers while he was similarly fully restrained; Khaysi sustained a gouged left eye, dislocated right shoulder, and a fractured rib. As has been the case with Rashid, the medical attention he received was cursory and ineffective.

In a subsequent message, Rashid states: "It's by request to supporters and readers to raise as much protest and awareness about this situation as possible and press for my reassignment to a less volatile and more racially diverse and tolerant environment such as the Sussex prisons."

A petition to support these an end to political repression against the NABPP can be downloaded from http://www.kersplebedeb.com/vdoc_petition.pdf. People are also encouraged to contact Director of VA DOC, Harold Clarke in support of these demands:

Harold W. Clarke, Director
Department of Corrections
P. O. Box 26963
Richmond, VA 23261-6963
Phone: (804) 674-3119
Fax: (804) 674-3509
Email: harold.clarke@vadoc.virginia.gov

Please send copies of all correspondence to SPARC, PO Box 345, Floyd VA, 24091

SPARC can also reached by email at sparcdc@hush.com or sparc@signalfire.org or search “Supporting Prisoners and Acting for Radical Change” on Facebook for regular updates and news.

Those of the in the New York City area, who wish to learn more about Rashid and conditions in Virginia's prisons, are encouraged to attend the book event "Defying the Tomb - Struggle, Education, Survival and Liberation in Lock-Down" to be held at Bluestockings Bookstore (172 Allen Street, New York, NY 10002) on Saturday, February 11, at 7pm. The featured speaker is Rashid's comrade, John "Mac" Gaskins who was in a neighboring cell with Rashid while at Red Onion and was recently released from the tombs of Wallens Ridge. It promises to be an evening where words will not be minced!

North American Events for David Gilbert's Love and Struggle

2012-01-24T16:03:00.000-05:00

From coast to coast, in canada and the united states, here is a list of event around the recent release of political prisoner David Gilbert's book Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond - please get in touch to organize an event in your area - or if you're already organizing a launch which you don't see listed here, email: FODGWest@gmail.com or info@kersplebedeb.com. This list will be maintained and updated on the Kersplebedeb website at http://www.kersplebedeb.com/davidgilbert/ls_events.html

Wednesday, January 25
Montreal
Where: La Belle Époque, 1984 rue Wellington (metro Charlevoix)
When: 7pm
What: Film screening, readings, and discussion
Event page (facebook)

Thursday, January 26
Sacramento
Where: Sol Collective, 2574 21st Street (1 block south of Broadway)
When: 6pm
What: Panel with Donna Willmott, Ramsey Kanaan and Terry Bisson, discussing David's life and book
Event page

Sunday, January 29
Toronto ABC letter night - Love and Struggle
Toronto
Where: Beit Zatoun, 612 Markham St.
When: 6pm
What: Toronto Anarchist Black Cross hosts a night of inspirational discussion and letter-writing to David; a delicious vegan dinner, courtesy of Food Not Bombs.
Event page (facebook)

Sunday, January 29
San Francisco
Where: Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics,
518 Valencia St
When: 4pm
What: book launch with readers/panelists: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Terry Bisson, Molly McClure, Sanyika Bryant, and Causa Justa::Just Cause; moderated by Claude Marks.
Event page

Tuesday, January 31
Crisis, Control, and Resistance Social Struggles Against Prisons, Surveillance & Repression from G20 in Toronto to Greece, Egypt & Beyond
Surrey (Coast Salish Territory)
Where: Conference Room A [G1205A Fir Bldg], Kwantlen Polytechnic University
When: 5:30pm (followed by music at the Grassroots Cafe at 7pm)
What: Joint launch with Jeff Shantz's WHOSE STREETS? The Toronto G20 and the Challenges of Summit Protest, and panel discussion and music by Toronto-based rapper TESTAMENT of Test Their Logik.
Event page (facebook)

Thursday, February 2
Montreal
Where: Bar Populaire, 6584 St Laurent
(metro Beaubien ou de Castelnau)
When: 7pm
What: Readings followed by DJ set by bratface
Event page (facebook)

Friday, February 3
Montreal
Where: Maison Norman Bethune, 1918 Frontenac
(metro Frontenac)
When: 7pm
What: What: Film screening, readings, and discussion
Event page (facebook)

Thursday, February 9
Ottawa
Where: SAW Gallery, 67 Nicholas
When: 7pm
What: Party and book launch; this event is a fund raiser for Books 2 Prisoners and Red Aide/Secours Rouge $7/$20 with a copy of the book/Pay what you can (No one turned away)
Event page (facebook)

Thursday, February 9
San Francisco
Where: Modern Times, 2919 24th Street
When: 7pm
What: Readings and discussion with Diana Block and Terry Bisson.
Event page

Thursday, February 16
Living the Limit: Criminalization, Incarceration and the Law
Toronto
Where: Sandford Fleming Building, Room 1101 10 King's College Circle, University of Toronto
When: 7pm
What: Joint launch with Dean Spade' Normal Life, and panel discussion
Event page

Saturday, March 17
New York City
Where: Bluestockings, 172 Allen Street
When: 7pm
What: Readings by Dan Beger and Terry Bisson
Event page

Class Antagonisms Inside the Fundamental Contradiction of National Oppression, by Sanyika Shakur

2012-01-12T08:40:00.000-05:00

Class Antagonisms Inside theFundamental Contradiction of National Oppression

7–4–47 ADM (11)

Havingjust passed the 19th, & quickly approaching the 20th, anniversary of theL.A. Rebellion, We should be reminded here of what Rodney King whimpered as he stoodin front of a bank of microphones surrounded by class enemies & neo-colonialpoliticians.

Weshould remember how he’d been dressed in that non-threatening cardigan sweater,white shirt, & black tie. How his hair had been tortured into submission bya jheri curl. We should reflect, as well, upon how timid& spooked he looked & on how concerned & stern those who flankedhim were as well. That was a Kodak moment. It was staged to foster an image of contrition & resignation.Submission. A victim.

RodneyKing had been led to believe, thru a bourgeois sense of reasoning, that the Rebellion was really about him. Thatthe reason New-Afrikans & Mexicanos took to the streets of South Centralwas the result of his filmed beating.

That,of course, is typical of mechanical, bourgeois thinking. What it’s not typicalof however, is someone from the ‘hood. And this cuts bothways. No one in the ‘hoods & barrios, ever thought it was aboutRodney King. We’d all seen the film, over & over like everyone else. Butthat was par for the course. We’d always seen that - long before anyonehad caught it on tape.

Actually, We’d experienced much more thanthat. Why, it’s safe to say, that hoods have gone to War with eachother, in vicious waves of internal (intra-class) combat, for much lessthan that. Tho’, because of a general colonial mentality, which prevents thechallenging of (from bottom up) oppression, the same “hood” forces will not,in any systematic way, wage war on the pigs! Or for Freedom, Land &Socialism.

RodneyKing, alone & of his own accord would not have thought to hold apress conference to ask the asinine question (in the form of a whimperedrequest), “Can’t We all just get along?” The fact of the matter was We weregetting along. New Afrikans & Mexicanos were getting along justfine. What we couldn’t overstand was why he was admonishing Usfor getting at the exploiters of our communities? The impression he gave, withhis handlers’ hands up his back, like a ventriloquist doll, was that a “RaceRiot” was going on. As if we had begun to kill each other, orburn & rob each other’s homes. His handlers compelled him tosend up a false flag - a diversion. But, you see, this was the very thing thatexposed the class interests & reactionary politics of the Uncle Toms thathad been designated to handle him & by extension Us!

Let’sgo back for a minute, let’s talk social development (“history”). There exists afundamental contradiction in Our lives that, like an elephant in the room, noone wants to acknowledge. Here’s the thing, as a consequence of the war wagedupon various Afrikan Nations by European powers, those of Us captured &kidnapped where taken out of Our own self-determining social developments &violently forced into Euro-amerikan his-tory. This is not simply aclever play on words. This is a reality. We lost the ability to control Ourown destiny. Read that again.

Fromthat time until now, the fundamental (basic) contradiction between the U.S.oppressor Nation & Our own oppressed, & colonized Nation, has been thegoverning imperialist relationship. Which is to say, Us not being incontrol of the qualitative factors that determine Our lives as apeople. A Nation!

Ourtradition of struggle against this fundamental contradiction has taken on manyfaces - some hidden or obscured, & some open & hostile. But all ofthese have been to resolve the fundamental contradiction & to regain Ourindependence. While there have been bona fide struggles to resolve thecontradiction, there, too, have been reactionary, neo-colonial struggles, wagedby internal enemies loyal to the oppressor Nation & culture, that havetried time & time again to subvert & control Our destiny for thebenefit of the capitalists.

They’vecome among Us, always imposed from above, stirring up emotions & giving lipservice to “progress”, “equality”, “justice” & “prosperity”. These always withinthe colonial confines of the oppressors’ arrangements. And none, collectively, evermaterialize, because without a resolution of the fundamental contradiction - thatis, the freeing of Our productive forces from U.S. imperialism & thegoverning of Our own affairs, We’ll remain a “minority” within the Amerikansystem (as opposed to a majority in Our own) & subjected to theestablished bourgeois social contract, i.e. colonialism. Neo & Post.

Wecan parade all thru the empire with “black” congressman, “black” mayors,“black” governors, “black” police chiefs, “black” supreme kourt justices -hell, even a “black” president - & absolutely nothing will alterthe genocidal relationship that governs Our national oppression here becausethe “blacks” are a part of the colonial apparatus. They have made a strategicalliance with the capitalist-imperialists to act as go-betweens in Our oppression& exploitation.

Thisis a conscious class stand. The “black” petty- bourgeoisie is not innocentlyconfused, like say Mrs. Johnson across the street is about our nationaloppression. About the existence &subjugation of New Afrika. They are well read, have travelled & areexperienced - they have just chosen sides against Us & in favor of Ourhistorical enemies! And, the sooner We recognize & internalize this, thebetter off We’ll be.

Blackain’t nothing but a color. As a designation of Our national Identity it hasplayed out. It is a superficial overstanding at best & a foolish& dangerous analysis at worst.

Wehave no collective control over the qualitative factors which determine ourlives. We do not, in other words, control Our destiny. Not as a people (Nation)or a state (government). We are not a free, self-determining people. We were,before contact, kidnapping & national oppression - but not now. And untilthis fundamental contradiction is resolved, until New Afrika is independent ofU.S. imperialism & neo-colonial domination, We will remain at the continualmercy of Our historical enemies & their warped worldview. A worldview thatbreeds, promotes, encourages & finances predation & exploitation!

Whichbrings Us back to Rodney King & “Can’t We All Just Get Along”. The questionthat begs an answer is: Who is this “We” he spoke of? The rebellion was againstwhat was generally perceived as the system & particularly against exploiterswho parasitically attached themselves to Our oppression, chose to bleed ourcommunities of the little finances we were able to have. The masses, in their choiceof targets, were only re-appropriating the wealth they’d invested in thesestores & businesses that were then taking that wealth out of the ‘hoods& barrios & giving it to the enemies of Us all. So “We”, thepoor & exploited, were already “getting along” with each other. Who We didn’tget along with were those who’d exploited Us. Who’d bled our areas dry offinances while flooding our areas with a bunch of crap & b.s.

Itwasn’t the Crips, Bloods or Surenos who’d pulled Rodney Kingout of his car & beat the hell out of him. Nor was it the Black LibertarianArmy or the Brown Berets. So, why was his press conference directed at Usin the ‘hoods

&barrios? This also alerted Us to whom had arranged this press conference. Thenext question in line with his request is: What exactly did he mean by “Get along?“As in, “Can We All Get Along?”

Didn’tOur “Getting Along” with national oppression lead Us to this point? Didn’t We “justget along” after they kidnapped Us, colonized Us, hungUs, neo-colonized Us, imprisoned Us, ghetto-ized Us, miseducatedUs, un-employed Us, assassinated Our leaders, drugged Us, infectedUs & sent our youth to fight other oppressed peoples for them?Didn’t We get along during all that? Getting “along” with U.S. imperialism & our own genocide, hasgotten Us into this sordid ass state.

“GettingAlong” allowed the pigs to feel comfortable with pulling Rodney King out of hiscar & beating the hell out of him. The pigs didn’t fear reprisal from theBlack Liberation Army for harming one of Our nationals because when theyimprisoned Our combatants We “just got along” with that. Re-read that.

Butyou see, here’s the thing - that was not Rodney King’s words, nor his thoughts.Probably not even his will. No, those who were pulling his vocal cords werethose who had a vested interest, a stake, in the system - as it was beforethe Rebellion. Those who had made a political & economic (class) alliance -with the imperialists! His now famous quote was actually a message from ourclass enemies by way of someone who they thought we could identify with.But, of course, his (their) words fell upon deaf ears because those who’d beentreated just as bad (& some even worst) were out in the streets looking fora better day.

Allthe things people labored so hard to manufacture, at minimum wage jobs, butcould not afford to buy, they got for FREE. People were getting food,clothing, diapers, shoes & whatever else they could never afford, but alwaysneeded. And this in an Empire who’s wealth began upon their conquests &continues upon their exploitation today. Let Us not forget that the U.S., as anEmpire, has never supported itself - EVER! It was born a parasite &grew to prominence - as a parasite. It is today a parasite. But in thewealthiest Empire on the planet, in the history of the world, people are starving,hopeless & generally without.

Therepression required to keep Us “just getting along” is a massive effortundertaken by every branch of the oppressor government: Executive, Legislative& Judiciary. In fact, laws are enacted to maintain bourgeois hegemony overboth internal & external colonies. Both Federal (National) &State (Regional) laws function to keep the oppressed tethered to the floorof the Empire. There is a general & a permanent state of war that governs allrelations between oppressor & oppressed. Sometimes it’s hidden &tactically called something else - usually something with a benign name thatsounds well-meaning. You know like “War on Poverty”, or “War on Drugs” - “War onGangs”. They militarize everything having to do with relations betweenoppressed & oppressor Nations. It’s all part & parcel of the general& permanent state of war between Us & them! And just because We ain’t ready,organized & responding to it don’t mean it’s not a war.The ‘hoods, barrios & reservations are virtual prisons. The schools arehalf-way houses & the prison industrial complex is doing big business. It’sa war alright. Ready or not.

Apermanent state of war must exist in order to maintain fear in &control over the internal colonies. This permanent state of war is called colonialism.When they allow someone who looks like you to govern you, for them - this iscalled Neo (New) Colonialism. And, when they let a “black” run the business, asin Rock Bottom being president of the U.S. - this is calledpost-neo-colonialism. But colonialism all the same. The system is capable ofmorphing at moment’s notice in order to survive & continue to oppress. AsButch Lee pointed out, “it can even appear as its opposite in order to evadedestruction.” The slogan popularized by the old Black Liberation Movement, “ByAny Means Necessary”, actually embodies what the U.S. system of capitalismis really about. In practice. Always.

Theywill select a “black” sock puppet to be the president to demonstrate to theirinvestors that they are color blind - turn right around & imprison 800,000New Afrikans. Then, the sock puppet president, turns around & appointsvarious women to his team to show the people it is not patriarchal - but thesame system is waging an authoritarian war on women & children. Tho especiallywomen & children of color - those from the internal colonies (New Afrika,Puerto Rico, Aztlan & Indigenous Nations).

And,of course, We have to contend with the loyal-enemies of theEmpire. These are the ones who go hooping & hollering about “racism” &“discrimination” - boo-hooing about how exclusionary the system is - andyet they really only want in. They want “equality” - to be equal withthe very ones they claim are “racists”. They use terms like “OURgovernment”, or “OUR troops in Afghanistan” - “OUR police Force”.They are clamoring against “discrimination” because they feel they, too, shouldbe allowed to prey on people. They want to be “equal” in the system ofcapitalism. They don’t want to stop the problem - they want to be a partof it. Why else would they ask for “equality” without calling into question theentire grotesque apparatus?

Thisis what makes the petty bourgeois class of “blacks” so dangerous. They have theresources, approval & backing of the imperialists to carry on theircampaigns of accepted forms of protests, even when it appears to questionthe bourgeois laws of the enemy. For instance: they’ll support both a new trial& the release of Mumia Abu Jamal, only because we can provethat he was wrongly convicted as a part of a frame-up . And while We goon to link this frame-up with a total array of colonial maneuvers carried outto keep New Afrika oppressed & exploited, they’ll pull back at “racism”and ignore Our need for self-determination. This, because their classinterests reach an ending at calling into question the fundamentalcontradiction. We can demonstrate this by the fact that there is no support forSundiata Acoli, Jalil Muntaqim, Sekou Odinga or any other New Afrikan prisonersof war. Anything that points to the challenging of the fundamentalcontradiction - that calls into question the actual National Oppression of NewAfrika - the petty bourgeoisie will ignore, reject or outright denysupport for. This would not be in accord with their class interests asparasites upon Our misery, their collaboration with our oppressors.So, within the framework of their accepted forms of protests, as loyal enemies(as oppo-sames), they can call Mumia’s capture, incarceration & conviction“racist”, “discriminatory” &“questionable”. But that’s where it will end. That’s the parameters. That’s thefunction of this class. To appear as staunch defenders of “black”, or“Afrikan American”, rights, progress & equality only within theboundaries of established imperial rule. Which is to say only as“citizens” of the oppressor Nation - as “minorities” needing special handling.Victims.

Andhere we are back at Rodney King. Once the spontaneous L.A. Rebellion had runits course, brought under control only secondarily by the National Guard - it’sprimary weakness, of course, was its spontaneity - the U.S. government enacteda counterinsurgency policy called Weed & Seed. This directive wasissued straight from the White House, from then president George H.W. Bush.And, let Us not forget, that this same pig had, from February 1976, to Novemberof that same year, been Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. So he wasno stranger to counterinsurgency programs.

Weed & Seed was a counterinsurgency program much like thePhoenix Program run previously on the Vietnamese people to, it explicitly said,“neutralize the Viet Cong by assassinating its cadres, destroying its basesamong its people & strategically winning over the Vietnamese population”.That is exactly what Weed & Seed was about as well. In the ‘hoods& barrios of South Central.

Onceyou see New Afrikans as an internal, colonized Nation & not simplyas a “black minority of discriminated against U.S. citizens”, you’ll begin tooverstand the interchangeability of military tactics used against othercolonies around the world. Not only did Weed & Seed implement aweeding out of “troublemakers”, i.e. combatants, leaders & political adversaries, but it seeded pointsof contention & distrust amongst the various participants in the Rebellion& Resistance that grew eventually into what’s happening now between almostevery ‘hood & barrio. These conflicts did not fall from the sky. Theirorigins are on Earth, issuing from designs that serve someone’s needs. The ideais to follow the conflicts to the point of interest. Which is to say, whois benefiting from the conflicts? Keep the term Weed & Seedin mind as We go forward here.

Nationalsof two oppressed & colonized Nations (Aztlan & NewAfrika) are involved in shooting wars. Yes, these conflicts largely involvelumpen (criminal) elements. Those involved in street org activity. The lumpenelement to a degree played some significant roles in the Revolution of the 60’s& early 70’s. Especially those who were able to transform their criminalmentalities into conscious Revolutionary mentalities. Even tho’ it’s largely lumpenelements in contention in the ‘hoods/barrios, regular, working-class people,students & children, are also being affected by these clashes. But thething is, the combatants are nationals of oppressed Nations -those the U.S. government has already deemed “social dynamite” & haveslated for liquidation thru one of its various methods of collective death& destruction. So, once the enemy culture saw the mass unity during theRebellion, measures thru Weed & Seed, were undertaken to divide, soas to be in a better position to CONQUER, these elements who obviouslyhad no qualms about rebelling against oppression.

Here’sone of the tactics they used: On Florence & Normandie Avenues, theacknowledged point of origin of the Rebellion, New Afrikans were shown on filmpulling a Mexicano priest from his car, yanking his pants down, while he has onthe ground, & spray painting his private parts black. This was not what itactually was reported to be. While this priest was, in fact, Mexicano, he’dbeen pointed out by a Mexicano as a child molester & was thus disciplinedby the first group that got to him. But because those who got him were NewAfrikan & he was obviously a Mexicano & no sound was attached to thevideo, the media was allowed to mis-interpret the scene as they wished.

Andthis is what they did. So, there was Reginald Denny layed out after beingpulled from his truck - after he’d yelled “get your black asses out of thestreet” to the Rebels - & then beaten. And across the street was theMexicano priest, pants pulled down, private parts painted black - & the Rebelswere seemingly targeting anyone who wasn’t New Afrikan as they passed. This iswhat it looked like from the helicopter & after the news peopleinterpreted it as such. But that wasn’t true.

TheRebels, the lumpen, had just had a very physical brawl with a few dozenL.A.P.D. pigs over their manhandling of a fellow by the name of Marc. Duringthe Rebels’ battle to free Marc from the pigs clutches, a radio call came outwhich instructed the pigs to retreat - to leave the area. They got into theircars & left. Then the Rebels walked up to Florence Avenue & wereattempting to secure the intersection from all vehicle traffic - thatis: all vehicle traffic. Any motorists that attempted topass had their vehicles bombarded with stones, sticks & bottles. The tacticwas to secure the intersection against the eventual return of the L.A.P.D.Which, is must be added, has its 77th Division (a notoriously aggressive &hostile station) right down the avenue of Florence at Broadway. So, the idea,on a purely spur of the moment level, was to secure the main intersection fromany & all flowing traffic. What is interesting to note is that the youngRebels & lumpen weren’t trying to “start” the L.A. Rebellion. And itcertainly wasn’t about the Rodney King beating or verdict. Tho We’d all seenthat too. Where earlier in that fateful day the four L.A.P.D. pigs wereacquitted after a trial for the taped beating. While it most definitely wasn’tthe central factor, it was however one more nail in the coffin of belief in thesystem. This, if only for a few days, while Rebels re-appropriated variousgoods & demolished certain structures they knew were used to exploit &extract wealth out of the area. Local, mom & pop shops, were not destroyedor looted.

However,by showing over & over the corner of Florence and Normandie, ReginaldDenny’s stoning, the priest’s painting & the chaotic attempts by the Rebels& lumpens to secure the corner, the impression of “Madness” & “Racism”was projected out into the city, region, state & the Empire.And, of course, like most things involving a challenge to capital, exploitation& private property, the states’ propaganda machine put its own spin onthese events. With a few agents on the ground, in key places, doing whispercampaigns, it wasn’t too hard to convince right-wing street (& prison)organizations that it was the “Racist blacks attacking Mexicans”. Thus beganthe acrimonious flow of orders to “get even” that issued from the tombs of theSHU units. Check the stats - after the ‘92 Rebellion, the hoods & barrios across L.A.,Watts, Compton & Lynwood erupted in lethal clashes that have culminated inthe hostile stand off that exists today. In the midst of the Rebellion nevertheless,there came a ceasefire order observed by some of the most dangerous &combative street orgs within the New Afrikan communities. Eighty percent of thesets complied with the cease fire. Bitter enemies blendedacross color lines in South Central, Watts & Compton. This was in thehistoric spirit of the 1965 Watts Rebellion that saw a ceasefire & blendingof the older New Afrikan street orgs in favor of United Action Against theL.A.P.D. & National Guard. Weed & Seed was to prevent this fromhappening again.

Oncethe streets orgs agreed upon a ceasefire in 1965, they, unlike the Crips &Bloods of 1992, had a social movement to join as an alternative. A social movementthat was increasingly becoming an armed revolution. Malcolm had been murderedearlier that year, in February. The Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) wasactive, & nightly on the bourgeois news, images of civil rights protestswere being shown. There existed a more obvious exposure of the fundamentalcontradiction. New Afrika was being rapidly de-colonized. The system ofcapitalism was morphing again, looking, searching, for new ways to maintain itscontrol over the internal colonies, while simultaneously struggling to get newcolonies in Vietnam, South Amerika & Afrika. The following year, inOctober, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense would start. And, too, wouldthe United Slave Organization. Most of the street org combatants who’d cometogether in a cease fire during the 1965 Watts Rebellion, would go on tojoin either the Panther Party or theUnited Slaves. A move that wasn’t lost on the FBI who, thru itsCounterintelligence Program (Cointelpro) worked tirelessly to exacerbatepre-existing conflicts between individual combatants that inevitably spilledover into gunfights & murders.

Thesame tactics were used against the Crips & Bloods under Weed & Seed, afterthe 1992 Rebellion. Same war, different names of the maneuvers,same objective. What should come across as evident to Us as We reflect on thevarious tactics used against Us over the centuries is that the enemy has more faithin Our ability to get free than we do. Put another way, the enemy has had toimplement so many ploys, to hold, control, exploit & now to eliminate Usthat for Us to sit & point these things out make even the most astuteobserver appear as a wing-nut conspiracy theorist. Tho of course, it’s notheory when its actually happening, as Butch Lee & J. Sakai point out in Rethinking New Orleans, it ain’t a conspiracywhen it’s done out right & in the open - it’s a strategy. Why elsewould the imperialists have to implement plan after plan - sometimes elaborate& varied - to contain New Afrika (or any other colony) if for (1) it wasn’tcapable of breaking Free, (2) it wasn’t an asset & (3) it wasn’t able toturn it’s oppression into the actual defeat of the empire itself?

Oftentimesthe reaction to an issue can be a lesson unto itself. In this instance the enemy’sreaction to Our very existence is quite enough for those with eyes & ears,to recognize the vast potential in our collective ability to break de chains.Of course, the fact remains that the chains which bind - that at this stage arepsychological - are so thoroughly in place that the masses have to be convincedthat they are oppressed. Consciousness will not fall from the sky. Nor willpeople be moved to action by mere thoughts, or ideas in anyone’s head. On bothaccounts material, earthbound, tangibles - food, clothing, shelter, Land, &control of destiny (Socialism) will motivate the masses. People are moved byinterests.

So,in closing, it never was about Rodney King, the verdict, or any singular thingat all. These, however were accelerants, or sparks, at any given time, but thebasic most fundamental thing that causes Us to struggle, to resist, is that We arenot collectively free to determine Our own destiny. That we are under the thumbof U.S. imperialism. And this imperialism is administered thru colonialism -colonial violence (violence both armed & unarmed). Violence does damage(physically or mentally) - in the streets or in the schools. Thru policeshootings or cultural hegemony. The colonialism is in place to exploitUsthrough capitalism. Let’s be clear on this. Because whether the people areconscious of this or not, it is the reality We are in. And it follows that itwill be Our recognition, challenge to & resolution of this fundamentalcontradiction that will end Our National oppression. Without overstanding this,We’ll continue to be played on Amerika’s Ferris Wheel of “citizenry” - dazed& confused. Being led by the “black” bourgeoisie to meekly just “get along”with Our oppression. Hau!

Rebuild!

SanyikaShakur

***********************************

Sanyika Shakur in a New Afrikan Communist currently held in Pelican Bay's Security Housing Unit; you can write to him at:

Kody Scott D#07829
PBSP-SHU / C-7-112
PO Box 7500
Crescent City, CA
95532

Stop Ongoing Harassment of Jalil Muntaqim!

2012-01-08T16:39:00.000-05:00

Jalil Muntaqim, POW

This from comrades at Jericho:

We received a call Friday morningfrom Jalil Muntaqim to advise us that his cell had been raided onThursday, January 5th.(Attica,NY) When Jalil asked why his cell was beingsearched, he was told it was because “something happened in California.”

The COs confiscated pictures of the memorials for BPP members Cetewayo(Michael Tabor) and Bro. Mark Smith “Smitty” of New Jersey. Jalilreceived a Tier 3 ticket for possession of these photos. Of course, thesephotos had been sent to him by mail and had been approved in the prisonmailroom.

Jalil is not in the hole. We have been told this walking ticket meansthey can use it against him at any time for any reason.

Jalil's cell has been turned over five times in the last two months.

Jalil is asking people to call the Warden and Commissioner Brian Fischerto demand:

1. An end to this campaign of constant harassment

2. The return of his pictures

When you call, be sure to use Jalil's DIN number (#77A4283) and refer tohim as Anthony “Jalil” Bottom, currently at Attica.

Brian Fischer (518) 457-8126
Warden: (585) 591-2000
We would like to know what responses people receive. Please send an emailto nycjericho@gmail.com ormxcc519@verizon.net to let usknow.

Thank you for your help.
Jericho Co-Chairs Jihad & Paulette

To learn more about Jalil Muntaqim, click here.

George Wright will not be Extradited: Portugal's Supreme Court Confirms Decision of Lisbon Court's Refusal of US Extradition Demand

2011-12-29T16:22:00.000-05:00

Article by Jürgen Heiser, published in Junge Welt (29.12.2011):

In the case of former US citizen, George Wright, Portugal's Supreme Court ruled to deny an appeal made by the US Justice Department, shortly before Christmas. With its appeal, registered four weeks ago, the USA was seeking the extradition of the former Black Panther Party militant. A court in Lisbon had already refused extradition, November 17, 2011. The court's refusal was based on Wright's valid Portuguese citizenship. Wright has been living with his Portuguese wife for more than 20 years near Lisbon, under the name Jorge Dos Santos and has two adult children. The refusal was also based on the fact that, in the meantime, the USA's penal claims have surpassed the statute of limitations.

The Supreme Court found no legal error in this reasoning and confirmed the extradition refusal. "The Supreme Court has informed me today of its decision," declared Wright's defense counsel, Manuel Luis Ferreira, last Friday to Associated Press. There were no further details from the court, because, in Portugal, extradition cases are conducted in secret. The USA has recourse to appealing to Portugal's Constitutional Court. The US Attorney General has not yet made his next step known.

Jorge Dos Santos, today 68 years old, was born George Wright in Detroit, Michigan. In 1970, he and three other inmates escaped from Bayside State Prison in Leesburg, New Jersey, and joined an underground political wing of the Afro-American liberation movement. At the time of his outbreak, he had served seven of a 15 – 30 year sentence for a robbery of $70 in 1962. The gas station owner, Walter Patterson, was shot and killed by an accomplice, who was subsequently sentenced to "life." He has long since been freed.

The Wright case, the FBI's high-profile manhunt target, made international headlines, when he was tracked down in Portugal, at the end of September, following his 41 year-long odyssey through the USA, Africa, and Europe.

Since his arrest, the Justice Department has not been the only one to exert pressure on Portuguese authorities, to have Wright extradited to serve the remainder of his sentence. Politicians, such as Senator Frank Lautenberg (Dem. NJ) have directly intervened to the government. "George Wright is guilty of the murder of Walter Patterson," writes Lautenberg in his dispatch to the Portuguese Prime Minister, Passos Coelho, "and has yet to serve out his full sentence for that heinous crime in the United States."

In his letter, Lautenberg omits that the 19-year-old Wright, at the time, was only an accomplice and had accepted the prosecutor's plea-bargain. With his acceptance not to defend himself against the charge, he sought to avoid being sentenced to death. Had he not been under the threat of the death penalty and had had an appropriate defense counsel, he would not have had to escape from prison in 1970. He would have received a short sentence and been freed on parole already within a few years.

We're Having a Sale!!!

2011-12-04T11:41:00.001-05:00

Here's the deal - while on the internet libraries of information can zap from place to place through thin air, in real life books take up space - and our basement is once again full, and we're just not sure where we're going to put all of next year's titles...

Enter that favorite solution: the end of year sale!

For a limited time, over one hundred titles from leftwingbooks.net are discounted from 10-50% off.

Whether you've had your eye on a title for a while now, or if you've simply got space on your bookshelf to fill (who doesn't!), there's sure to be something here for you. And if you give gifts this time of year, there's sure to be something for family and friends here too!

All you folks ordering in canada, also note we're keeping the prices the same for the rest of the year, regardless of what currency you pay in - which comes out to about a 5% additional savings!

To see the discounted prices, just drag your mouse over the title in question - to order, all it takes is a click.

We accept canadian and u.s. credit cards, paypal, cheques and money orders - if you have any questions just shout out to info@kersplebedeb.com.

(For holiday delivery times, see below)

(This sale sadly does not apply to our bookstore and wholesale customers.)

from leftwingbooks.net ...

HOLIDAY DELIVERY TIMES

For those of you ordering for December 25 or thereabouts, please note that Canada Post recommends ordering by December 8 (this Thursday!) in the United States or December 12 in Canada. Later than that and express post should work up til the 16th in the U.S. and the 21st in Canada - please keep in mind that we're located in Montreal (Eastern standard time) and if you order after 4pm we're unlikely to be able to get to the post office in time.

If you're in Europe, you're out of luck in terms of getting stuff by the 25th - but don't despair, you can still place an order, and your books should arrive in early 2012.

All the above are rough guidelines, not guaranteed.

For more information, check out the Canada Post website.

Montreal Book Launch: CAPTIVE GENDERS: trans embodiment and the prison industrial complex (November 24)

2011-11-22T18:15:00.001-05:00

[please post and forward widely] [français ci-dessous]

[facebook: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=272424856132486]

----------

Prisoner Correspondence Project, Certain Days, Kersplebedeb Publishing & QPIRG Concordia invite you to the Montreal book launch of:

Captive Genders: trans embodiment and the prison industrial complex

Thursday November 24th, 6:30pm

QPIRG Concordia1500 de Maisonneuve O. suite 204

metro Guy Concordia

Featuring:
- presentation by a trans guy incarcerated in Joliette (a Montreal area women’s prison) speaking about his experiences in a gender-segregated prison environment
- selected readings from the Captive Genders anthology just published by AK Press
- excerpts from the Prisoner Correspondence Project's article Imprisoned Pride, featuring the voices of currently incarcerated queer prisoners, speaking to their experiences behind bars
- words from Amazon Contreraz, a jailhouse lawyer, trans activist and prisoner at Corcoran, California

The book will be available for sale at the launch at the discounted price of $15 (usual price is $23.05)

- Whisper translation available (English-French & French-English)

- Venue is wheelchair accessible

- Childcare available on site

- Snacks will be served

About the book:

Pathologized, terrorized, and confined, trans/gender non-conforming and queer folks have always struggled against the enormity of the prison industrial complex. The first collection of its kind, Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith bring together current and former prisoners, activists, and academics to offer new ways for understanding how race, gender, ability, and sexuality are lived under the crushing weight of captivity. Through a politic of gender self-determination, this collection argues that trans/queer liberation and prison abolition must be grown together. From rioting against police violence and critiquing hate crimes legislation to prisoners demanding access to HIV medications, and far beyond, Captive Genders is a challenge for us all to join the struggle.

INFO:

prisonercorrespondenceproject.com

:::::::::::::::::::::

Le Projet de Correspondance avec les Prisonniers, le collectif Certain Days, les publications Kersplebedeb et le GRIP à Concordia

vous invitent au lancement montréalais du livre :

Captive Genders: trans embodiment and the prison industrial complex

Jeudi 24 novembre, 18h30
GRIP à Concordia

1500 de Maisonneuve O. suite 204

métro Guy-Concordia

Avec:
- une présentation d’un gars trans incarcéré à Joliette (une prison pour femmes de la région de Montréal) qui parle de ses expériences dans un environnement d’isolement genré en prison
- une lecture d’extraits de l’anthologie Captive Genders, parue recémment par AK Press
- des extraits de l’article ‘Fierté Emprisonnée’ du Projet de Correspondance avec les Prisonnier.e.s, incluant les voix de prisonnier.e.s queer présentement incarcéré.e.s qui parlent de leurs expériences derrière les barreaux
- les mots d’Amazon Contreraz, une avocate en prison, activiste trans et prisonnière à Corcoran, Californie

Le livre sera disponible lors du lancement au prix réduit de 15$ (au lieu du prix régulier de 23,05$)

- Traduction chuchotée disponible (Anglais-Français et Français-Anglais)

- Lieu accessible aux chaises roulantes

- Garderie disponible sur place

- Des collations seront servies

Au sujet du livre:

Traités comme des malades, terrorise.e.s et confiné-es, les gens trans, au genre non-conforme et queer ont toujours lutté contre l’énormité du complexe prison-industriel. Dans cette première collection en son genre, Eric A. Stanley et Nat Smith réunissent ensemble des anciens prisonnier-es et des gens détenus, des activistes et des universitaires pour offrir de nouvelles façons de comprendre comment la race, le genre, l’habilité et la sexualité se vivent sous le poids écrasant de la captivité. À travers la politique de l’auto-détermination du genre, cette collection affirme que la liberation trans/queer et l’abolition des prisons doivent grandir ensemble. Des émeutes contre la brutalité policière aux critiques des lois contre les crimes haineux, aux revendications des prisonnier.e.s pour des médicaments contre le VIH, et bien plus, Captive Genders est un défi à nous joindre à la lutte.

INFO:

prisonercorrespondenceproject.com

Agents Claim to Have Captured Alleged BLA Combatant George Wright

2011-09-29T17:59:00.001-04:00

in happier times...

Many of you will have heard the sad news that police are claiming they have arrested George Wright, an alleged former BLA combatant living in Portugal under the name Jose Luis Jorge dos Santos.

Mainstream news reports state that Wright escaped from prison where he was serving a sentence for murder in 1970. He then apparently joined the BLA, and was one of a group which hijacked a Delta Airlines flight from Detroit to Miami, forcing it to land in Boston, where they exchanged their hostages for 1 million dollars before flying on to Algeria. While the Algerian government did seize the million, Wright and the others were not handed over to the united states. According to these same mainstream news reports, Wright has spent the past forty years living in Africa and then Portugal. CNN reports that:

At age 68, he was living quietly in the resort of Sintra near Lisbon in Portugal when he was arrested Monday.

The United States is seeking his extradition from Portugal to serve the remainder of a 15- to 30-year sentence for murder. Portuguese judicial authorities could not be reached Tuesday for details of the extradition process.

Wright is fighting extradition, a U.S. federal agent said, and his next court appearance in Portugal is in about two weeks.

A comrade in Lisbon has made contact with Wright, and he has indicated that he would like support. He can be reached at:

Estabelecimento Prisional instalado junto da Polícia Judiciária de Lisboa

Rua Gomes Freire, 174.

1169-007 Lisboa

Portugal

Best to put the names "George Wright" and "Jose Luis Jorge dos Santos" on envelopes so that the prisoncrats don't have an excuse to reject them.

Updates will be posted as information becomes available. To contact someone in Portugal trying to coordinate support: solidariedadejorgedossantos@gmail.com or gewright2011@gmail.com

Hungerstrike Resumes in California Prisons! (Slingshot article)

2011-09-28T10:10:00.000-04:00

This is an article i wrote for Slingshot - it was a bit of a rush job (i only found out about it a few hours before the deadline), so hopefully i didn't goof on anything:

By the time you read this article, prisoners across California will have embarked on their second hunger strike in just a few months. Rising up against conditions of torture, the first hungerstrike lasted three weeks in July, with thousands coming together in an unprecedented show of unity and force. The second hunger strike may not be as large as the first, but it promises to be more brutal, and there is a real risk that prisoners could die. If you're on the outside, there are many ways you can support those on the inside in their struggle – indeed, your involvement and action are crucial.

The second hunger strike will necessarily build on lessons learned in July. While prisoners in many facilities were struggling against their own conditions, that strike was initiated by prisoner representatives in Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit (SHU), a solitary isolation facility located in the remote edge of northern California by the Oregon border.

It is not surprising that the largest prisoner protest in years, one that brought together people from different nationalities and organizations, kicked off in the PB-SHU, for this unit embodies key aspects of the State’s most ambitious, and destructive, policies.

Cells in the SHU have no windows, just fluorescent lights which are never turned off. Prisoners spend 22-23 hours a day thus confined; when they are allowed out it is to be brought (alone) to what is euphemistically called an “exercise yard” – in fact, just a larger enclosed space with grating instead of a roof. There are no contact visits with loved ones, ever. Violence from guards is commonplace. Merely shouting out to another prisoner through your cell door can be considered a disciplinary infraction. Prisoners are fed substandard food, they are punished collectively for issues involving individuals – generally on a “racial” basis – and their indefinite SHU sentences end only if they agree to “debrief,” that is to say, to snitch.

These are the conditions in which people have spent years, even decades, of their lives – often with no prospect of ever getting out.

The SHU is best understood as a long-term behavior modification program. This kind of treatment was developed in the 20th century, under the auspices of both sides during the Cold War, with the goal of destroying people without breaking the rules of Geneva Convention. The result was yet another new weapon in the hands of the ruling class. In America the first experiments in this vein were the Marion and Lexington Control Units, specifically aimed at political prisoners and prisoners of war. Today, close to 100,000 people suffer in such units, which sprouted like a plague across the country in the late 1980s.

If the SHU is a ruling class weapon, who is it aimed at? The answer to this is two-fold. On the one hand, control units are aimed at “security threats” within the prison system, a category that includes anyone organizing against oppression: jailhouse lawyers, revolutionaries, and other “troublemakers.” People have ended up in the SHU for having a book by George Jackson, or a tattoo of a Huelga bird. More broadly, though, the SHU is aimed at all prisoners. Throughout the system, the threat is, if you step out of line you’ll be put in “segregation.” Even those who are not sent to the SHU are subjected to isolation conditions that have been perfected in institutions like Pelican Bay.

For the democratic State, every weapon of oppression must be accompanied by a propaganda attack. This is the way in which the ruling class enjoys what u.s. political prisoner George Jackson referred to as the State’s prestige, or what Italian political prisoner Antonio Gramsci referred to as hegemony. So what could be termed psychological or ideological warfare is the necessary companion of every assault on the oppressed. In the case of the SHU, this psychological warfare takes the form of the gang label.

Accusing people of belonging to a “gang” has become a convenient way to deprive those people of the ability to communicate, to develop politically/intellectually/culturally, and to pursue what are supposed to be their rights under the system's laws. Many people are understandably fearful of the violence and mayhem associated with many criminal organizations, and these fears are exploited by bodies such as the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) in order to justify clamping down on any collective activity, accusing those they don’t like of being members of “gangs” whether or not this is true. Perhaps not so coincidentally, this works to isolate these people from their communities, further eroding the ties of solidarity that exist between poor and oppressed people, leading to an increase in atomization and antisocial violence which in turn makes these communities all the more vulnerable to actual criminal organizations and oppressors operating on both sides of the law.

In other words, repression of “gangs” serves as a fig leaf for the repression of any collective action or organization by the oppressed that does not suit the plans of the oppressor. This dynamic exists in communities throughout the United States, but like most oppressive dynamics it appears in its most concentrated form within the prison system.

As recently explained on the California Correctional Crisis blog, produced by faculty and students at UC Hastings College of the Law:

“To curb criminal gang activity, we have adopted special sentencing rules and uniquely oppressive correctional practices. This special treatment goes beyond the mere development of special investigation practices, evidentiary rules and penal technologies; it includes the development of a new body of knowledge that regards gang members as special, their lives and behavior beyond the reach of ordinary human common sense. But we have done more: By examining gang practices as special and unique, through the lens of clinical expertise, we have relegated gang members to the status of incorrigible specimens, who can only be studied, controlled, governed, and suppressed through special, dehumanizing technologies.”

The SHU is itself one such dehumanizing technology.

The July Hunger Strike: Round One

Predictably, a major concern in July was that many prisoners suffered a marked deterioration of their health, a situation the prisoncrats exploited in an attempt to break the strike. Strikers were advised to take multivitamins and salt tablets – and yet these were often not available. CDCR insisted that everyone was being monitored, but there were reports that this “monitoring” consisted of someone standing at a cell door asking if the prisoner was feeling alright. Prisoners were supposed to be weighed daily, but this was sometimes done while they wore chains, sometimes not, making the entire exercise somewhat pointless.

When it became clear that some prisoners were willing to continue regardless of the consequences, the State started exploring other options. On July 20, CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate announced that he would seek a court order allowing prison officials to force-feed striking prisoners – including those who had signed advance medical directives indicating that they did not wish to receive any such life-sustaining measures.

Force-feeding is the State’s trump card when dealing with hunger strikes. It is intensely painful, especially when the patient resists, and is often used as an excuse for physical violence from guards and other staff. Indeed, force-feeding has itself been described as a form of violence. At the same time – despite the fact that prisoners have died while being force-fed, and that the World Medical Association prohibits the practice – in the public’s eye the procedure often reduces the urgency of a strike, because people incorrectly believe that the health of a person being force-fed is no longer at risk.

Nevertheless, the State never ended up playing that hand. On July 22, CDCR Undersecretary Scott Kernan met with prisoner representatives, and an agreement was reached whereby the strike would be suspended, in exchange for which the CDCR would begin making significant changes to address each of the prisoners’ five demands. Specifically, Kernan promised that the hated debriefing policy would be replaced by a step-down program based on behavior, not purported “gang” affiliation.

While CDCR did make some minor concessions on the spot – allowing prisoners to purchase warm clothes and art materials, for instance – as days turned to weeks, many of the prisoner representatives began to feel they were being played. Meanwhile, CDCR put out the word that the prisoners had settled for these token concessions, denying that there had been any promise for more significant structural changes. It was an intolerable situation: CDCR was aiming to undo the July hunger strikers’ most important accomplishment – their unity and moral prestige at having resisted torture – and was trying to make it look as if people had settled for crumbs, as if the whole struggle had been over “beanies and calendars”.

In this situation, it was soon decided to resume the hunger strike.

Round Two: Thoughts on the Eve of a Storm

This article is being written exactly two months after the end of the first hunger strike – and less than 72 hours before the start of the next one. Writing beforehand but knowing that this will be read during – or even after – the second strike, poses certain challenges as to what can be said. Nevertheless, the experiences over the summer point to some clear lessons that people would do well to keep in mind.

In resisting conditions of torture in the SHU, the prisoners are challenging an important ruling class institution. The SHU, the prison system in general, and specific “anti-gang” policies, are central to how the government controls oppressed people in the United States. The State will do all it can to hold on to these weapons. It will exploit the difficulties prisoners face when communicating with each other and the outside movement. It will exploit fears about gangs and criminality. It will exploit prisoners’ medical conditions. It will exploit every advantage it has – which is why it is all the more important that each and every one of us who opposes this system support the prisoners’ struggle.
The struggle to support the prisoners is hampered by a lack of resources. The Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition is strapped for cash. California Prison Focus did not have sufficient funds to publish its Prison Focus newsletter prior to the second strike. A very small number of people have been doing most of the work. If the second hunger strike persists, a lack of outside support will translate into dead prisoners. More people and organizations need to get involved.
Autonomous action seems to be on the agenda. While the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition has done an excellent job, its mandate is to amplify the voices of the prisoners, not to provide leadership. As for the hunger strikers, the prison system as a whole is designed to prevent easy communication with the outside – and nowhere is this more true than in the SHU. It is not realistic to expect people in isolation cells to micromanage an outside solidarity campaign. People need to think about how to intervene, because nobody’s going to come up with a grand plan for us.
Escalation will occur, whether we can match it or not. CDCR has already stated that the response to a second hunger strike will be harsher than what occurred over the summer. As possible preparation for this, prisoners received disciplinary warnings after the first strike, informing them that they had broken prison rules, that this was being entered into their file, and that they would be punished if this happened again. Action on the outside has to be imaginative and inspiring, more than just phoning politicians. The prisoners have made a point of framing their struggle as a nonviolent one, but even with that limitation there are a wide range of options that should be explored and pursued.
The prisoners don’t come from outer space, they come from communities. They have family members and loved ones. These are the people who will have to take the lead in developing a strong movement on the outside, one that threatens the State so that it comes to see ending its SHU torture program as the lesser of two evils.

To get involved with the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition, contact prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity@gmail.com or call: 510.444.0484

To keep up to date with activity around the hunger strike, visit the blog at http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com or subscribe to Hungerstrike News by sending an email to hstrikenews@yahoo.ca

To connect with other people working around the hungerstrike, including many family members of prisoners, check out the “PELICAN BAY- CALIFORNIA HUNGER STRIKE SOLIDARITY!” group as well as the “CA Prisoners Hunger Strike Solidarity Action Network” group on facebook.

DO SOMETHING!!!

September 26, the strike's back on - Tortured SHU Prisoners Speak Out: “The Struggle Continues”

2011-09-14T15:43:00.000-04:00

For the past 10-40 years thousands of California prisoners have been confined in CDC-SHU units indefinitely based on status [E.G., a gang label – active gang classification, based on innocuous association activity, and allegations from confidential inmate informants] – wherein, they have been demonized as the worst-of-the-worst, in order to justify decades of human rights violations – including state sanctioned torture for the purpose of breaking the prisoners, and coercing them into becoming known informants for the state –thereby placing such prisoners, and their families in serious danger of retribution; as well as, the severe-permanent physical and psychological pain and suffering to these long term SHU prisoners and their families – directly related to CDCR-SHU policies and practices, all of which violate U.S. Constitutional, and international legal principles [as summarized in the prior formal complaint and 5-core demands available online].

As of September 2011, these SHU-prisoners continue to be subjected to CDCR’s torturous human rights violations, in spite of the July 2011 peaceful protest via hunger strike, wherein thousands of prisoners of all races/groups united in their effort to bring mainstream exposure and force an end to such barbarous policies and practices. [CDCR has responded with more propaganda, lies, and vague double talk promises of change in time].

SHU prisoners are dissatisfied with CDCR’s response to their formal complaint and (5) core demands, and therefore will continue to resist via peaceful protest indefinitely, until actual changes are implemented as summarized below.

1. The Formal Complaint and Five (5) Core Demands

Beginning Feb. 5, 2010, dozens of PBSP-SHU prisoners and their family members and friends began sending copies of the formal complaint to numerous law makers, CDCR Secretary Cate, and to many organizations. CDCR’s response was,..”file and inmate appeal.” In May 2011, the formal complaint, notice of hunger strike for July 01, 2011, and Five(5) core demands, were served on CDCR Sec. Cate, and Warden Lewis. There was no response…[notably, these documents were all posted on-line in March 2011].

2. The July 1st Hunger Strike and CDCR’s Response(s)

The H.S. began on July 1st at PBSP-SHU, and quickly spread to other prisons- at one point more than 6,600 prisoners participated at thirteen (13) prisons across the state!

On July 14, 2011, CDCR Undersecretary Kernan spoke to the inmate representatives via phone conference, promising them that the (5) core demands would be addressed, with positive changes occurring over time. The reps asked Kerman to put details of the changes on paper for their review.

On July 15, 2011, the reps received the documents provided by Kernan and determined the documents were not satisfactory because they were very vague and did not specify any changes of substance in relation to the (5) core demands.

On July 20th, Kernan and additional CDCR administrators met with the inmate reps in the PSB-SHU parole board hearing room. Kernan made more assurances about positive changes to SHU policies being in the works, and stated he would meet with the reps again in a couple of weeks in order to provide specifics as to each of the (5) core demands re: changes and progress made. As well as agreeing that, other than adding an extra day of visiting each week…the rest of the demands on (#5) re: programs/privileges, were reasonable and would be granted, as a show of good-faith on CDCR’s part.

All of the reps (14) then met and discussed the proposals from Kernan, and then decided to temporarily suspend the H.S., in order to give CDCR “a couple of weeks” grace period to keep their word on the (5) core demands [per Kernan’s request and assurances].

On August 19th, Kernan and other CDCR Administrators, met with the reps again, to follow up on the July 20th assurances re: specifically addressing the (5) core demands in detail.

Kernan did not have anything on paper to specifically address any of the (5) core demands. The meeting consisted of Kernan’s words – in very vague, general terms, about CDCR staff working to come up with some type of step down program for inmates to get out of SHU, which does not require debriefing- informant status- and Warden Lewis stating (SHU) inmates would soon be allowed to purchase sweat suits, and have the use of a handball on the yard.

On August 19th, Kernan and other CDCR Administrators, met with the reps again, to follow up on the July 20th assurances re: specifically addressing the (5) core demands in detail.

The reps pointed out that Kernan’s verbal, vague presentation was not what was agreed to on July 20th. Kernan responded that “a step down” program will be operational by the end of this year, or early next year.”

The reps asked for specific details to be provided on paper to all SHU sections so all inmates can have something tangible in their hands. And Kernan eventually agreed to begin providing this documentation within (2) weeks. Instead, on Sept. 02, a memo dated Aug. 25th, entitled gang mg. proposal was only issued to the (4) principle reps; this document is again, extremely vague and general. It is not adequate nor acceptable!

On Aug. 23rd, Kernan appeared before the Calif. Assembly Public Safety Comm., to answer questions re: SHU policies and practices, that were exposed to the world via the H.S….according to the transcript of this Aug. 23^rd hearing, Kernan was very vague, general, non-responsive, and focused on propagating CDCR’s out right lies about PBSP SHU policies, and the inmates subject to the torture therein – examples are;

a. “The courts have found PBSP-SHU policies meet constitutional standards.” [This is false- see e.g.,Madrid v. Gomez 889 F. Sup. 1146, at 1270, fn 217; see also, Griffin v. Gomez; Lira v. Cate, [cases cited in formal complaint!]. And, Chambers v. Florida, 309, U.S. 227, at 237-328 [1940].

b. “SHU houses (3,000) gang generals, who spend 24/7 engaging in gang-activity which threatens prison and public safety; and, we need to isolate them in harsh conditions, to prevent them from ordering other inmates to kill staff on sight,” etc, etc, etc. [This is also false, There are no rule violation reports/or criminal charges to support this claim!]

c. When asked directly by the Assembly if “debriefing places the inmate and his family in danger?” Kernan failed to answer! Notably Kernan stated that one certainty is CDCR’s plan to expand the number of prisoners subject to solitary confinement torture, by applying the policies and practices currently reserved for some suspected gang affiliates, to encompass all inmates categorized as party to any type of “disruptive group”[1] [e.g., the tens of thousands of street gang affiliates in CDCR prisons]; as well as, CDCR’s intent to continue to rely on information from “debriefing” inmates, to keep other inmates in SHU indefinitely!!

On Aug. 31st, PBSP-SHU staff issued (4) memos, addressing the allowance of the following; handballs on the yard; ability to purchase sweat suits; and, with (1) year free of disciplinary action and committee approval, the ability to get a yearly photo taken and purchase art pens and drawing paper from the prison canteen. [While said memos were being passed out, a Sgt. Was loudly telling staff to start writing up all prisoner’s for any type of reason they can think of, in order to prevent prisoners from getting their newly won privileges!]

3. SHU Prisoner’s Dissatisfaction with CDCR’s Response to the Formal Complaint and Five (5) Core Demands;

PBSP-SHU inmates have considered all facts and circumstances, summarized above, and remain united in our dissatisfaction with CDCR’s lack of specific substantive action on our (5) core demands. Our dissatisfactions are summarized below;

d. Re: Core Demands #1-3

Our problem with CDCR’s response to core demands #1, 2, and 3 is this…

#1. We remain in (SHU) indefinitely, deprived of our basic human rights – based on illegal policies and practices, that amount to torture; torture of us, as well as our family members and loved ones on the outside. CDCR remains in denial, and continues to propagate the lies re: “worst-of-the-worst” 3000 gang generals, etc. – in order to dehumanize/demonize us, so as to maintain the status quo, and “continue to hammer us” [per Sec. Cate’s press statement earlier this year], and subject us to “harsh” conditions [per Kernan’s Aug. 23rd testimony]. These terms “hammer” and “harsh” conditions, are used in place of the word torture – and the fact is, CDCR’s intent is to break us down, and coerce us into becoming state informants! A violation of international treaty law-period!! This is not acceptable!

CDCR has failed to produce any documentation re: details of how their so called “step-down” program will work, who it will apply to, exceptions-exclusions etc.; and our problem is,…”step down” from what”? When someone has been in (SHU) deprived of normal human contact- especially the lack of any physical contact with family/loved ones, for 10-40 years [based on a “label” without being charged and found guilty of illegal gang activity]; yet CDCR is dragging it out, coming with nothing but words, and vague “proposals,”…which indicate we will have to remain in (SHU), jumping thru a bunch of CDCR’s security hoops, to advance through “steps”…inspite of (3 to 25+) years free of any serious rule violations!

Plus, we’re certain that CDCR Administrators have no intention of ever giving most of us in PBSP short corridor, any real chance for general population!

#2. CDCR has made clear that one certainty is, their plan to substantially expand on the use of “solitary confinement”, via targeting all prisoners deemed “disruptive groups” [security threat groups], which is defined as: “2 or more inmates who are collectively deemed to be a security threat” – e.g., all street gang affiliates, prisoners deemed political-revolutionary etc, etc, etc. [see also; CCR Title 15; sec. 3000 “Disruptive Behavior”] which with CDCR’s history of abuse of policies re:”prison gangs” in solitary confinement, it’s clear, things will get worse, not better. This new policy is a way CDCR plans to maintain their staff and funding status quo, in response to the Plata order to reduce prison population – it costs nearly double to house prisoners in solitary confinement!

Our position is, CDCR’s “plans” to date, are not acceptable, and are another example of their intent to maintain, and expand on, “solitary confinement;” and demonstrate a failure of the entire CDCR management to make positive reforms! And, all long term (SHU) inmates should be released to general populations!! ASAP!!

#3. Also, the medical care problems re: core demand #3, have not been resolved!! All PBSP-SHU inmates suffering from chronic disease, and denied adequate care at PBSP, due to deliberate indifference, and efforts to coerce them to debrief..should all be transferred to New Folsom Medical SHU, while waiting to be released to general populations!!

e. Re: Core Demand #4

This issue concerns our poor diet, small portions – all watered down, dirty trays, etc… and has not been fixed- in fact, its gotten worse since we came off the hunger strike on July 20th!! This lack of adequate nutritional food/vitamins causes all of us to lack energy and harms our mental/physical health – which greatly increases medical care costs! Plus, our lack of sunlight, and related lack of vitamin D, is a problem too..we need better food and portions, clean trays, and ability to purchase healthy food items and nutritional supplements ASAP!!

c. Re: Core Demand #5

There remains a problem with many of our program/privilege examples listed on demand #5, not being implemented [e.g., phone calls, canteen and package issues; T.V./Radio – channels; extra visiting time- what about the ability to get photos in visiting room, wherein c/o takes picture of inmate and visitors thru the glass?]. And, the ones that have been implemented in PBSP-SHU, have been done in a way that it makes it real hard for most inmates to get a photo, or art pens/drawing paper, because the warden has state via memos, that inmates have to have (1) year free of discipline, and they must first “have to go to committee to get approved” [Kearnan’s Aug. 29h memo to all SHU Wardens does notsay inmates “need to go to committee” for these.

And, having to get sweat suits in yearly packages, equals another 40-50 ounces of weight, which meansless food items! This weight for non-food items takes a lot out of food amount; then, you add all the packaging [e.g. box, etc.], and we will end up with very little food items in our packages [e.g. packaging (50-ounces), tennis shoes (50-ounces), sweat pants, shirt, shorts (40 ounces), thermals (18-20 ounces), equals 158 ounces of a max weight of 480 ounces!] An easy fix for these non-food items, is that PBSP can return to their old policy of allowing us to purchase all “non-food” items, thru special purchase, just like we continue to do when ordering books and periodicals…

In closing, to all SHU-prisoners and all our outside supporters,[2] we wanted to let you know [as you can see from this], that this is far from over..and once again, hopefully for the last time, we will be risking our lives via a peaceful hunger strike on Sept 26, 2011 to force positive changes. Thus, we stillneed your support to contact the governor, etc, to force CDCR to make fair and reasonable changes to their policies, and indicated here. Thank you.

Respectfully and in Solidarity,

From all PBSP SHU H.S. Reps.

Escalation of political repression at Red Onion State Prison (Virginia: United States)

2011-09-14T15:14:00.000-04:00

From http://signalfire.org/?p=14129:

Over the years long standing organizing efforts by class conscious prisoners in the Virgina state system’s two maximum security facilities (Red Onion and Wallens Ridge) have been met with systematic repression including beatings, assaults with electrical and chemical weapons, isolation in special segregation units, interdiction of communications and at least one shooting incident.

Most recently Kevin “Rashid” Johnson a founding organizer of the NABPP-PC (New African Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter) and author of the book “Defying the Tomb” has been subjected to an extremely restrictive communications regime including the suspension of all outgoing mail and deprivation of most telephone access.

This is being carried out within the context of a broader agenda on the part of the Virginia DOC to criminalize and smear prisoner organizing as “gang activity”.

According to a recent message from an outside supporter on Rashid’s current situation:

“Basically, they have stepped up their interference with his communication network and also their efforts to stigmatize him as a 'gang-member.'

Under the direction of one M. Duke, a gang task-force member who wears a T-shirt with the inscription GANG UNIT (in very big letters), Rashid’s cell was raided and all of his stamps were taken. While his cell was being ransacked , Rashid questioned Duke, pointing out that the latter’s insignia was like a signal to incite violence on the part of the authorities. He explained to Duke that the NABPP opposes gang behavior and asked why he was being targeted. Duke’s only response was that he “just happened to be there that day.”

All Rashid’s phone connections have been blocked… He thinks that all his outgoing mail has been blocked. He asks that protest be made to state officials. He holds Tony Adams (an “investigator”) responsible for the cutting off of his lines of communication.

Rashid wants “noise” to be made — to protest the interference and also to protest the labeling of the NABPP as a gang.”

From Georgia to California and access the country the prison struggle is a key link in the broader class confrontation today and we need to support those organizing on the front lines under conditions of maximum repression and control.

Please call Red Onion State Prison at (276) 796-7510 or mail a letter to ROSP, PO Box 1900, Pound, VA 24279 to politely express your concern about the ongoing political repression and forward and repost this information as widely as possible.

A Moment of Silence

2011-09-10T09:09:00.000-04:00

The best poem i have ever read in my life; click here to listen to the poet reading it out loud:

Before I begin this poem, I’d like to ask you to join me in a moment of silence in honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001.

I would also like to ask you to offer up a moment of silence for all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes, for the victims in Afghanistan, Iraq, in the U.S., and throughout the world.

And if I could just add one more thing…

A full day of silence… for the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the hands of U.S.-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation.

Six months of silence… for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly children, who have died of malnourishment or starvation as a result

of a 12-year U.S. embargo against the country.

…And now, the drums of war beat again.

Before I begin this poem, two months of silence… for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa, where “homeland security” made them aliens in their own country

Nine months of silence… for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where death rained down and peeled back every layer of concrete, steel, earth and skin, and the survivors went on as if alive.

A year of silence… for the millions of dead in Viet Nam—a people, not a war—for those who know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives bones buried in it, their babies born of it.

Two months of silence… for the decades of dead in Colombia, whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have piled up and slipped off our tongues.

Before I begin this poem,
Seven days of silence… for El Salvador
A day of silence… for Nicaragua
Five days of silence… for the Guatemaltecos
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.
45 seconds of silence… for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas…
1,933 miles of silence… for every desperate body
That burns in the desert sun
Drowned in swollen rivers at the pearly gates to the Empire’s underbelly,
A gaping wound sutured shut by razor wire and corrugated steel.

25 years of silence… for the millions of Africans who found their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could poke into the sky.
For those who were strung and swung from the heights of sycamore trees
In the south… the north… the east… the west…
There will be no dna testing or dental records to identify their remains.

100 years of silence… for the hundreds of millions of indigenous people
From this half of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears
Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the refrigerator of our consciousness…

From somewhere within the pillars of power
You open your mouths to invoke a moment of our silence
And we are all left speechless,
Our tongues snatched from our mouths,
Our eyes stapled shut.

A moment of silence,
And the poets are laid to rest,
The drums disintegrate into dust.

Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence…
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won’t be.
Not like it always has been.

…Because this is not a 9-1-1 poem
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem…
This is a 1492 poem.
This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written.

And if this is a 9/11 poem, then
This is a September 11th 1973 poem for Chile.
This is a September 12th 1977 poem for Steven Biko in South Africa.
This is a September 13th 1971 poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York.
This is a September 14th 1992 poem for the people of Somalia.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground amidst the ashes of amnesia.

This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told,
The 110 stories that history uprooted from its textbooks
The 110 stories that that cnn, bbc, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored.
This is a poem for interrupting this program.

This is not a peace poem,
Not a poem for forgiveness.
This is a justice poem,
A poem for never forgetting.
This is a poem to remind us
That all that glitters
Might just be broken glass.

And still you want a moment of silence for the dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves,
The lost languages,
The uprooted trees and histories,
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children…

Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.
So if you want a moment of silence

Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines, the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights
Delete the e-mails and instant messages
Derail the trains, ground the planes.
If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window
of Taco Bell
And pay the workers for wages lost.
Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the Penthouses
and the Playboys.

If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July,
During Dayton’s 13 hour sale,
The next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful brown people have gathered.

You want a moment of silence
Then take it
Now,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
Take it all.
But don’t cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime.

And we,
Tonight,
We will keep right on singing
For our dead.

Emmanuel Ortiz is a third-generation Chicano/Puerto Rican/Irish-American community organizer and spoken word poet. He is the author of a chapbook of poems, The Word Is a Machete (self-published, 2003), and coeditor of Under What Bandera?: Anti-War Ofrendas from Minnesota y Califas (Calaca Press, 2004). He is a founding member of Palabristas: Latin@ Word Slingers, a collective of Latin@ poets in Minnesota. Emmanuel has lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Oakland, California; and the Arizona/Mexico border. He currently lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the “buckle of the Bible Belt,” with his two dogs, Nogi and Cuca. In his spare time, he enjoys guacamole, soccer, and naps.

An Appeal from Ed Mead and California Prison Focus

2011-08-30T12:51:00.001-04:00

The California Prison Focus newspaper was in good part responsible for carrying word of the now historic July hunger strike to SHU prisoners across the state. A hunger strike that CDCR admitted to 6,600 participants in 13 prisons. The SHU prisoners suspended their strike for a few weeks in order to give CDCR time to implement their core demands. That time frame has come and gone. Prisoners are seriously talking about resuming the hunger strike. The next issue of Prison Focus is needed to carry the message of this struggle to the prisoners of California and beyond. But to do that we need money. Mark Cook contributed $2,500 and SHU prisoners donated $300 for the last issue. Now we need the progressive community to kick in for the next one. We need to raise $3,000 during the month of September in order to spread the word for the next round, the next level, of this ongoing struggle. Please donate what you can to California Prison Focus, 1904 FRANKLIN STREET, SUITE 507, OAKLAND, CA 94612 or press the “Donate” button at http://www.prisons.org. Thank you.

Ed Mead, Editor
Prison Focus Newspaper

Hungerstrike Recap: California Prisoners Showed the Way!

2011-08-20T16:16:00.002-04:00

The following essay is still being tinkered with, so please don't be shy to let me know if you see any errors or if you have any feedback whatsoever. A version with footnotes is also available if you email me at info@kersplebedeb.com

This spring, the news started going around that a hunger strike was being planned in the Security Housing Unit at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP). Prisoners at the SHU had apparently united across “racial” lines, and promised to hungerstrike to the death if need be, starting on July 1. Initially most of the attention paid to the planned strike came from a small collection of organizations, mostly based in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a clear mandate to support prisoners’ struggles and resist the prison-industrial complex. While much of the left ignores prison issues, or considers them at best a peripheral symptom of more fundamental social dysfunction, these groups recognized the potential importance of prisoner-led resistance in Pelican Bay’s SHU, California’s flagship torture unit.

Isolation Torture in the USA
Pelican Bay was built in 1989, on the remote northern edge of California, in the economically depressed town of Crescent City. One section of the new prison was designated the “Security Housing Unit” (SHU) – essentially a control unit, in which people are condemned to conditions of solitary confinement. The Pelican Bay SHU was just one of many such facilities built around this time, an indirect consequence of the United States’ ongoing mass incarceration policies.

As eloquently described by Michelle Alexander in her recent book The New Jim Crow, mass incarceration began as a ruling class response to the Black Liberation Movement in the 1960s, the result of the so-called “war on drugs”, crafted so as to replicate many of the effects of segregation but without the embarrassing bigoted rhetoric. Forty years later, the result is over two and a half million people in U.S. prisons, a majority of them people of color.

Units like the Pelican Bay SHU were partly a result of the “law and order” ideology that accompanied and supported mass incarceration, partly they were intended to neutralize any resistance from those who were now slated to spend their lives behind bars. As Manuel LaFontaine of All of Us or None and the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition has explained, “The minute one becomes politically engaged inside, and you begin to challenge the conditions of confinement, or begin to organize others to look beyond themselves and to focus on the things that led to their incarceration, such as social, political and economic oppression here in America and throughout the world, it’s the minute you’re deemed a candidate for the SHU.”

People have spent years – in some cases decades – buried alive in the Pelican Bay SHU and similar facilities. Cells have no windows, just fluorescent lights which are never turned off. Prisoners spend 22-23 hours a day thus confined; when they are allowed out it is to be brought (alone) to what is euphemistically called an “exercise yard” – in fact, just a larger enclosed space with grating instead of a roof. Prisoners are fed substandard food, they are punished collectively for issues involving individuals, and their indefinite SHU sentences only end if they agree to “debrief”, that is to say, to snitch.

Violence from guards is commonplace; as detailed by Keramet Reiter,

"In Madrid v. Gomez, a federal court case evaluating the constitutionality of the conditions at Pelican Bay, Judge Thelton Henderson recorded myriad staff abuses of prisoners at the institution. The most memorable: Vaughn Dortch, a mentally ill African-American prisoner, whom guards forced to take a ‘bath’ in near-boiling water. One guard said, as he was holding Dortch down in the water: ‘Looks like we’re going to have a white boy before this is through.’ Dortch sustained third-degree burns over half of his body; guards waited more than an hour after the conclusion of the bath before taking Dortch to a hospital for burn treatment. Judge Henderson ordered numerous reforms to the policies and practices at the institution, including better staff training and diversion of mentally ill prisoners from the SHU. However, Judge Henderson stopped short of declaring the physical structure of long-term solitary confinement unconstitutional."

The main excuse used to send prisoners to the SHU is “gang ties”, and yet a majority have never been convicted of any such thing. Being “validated” as a gang member is an administrative decision, with no real possibility of appeal, even though the result can be years or even decades of solitary confinement. To give just one example: in the 2009 court ruling Lira vs. Cate, it was found that former prisoner Ernesto Lira had spent years in the SHU because of a sketch he had allegedly drawn, an anonymous tip, and a report from a prison guard that was mis-transcribed. The court found that as a result of his time in the SHU, Lira now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and clinical depression, and that throughout his incarceration, despite his objections that he was not a gang member, he was never provided with any meaningful review of his “validation”. Lira’s case is far from being exceptional; sadly, it is typical of those who end up in America’s supermaxes.

Long-term isolation has been described as “clean torture”, for it is designed to inflict grave psychological and even physical harm, but without leaving any visible wounds. As Craig Haney of the University of California at Santa Cruz has noted, “there is not a single published study of solitary or supermax-like confinement in which nonvoluntary confinement lasting for longer than 10 days, where participants were unable to terminate their isolation at will, that failed to result in negative psychological effects. The damaging effects ranged in severity and included such clinically significant symptoms as hypertension, uncontrollable anger, hallucinations, emotional breakdowns, chronic depression, and suicidal thoughts and behavior.”

A family member of a Pelican Bay SHU prisoner describes conditions as follows:

“[T]he warden took calendars away in December 2010. Now they have to make calendars to keep track of which day it is. They lose touch with family as they are not allowed phone calls ever (unless they debrief), the trip by car from Southern California is about 14 hours each direction, by plane the cost to fly into Crescent City with plenty of advanced notice is $440 per person, the accommodations are $87 per night for the cheaper hotel and more for 3-4 people. The visiting is behind glass with one phone. […] They are deprived of all natural light, food, warmth – sweats and night caps are not allowed even though the prison is located on the coast in the mountains. They never turn on the heat so the concrete walls keep the cells cold as freezers. Milk will stay cold in a cell for days. The food looks like vomit, and when refused the guards will say I don't blame you.”

The prisoners live at the mercy of their captors. For instance, as part of a labor action in the midst of California’s perennial budget crisis, guards recently denied prisoners what little comforts they normally receive, and this for months on end. As the above writer noted:

“They were locked in the cells for almost 2 months straight no ‘yard’, no showers, no packages or books passed out. It was to say we will do nothing until we get the 3% raise. They did and 3,500 teachers were laid off but the guards did start pushing a button for showers ... yes a button.”

In these conditions, kept isolated from one another and tortured for years on end, some SHU prisoners managed to get word out about their strike. The organizers were all from D Corridor – known as the “short corridor”, this is where prisoners are subjected to the most restrictive conditions – and they became known as the Short Corridor Collective. They reached out to other prisoners, and there was talk that dozens would go on strike, perhaps as many as a hundred.

Their demands were detailed in a Formal Complaint, and summarized as follows:

1. Eliminate group punishments. Instead, practice individual accountability. When an individual prisoner breaks a rule, the prison often punishes a whole group of prisoners of the same race. This policy has been applied to keep prisoners in the SHU indefinitely and to make conditions increasingly harsh.

2. Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria. Prisoners are accused of being active or inactive participants of prison gangs using false or highly dubious evidence, and are then sent to longterm isolation (SHU). They can escape these tortuous conditions only if they “debrief,” that is, provide information on gang activity. Debriefing produces false information (wrongly landing other prisoners in SHU, in an endless cycle) and can endanger the lives of debriefing prisoners and their families.

3. Comply with the recommendations of the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in Prisons (2006) regarding an end to longterm solitary confinement. This bipartisan commission specifically recommended to “make segregation a last resort” and “end conditions of isolation.” Yet as of May 18, 2011, California kept 3,259 prisoners in SHUs and hundreds more in Administrative Segregation waiting for a SHU cell to open up. Some prisoners have been kept in isolation for more than thirty years.

4. Provide adequate food. Prisoners report unsanitary conditions and small quantities of food that do not conform to prison regulations. There is no accountability or independent quality control of meals.

5. Expand and provide constructive programs and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates. The hunger strikers are pressing for opportunities “to engage in self-help treatment, education, religious and other productive activities...” Currently these opportunities are routinely denied, even if the prisoners want to pay for correspondence courses themselves. Examples of privileges the prisoners want are: one phone call per week, and permission to have sweatsuits and watch caps. (Often warm clothing is denied, though the cells and exercise cage can be bitterly cold.) All of the privileges mentioned in the demands are already allowed at other SuperMax prisons (in the federal prison system and other states).

The Short Corridor Collective requested people on the outside organize to amplify their voices and coordinate communication through the walls. In response to this call, a Prisoner Hungerstrike Support Coalition was set up in San Francisco, including a number of the key organizations working to support prisoners in California: All of Us or None, California Prison Focus, Critical Resistance, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, the Prison Activist Resource Center, the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, the American Friends Service Committee, BarNone Arcata and the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. A media team was established to make sure the prisoners’ voices would be heard in the public arena. Similarly, a mediation team was set up, with a mandate to support the prisoners in their dealings with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) once the strike began.

The Strike
On July 1, news started coming in from throughout California that there were people in many prisons, not just Pelican Bay, refusing food. From PBSP itself, word arrived that not only was almost everyone in the SHU participating, but that those in general population were also on-board. It suddenly looked like the strike might have mobilized not hundreds but thousands – an order of magnitude greater than anyone had dreamed.

Indeed, although CDCR claimed at the time that less than two dozen were on strike, within a few days it admitted that in fact over 6,000 prisoners had joined in refusing meals on July 1. At least thirteen of California’s thirty-three prisons were affected. Some strikers were accepting liquid food, some were eating food from the canteen, but many were refusing any and all sustenance.

The Short Corridor Collective had called on other prisoners to strike in solidarity for as long as they felt comfortable, even if they were not willing to go to the death, and that is clearly what was happening, involving numbers that no one had anticipated. The thousands of striking prisoners were joined by individuals on the outside who also began fasting to support their demands. During the first week, solidarity demonstrations were held in San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Seattle and Montreal. Press coverage in this first period was mainly limited to California mainstream media, and various progressive blogs and news websites.

By definition, hungerstrikes are difficult on those who engage in them. Humane medical care is to be hoped for, but often prison doctors and nurses work not to protect the strikers’ health, but to help the administration break the protest. This is what happened in some California prisons; there were numerous reports in the first week of strikers simply not being monitored, and of doctors refusing them their prescription meds. While clearly punitive, CDCR framed this as the system being overwhelmed by the scope of the strike, and wary of the dangers of prescribing medication meant to be taken with food.

This medical neglect prompted forty healthcare providers from across North America to quickly sign an open letter expressing their “grave concern”. As they noted, “If it is true that CDCR medical staff are refusing prisoners their medications, either as punishment for being in the SHU or else as punishment for being on hunger strike, this is not only unethical, but also illegal under California Penal Code Section 673. This would be an act of deliberate indifference to a patient’s serious medical needs, and as such would constitute a violation of prisoners’ Eighth Amendment Constitutional rights.” The healthcare professionals called upon CDCR “to ensure that no prisoner on hunger strike be disciplined or threatened with the denial of medical care” and demanded that “all medical professionals uphold their code of ethics and maintain the highest standards of care for all their patients – be they incarcerated or not.”

Medical neglect was just one of the ways CDCR pressured strikers to resume eating. At Pelican Bay, prisoners were given an “Information Sheet” which – under guise of informing them of their rights – was essentially meant to impress upon them that there would no negotiations, and that there was only one possible final outcome if they persisted: “Since refusing food will eventually lead to increased illness and death, you will be asked to find a suitable person to ensure your wishes are followed once you cannot express them for yourself […] It is also encouraged that you consider your decision to refuse food may be very difficult for your close family and friends.”

In some facilities, prison officials sent general population strikers into segregation (i.e. solitary) and denied them the right to visit with family members. At others, they simply resorted to lies to break the strike. For instance, at Calipatria prison, located in the hot desert on the Mexican border, guards announced on July 7 that CDCR had agreed to all five demands, and that the strike was over. This worked, and everybody started eating again. (Several days later word was received that this had been a trick, and many prisoners resumed their fast.)

Despite these pressure tactics, two weeks into the strike, thousands were still refusing food. Such a show of solidarity, across “racial” lines, in prisons across California, had not been seen for generations. This alone constitutes a major achievement.

Meanwhile, on the outside, demonstrations were held in cities across California, and throughout the United States. While the numbers attending were small – the largest attracted less than 200, most brought out dozens, and some less than that – these were growing, as were the numbers of family members who were joining, and becoming increasingly prominent speaking to media and facilitating communication with those on the inside.

Why the small numbers? It is an automatic reflex when evaluating any disappointing lack of activity around any issue to point to the left’s ongoing weakness; this is obviously a (or even “the”) factor, but it’s not one that will be solved tomorrow, and it doesn’t explain why other issues attract more people. It makes more sense to see the poor turnout at these protests as a consequence of the fact that there has not been a strong movement inside the prisons for many years, and that the State’s perpetual propaganda offensive keeps many people – including people from oppressed communities – wary of supporting “criminals”. Furthermore, even those organizations that have been doing important work around prisons have a limited ability to mobilize on the streets and escalate quickly in a crisis, which is what an indefinite hungerstrike represents. There is no denying the importance of building capacity, putting down roots, and pursuing long-term community-oriented strategies; that said, conflicts are also decided by speed and initiative, and these are underdeveloped qualities even on the radical left.

Nobody had expected thousands to engage in this hungerstrike, and many of those organizations which should have been involved from day one were taken by surprise, left trying to catch up with events – and sadly, it must be said, some simply didn’t bother. Nevertheless, as the importance of what was taking place in California became clear, many groups did begin to orient themselves accordingly. As a sign of this, two weeks into the strike the San Francisco solidarity coalition held a mass-conference call, with over 140 people representing a variety of organizations participating. It is clear that every day the strike continued, new groups and new cities were getting involved. As already mentioned, more and more family members were participating in support activities, bringing their own capacities and experiences into the mix. Had the strike lasted longer, this growth could have led to a qualitatively different level of struggle on the outside.

The prisoncrats’ response was twofold. First, they continued to insist that there would be no negotiations; in the words of Nancy Kincaid, spokeswoman for Receiver Kelso (in charge of California prison healthcare), “They have the right to choose to die of starvation if they wish.” Second, officials argued that the strike’s very success proved the value of the SHU and other forms of long-term isolation. According to CDCR spin doctor Terry Thornton, “This goes to show the power, influence and reach of prison gangs. Some people are doing it because they want to do it, and some are being ordered to do it.”

Medical Crisis
Not surprisingly, health issues remained a serious concern for the duration of the strike. Prisoners were being advised to take multivitamins and salt tablets – and yet these were often not available. CDCR insisted that everyone was being monitored, but there were reports that this “monitoring” consisted of someone standing at a cell door asking if the prisoner was feeling alright. Prisoners were supposed to be weighed daily, but this was sometimes done while they wore chains, sometimes not, making the entire exercise somewhat pointless.

As stated by Dr. Corey Weinstein, a private correctional medical consultant and human rights investigator with forty years experience providing health care to California prisoners:

“Given my long history of working with California prisoners, I have grave doubts about the Department of Corrections’ ability to adequately carry out their own guidelines and protocols even during this urgent and public moment. Reports such as prisoners with very low blood sugar levels and lack of urination for 3 days should not be coming from the prison. These are men who require hospital care under prison protocols. We should ask why do they remain at the prison?”

On July 12, supporters became particularly alarmed, as they received reports that some prisoners were suffering from severe dehydration, had lost consciousness, and/or were on the verge of renal failure. Dehydration is a major risk when on hungerstrike, and it is imperative that one drink a lot of liquids when fasting. It remains unclear whether the dehydration was the result of some prisoners having escalated to a thirst strike, or if it was due to the guards having provided them with inadequate fluids. Severely weakened strikers had to be brought to the prison infirmary where they were rehydrated intravenously.

At about this time, rumors began circulating that a prisoner had died. This turned out to be false; partly the result of people misunderstanding a strongly worded letter from Corcoran prisoners where a striker losing consciousness was described as having “gone down”, and partly par for the course in a heavy life-or-death struggle where information was always so highly restricted by the prisoncrats. (One of the reasons the State developed isolation prisons was to cut prisoners off from their communities, and amongst other things, this is intended to make solidarity work more difficult. Luckily, the support coalition was able to confirm that this rumor was false before mobilizing around the claim, which would have constituted an embarrassing public relations setback.)

Negotiations and Pressure Tactics
In this dire situation, there was a breakthrough on Thursday, July 14, as CDCR announced that it was meeting with the hungerstrikers’ representatives. The prisoncrats – who had claimed just hours earlier that they would rather see people die than negotiate – were now agreeing to discuss their demands. In and of itself, this was an unprecedented victory.

Nevertheless, the next day, the Short Corridor Collective unanimously rejected CDCR’s initial offer, a vague promise to “effect a comprehensive assessment of its existing policy and procedure”. As prisoner negotiator George Franco has explained, “Mr. Scott Kernan was very demanding and disrespectful towards us therefore, the negotiators went ‘no where’ we explained to our mediation team what occurred and what to do as a result of this meeting.”

Support on the outside now accelerated. Along with weekly pickets in Oakland, there were daily protests in Los Angeles, and the first demonstration in Sacramento. In Montreal, there had been weekly pickets outside the U.S. consulate from week one, and now these were joined by regular events in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago and other cities across the United States. At the same time, plans were announced for two pickets in London, England, marking the first spread of protests overseas. By this point, close to a hundred organizations, from the ACLU to the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, had come out in support of the prisoners demands. On July 17 the New York Times ran an op ed critical of CDCR and sympathetic to the strikers, which was followed the next day by a positive editorial in the San Jose Mercury News and the day after that by an editorial in the LA Times criticizing CDCR for not allowing journalists into Pelican Bay.

As a consequence of the prisoners’ refusal to end their strike on July 15, and keenly aware of the mounting support from the outside, CDCR attempted to buttress its position by threatening and further isolating the prisoner representatives. SHU prisoners are normally not permitted phone calls, but given the extraordinary circumstances, they had been allowed to phone the support coalition’s mediation team on the 15th to explain why they were refusing CDCR’s offer. As a result of this initial refusal, it was made known that there would be no more such calls. Then, at 5:30am on July 18, seventeen prisoners from Pelican Bay – including three members of the prisoners’ negotiating team – were transferred to Corcoran prison, apparently due to the severity of their condition and the fact that the Pelican Bay infirmary was now full beyond capacity.

That same day prison officials attempted to resume negotiations – but given that morning’s transfer to Corcoran, there were no New Afrikan prisoner negotiators left at Pelican Bay. It took another day for the warden to agree to allow another New Afrikan prisoner representative to join the negotiating team, and another two days after that for Scott Kernan to return to the table.

July 20, as negotiations resumed, CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate announced that he would seek a court order allowing prison officials to force-feed striking prisoners – including those who had signed advance medical directives indicating that they did not wish to receive any such life-sustaining measures. While California is one of three states where the courts have ruled that prisoners can in some circumstances refuse medical care, nationally judges have more often ruled in favor of force-feeding hungerstriking prisoners. In some of these cases the courts specifically differentiate between individuals choosing to starve themselves for personal reasons (depression, sickness, etc.), and political hungerstrikes, i.e. those in which some kind of redress was being demanded. The latter, characterized as “manipulative hungerstrikes”, have been deemed “detrimental to the effective administration of the prison system,” and this might have provided the legal opening for Cate’s gambit.

Force-feeding is the state’s trump card when dealing with political hungerstrikes. It is intensely painful, especially when the patient resists, and is often an excuse for physical violence from guards and other staff. Indeed, force-feeding itself has been described as a form of violence. At the same time – despite the fact that prisoners have died while being force-fed, and that the World Medical Association prohibits the practice – in the public’s eye the procedure often reduces the urgency of a strike, because people incorrectly believe that the health of a person being force-fed is no longer at risk.

What Matthew Cate was doing, essentially, was threatening a new form of torture. It remains unclear whether this was used as a pressure tactic during the day’s negotiations, or if it was being prepared as a fall-back position lest negotiations continued to bear no fruit.

These were the circumstances in which CDCR renewed negotiations with the Short Corridor Collective. With hundreds of prisoners having gone almost three weeks without food, and with this new threat looming, CDCR offered to accede on a few small points right away. It was stated that this was simply meant as a tangible gesture of good faith in support of an assurance that all of the prisoners’ other issues would receive real attention, with meaningful changes being implemented over time. In fact, the impression the negotiators were left with was that CDCR had agreed to work towards meeting all five demands. CDCR promised to send representatives back to Pelican Bay within a few weeks to provide the prisoners with a progress report in this regard.

So it was that, on July 20th, the prisoners accepted CDCR’s offer, and the strike was suspended. Arrogantly, CDCR Undersecretary Scott Kernan contacted the support coalition and told them the strike was over, expecting them to then announce this on his say so. This would of course have been out of the question under any circumstances, but especially now given that prison officials had already been caught lying earlier in the strike.

In the end, Kernan had to allow the Short Corridor Collective a phone call to the outside mediators, to inform them that the strike had indeed ended. This call was placed on July 21st. This was just the beginning of the delays in communication, as the task at hand now became checking in with other prisoners across the state – most of whom had not been in direct contact with the support coalition, and many of whom were in segregation or other supermaxes. This process would have taken even longer if not for the initiative of family members, who arranged to get the word in that the strike had indeed been suspended. Nevertheless, it was several days before almost all prisoners had resumed eating, and there were reports of hold-outs as much as one week later.

There was an understandable reticence within the support coalition to declare the strike over in this situation, when it was known that other prisoners continued to refuse food. Nobody could be sure that the Short Corridor Collective’s decision would be accepted by prisoners across the state – it was unclear if those still fasting were doing so because they had not heard it was over, or if they intended to continue the strike on their own. As a result, even after the mediation team had been contacted, supporters around the world were unsure whether the strike had been called off or if this was one of CDCR’s tricks, and nobody on the outside seemed able to provide clarity on this question. This confusion was compounded by the fact that journalists had been denied access to the prisoners, and so news stories often recycled information from one another for days after the fact.

Eventually, though, it became clear that everyone who had been participating had indeed recommenced eating. California’s historic hungerstrike of July 2011 seemed to have come to an end, after having united thousands of prisoners, garnering support from organizations across America and internationally, and forcing CDCR to the negotiating table.

Aftermath
As prisoners transitioned back to eating, many of the issues that had arisen during the hungerstrike continued. Some family members found that they were being denied visits with their loved ones who had been on strike, many of whom received 128B forms, “informational chronos”, which go into their records permanently. These chronos threatened “progressive discipline ... in the future for any reoccurrence of this type of behavior.”

Even now that the strike had been suspended, medical protocol during this transitional period was in some cases simply not followed. For instance, on July 21st one visitor met with a prisoner who had gone three weeks without food, and yet as she explains:

“When the announcement of the end of strike was made on the day before, he tried to eat from the dinner tray, but could not keep it down. The following day’s breakfast he could not keep down either. When he became very week/dizzy during our interview and asked for water, the guard would not let us buy him water nor give him any, just offered ending the interview. […] He should have been offered a transition to solid food. I am not sure whether he did later, but not on the day we were there.”

Indeed, it was reported that the day after the strike ended one prisoner had had a heart attack while transitioning to food. This turned out to not be the case, but what had happened was that he had to be hospitalized after he started having major seizures which affected his heart’s ability to regulate its pulse. According to the prison medical staff, this was due to an electrolyte imbalance caused by the twenty days without food. After five days of treatment he was returned to the Pelican Bay SHU.

Reaction to the strike ending has been mixed. The Short Corridor Collective and many other prisoners see it as a large step forward, declaring it a provisional victory. Some prisoners, however, have expressed disappointment that an agreement was reached with CDCR committing itself to so little in return.

Commenting on the strike being suspended, the Prisoner Hungerstrike Support coalition noted that,

“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.”

One thing everyone agrees on is that the strike must be seen as only the first step. Without ongoing pressure, CDCR will certainly refuse any meaningful changes. Early on, San Francisco Representative Tom Ammiano and the State Assembly’s Public Safety Committee agreed to hold hearings to examine conditions in the Pelican Bay SHU. These hearings are set for August 23rd, and in the weeks following the strike’s suspension the outside coalition focused on mobilizing for this date.

On the inside, prisoner representatives have stated that if progress is not quickly forthcoming, the struggle will continue: “We’ve drawn the line on this and should CDCR fail to carry out meaningful changes in a timely fashion, then we will initiate a class action suit and additional types of peaceful protest. We will not stop until the CDCR ends the illegal policies and practices at SHU!”

Indeed, prisoner representatives Mutope Duguma and George Franco have both stated that CDCR committed to meeting all five demands, and that if this is not done in a timely manner the strike will resume.

How It Came to Be
Just organizing a hungerstrike involving thousands is incredible – and more than most left groups on the outside could accomplish. Adding the fact that so many of the prisoners are in solitary confinement to the equation and have no easy way of communicating directly with one another, simply makes it all the more inspiring.

Security Housing Units are sites of frequent and regular abuse, and so it is sometimes difficult to differentiate between retaliation and business as usual. For instance, in the lead up to the strike some suspected strike organizers had their cells tossed, and there was at least one instance of the so-called “potty watch” being inflicted – an intentionally silly-sounding name for what is in fact a form of physical torture. As attorney Carol Strickman has explained,

“That's a very cruel procedure where people are restrained for three days, put in diapers and unable to move their arms sometimes, or forced to stand, or strapped down. The rationale is that the prisoner has swallowed contraband and we are going to see it. We're going to wait for three days and monitor their bowel movements and find the thing they've swallowed. But, it's used for other reasons. It's used as punishment even if they know that there is nothing there. This shouldn't be used even if they think that there is something that the prisoner has swallowed. It's painful, people can't sleep. They can't move their arms. I heard that sometimes their arms are put in a plastic pipe. It's really horrible. We heard of that happening to one or two people before the hunger strike started in Pelican Bay.”

Again, given the fact that such demeaning and cruel procedures are not unusual in the SHU, it is difficult to separate out preemptive retaliation from everyday abuse. Less ambiguously, announcements were made just prior to the strike that a special July 4th menu would include ice cream and strawberries – foods which many prisoners had not seen in all their years behind bars.

The actual mechanics of how prisoners communicated with one another and arranged to send out word regarding the strike remain unknown, but not unimaginable. Beyond this technical proficiency, the success of the July 2011 hungerstrike was facilitated by its location on an arc of increasing struggle within prisons in the United States. Specifically, two previous prisoner strikes during the preceding seven months had already helped prepare the ground the Short Corridor Collective’s July initiative: the December 2010 Georgia prisoners work strike, and the January 2011 Lucasville 5 hungerstrike.

In Georgia, for six days in December, thousands of prisoners had refused to work or leave their cells or buy anything at the prison store. A work strike constitutes a direct challenge to the prison system, for without prisoners’ labor the prison system cannot function. Prisoners clean the floors, cook the food, and perform every other task not related to custody – as well as being exploited by corporations which make superprofits from their labor.

The Georgia prisoners were demanding better educational opportunities, more nutritious food, access to their families, and most importantly some kind of payment for their jailhouse labor – in Georgia it is mandatory for prisoners to work for “Prison Industries”, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Department of Corrections, making prisoners the single largest workforce in the state. Furthermore, their labor is completely unpaid.

At least thirty prisons were affected, with thousands participating. The Georgia authorities retaliated by turning off the heat and hot water in the prisoners’ cells. Violence was used – guards beat several striking prisoners, one was so badly hurt he ended up in the ICU of a civilian hospital. This reign of terror continued even months after the strike had ended.

Nevertheless, and although none of the prisoner demands were met, the Georgia prisoners’ strike is widely considered an inspiration simply for having happened, and has been described as “a roadmap of what must come”.

The second example in this arc of protest occurred just weeks later, at the State Penitentiary in Youngstown, Ohio. On January 3rd, 2011, Siddique Abdullah Hasan, Bomani Shakur, and Jason Robb went on hungerstrike to protest the severe isolation conditions they had suffered for eighteen years. The three men are part of the Lucasville 5 (the other two were not healthy enough to participate), who helped negotiate a peaceful resolution to the 1993 uprising at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, but were subsequently framed for murder and sentenced to death. Since then, they have been subject to extreme isolation; the demand of their hungerstrike was simply to be granted the same living conditions as other death row prisoners.

After twelve days, the prison administration agreed to meet the demands of the Ohio hungerstrikers.

Besides these two previous inspiring acts of resistance, a third external factor worth keeping in mind is the decision rendered by the Supreme Court in the case of Brown vs. Plata in May. This confirmed an earlier court ruling that conditions in California’s prisons violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment and ordered the state to reduce its prison population by approximately 32,000 over the next two years. A lower court in the case had already found that it was “an uncontested fact” that “an inmate in one of California’s prisons needlessly dies every six or seven days due to constitutional deficiencies” – a fact that was cited in the Short Corridor Collective’s Formal Complaint.

How CDCR will comply with Plata is unclear – there are indications that governor Jerry Brown will try to transfer prisoners to the counties’ jurisdiction, which would simply shift the problem of overcrowding and potentially lead to people being held in even worse conditions. But in terms of the success of the July hungerstrike, Plata had already helped expose the horrendous conditions in CDCR’s prisons, and so the department was caught in a vulnerable position. It is difficult to measure what effect this had, but it does play into the overall circumstances surrounding the hungerstrike.

Regardless of these external factors, it is clear that the ones who really deserve the credit for the July success are the hungerstrikers themselves, those who put their lives on the line to resist torture. All the positive factors in the world may line up, but without people willing to seize the moment, these amount to naught.

Frantz Fanon wrote that, “In the colonies it is the policeman and the soldier who are the official, instituted go-betweens, the spokesmen of the settler and his rule of oppression.” After decades of mass incarceration, the jailer has joined these “instituted go-betweens” as America’s dungeons have become central elements of class and national oppression. The delay with which most established left groups and talking heads responded to the hungerstrike is a measure of their own disconnect from these realities. Just as California built on advances in Ohio and Georgia, it is to be hoped that future struggles will build on this success, and that as part of this process new connections and relationships will emerge between those on the inside and those of us on the outside, allowing space for the movement to overcome these shortcomings.

As Bomani Shakur, one of the Lucasville 5, stated in an open letter to the California hungerstrikers: “The system as it currently exists must change, and this, what you all are doing right now, may very well be the catalyst to bring about that change. Remember that.”

Indeed, this is something that none of us should forget.

Political Arrests in Montréal

2011-07-17T13:20:00.001-04:00

Statement from the Canadian Revolutionary Communist Party (not the same as the u.s. Avakian group):

Update (07/13/11): The four individuals who have been arrested and charged went in court last Wednesday. The Crown disclosed its evidence to the defendants. It also asked for a hardening of their release conditions. The hearing was then postponed to Monday, July 18.

Montréal, July 5th — On June 29th, 2011, the Anti-Gang unit of the Montréal Police Service’s Organized Crime Division arrested four political activists —including Patrice Legendre, a communist worker and supporter of the RCP. The police searched their homes and arrested them in connection with the most recent May First demonstration, organized by Montréal’s Anti-Capitalist Convergence (CLAC). Nearly 30 officers were involved in the operation, which occurred early in the day.

According to the investigator who headed the whole operation, nine officers were injured, some seriously, during an altercation at the May First demonstration. More on the demonstration is available in issue 3 of the communist newspaper Partisan. The four activists who were arrested were detained and then released on a promise to appear on July 13 at 9 a.m. at the courthouse in Montréal. They have been charged with a number of offenses, from “assault with a weapon” to “assaulting a police officer,” “obstruction of justice” and “possession of a weapon with intent to cause harm.”

During the May First demonstration in the streets of Montréal, at which nearly 1,500 people were in attendance, the police provoked an altercation by trying to arrest, for reasons unknown, a militant who was widely known as the photographer for Partisan newspaper. As one would expect, dozens of protesters responded by confronting the police, telling them to release the activist they were trying to arrest. Obviously unprepared, the police chose to retreat.

The operation on June 29th was clearly carried out with very little basis. The content of the interrogation to which the arrested activists were subjected as well as the presence of an investigator from the “Integrated National Security Enforcement Team” suggests that there were other motives behind the operation.

First, we can assume the arrests were motivated by revenge, as the police will always want to “get back” at those who cause them to suffer a defeat —as was the case at the May First demonstration, where demonstrators stopped them from arbitrarily and inexcusably arresting one of the activists involved. The cops had egg on their faces and somebody needed to pay for it. Without any evidence to go on, the police decided to go after a few well-known activists, some of whom express their views openly. The demonstration was used as a pretext to criminalize their political involvement and, what’s more, the communist views they defend. Recall that in recent weeks, the RCP began publishing a bilingual, biweekly newspaper, Partisan, and has been distributing it in major cities in Ontario and Québec, and has also started organizing workers in the Revolutionary Workers Movement (Mouvement Ouvrier Révolutionnaire, MRO). Its struggle against capitalism and exploitation is taking new forms and is moving forward, and the police, we can assume, are not fond of that.

Investigators also said they had started monitoring Maison Norman Bethune —a bookstore run by the Information Bureau of the RCP— the day after the May First demonstration. Many activists frequent the bookstore, attending events and getting involved in the cause of revolution. It seems as though the police wanted to “go on a fishing expedition” to find somebody guilty of something so they could draw attention away from their own petty and provocative behavior at the May First Demonstration.

Further, information collected by the RCP Information Bureau suggests the police who carried out these arrests tried to implicate the RCP, and Patrice Legendre in particular, in three previous incidents, including one that happened a year ago in Trois-Rivières, where an explosive device shattered the doors of a recruitment office for the Canadian Forces. A group calling itself “Résistance Internationaliste” claimed responsibility for this act and since it happened the police have not solved the case.

Curiously, the day after the arrests in Montréal, the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team installed a command post for three days in Trois-Rivières across from the recruiting office in order, they said, “to collect new information and validate some leads described as ‘very serious’.” The police then presented pictures of the four arrested activists to the people of Trois-Rivières, hoping somebody could implicate them in one way or another.

The operation on June 29th was no accident. It comes at a time when the bourgeois state in Canada is on the offensive in criminalizing political struggle and the activists who are involved in it. We need only look at the G20 summit in June 2010 in Toronto, where over a thousand people were illegally arrested, to verify this. In recent years, dozens of activists, among them some from the RCP, have been harassed at home and work by the infamous “Integrated National Security Enforcement Team.”

The Revolutionary Communist Party harshly condemns this cowardly operation, which was politically motivated. It is doomed to failure and will backfire on those who planned it. The RCP is actively campaigning to denounce the arrests and obtain full and unconditional release of those arrested. We thank the many individuals and groups who have already expressed their outrage and solidarity following the June 29th arrests.

Denounce political intimidation! Defend our right to fight against the bourgeoisie and its state! Solidarity is our weapon!

The RCP Information Bureau

Support the California Prisoners' Hunger Strike!

2011-07-15T21:00:00.000-04:00

In the months before summer 2011, news spread that between 50 and 100 prisoners at Pelican Bay State Prison in the Security Housing Unit (SHU), Corridor D, were going on an indefinite hunger strike, starting July 1.

What was initially expected to involve scores of men laying their lives on the line quickly exceeded all expectations, and in the first weekend of the strike over 6000 prisoners across California participated. While numbers had dropped by the second week, there were still hundreds on strike, and some had perhaps escalated to a thirst strike. A human being can only survive a short while without liquids, and as of July 12 there were already reports of prisoners suffering renal failure. It suddenly became horribly clear that this was for real.

It is no coincidence that the largest - and potentially the most tragic - prisoner struggle in recent California history was planned and organized in Pelican Bay's SHU. The D corridor (also known as the "short" corridor) has the highest level of restricted incarceration in the state of California and among the most severe conditions in the united states. The rules of their confinement are extremely harsh in order to force them to "debrief" or offer up information about criminal or prison gang activity of other prisoners. Most inmates in the SHU are not members or associates of prison gangs, as the PBSP staff claims, and even those who are put their lives and the lives of their families and other prisoners at risk if they debrief.
Using conditions of severe mental and physical harm in order to force prisoners into confessing is torture. Many debriefers simply make up information about other prisoners just to escape the isolation units. This misinformation is then used to validate other prisoners as members or associates of prison gangs who in reality have nothing to do whatsoever with gang activity.
A system of lies elicited by torture, a kafkaesque world where (regardless of one's "crime") an anonymous accusation can land you in a torture chamber ... this is the nature of the Pelican Bay SHU. There are people who have spent decades in these conditions, despite overwhelming evidence that even short-term isolation can cause serious psychological harm. The SHU is killing people slowly, in a way that is supposed to be "acceptable" and sanitized, with no need of a capital conviction. It is by grasping this reality that one can see that the prisoners' - though refusing food and in some cases water - are not fighting to die, but are literally fighting to live.
These are the five core demands of the hunger-striking prisoners:

Eliminate group punishments. Instead, practice individual accountability. When an individual prisoner breaks a rule, the prison often punishes a whole group of prisoners of the same race. This policy has been applied to keep prisoners in the SHU indefinitely and to make conditions increasingly harsh.
Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria. Prisoners are accused of being active or inactive participants of prison gangs using false or highly dubious evidence, and are then sent to longterm isolation (SHU). They can escape these tortuous conditions only if they "debrief," that is, provide information on gang activity. Debriefing produces false information (wrongly landing other prisoners in SHU, in an endless cycle) and can endanger the lives of debriefing prisoners and their families.
Comply with the recommendations of the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in Prisons (2006) regarding an end to longterm solitary confinement. This bipartisan commission specifically recommended to "make segregation a last resort" and "end conditions of isolation." Yet as of May 18, 2011, California kept 3,259 prisoners in SHUs and hundreds more in Administrative Segregation waiting for a SHU cell to open up. Some prisoners have been kept in isolation for more than thirty years.
Provide adequate food. Prisoners report unsanitary conditions and small quantities of food that do not conform to prison regulations. There is no accountability or independent quality control of meals.
Expand and provide constructive programs and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates. The hunger strikers are pressing for opportunities “to engage in self-help treatment, education, religious and other productive activities..." Currently these opportunities are routinely denied, even if the prisoners want to pay for correspondence courses themselves. Examples of privileges the prisoners want are: one phone call per week, and permission to have sweatsuits and watch caps. (Often warm clothing is denied, though the cells and exercise cage can be bitterly cold.) All of the privileges mentioned in the demands are already allowed at other SuperMax prisons (in the federal prison system and other states).

More at The Real News

Recent News

this will only show the last ten news items, for older items click here.

Letters from Prisoners

Audio

Off The Hour, CKUT 90.3FM, interviews Ed Mead, June 9, 2011
Hard Knock Radio KPFA 94.1 FM, A Letter by a Corcoran prisoner, followed by an interview with Ed Mead and Laura Whitehorn, June 24, 2011
En bas à gauche, CKUT 90.3 FM, entrevue avec Carl du Comité de Soutien de la Grève de la Faim, 27 juin 2011
Sojourner Truth Radio, Update on Pelican Bay Hungerstrike, July 6, 2011
Off the Hour, CKUT 90.3FM, interview with Carl Small of the Montreal Hungerstrike Support Committee, July 11, 2011

Solidarity Words & Action

Background Material

Support Organizations

Outside support work for the July 1st hunger strike is being coordinated by the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity (PHSS) Coalition, based in the Bay Area and made up of grassroots organizations committed to amplifying the voices of and supporting the prisoners at Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit (SHU) in their hunger strike to end tortuous conditions. Support is crucial; to get involved check out prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com or telephone 510-444-0484.
A blog has been produced my comrades in Montreal with a focus on support activities in canada: http://www.contrelesprisons.blogspot.com/
i also have a page up with as complete a calendar of solidarity events as i have been able to manage.

The Kersplebedeb website is in support of the goals of the hungerstriking prisoners, and of the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition, but is a completely separate project, and PHSS and the prisoners in question are in no way responsible for or necessarily in agreement with anything here. If you see any links or resources you think would belong on this page, please get in touch!

Hugo Pinell Participating in the California Hungerstrike

2011-07-14T13:01:00.000-04:00

Excerpted from a letter to Kiilu Nyasha:

A hunger strike has been in effect since July 1 and I've been with it, altho is very hard to know what's going on? On July 1, one station up here announced the hunger strike, but nothing since and I don't know if prisoners have gotten with staff and what's happening, etc. But I have to get with it because it's for a great cause and if good changes come about, I could get a break too. At this point, a move to a mainline would be great being that my keepers are determined to keep me until I die. On a mainline, we could have contact visits again! It's been too long since I've touched my Mom and all of my loved ones.

When or since I met you in 1973, I've been on no contact visits status. They kept telling me I'd get my contact visits back. But they sent me to a new SHU in 1986, and everybody is on no contact visits status in these SHUs.

"It's been a really long time since I particpated in a hunger strike, but I was much younger, stronger and ready. I wasn't prepared for a hunger strike, so i don't know how well or how long I can hold on, but I had to participate. I don't have the options so many have used to get out of prison ofr the SHU. The counselor tells me I do have those options, but I tell thim I don't because I can't use them. I'm into growing, evolving and building, not into negative, self-destructive behavior. I don't even think in terms of doing or saying something wrong to better my situation, for that would strike against everyting I live for; freedom, a New Man and that New World. So, Sis, this hunger strike provides me with an opportunity for better changes while also in concert and support of all those willing to risk their precious and valuable health.

I'm feeling okay, but I wish I knew what's going on. Well, in time. I'm not working out, physically, but I'm drinking a lot of water, get my walking, meditation, my studying and mind travels :)! I send my best to everyone. Take good care, Sis....

Hugo L.A. Pinell
A88401 D3-221
P.O. Box 7500
Crescent City, Ca. 95531-7500

Hugo Pinell has been in solitary confinement for forty years. He had been in prison since 1964, when he was 19 years old, and was one of George Jackson's comrades. Following Jackson's assassination in 1971, Pinell was one of the San Quentin Six accused of murder and conspiracy - Pinell was found guilty of assaulting a guard, and has been in isolation ever since. Yyou can learn more about Hugo Pinell's case on the (not updated) website: http://www.hugopinell.com

Revolutionary Prisoner C. Landrum On His Decision to Hunger Strike Indefinitely

2011-07-07T12:55:00.000-04:00

It’s been a difficult and uphill battle, a lot of brow-beating and direct debate, but as it stands all are participating on a limited basis. Some, including myself, are going “indefinitely”… victory or death! I ask that you and those necessary are aware of our participation. Geographically we are isolated from the main SHU facility and PBSP will try to isolate and restrain our info from getting out. We are in A-Z. Also, as you know, I’m sincerely sick with end stage liver disease (ESLD) and a severe case of related diabetes. I’m going to end up in the hospital almost immediately and will be effectively isolated. Due to my dedication to the struggle I will continue with my strike. I won’t know when to stop. If the demands have been met in whole, negotiated part, etc. I will not take the cops’ word for the pigs have proven their word to be hollow. I will need the word of you or your outside support. Likewise, please keep those convicts at the heart of this struggle in D short [corridor] abreast of my circumstances (most know me as ‘Ghost’ or ‘Landale’). Hopefully the situation doesn’t deteriorate to this. What that I end this letter with the words of Ulrike Meinhof [of Germany’s Red Army Faction], ‘Protest is when I say I don’t like this or that. Resistance is when I see to it that things I don’t like do not occur.’

C. Landrum has been a regular contributor to Prison Focus and other progressive publications. He is the author of The Road Ahead and the Dialectics of Change.

He can be reached at:

Chad Landrum #J-53747
Pelican Bay State Prison
A-2-114 – MED/SHU
P.O. Box 7500
Crescent City, CA 95531

Eddie Griffin's Statement of Support for Prisoner Hunger Strike at Pelican Bay

2011-07-07T12:53:00.000-04:00

Eddie Griffin, one of the surviving Marion Brothers who went on hunger strike in 1976, writes here of his support for the Pelican Bay strike, and his own experiences thirty five years ago. In solidarity with the California hunger strikers, Griffin has himself been on hunger strike since July 1.

Our prayers and support go out to the men at Pelican Bay State Prison in California who began an indefinite hunger strike on July 1, 2011. We empathize with those who have undertaken this extraordinary step to bring the world’s attention to the inhumane conditions of their incarceration.

No matter a person’s status and condition, we are afforded the constitutional right to basic humane treatment, even under conditions of confinement. And, whenever those conditions become brutal and unbearable, we have the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. In absence of relief, or even the hope of relief, these inmates and brothers have collectively joined themselves together to plead their cause to the public and world bodies.

The Pelican Bay State prisoners are asking for relief from “group punishment” and arbitrary branding inmates as “gang members” for the purpose of selective segregation and maltreatment. They are asking that the state comply with federal standards on the use of “long term solitary confinement”, and to provide them with adequate food instead of half-starving them, and to provide a constructive outlet for sensory deprived prisoners in special isolation units.

Historically, the policies and practices of prison authorities have been based upon the concept “Out of sight, Out of mind”. And, it is this public ignorance that allows these inhumane systems to continue.

It was exactly 35 years ago, on July 4, 1976, that the federal prisoners at Marion staged a similar hunger strike. As one of the surviving Marion Brothers, I share this personal experience because very little seems to have changed in the interim.

The Great Bicentennial Hunger Strike

Marion Federal Prison was the first super-maximum security penitentiary, built in 1961 to replace Alcatraz. Before its construction, the Bureau had designated the facility to house high-profile inmates. No one would care that, behind these walls, the government engaged in secret mind-control experiments upon it prison population.

During the 1960s and 1970s, most of the prison population was comprised of high educated, politically conscious men, who crimes were motivated against the U.S. government, and particularly aimed at bringing down the Nixon administration. Many had been caught up in J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO counterinsurgent program.

As a collective body of incarcerated men, we were writers, jailhouse lawyers, and organizers. Prior to the Bicentennial Hunger Strike, the turbulent struggle over human rights at Marion is described in Alan Gomez’s “Resisting Living Death at Marion Federal Penitentiary, 1972”. Out of these struggles, the Marion Brothers were born.

I became a prison writer under the tutelage of Arthur Burghardt Banks, an off-Broadway actor incarcerated for draft resistance. Banks went on to win a Big Apple Emmy and Amnesty International went on to win the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize and the release of Banks and thousands of anti-war resisters.

In 1977, I wrote “Breaking Men’s Minds: Behavior Control and Human Experimentation at the Federal Prison in Marion”, which was circulated worldwide. It was because of the hunger strike that I began to gain recognition as a prison writer.

The Great Bicentennial Hunger Strike was two years in the making. It was not a simple undertaking, because men were putting their lives at stake, and the planning had to be kept secret from the prison administration.

I was given the responsibility of drafting the petition for redress and issuing the press release. As a prelude, now part of the Marion Brothers archives, there were interviews with select political prisoners, which included Puerto Rican Nationalist Rafael Cancel Miranda, American Indian Movement Leonard Peltier, and Black Panther Lorenzo Komboa Ervin. These were internationally recognized political prisoners with grievances against the United States. And, it was their grievances, besides the human rights issues of prisoners that comprised the body of the petition, which I delivered to the warden on that Fourth of July.

The first redress was “to hire more minority prison guards”. Although most prisoners fought me, tooth and nail on this issue, it was the first to grab the media’s attention, and the most defenseless for the government.

The second redress was “to stop using prisoners as guinea pigs in mind control experiments”. This issue raised curiosity and initiated an investigation by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. When the allegation proved true, and that the CIA was behind the experimentation, Angela Davis organized some 800 support organizations into the Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression.

Our case was presented to the United Nation, which declared 1977 as the Year of the Prisoner of Conscious. The World Peace Council convened at the University of Helsinki and named some 125 prisoners worldwide as Prisoners of Conscious. U.S. Ambassador Andrew Young acknowledged that there were hundreds of American political prisoners.

On the other hand, the warden at Marion, through the government, promised to hire more minority and women prison guards. But the “behavior modification” programs continued. Long-term segregation in sensory deprivation chambers took on new names. Today’s Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit (SHU) is a replica of Marion’s notorious Control Unit.

Post-Reflection

On the morning of July 4, 1976, I went to the mess hall because it was my shift to work the dish tank. There was much ado about the national celebration of the country’s 200th birthday, and usually on Independence Day, it was all-you-can-eat hot dogs and hamburgers for prisoners.

Would the rest of the men give up the best meal of the year to make a statement like this?

From the dish tank tray window, I had an observation post, and orders to report any inmate who crossed the strike line. Only one guy picked up a tray and hurried made a U-turn when he realized what was happening.

Nobody came to breakfast. I had no dishes to wash. I was proud for several reasons: First, because every inmate participated; Second, I did not have to report on anybody and nobody got hurt; and Third, I clutched the petition in my hand, expecting the prison guards to take me to the warden.

Some time, during those very tense moments, the warden got a call from Jake McCarthy at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, inquiring about the hunger strike. I imagined he hit the ceiling: “What strike!”

By the time I was haled into his office, my comrade Akinsijui was already there, singled out as one of the prime ringleaders. When I handed the warden the petition, the look he gave me in return was worth the price of admission to indefinite solitary confinement.

The prison was shut down. There were riots. When it opened again a few months later, there were more riots. Eventually, the prison went on lockdown for good, until it was converted to a medium-security prison, and other super-max prisoners were built in its stead.

While protesters surrounded the prison, and lawyers barred from entering, I was moved from long-term segregation, to the sensory deprivation boxcar cell with a steel front door, to a padded cell and shot full of drugs, and finally to a refrigerated strip cell with only brief shorts, no mattress, and running water for only 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening.

It was on the fifteenth day that I ended my hunger strike. Leonard Peltier and the Indians continued for 40 days. These were the last of my memories of Marion before being “kicked out”.

Life in Pelican Bay SHU

2011-07-02T18:35:00.000-04:00

From IF THE SHU FITS: CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT AT CALIFORNIA'S
PELICAN BAY STATE PRISON:

B. General Conditions Within the SHU

From the outside, the SHU resembles a "massive concrete bunker."[65] From the inside, it is a "windowless labyrinth of cells and halls, sealed off from the outside world by walls, gates, and guards."[66] The overall effect of the SHU is "one of stark sterility and unremitting monotony."[67] The physical environment reinforces a sense of isolation and detachment from the outside world and, for custody personnel, creates a "palpable distance from ordinary compunctions, inhibitions and community norms."[68]

SHU prisoners are isolated in small cells for twenty-two and one-half hours a day,[69] separated by three locked doors from an armed control booth officer.[70] The inmates can see no other prisoners, nor can they see outdoors. They are watched on screens in a central control room. Their movements are monitored by video cameras. Cell doors open and close electronically. The ceiling is covered with heavy screening on one side and heavy plastic on the other.[71] The filtered light that seeps through the screen is the closest the SHU prisoners ever get to feeling sunlight—no direct sunlight ever reaches these cells. The National Prison Project describes the SHU as follows:

Each concrete cell contains a concrete stool, concrete bed, concrete writing table, and a toilet and sink made of heavy stainless steel. Nothing is allowed on the walls. The cells of SHU prisoners are lined with opaque materials, so that prisoners cannot see out. Prisoners never walk freely, they never emerge from their cells without being handcuffed and in chains. They shuffle to the law library single file, chained to each other at the ankles . . . . Toothpaste is removed from the tube. There is no unread mail.[72]

The design of the SHU's cell doors calls for their construction in heavy gauge perforated metal. Although the prison officials probably chose this material to prevent the inmates from throwing things through their cell doors, the heavy metal reinforces the isolative nature of the SHU by blocking any available light, as well as the inmate's vision.[73] In fact, the SHU was purposefully designed to reduce "visual stimulation."[74]

The cells are contained in eight-cell units known as "pods," with four 500-foot corridors that are also monitored by video. Each set of four corridors is viewed from a control room from which all video transmissions are monitored by control booth officers. In addition, the cells within the pods contain speakers and microphones which permit communications between control booth officers and inmates.[75] Many prisoners believe that their conversations are monitored.[76]

Unlike most prisoners, SHU inmates are fed in their cells on trays, twice a day.[77] The meals are placed on tray slots in the cell doors to be eaten inside. When Dr. Craig Haney made his first visit to the prison, he was told by a guard that this was the only design flaw in the prison—that they had not figured out a way to "automatically" feed the prisoners, eliminating any need for contact with them whatsoever.[78] SHU inmates are permitted to shower three times per week.[79] The inmates are not allowed to take classes, do not work,[80] and are not permitted to smoke.[81]

SHU inmates may exercise unshackled outside their cells for a maximum of ninety minutes per day in an area known as the "dog-walk."[82] The exercise space measures twenty-eight by twelve feet and has twenty-foot walls.[83] At any other time the prisoners leave their cells, they must be in waist restraints and handcuffs, and have an armed double escort.[84] Before and after "exercise," an inmate must stand naked at the front of the control booth and undergo a visual strip search by a control booth officer, which may be seen by other officers, inmates, and "whomever else happens to be in the open area around the outside of the control booth."[85]

The term "exercise yard" is a euphemism. In reality, it is "a small bare concrete room with high ceilings," which is attached to the end of each pod.[86] The pens "are more suggestive of satellite cells than areas for exercise or recreation."[87] "In the control booth, the televised images of several inmates, each in separate exercise cages, show them walking around and around the perimeter of their concrete yards, like laboratory animals engaged in mindless and repetitive activity."[88] Chief U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, who presided over Madrid v. Gomez, saw inmates simply pacing around the edges of the pen.[89] He described the image as "hauntingly similar to that of caged felines pacing in a zoo."[90]

With the exception of those inmates who are double-celled,[91] whenever SHU inmates are in the presence of another person, they are in chains at both the waist and ankles. They are even chained during their classification hearings.[92]

Thus, with minor and insignificant exceptions, the life of a SHU inmate is lived within the confines of an eighty square foot cell, a space that may be shared with another prisoner whose life is similarly circumscribed. This degree of isolation and deprivation of virtually all meaningful human contact is degrading, dehumanizing, and results in a significant risk to inmate mental health. Simply put, these conditions drive men insane.

Letter from Bomani Shakur of the Lucasville 5

2011-07-02T11:38:00.001-04:00

The Lucasville 5 are five prisoners who were framed for the murder of snitches and guards in the 1993 Lucasville prison riot. The 1993 riot and hostage taking was one of the longest in u.s. prison history, and yet it ended relatively peacefully. It was the 5 who negotiated a nonviolent resolution to the hostage taking, but for this they were targeted as "ringleaders" by the state and sentenced to death, framed for the murders of snitches and a prison guard during the uprising.

Since 1993 the Five were held in solitary confinement, 23 hours a day - for eighteen years. Finally, in early 2011, a hungerstrike by the prisoners forced some concessions from the prisoncrats, loosening their isolation conditions.

Here Bomani Shakur, one of the Lucasville 5, sends his message of solidarity and hope to the California prisoners who commenced a hungerstrike yesterday, on July 1:

Ask anyone who has ever been on a hunger strike, and they will tell you that the process of intentionally starving oneself is a very painful ordeal. Typically speaking, it is a protracted form of suicide; taken too far, the body will shut down and die. And yet, there are places on this planet where the idea of death is preferable to continuing down a path that offers no hope or relief from suffering. I live in such a place; I know.

In January of this year (2011), and after almost thirteen years of solitary confinement at the Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP), I and several others went on hunger strike. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. However, after countless appeals to reason had failed, and after coming to the end of all that we could do (law suits, greivances, petitions, etc.) we made the decision to risk our very lives in order to bring about the necessary changes that would allow us to live as human beings. In the end, we stood firm, garnered world-wide support, and prevailed. Now prisoners in California, confined in the notorious Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison, have decided to undertake a similar course of action. To them, I say: Bravo!

In a country that incarcerates more of its citizens than any other country in the world (over 2.6 million men and women behind bars), human rights violations are inevitable, and it falls to those of us who must suffer through the experience to stand up and speak truth to power; for, as Frederick Douglass suggested: "Power concedes nothing without a demand."

In the days to come, the men at Pelican Bay will need each and every one of us to support them, to stand with them as they seek to bring their situation to a tolerable level. What they are demanding is basic:
Individual accountability
Abolish debriefing policy, and modify active/inactive gang status criteria
Comply with US Commission 2006 recommendations regarding an end to long-term solitary confinement
Provide adequate food
Expand and provide constructive programming and privileges for indefinite SHU status inmates

Let's come together to assist these men in their time of need and show them that their status as "criminals" does not automatically disqualify them from being human beings. In my time of need, I found this to be the truth and it reaffirmed my faith in humanity. Give these men the opportunity to feel that outpouting of compassion.

And to the men at Pelican Bay (Todd, Danny, et al), I simply want to say: Stay the course; pay attention to what you are doing; and when things get rough (and they will) , know that you are not alone. By and through the activation of what he called "Satygraha," - or truth force - Mahatma Gandhi awakened the largest democracy in the world. In every evil that threatens us, the truth - once known - has the power to set us free. Hold on to that.

The system as it currently exists must change, and this, what you all are doing right now, may very well be the catalyst to bring about that change. Remember that.

And remember this: the first three days are the hardest; after that, it's mind over matter. When the body is brought under control, the mind is set free to receive revelations. Be on the lookout for that; and when they come, when the truth of your situation is revealed, stay in that space. Drink as much water as you can, stay hydrated (read: coffee is a diuretic). And when the time comes, be sure to get everything in writing!

Calling all arms * Calling all arms

Bomani Shakur
Ohio State Penitentiary (2011)

Sanyika Shakur, August Third Collective, On July 1 Hunger Strike

2011-07-02T10:03:00.000-04:00

Due to the recent strike, i only received this letter dated June 13 a few days ago:

i was given an indeterminate SHU term in 1989, for being a threat to the institutional security. The CDC cited writings i had from Comrade-Brotha George, exercising in military fashion with known revolutionaries & conducting joint military manoeuvres with other formations in the New Afrikan Independence Movement. i came up for an “inactive” review in 2008, but the political police said my name was found on a roster of known & active members of various formations in the cell of a New Afrikan on San Quentin’s death row. For this & writing “Black August” in a letter, i was given an additional six years in the SHU, on an indeterminate status. i have, like others in the SHU class, stood firm thru it all & will continue to do so until i am no more. We of the August Third Collective of the New Afrikan Independence Movement will join in & support the July 1st hungerstrike in resistance to the draconian treatment meted out against all SHU prisoners.

Rebuild!
Sanyika Shakur, August Third Collective

Video to Support the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike!

2011-07-02T00:09:00.000-04:00

Pelican Bay Prisoners Go On Hunger Strike to Protest Grave Conditions: Lawyers, Advocates, Organizations Hold Press Conference, Voice Prisoner Demands

2011-06-29T17:27:00.000-04:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—June 29, 2011

Press Contact: Isaac Ontiveros
Communications Director, Critical Resistance
Office: 510 444 0484
Cell: 510 517 6612

What: Press Conference
When: Thursday, June 30, 2011, 11:00am
Where: Elihu M. Harris State of California Office Building, 1515 Clay St., Oakland, CA

Oakland—Prisoners at the notorious Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, CA will initiate an indefinite hunger strike on July 1st, 2011 to protest condition in the prison’s Security Housing Unit (SHU). Lawyers and advocates who have been in contact with the prisoners will hold a press conference Thusday June 30th at the Oakland Federal Building, at 11am to rally support for the strike and put pressure on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to respond to the prisoners’ demands. Prisoners have delivered their demands to Pelican Bay warden Greg Lewis, the CDCR, and to Governor Jerry Brown. Their demands include an end to long-term solitary confinement, collective punishment, and forced interrogation on gang affiliation. The prisoners have also stated that they are willing to give up their lives unless their demands are met.

"The prisoners inside the SHU at Pelican Bay know the risk that they are taking going on hunger strike,” says Manuel LaFontaine, of All of Us or None, an organization that supports former prisoners and part of a Bay Area-based Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition supporting Pelican Bay’s prisoners. La Fontaine continues, “The CDCR must recognize that the SHU produces conditions of grave violence, such that people lose their lives in there all the time." U.S. and international human rights organizations have condemned Security Housing Units as having cruel, inhumane, and torturous conditions. SHU prisoners are kept in windowless, 6 by 10 foot cells, 23½ hours a day, for years at a time. The CDCR operates four Security Housing Units in its system at Corcoran,California Correctional Institution, Valley State Prison for Women as well as Pelican Bay.

Recent work and hunger strikes in Georgia and Ohio prisons were successful in both winning some concessions and alerting the public to the conditions inside US prisons. "People who are in prison are already being punished. They are still human beings and should not have to lose their civil and human rights" says Karen Shain, a lawyer with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.

Pelican Bay’s hunger strike begins amidst the recent landmark Supreme Court ruling condemning California’s prison overcrowding and order the reduction of its population by at least 33,000 people. At the center of the overcrowding ruling were dozens of prisoner deaths a year due to the lack of basic medical and other healthcare. Thursday’s Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity press conference will touch off several events happening in cities across North America in the coming weeks.

Legal workers, advocates, and experts on the California prison system will be available for comment and interviews.

###

for more information: http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/

Unlock the Box at the Maison Norman Bethune, July 1

2011-06-28T15:10:00.000-04:00

This Friday July 1 in Montreal the comrades from the Maison Norman Bethune (the PCR/RCP's bookstore) will be hosting a film screening of Unlock the Box, a documentary about isolation torture and control units in the united states.

The film is in english, though there will be whisper translation into French, followed by a discussion of events being organized in Montreal to support the California prisoners' hunger strike.

The Maison Norman Bethune's announcement is reposted here in French, and below that you can see a clip from the film:

Dans le cadre des Rendez-vous de la Maison Norman Bethune:
Grève de la faim à la Pelican Bay State Prison: À bas l’isolement carcéral!

Le 1er juillet prochain, en Californie, entre 50 et 100 prisonniers de la Security Housing Unit (SHU), Corridor D, à la Pelican Bay State Prison, vont entamer une grève de la faim indéfinie. Ils protesteront ainsi contre les conditions de détention inhumaines qu’on leur impose, notamment le recours systématique à l’isolement carcéral. Pour l’occasion, nous présenterons un documentaire, Unlock the Box (Reel Soldiers Production, version originale anglaise avec traduction chuchotée), qui expose justement la lutte contre l’isolement carcéral. Nous annoncerons également les actions de solidarité avec la grève de la faim qui auront lieu dans la région de Montréal.

Le vendredi 1er juillet à 19h00
1918, rue Frontenac
Montréal (métro Frontenac)

Entrée libre • Info: 514 563-1487

Kersplebedeb Publishing Responds to Pelican Bay Ban on Defying the Tomb

2011-06-24T16:11:00.001-04:00

On April 5, K.L. McGuyer, Associate Warden of the Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit, mailed a letter to Kersplebedeb Publishing informing us that Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin "Rashid" Johnson featuring Exchanges with an Outlaw, was now being deemed contraband at Pelican Bay.

The letter (which was mailed to the wrong address, and that we only received on May 27), explained that this was due to alleged promotion of “gang activities”.

According to CCR, Title 15, Section 3000, Definitions:

Gang means any ongoing formal or informal organization, association or group of three or more persons which has a common name or identifying sign or symbol whose members and/or associates, individually or collectively, engage or have engaged, on behalf of that organization, association or group, in two or more acts which include, planning, organizing, threatening, financing, soliciting, or committing unlawful acts or acts of misconduct classified as serious pursuant section 3315.

Having reviewed the aforementioned Section 3315, Kersplebedeb Publishing is challenging this ruling as is our right under CCR, Title 15, Section 3137. (For these and all other regulations referred to here, see California Code of Regulations Title 15. Crime Prevention and Corrections.)

The only “formal or informal organization, association or group of three or more persons” which Defying the Tomb might be said to promote is the New Afrikan Black Panther Party, and this organization has not engaged in “two or more acts which include, planning, organizing, threatening, financing, soliciting, or committing unlawful acts or acts of misconduct classified as serious pursuant section 3315.”

As such, the New Afrikan Black Panther Party does not meet the CDCR's own definition of a gang. In order to appreciate the nature of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party, and the fact that it does not constitute a “gang” under the CDCR's regulations, consider the following quote by the author of Defying the Tomb, Keven “Rashid” Johnson:

In 2005, I co-founded the New Afrikan Black Panther Party/White Panther Organization, a non-violent, legal and above-ground party whose focus is on promoting the interests and human rights, in strictly legal forms, of sectors of the U.S. population whose needs and interests are ignored, and who are not represented, by the ‘established’ political – economic system – especially poor, working class and imprisoned Blacks.

The NABPP/WPO specifically opposes criminal activities, ‘street gang’ mentalities and behaviors, violence (except in the extremes of self-defense), all forms of discrimination (racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, national, etc.) and all forms of oppression. We also promote the right to free, open and honest speech. Our orientation, ideologies, and views have been and are elaborated in our various periodicals and publications; many of them I authored.

The above quote is from Rashid’s essay “Racial and Political Persecution of Grassroots Black Political leaders and Activists”.

Accusing people of belonging to a “gang” has become a convenient way to deprive those people of the ability to communicate, to develop politically/intellectually/culturally, and to pursue what are supposed to be their rights under the system's laws. Many people are understandably fearful of the violence and mayhem associated with many criminal organizations, and these fears are exploited by institutions such as the "California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation" (sic!) in order to justify clamping down on any collective activity, accusing those they don’t like of being members of “gangs” whether or not this is true. Perhaps not so coincidentally, this works to isolate these people from their communities, further eroding the ties of solidarity that exist between poor and oppressed people, leading to an increase in atomization and antisocial violence which in turn makes these communities all the more vulnerable to actual criminal organizations and oppressors operating on both sides of the law.

In other words, repression of “gangs” serves as a fig leaf for the repression of any collective action or organization by the oppressed that does not suit the plans of the oppressor. This dynamic exists in oppressed communities throughout the united states, but like most oppressive dynamics it appears in its most concentrated form within the prison system.

As even the system's own Associate u.s. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black pointed out in Barenblatt v. U.S. (360 U.S. 109, ISO(1959) (dissenting opinion)):

History should teach us… that… minority parties and groups which advocate extremely unpopular social or governmental innovations will always be typed as criminal gangs and attempts will always be made to drive them out.

Indeed, the CDCR's use of the “gang” label to censor political materials and repress political organizations directly contradicts one of their own rules, CCR, Title 15, Section 3004(c):

Inmates, parolees and employees will not subject other persons to any form of discrimination because of race, religion, nationality, sex, political belief, age, or physical or mental handicap.

Specifically, Pelican Bay's use of the term “gang” to describe the New Afrikan Black Panther Party discriminates on the basis of political belief.

For this reason, we will be appealing Pelican Bay's decision and requesting that the designation of Defying the Tomb as contraband be withdrawn, and that the implied designation of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party as a gang be similarly withdrawn. Failing that, we will be asking that Pelican Bay detail which “unlawful acts or acts of misconduct classified as serious pursuant section 3315” they are using to justify this designation.

This kerfuffle over a book that we published last year occurs just as prisoners at the Pelican Bay SHU are inspiring us all as they prepare to go on an historic hunger strike this July 1. Censorship of political materials is just one of so many ways in which the prison authorities attempt to isolate prisoners. We strongly urge people to learn more about this hunger strike, and if possible to organize solidarity actions in your area. For more information, see the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition's blog at http://www.prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/ or contact them by telephone at 510-444-0484.

For more information about Kevin "Rashid" Johnson and the New Afrikan Black Panther Party (Prison Chapter) see: http://rashidmod.com/

Order copies of Defying the Tomb from Kersplebedeb Leftwingbooks.net or from AK Press.

David Gilbert Transferred

2011-06-22T18:46:00.000-04:00

David Gilbert has been transferred to Auburn prison; his new address is:

David Gilbert, 83A6158

Auburn Correctional Facility

PO box 618

Auburn NY 13021

David is a North American political prisoner. The Civil Rights struggle of the 60s exposed him to the sham of US democracy and embodied the beauty of collective struggle. In 1965 he started the Vietnam Committee at Columbia University in NY and became a founding member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) there. In 1967, David authored the first SDS pamphlet on US Imperialism and participated in the Columbia Strike of 1968. After about 5 years of organizing in the above ground movement, David joined the revolutionary underground, spending a total of 10 years living clandestinely, actively resisting imperialism with arms. On October 20, 1981, he and other comrades were captured at Nyack, NY during an attempted expropriation by a unit of the Black Liberation Army working with white revolutionaries (subsequently known as the Revolutionary Armed Task Force- RATF). During the expropriation attempt, one Brinks guard and two police officers were killed. Charged and convicted of felony murder, David is serving a 75 year (minimum) to life sentence.

While in prison, David has been actively involved in the struggle against AIDS, and has remained a staunch opponent of oppression still dedicated to human liberation. He is also a longtime advisor and collaborator in the annual Certain Days Free Political Prisoners Calendar project.

A book of David's writings, No Surrender, was published by Abraham Guillen Press in David's memoirs, Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground and Beyond, is due to be published by PM Press in December.

For an incomplete collection of David's writings, see the page devoted to him on Kersplebedeb.

June 4: Hamilton Anarchist Bookfair

2011-06-01T10:03:00.000-04:00

i've meant to table at every Hamilton bookfair so far, but there's been a variety of events and calamities that have always interfered ... but not this year! Finally it seems like we'll be able to be there, tabling for Kersplebedeb and PM Press too ...

if you're in Southern Ontario, make sure to drop by and say hello!

Saturday, June 4th 2011
10am-5pm
51 Stuart Street
Hamilton, Ontario
Free Lunch and Free Childcare
hamiltonbookfair@gmail.com

As the organizers say:

The 4th annual Hamilton Anarchist Bookfair is right around the corner — are you coming? It’s happening this Saturday, June 4th!

We want you all to come. It’ll be fun, promise! Together, we’ll talk all about what’s terrible, and how we might wanna fix it. We’ll sit side by side, and be glad to share our intensity, our dreams, and our relentless passion — I’m sure we’ll find that we have a lot to learn from each other! There will be over 27 vendors with books and literature, 8 workshops and discussions; and of course, free lunch and all-day childcare. For more details about the workshops, look under the ‘Workshops’ tab for an updated list.

See you Saturday!
big love, The Hamilton Anarchist Bookfair Collective

Here's the finalized Schedule:

10 to 11am: Welcome! (and coffee)

11 to 12:30: Workshops!
+ Solidaity Networks // with Steel City Solidarity – JCC Rm. 9
+ Deepening Our Strength: Radical Spirituality Discussion – JCC Rm. 3
+ Tech Security // with ATS (Anarchist Tech Support) – WAHC Rm. 1

12:30 to 1:30: LUNCH!

1:30 to 3:00: Workshops!
+ Film Screening: “CopWatch: These Streets Are Watching.” // with Hamilton Copwatch – WAHC Rm. 1
+ Anarchist-Indigenous Solidarity // With the Six Nations Solidarity Network – JCC Rm. 3

3:15 to 4:45: Workshops!
+ Intro to Anarchism – WAHC Rm. 1
+ Knowing the Land is Resistance // with the KLR Collective – JCC Rm. 3
+ Anti-Gentrification Radical Walking Tour – WAHC Rm. tba

Here is a Map of bookfair locations and other useful stuff for out of towners, if you have any questions the organizers can be emailed at hamiltonbookfair@gmail.com

Pelican Bay Prisoners Set to Hunger Strike July 1

2011-05-30T10:07:00.001-04:00

On July 1, 2011, between 50 and 100 prisoners at Pelican Bay State Prison in the Security Housing Unit (SHU), Corridor D, are going on an indefinite hunger strike. The D corridor (also known as the "short" corridor) has the highest level of restricted incarceration in the state of California and among the most severe conditions in the united states. The rules of their confinement are extremely harsh in order to force them to "debrief" or offer up information about criminal or prison gang activity of other prisoners. Most inmates in the SHU are not members or associates of prison gangs, as the PBSP staff claims, and even those who are put their lives and the lives of their families and other prisoners at risk if they debrief.

Using conditions of severe mental and physical harm in order to force prisoners into confessing is torture! Many debriefers simply make up information about other prisoners just to escape the isolation units. This misinformation is then used to validate other prisoners as members or associates of prison gangs who in reality have nothing to do whatsoever with gang activity.

These are the five core demands of the hunger-striking prisoners:

Eliminate group punishments. Instead, practice individual accountability. When an individual prisoner breaks a rule, the prison often punishes a whole group of prisoners of the same race. This policy has been applied to keep prisoners in the SHU indefinitely and to make conditions increasingly harsh.
Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria. Prisoners are accused of being active or inactive participants of prison gangs using false or highly dubious evidence, and are then sent to longterm isolation (SHU). They can escape these tortuous conditions only if they "debrief," that is, provide information on gang activity. Debriefing produces false information (wrongly landing other prisoners in SHU, in an endless cycle) and can endanger the lives of debriefing prisoners and their families.
Comply with the recommendations of the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in Prisons (2006) regarding an end to longterm solitary confinement. This bipartisan commission specifically recommended to "make segregation a last resort" and "end conditions of isolation." Yet as of May 18, 2011, California kept 3,259 prisoners in SHUs and hundreds more in Administrative Segregation waiting for a SHU cell to open up. Some prisoners have been kept in isolation for more than thirty years.
Provide adequate food. Prisoners report unsanitary conditions and small quantities of food that do not conform to prison regulations. There is no accountability or independent quality control of meals.
Expand and provide constructive programs and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates. The hunger strikers are pressing for opportunities “to engage in self-help treatment, education, religious and other productive activities..." Currently these opportunities are routinely denied, even if the prisoners want to pay for correspondence courses themselves. Examples of privileges the prisoners want are: one phone call per week, and permission to have sweatsuits and watch caps. (Often warm clothing is denied, though the cells and exercise cage can be bitterly cold.) All of the privileges mentioned in the demands are already allowed at other SuperMax prisons (in the federal prison system and other states).

This widespread hunger strike has the potential to become the most significant event in California prison reform in the last decade. Public support is crucial. Outside support work for the July 1st hunger strike is being coordinated by California Prison Focus, which works to abolish the California prison system in its present condition. Members of CFP travel regularly to Pelican Bay and Corcoran state prisons to uncover and disseminate information on the current conditions prisoners must endure.

California Prison Focus
1904 Franklin Street, Suite 507
Oakland, CA 94612

email: contact@prisons.org
web: http://www.prisons.org

The hunger strike will predictably be met with a media whiteout, and it is our responsibility on the outside to make this untenable for the powers that be. We can do this by carrying out solidarity actions - pickets, demonstrations, banner-drops or whatever - to make this news. It is an obscene sign of where things are at that these people will be putting their lives on the live with this hunger-strike, and yet it will be far less risky or heavy actions on the outside that will either provide the context in which this struggle will succeed - or not.

One prisoner had written asking people to organize candlelight vigils on July 1st, while organizers from California have suggested that July 9th might be the best day to organize public rallies of support - one way or another, though, everyone should be thinking of doing something, and proceeding accordingly.

Here in canada, support work around prisoners often ends up focusing on situations (like this one) in the united states, and this can seem odd. In fact, in some ways it is odd. But there is a reason for this odd situation; while all prisons are instruments of mass oppression, the u.s. prison system is unique in both its scope and its intensity, and constitutes a laboratory for all those sciences intended to destroy human beings, the cutting edge of state repression, whose lethal lessons are then exported around the world.

We can see what this means when we look at California, whose state population is roughly the same as that of Canada, but whose prison population is over five times as large. Within this capitalist tumor which is the u.s. prison system, isolation-torture represents the cutting edge of social control, intended to destroy prisoners without leaving any physical evidence of harm. On any given day there are tens of thousands of people subjected to such torturous conditions in the u.s. gulags.

Here in canada, the new Harper majority government is planning on accelerating the trend of importing elements of the u.s. prison-industrial complex. Supporting the Pelican Bay prisoners resistance to torture and isolation is not separate from building our own resistance to the spread of this new form of human subjugation here and around the world.

i've put together a page of information about this hunger strike on the Kersplebedeb website, including all the key documents, agit prop materials, and background information that i could find. You can visit it here.

This Weekend: Montreal Anarchist Bookfair!

2011-05-19T17:51:00.000-04:00

The bestest and biggest radical bookfair in North America, and i'm lucky enough that it happens in my town. Come and say hi and check out the books at this year's bookfair!

MAY 21-22, 10am-5pm
at the CEDA,
2515 rue Delisle
(a short walk from Lionel-Groulx metro)
FREE. Welcome to all! Bring your kids!

For anarchists and people curious about anarchism.

Main Hall, Kid Zone, Introductions to Anarchism, Workshops and Presentations, Autonomous Media and Technology Room, Anarchist Film Room, Kids Zone, Anarchist Cabaret, Festival of Anarchy and more.

Participants from all over Quebec and North America, booksellers and vendors, workshops, films, discussions, kids activities, art exhibits and more!

NOTE: During this year’s Bookfair, tabling will take place over TWO DAYS: May 21-22 between 10am-5pm.

The Montreal Anarchist Bookfair — and month-long Festival of Anarchy — bring together anarchist ideas and practice, through words, images, music, theatre and day-to-day struggles for justice, dignity and collective liberation.

The Bookfair is for people who don’t necessarily consider themselves anarchists, but are curious about anarchism, as well as a space for anarchists to meet, network and share in a spirit of respect and solidarity. All are welcome.

The Bookfair is organized in a spirit of openness towards the different traditions, visions, and practices of anarchism. Together we share a commitment to promoting anarchism through the values of mutual aid, grassroots democracy, direct action, autonomy and solidarity, while opposing oppression in all its forms.

The Bookfair and Festival of Anarchy provide an important gathering and reference point for anti-authoritarian ideas and practice in North America.

What Happens at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair? Read more here: http://www.anarchistbookfair.ca/about/what-happens-at-the-bookfair

Accessibility Statement: http://www.anarchistbookfair.ca/accessibility

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

Introductions to Anarchism – SATURDAY, MAY 21

* 1pm: Anarchism without Anarchists / Anarchism with Anarchists: The Practice and Relevance of Anarchism (Jaggi Singh)
* 1pm: Discovering Anarchism Through Music (Philippe Morin)

Introductions to Anarchism – SUNDAY, MAY 22

* 1pm: Wage Labour and Alienation: An Anarchist Critique of Work (Camille Robert)
* 1pm: Embracing Brazen Laziness: Introduction to Anarchism (Adrienne Hurley)

Workshops & Presentations – SATURDAY, MAY 22

* 11am: The importance of struggle at the workplace (Industrial Workers of the World)
* 11am: Transforming Harm: Supporting Survivors and Confronting Sexual Assault in Our Communities (SACOMSS & Philly Stands Up)
* 11am: Oppose and Propose! Lessons from Movement for a New Society (Andrew Cornell)
* 12pm: Anarchist Writers Bloc Workshop (Anarchist Writers Bloc-Montreal)
* 1pm: Anarchist responses to “austerity” measures (l’Union communiste libertaire and others)
* 1pm: Social struggles in Indigenous communities of South America (Mapuche Support Committee and Nicolas Van Caloen)
* 3pm: An Introduction to Animal Liberation & Anarchism: How Animal Liberation Attacks the Roots of the Capitalist System (Love & Rage Liberation Collective)
* 3pm: Orwell, the Anarchist-Tory (Eric Martin)
* 3pm: Support and Self-Defence in the Face of State Repression: The example of the G20 in Toronto & Montreal (La Convergence des luttes anticapitalistes, CLAC)
* 3pm: Contemporary Anarchist Perspectives: Introduction to Contemporary Anarchisms (Christian)

Workshops & Presentations – SUNDAY, MAY 22

* 11am: Anti-authoritarian perspectives on the ongoing revolutions from the gulf to the ocean: Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain,Libya, Iran, Iraq, Palestine (Tadamon! Montreal)
* 11am: Lessons in Solidarity: The Oscar Grant rebellions and the movement against police terror in Oakland, CA. (Oakland 100 Support Committee)
* 11am: Physical Proximity, Neighbourhood Life and Anarchist Struggles: The Experience of la Pointe Libertaire (La Pointe Libertaire)
* 12pm: Towards an International Anarchist Gathering in St. Imier (Switzerland) in 2012 (La coopérative Espace noir)
* 1pm: Philosophy is child’s play! (Louise Caroline Bergeron, Mubeenah Mughal & Marike Reid-Gaudet)
* 1pm: Round-table: 10 years after the Summit of the Americas: What impact on anarchists? (Hélène Nazon, Maxime Fortin, Sarita Ahooja and others)
* 1pm: The Struggle for Reproductive Autonomy: From underground abortion collectives to the fight to decriminalize sex work (Emily Davidson & Kaley Kennedy) – Women & trans only
* 3pm: Anarchism, Colonialism, and Aboriginal Dispossession in the Canadian West (Paul Burrows)
* 3pm: Fifty Years of Struggle Against Police Brutality in Montreal, Fifteen March 15 Demonstrations, New Strategies Against the Oppressive State? (Collectif Opposé à la Brutalité Policière, COBP)
* 3pm: Todos Somos Japon and Planetary Anarchism (Go Hirasawa, Adrienne Hurley & Sabu Kohso)
* 3pm: Parole Sans Parole (the termite collective)
* 3pm: Decolonizing our Solidarity (Projet Accompagnement Solidarité Colombie, PASC) [More...]

Workshops and presentations will take place on BOTH Saturday, May 21 and Sunday, May 22, from 11am-5pm. Workshops will take place either in French or English or are bilingual. There is whisper translation available into French or English for every workshop.

This year there will be four introductory style workshops for people who are new to, or curious about, anarchism and anarchist ideas and practice. The other workshops (20 in total) go in greater depth into various currents of anarchism and issues facing anarchists. There is also a space for the Anarchist Writer’s Bloc and an info-session about the Rencontres internationales de l’anarchisme in St Imier (Switzerland).

Workshops take place either at the main Bookfair space – the CEDA at 2515 rue Delisle – or at the Georges-Vanier Cultural Center located across from the CEDA.

For more detailed descriptions of the various workshops, see http://www.anarchistbookfair.ca/workshops-2011

May 11: "Beyond the Walls": A new publication about political prisoners in Colombia

2011-05-09T10:36:00.000-04:00

it's the Festival of Anarchy in Montreal, a month of radical events around the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair... i'll be highlighting some of these on this blog, the first of which is actually in just 2 days, as the PASC - a local group doing solidarity with Colombian political prisoners - launched a new publication. Definitely worth checking out...

"Beyond the Walls": A new publication about political prisoners in Colombia

May 11, 6pm
Bar Populaire
6584 boul. St-Laurent
(Montreal)

PASC is launching a new brochure, using the situation of political prisoners as a lens for tackling the problem of crimes perpetrated by the state in Colombia. Political prisoners are those imprisoned because their political views and/or actions run contrary to those of the state. In Colombia however, one ought also to include in this category those who have been imprisoned, quite apart from their personal politics, for the simple reason that their mere existence impedes the plans of the ruling elite. It is in precisely this situation that a great many rural Colombians find themselves, living in armed conflict zones where the lands they occupy have been targeted for mega development projects.

The brochure is accompanied by a DVD containing audio and video recordings from political prisoners themselves as well as from their allies at the Political Prisoners Solidarity Committee of Colombia (with french subtitles).

Contact us for copies of the brochure and DVD or come to the launch!
Montréal launch as part of the Anarchist Festival on May 11, 2011

6pm at Bar Populaire 6584 boul. St-Laurent, Montréal

Opening Panel: Certain Days*, Recon**, PASC Several groups from around Québec working with prisoners here and abroad will join us for a panel discussion.

* Certain Days : Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar: is a collective composed of political prisoners and their allies. Contemporary resistance movements against war, globalization and colonialism are rooted in a long struggle for justice that has included the mass protests of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the political prisoners and prisoners of war who have participated in this calendar were organizers during this period: members of the Black Panther Party or American Indian Movement, Puerto Ricans fighting for their lands, white anti-racist allies working in solidarity with oppressed groups. Some prisoners have been incarcerated since that time period, in some cases MORE THAN 35 YEARS. These prisoners are not relics of a bygone era; they remain politically active and despite the difficulties associated with organizing while imprisoned, they continue to struggle for justice behind bars and in the streets.

** Re-Con is a prisoner-initiated Q-pirg Concordia working group created in 1999 by lifers, long-term prisoners and volunteers at the Federal Training Centre penitentiary in Laval, Quebec. Re-Con aims at establishing positive links with various communities and attempts to diminish the effects of long term incarceration. An additional goal of Re-Con is to counter the negative perceptions that are often held toward those incarcerated.

Toronto Anarchist Bookfair - Workshop Schedule!

2011-04-15T08:49:00.000-04:00

While the bookfair itself will be taking place at 25 Cecil Street, there will be two days of workshops happening at Bahen, nearby. Here is the workshop schedule; for actual workshop descriptions see http://torontoanarchistbookfair.wordpress.com/workshops-2/

Community Dinner Friday April 15

7pm - 11pm

Saturday April 16/Sunday April 17

10am - 6pm

supper and books at the

Steelworkers Hall

25 Cecil St.

workshops at

Bahen

50 St. George. St

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

Saturday

All Day
DIY Screenprinting (All day drop in workshop!) - outside

10:00am-12:00pm

Anarchism 101 - Room 2145
Expanding Bases of Safety - ASL - Room 2155
Anarchist Organizational Issues During the Spanish War, 1936-1939 - Room 2159
Conversations about Transphobia and Cissexism - Room 2165

1pm-3:00pm

Organize the Hood! - Room 2145
Community Accountability and Sexual Assault - ASL - Room 2155
Union Organizing 101 - Room 2159
Anti-Authoritarian People of Colour Caucus: Lunch, followed by SKYPE talk with @narchist Panther Ashanti Alston - Room 2165
DIY Bicycle Maintenance - outside

3:30pm-5:30pm

DIY Floggers and Safer Sex Skillshare - Room 2145
Deaf Culture 101 - ASL - Room 2155
Reclaiming Power (Back to the Land) (3:30-4:30) & Signals of Disorder (4:30-5:30) - Room 2159
Anti-Authoritarian People of Colour Caucus: building an anti-authoritarian people of colour and indigenous peoples movement in toronto facilitated discussion - Room 2165

5:30-7:30pm

Intro to Encrypted Online Communications - Room 2145
Anti-Authoritarian People of Colour Caucus: zine share and food - Room 2165

Sunday
10:00am-12:00pm

Indigenous Sovereignty and Anarchist Allied Resistance - Room 2145
Broadcasting Pirate Radio - Room 2155
Anarchist Organizations - Room 2159

10:00am-11:00am SKYPE Workshop
Anarchism’s Social Vector: Drawing lessons from an historical overview in South Africa and Brazil with Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front - Room 2165

11:00am-12:00 SKYPE Workshop
Anarchist Organizing in the Age of Collapse with Uri Gordon - Room 2165

1:00pm-3:00pm

Information Security and You - Room 2145
Anti-Racist Action Network - Room 2155
Building Sexual Consent - Room 2159

1:00pm-2:00pm SKYPE Workshop
Imperialism, National Liberation and Class with Andrew Flood - Room 2165

2:00pm-4:00pm SKYPE Workshop
"We Are An Image From the Future" with VOID Network - Room 2165

3:30pm-5:30pm

Alternative Media - Room 2145
Political Prisoners in Canada and the United States - Room 2155

3:30pm-4:30pm
Anarcho-Nutritionism- Room 2159

4:00pm-5:00pm SKYPE Workshop
Appropriating Corporate Video for Anarchist Filmmaking with subMedia - Room 2165

4:30pm-5:30pm

Animal Liberation and Anarchism - Room 2159

5:00pm-6:00pm SKYPE Workshop
Refusing to Wait: Anarchism and Intersectionality with Jen Rogue/Deric Shannon - Room 2165

More information at https://torontoanarchistbookfair.wordpress.com

Toronto Anarchist Bookfair: Next Weekend!

2011-04-10T15:28:00.000-04:00

It is that time of year again - time for the Toronto Anarchist Bookfair!

It's happening next weekend, at the Steelworkers Hall at 25 Cecil Street, and you know i'll be there, tabling with all my own stuff as well as friends'.

While the final workshop schedule has not been announced yet, i am slated to be giving a talk about political prisoners and prisoners of war, probably on the Sunday afternoon from 3:30 to 5:30. All workshops are being held at Bahen, just two and a half blocks from the bookfair at 50 St. George. St. No finalized workshop schedule is available yet, but you can see the list right here.

Here is a guide to the different sections of the bookfair website:

* General Information
* Tabling Groups

Programming
* Anti-authoritarian People of Colour and Indigenous Peoples Caucus
* Friday Community Dinner and Assembly
* Really Really Free Market
* Workshops

Principles and Policies
Safer Spaces Policy
Sexual Assault and Consent Policy
Statement on Accessibility

& here is the latest callout from the organizers:

The countdown has begun! The 2011 Toronto Anarchist Bookfair is less than two weeks away, and is set to be an amazing weekend of workshops, radical discussions, books, zines, great food and friends. The bookfair is set to be the largest Toronto has seen in years, and will bring to the city vendors, exhibitors and workshop facilitators from across North America and beyond.
The Bookfair will run from Friday, April 15th- Sunday, April 17th, and be held in two central locations. The Friday evening community dinner and assembly, as well as bookfair tabling will be held at the Toronto Steelworker's Hall (25 Cecil st.), while bookfair workshops will be held at the nearby Bahen Centre (40 st.George st.).
Below you will find all the information you'll need to know about participating in the Bookfair, and getting the most out of the weekend.

a) Community Dinner and Assembly
To kick off the weekend of events the Bookfair Collective will be hosting a free community dinner, followed by a general assembly. Join us for a sit down vegan dinner, and an evening of community building dialogue. The dinner and assembly will be held from 7-11pm at the Steelworker's Hall.
We're inviting anti-authoritarians, anarchists and anyone interested to discuss the current organizing climate in the city, and brainstorm strategies as to how to build a stronger, more inclusive anarchist movement in the city and surrounding region. The assembly will begin with a handful of introductory remarks presented by long-term anarchist organizers, after which the floor will be opened for a general conversation on the potential directions Torontonian anarchism could take in 2011 and further. The assembly will then conclude with the opportunity for break-out sessions based on interest in specific ideas, plans, or projects that participants would like to discuss in more detail.

b) Tabling and Exhibits at the Bookfair
This year's bookfair will host over 40 independent publishers, booksellers, distributors, community organizations and political groups from throughout North America. Bookfair fair tabling will be taking place in the main area of the Steelworker's Hall, and be held both Saturday, April 16th and Sunday, April 17th from 10am-6pm.
For a complete list of tabling groups, publishers and organizations, visit:
https://torontoanarchistbookfair.wordpress.com/tabling-groups/

c) Workshops at the Bookfair
The bookfair weekend is jam-packed with over 30 workshops, from DIY Bike Repair, discussions on the Spanish Civil War and Anarchism and Indigenous Resistance, to Building Consent, Alternative Media, and everything in between, workshops will be covering an incredibly broad spectrum, oriented towards the development of both practical skills and theoretical knowledge, and will include a series of international workshops skyped in from across the globe. Workshops will be taking place Saturday, April 16th and Sunday, April 17th from 10am-5:30pm each day.
For a complete workshop list and schedule, visit:
https://torontoanarchistbookfair.wordpress.com/workshops-2/

d) Anti-authoritarian People of Colour and Indigenous Caucus
From 3:30-7:30pm on Saturday, April 16th the Bookfair will host a People of Colour Caucus. This space, open only to self-identified people of colour and indigenous people, will focus on 1) identifying gaps in anti-authoritarian organizing in Toronto that serve to exclude people of colour and indigenous peoples; 2) facilitating a discussion on how anti-authoritarian people of colour and indigenous peoples can link various struggles and organizing experiences, and 3) building an intersectional space where people of colour and indigenous peoples that adhere to an anti-authoritarian politic in Toronto can share resources and organize.

e) Volunteers!
In order to make the bookfair a smashing success (and we know how much anarchists like smashing ;) we need volunteers! Specifically we need volunteers to fill the following roles:
Food Preparation: If you like to cook or are interested in learning, this is the perfect opportunity! In addition to the Friday night community dinner, the bookfair will be serving lunch both Saturday and Sunday, and needs volunteers to help with food preparation.
Registration/Welcome Table: For the duration of the bookfair weekend there will be welcome/registration tables set up at both the Bahen Centre and the Steelworker's Hall. We need volunteers to hang out with Bookfair Collective members and help us staff these tables.
Set-up & Take-down: Let's be honest, grunt work sucks. That said, grunt work is crucial to most events and the Bookfair is no exception. We need volunteers to help us with set-up Saturday morning, and then again with take-down Sunday night.

f) Childcare
Childcare will be offered all day Saturday and Sunday from 10am-6pm on site at the Steelworker's Hall. Children's activities are planned for throughout the weekend, and snacks will be provided. If you intend to drop your child off, and have any special requests or concerns, please email us beforehand at toanarchistbookfair@gmail.com.

g) Accessibility
Both the Steelworker's Hall and the Bahen Centre are barrier-free venues with accessible washrooms. Attendant care will be provided, and ASL interpretation will be offered for select workshops.
To view the Bookfair's Safer Spaces Policy:
https://torontoanarchistbookfair.wordpress.com/safer-spaces-policy/
To view the Bookfair's Sexual Assault and Consent Policy:
https://torontoanarchistbookfair.wordpress.com/sexual-assault-and-consen...
If you have any comments, concerns, suggestions or request please email the Bookfair Collective at toanarchistbookfair@gmail.com
See you at the bookfair!

New Address for Roger Clement

2011-02-28T18:51:00.000-05:00

A message from Ottawa Movement Defense, regarding Roger Clement, who is doing time after having plead guilty to firebombing a Royal Bank of Canada branch in Ottawa last April:

Roger Clement has been transferred from the Millhaven Assessment Unit to the Pittsburg Institution in Joyceville, Ontario. Pittsburg is a minimum security facility located just north of Kingston and housing about 250 inmates. For more info on Pittsburgh, visit http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/facilit/institutprofiles/pittsburgh-eng.shtml

Roger appreciates receiving mail from the outside. While he can't always reply to every bit of correspondence, having access to letters and other reading material really help him cope with his time in prison.

His new address is:

Joseph Roger Clement (FPS-420268X)
Pittsburgh Institution
Highway 15, No. 3766
PO Box 4510
Kingston, Ontario
K7L 5E5

For more information about the J18 or Ottawa Movement Defense, get in touch with us at ottawamovementdefense@gmail.com.

In struggle,
Dan
OMD

Counter-insurgency Panel on Recent Protests in England

2011-01-20T17:23:00.002-05:00

Please take the hour and some minutes to watch this video, which i learned about through the Sons of Malcolm blog.

Four counter-insurgency professionals from the UK discuss recent militant protests in London, and the best ways to isolate and repress the radical left.

As a public document, it is not surprising that there are no theoretical breakthroughs here, however there are an astonishing number of very candid quotes. Open talk of the "feral underclass" and the need to target it for political neutralization, all the while exercising as much ideological control as possible: i.e. "the government or the politicians have to kettle the political debate as efficiently as the met kettles rioters."

This is our enemies talking, and probably not thinking that we would be listening. It is a good occasion for us - even if you don't learn anything listening to this, the examples of what they are saying may be useful in educating others.

Take the time. Take some notes. Do some thinking.

North American Anarchist Studies Conference: January, 14-16th 2011

2011-01-12T19:22:00.001-05:00

This weekend is the 2nd North American Anarchist Studies Conference, to be held in Toronto, Canada. i'll be tabling there on behalf of Kersplebedeb and PM Press - please do come by to say hello!

The schedule, for those of you thinking of attending:

North American Anarchist Studies Conference: January, 14-16th 2011

Friday, January 14th

Opening Film Night!

CINECYCLE- 129 Spadina Avenue (in the old coach house down the alley).

7pm-12am

Join us for a low-key evening of radical film screenings, discussion and socializing to kick off the conference.

-Featuring-

“Tales From the G20”- Open Media Initiative w/ Justin Saunders.
Chet Singh dub poetry performance.
“Carne de Fieras” (1936) w/ Jesse Cohn introducing.
Short contributions from NAASN members and members from the Toronto Alternative Media Centre.

Saturday, January 15th

STEEL WORKER’S HALL- 25 Cecil St.

Conference begins!

8-9am

Registration and coffee!

9-10:50am

Opening/plenary panel and group discussion!

‘The Past, Present and Potential Futures of Anarchism’ – Jaggi Singh, Irina Ceric, Denis Rancourt, Lesley Wood.

Facilitator: Sharmeen Khan

11-12:20pm

Room #1:
Contemporary Anarchism and the Arts

Adrian Blackwell- Anarchist Urban Design
Sandra Jeppesen- Anarchist Literature
Luis Jacob- Groundless Aesthetics

Moderator: Allan Antliff

Room #2:
Anarchist Economics: History, Analysis and Vision

Deric Shannon- An Overview of Anarchist Economics
Chris Spannos- The History of Anarchist Economics as a Lens to See the Future
Abbey Willis- Tools for Understanding Capitalism in the 2000s
Wayne Price- The Anarchist Post-Capitalist Vision

Moderator: Jasmin Mujanovic

12:30-1:30pm

Lunch!

1:30-2:20pm

Workshops!

Room #1:

Alexis Shotwell- Practical Strategies for Anarchist Writing: A Workshop

Room #2:

Testament- Building Bridges and Working with Unlikely Allies

2:30-3:50pm

Room #1:
Movement Knowledge I: Movement Research

Aziz Choudry- Activist Research: Mapping the Practices of Knowledge Production for Social Action
Chris Dixon- Accountability to whom? Ethics and Activism in Movement Research
Gary Kinsman- Mapping Social Relations of Struggle: Producing Knowledge for Social Transformation
Research Group on Collective Autonomy- Ethics and Accountability in Prefigurative Participatory Antiauthoritarian Research

Moderator: Kalin Stacey

Room #2:
Transnational Anarchism in the Americas 1

Kenyon Zimmer- ‘Yiddish is My Homeland’: A Transatlantic History of Jewish-American Anarchism, 1880s-1930s
Kirt Shaffer- Panama Reds: Anarchist Politics and Transregional Networks in the Panama Canal Zone, 1904-1916
Steve Hirsch- Constructing a Working-Class Counterculture: Transnational Anarchism and the Anarchist Press in Northern Peru, 1898-1922

Moderator: Nathan Jun

4-5:20pm

Room #1:
Anarchism, Gender and (Dis)ability: Expanding the Anarchist Critique

Mitchell Verter- Towards an Anarchafeminist Subversion of Politics
Anne Goldenberg- Feminist Takes on Organizing in Critical and Technological Movements
Liat Ben-Moshe- Queercripping Anarchism
Timothy Luchies- Creative (Self-)Destruction: Critiquing White and Male Supremacy in North American Anarchism

Moderator: Anthony J. Nocella II

Room #2:
Challenging Conformity: Anarchist Memory and Prospects

A.D Hoyt- The International Anarchist Archives: A Report on Conditions and a Proposal for Action
Nathan Jun- Flowers for the Fallen: The Romantic Anarchism of Pietro Gori
Bryan Nelson- Orientation and Mappings: Anarchism, Marxism, Democracy: Traditions in Theory
Ron Sakolsky- Mutual Acquienscence

Moderator: Daniel Cairns

5:30-6:50pm

Room #1:
Greening Anarchy

Micheal Loadenthal- Militant Not Terrorists: How the Radical Animal and Earth Liberation Movement Challenges the State and Capitalsim
Karl Hardy & Usman Mushtaq- Responses to Climate Change: Radical Critiques and Utopian Alternatives
Andrea Palichuck- Alienation and Exclusion in Food Lifestyle Politics and Anarchist Organizing
Michele Flippo Bolduc- Are Community Gardens Inherently Radical?

Moderator: Deric Shannon

Room #2:
Anarchist Readings of Nietzsche

Nick Day- Ubermensch, Overcoming and Direct Actor: Reconciling Nietzsche with Liberatory Praxis
Laura Greenwood- Goldman’s Nietzschean Anarchism: A Griemasian Reading of ‘Minorities Versus Majorities’
Grant Yocom- The ‘Last Man’ in Detriot: Timely Revisions and New Targets for the Arrows of Lomnging

Moderator: Rachel Melis

7-8:20pm

Room #1:
Riot 2011: Direct Action, Revolt and the Question of Violence

Kyla Bourne- Alterrepresentation and the Democratic Possibilities of Direct Action
Edward Avery-Natale- ‘We’re Here, We’re Queer, We’re Anarchists’: The Nature of Identification and Subjectivity Among Black Blocs
Andreas Reichelt- When the universities were burning (with activism) in…2009
Madison Trusolino- Human Emancipation, The Spectacle, Divine Violence

Moderator: Tammy Kovich

Room #2:
Perspectivas Anarquistas de America Latina

Jorella A. Melendez Badillo- El Anarquismo En Puerto Rico: Su Influencia En La Cultura Proletaria En Las Primeras Dos Decades Del Siglo XX
Octavio Cabrera Serrano- El Antropologo Autogestivo
Milena Alveo- Cultura anarquista, reflexiones a cerca de la cotidianidad

Moderator: TBA

Saturday Night Social/ UPPING THE ANTI Issue 11 Launch Party!!!

TORONTO FREE GALLERY- 1277 Bloor Street West (at Lansdown).

Doors open at 8:30pm until late!

Join us for the NAASN Conference Saturday night social/ UPPING THE ANTI’s Issue #11 Launch Party.

-Featuring-

Musical performances by LAL and Test Their Logik.
Kick ass sets by DJs Nik Red and B#.
Plus refreshments, raffle prizes and more.

Admission $10 with a copy of UPPING THE ANTI, $5 without, and free for UPPING THE ANTI sustainers.

Sunday, January 16th
Steel Worker’s Hall- 25 Cecil St.

9-9:30am

Coffee!

9:30-10:50am

Room #1:
Postanarchism, The Specter of Primitivism and Song

Gregory Kalyniuk- Jurisprudence of the Damned; Deleuze’s Masochian Humor and Anarchist Neo-Monadology
Daniel Murray- Social Tyranny of the State: Bakunin, Governmentality and Resistance
Sandy Krolick- A Spector is Haunting America
Carrie Yvonne Mott- Music in the Anarchist Movement: Radical Politics and Solidarity Through Song

Moderator: Ryan Mitchell

Room #2:
‘Anarchizing’ the Disciplines

Dennis Fox- Anarchism and Psychology
David Westling- Anarchism and Individual Psychology
Dana Williams and Jeff Shantz- Defining an Anarchist-Sociology (A Long-Anticipated Marriage)
Shaista Patel- Inviting Settlers of Color in Nation Building Projects of White-Settler Colonies

Moderator: Courtney Cecale

11-12:20pm

Room #1:
Movement Knowledge II: Trajectories of Contemporary Movements and Possibilities for Change

Kate Milbery- History Will Teach Us Everything: Towards a Praxis of Social Justice
Andrea Eiland- Breaking Down the Wall: Anarchism and Social Change in the 21st Century
Dawn Paley- Beyond Alternative Media: Building Space for Radical Journalism
Michael Trusello- The Trouble With Social Media

Moderator: Ryan Mitchell

Room #2:
Transnational Anarchism in the Americas II

Geoffroy de Laforcade- counter-Currents and Oppositional Trends Within a Syndicalist Labor Tradition: Locating the Anarchist influence on the Politics of Maritime Trade Unionism in Argentina, 1903-1950
Amparo Sanchez Cobos- The Island and Beyond: Spanish Anarchist Networks in Cuba, 1900-1925
Travis Tomchuck- The Radical Culture of Italian Anarchists in North America
Davide Turcato- Biography, Anarchism and Transnationalism

Moderator: TBA

12:30-1:30 pm

Lunch!

1:30-2:20pm
Workshops!

Room #1:

Crimethinc- Fighting in the New Terrain: Anti-Capitalist Strategies in the 21st Century

Room #2:

Matt B- Know Your Enemy: Conspiracism, Right Wing populism and the Anarchist Movement

2:30-3:50pm

Room #1:
TBA Activist Workshop

Room #2:
Militant Methodologies and the Question of Authority

Max Haiven and Alex Khasnabish- Radicalizing Methods: ‘Convoking’ the Radical Imagination in Halifax, Nova Scotia
Paul McLaughlin- Methodologies Considerations on Anarchist Theory
Michael Gutierrez- Two Poles of Authority
Alden Wood- ‘On Bernadette Corporation’s Get Rid of Yourself’: An Anarcho-Autonomist Critique of the Mimetic Representation of Revolt

Moderator: Michael Loadenthal

4-5:20pm

Room #1:
Anarchist Subjectivities: Discussions of the Self and Other

Cameron Ellis- The Loving Anarchist: An Inquiry into the Nature of the Subject of Anarchy
Kalin Stacey- Innocence and Complicity in Anarchist Discourse
Joey Brooke Jacob- Why the ‘Stanger’ is Unequal: Towards a Manifesto for Inclusion
Matthew Hayter- Understanding ‘Power’ as always both power-for and power-over: What can this Perspective do for the sake of anarchist social relations?

Moderator: Ed Avery-Natale and TBA Co-Moderator

Room #2:
Anarchism, Education and the Strange World of Academia

Paul Lemley- Navigating Respectability
Dan Webb- ‘The Left’s Wrong Turn and the Postmodern Disavowal of Anarchism’
Anthony Meza-Wilson- Educational Projects for Decolonization: Anarchist Allyship and Resistance Education in the Americas
Joseph Todd Montclair- Triangulating Freedom, Power and Education: Learning Webs, Subjectivity, and Resistance

Moderator:

5:30-7pm

Closing Discussion and Break Out Session!

Facilitator: David McNally

*Childcare will be provided on site for the duration of the weekend.

** The suggested conference fee is sliding scale $10-25 or PWYC (no one will be turned away for lack funds), and all money raised at the door will be donated to the Toronto G20 Legal Defence Fund.

Exhibitors at the Second Annual NAASN Conference:

AK Press
Arbeiter Ring
Autonomedia
Between the Lines
Black Cat Press
Brunswick Books
Common Cause
Community Solidarity Network
Empowerment Infoshop
Fernwood Publishing
Kersplebedeb
Little Black Cart
Pluto Press
PM Press
Rebel Film Board
Thought Crime Ink
Transformative Studies Institute
Upping the Anti
Zed Books

Sponsored by NAASN (www.naasn.org), OPIRG York (www.opirgyork.ca) and OPIRG University of Toronto (www.opirgtoronto.org).

Jan. 19: Political Prisoners and Prison Solidarity Work in North America, History and Current Context

2011-01-08T10:50:00.000-05:00

Certain Days & Kersplebedeb Publishing invite you to:

Political Prisoners & Prison Solidarity Work in North America:
History & Current Context

When: Wednesday, January 19, 6:30pm
Where: QPIRG Concordia 1500 de Maisonneuve West, metro Guy-Concordia*

Free. Venue is wheelchair accessible. Traduction chuchotée vers le français.

Depending on your definition, there are dozens or hundreds or thousands of political prisoners and prisoners of war held by the United States government. This talk will focus on political prisoners and prisoners of war who came out of the revolutionary movements from the 1960s to today, including the national liberation movements, the armed struggle, white anti-imperialists and, more recently, the Green Scare defendants. Topics will include the relationship of the prisoners to our own struggles today, the varying definitions of "who is a political prisoner", and a look back at some of the support work that was being done in the 80s and 90s, especially in Canada. Certain specific cases will also be discussed, for instance Assata Shakur, Leonard Peltier, Marilyn Buck and Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson, as well as the recent strike by prisoners in Georgia.

The talk will be given by Karl of Kersplebedeb Publishing, followed by discussion.

Kersplebedeb Publishing has published several books and pamphlets by and about political prisoners, and has just published "Defying The Tomb," a book by Kevin "Rashid" Johnson of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter. info: www.kersplebedeb.com

The Certain Days Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar is a joint fundraising and educational project between organizers in Montreal and Toronto, and three New York state Political Prisoners: Herman Bell, David Gilbert and Robert Seth Hayes, and is a working group of QPIRG Concordia. info: www.certaindays.org

INFO:
514-848-7583
info@certaindays.org

Click on the link to download a poster or fliers for this event.

subMedia Riot 2010! Triple Cheeseburger Worldwide Exclusive Interview

2011-01-03T10:48:00.000-05:00

This week: 1. Olympic Resistance in Vancouver 2. RBC gets torched 3. They few, we many 4. Talkin' bout a revolution 5. Matthew Morgan-Brown speaks to subMedia (Interview with MMB about being arrested, updates regarding Roger's situation and regarding the police infiltrator, "Francois Leclerc")

Another Update on Roger Clement and Ottawa Comrades

2011-01-01T16:13:00.001-05:00

Roger was transferred to Millhaven mid-December and it is expected that he will be there for 2-3 months before being transferred to the federal penitentiary where he will stay for the rest of his 3.5 year sentence.

In the immediate future, letters can be sent to Roger to the following address:

Joseph Roger Clement (FPS-420268X)
Millhaven Institution
PO Box 280 Bath Rd.
Bath ON K0H 1G0

Roger thanks everyone for all their support.

Donations for outstanding legal expenses can be made to "Ottawa Movement Defense" c/o the Ottawa Women's Credit Union. Donations can also be made online using Paypal.

Ottawa Movement Defense
OPIRG-GRIPO Ottawa
631 King Edward Ave.
(3rd floor / 3ieme étage)
Ottawa, ON, K1N 7N8
Canada

In solidarity,
Ottawa Movement Defence

Update on Roger Clement and Ottawa Comrades

2010-12-30T09:44:00.000-05:00

Roger is still in prison. Claude is still going to court. People still need your love and support. OMD is still fund raising. Join the FB group, donate, write a letter to roger, get involved, support prisoners and political prisoners.

FB group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Ottawa-Movement-Defense/119652828099161

We will be organizing a letter writing night for roger and other prisoners in early - mid january. And we are planning to have a fund raising party in the spring, hopefully around march. The J18 defendants still have significant legal costs, so if you can donate, it is much appreciated. Better yet, organize a fund-raiser in your community. Let us know what you are doing, and feel free to contact us if there is anything we can do to help, or if you would like someone from OMD to speak at your event.

What follows is a recent article by Sara Falconer from Ottawa XPress

Community Garden
Sara Falconer

Matthew Morgan-Brown is getting ready to visit Roger Clement in jail. It's only been a few short weeks since Morgan-Brown's own charges in the May 18 RBC firebombing were stayed due to lack of evidence, but already he is focused on making sure that his friend has the support he needs. Indeed, talking to him, it's clear that one of the things he found most difficult in the months following his arrest was not being able to help others. "Not being able to organize was really shitty. It's very important to me," he says. "The day they lifted my conditions I started organizing again." He has long been an active member of Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement Ottawa (IPSMO), and has now joined Ottawa Movement Defense, a group originally formed to support the three people arrested on June 18: himself, Joseph Roger Clement and Claude Haridge.

On Dec. 7, Clement was sentenced to a term of three years and six months, having pled guilty to the arson at the Glebe branch of the Royal Bank, as well as smashing windows and ATMs at a different branch in February. It's an unusually harsh sentence for property damage crimes, given that both the defence and Crown attorneys acknowledged he took great care to eliminate any possible injury to people.

In a statement, Ottawa Movement Defense said that they were inspired by Clement's strength of character: "Even when offered the chance to apologize for his role in the firebombing, Roger refused to do so, even though his liberty was on the line." The 58-year-old

former civil service employee is well known to local activists from years of social justice organizing. "I think he's a really principled person," says Morgan-Brown, who has known Clement for several years. Haridge, who was never charged with arson, has his last day in court this week. Most of the charges against him have been stayed, other than a charge for improper storage of ammunition, and unrelated charges from a protest several years ago.

The publication ban on the case has finally been lifted, but Morgan-Brown still finds it hard to speak freely. He's on a relatively short leash, as his charges have only been stayed, not dismissed - the Crown still has a year in which it can reinstate them.

Having spent time in jail before being released on bail, he knows first-hand how much community solidarity can mean. "When I was inside, I definitely felt like there was quite a bit of support," he says. "I enjoyed getting lots of letters."

Now working at his job again and devoting his spare time to activism, he says he is grappling with the psychological scars of the arrest and months of uncertainty. "The only concern I have is to avoid pushing myself too hard. It was definitely a traumatic experience."

As he looks forward to speaking to Clement for the first time since their arrests - albeit through a heavy plastic visiting window - he hopes that the community will continue to support them and other organizers fighting charges across the country. "My thoughts are with the people who were arrested on conspiracy or other G20 charges, with massive bail restrictions," he says. "People are looking at trials two years from now, because part of their punishment is those conditions, regardless of anything else around their cases."

Prisoners on Strike in Georgia! Show Support!

2010-12-12T10:29:00.000-05:00

A very important message, sent from friends at defenstrator:

Now in it's 2nd day with rumors the strikes have spread to up to ten prisons. Prison officials are reported to be threatening disproportionate levels of repression. Please show support!!

FWD:

Please urgently call each of the numbers below to protest any violence on the part of the guards or prison officials against a non-violent, multi-racial, one day strike.

When we called, the person put the phone down on us as soon as we said what we were calling about. So please get the name of the person who answers first so that you can then complain about them putting the phone down -- in writing if necessary.

Please forward widely to your networks!
Published on Black Agenda Report (http://blackagendareport.com)

GA Prison Inmates Stage 1-Day Peaceful Strike Today

By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

In an action which is unprecedented on several levels, black, brown and white inmates of Georgia's notorious state prison system are standing together for a historic one day peaceful strike today, during which they are remaining in their cells, refusing work and other assignments and activities. This is a groundbreaking event not only because inmates are standing up for themselves and their own human rughts, but because prisoners are setting an example by reaching across racial boundaries which, in prisons, have historically been used to pit oppressed communities against each other. PRESS RELEASE BELOW THE FOLD

The action is taking place today in at least half a dozen of Georgia's more than one hundred state prisons, correctional facilities, work camps, county prisons and other correctional facilities. We have unconfirmed reports that authorities at Macon State prison have aggressively responded to the strike by sending tactical squads in to rough up and menace inmates.

Outside calls from concerned citizens and news media will tend to stay the hand of prison authorities who may tend to react with reckless and brutal aggression. So calls to the warden's office of the following Georgia State Prisons expressing concern for the welfare of the prisoners during this and the next few days are welcome.

Macon State Prison is 978-472-3900.
Hays State Prison is at (706) 857-0400
Telfair State prison is 229-868-7721
Baldwin State Prison is at (478) 445- 5218
Valdosta State Prison is 229-333-7900
Smith State Prison is at (912) 654-5000
The Georgia Department of Corrections is at http://www.dcor.state.ga.us and their phone number is 478-992-5246

This is all the news we have for now, more coming.

One in every thirteen adults in the state of Georgia is in prison, on parole or probation or some form of court or correctional supervision.

*********************************

Press Release

BIGGEST PRISONER STRIKE IN U.S. HISTORY

Thousands of Georgia Prisoners to Stage Peaceful Protest

December 8, 2010…Atlanta, Georgia

Contacts: Elaine Brown, 404-542-1211, sistaelaine@gmail.com ;Valerie Porter, 229-931-5348, lashan123@att.net ; Faye Sanders, 478-550-7046, reshelias@yahoo.com

Tomorrow morning, December 9, 2010, thousands of Georgia prisoners will refuse to work, stop all other activities and remain in their cells in a peaceful, one-day protest for their human rights. The December 9 Strike is projected to be the biggest prisoner protest in the history of the United States.

These thousands of men, from Baldwin, Hancock, Hays, Macon, Smith and Telfair State Prisons, among others, state they are striking to press the Georgia Department of Corrections (“DOC”) to stop treating them like animals and slaves and institute programs that address their basic human rights. They have set forth the following demands:

A LIVING WAGE FOR WORK: In violation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, the DOC demands prisoners work for free.
EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES: For the great majority of prisoners, the DOC denies all opportunities for education beyond the GED, despite the benefit to both prisoners and society.
DECENT HEALTH CARE: In violation of the 8th Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments, the DOC denies adequate medical care to prisoners, charges excessive fees for the most minimal care and is responsible for extraordinary pain and suffering.
AN END TO CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS: In further violation of the 8th Amendment, the DOC is responsible for cruel prisoner punishments for minor infractions of rules.
DECENT LIVING CONDITIONS: Georgia prisoners are confined in over-crowded, substandard conditions, with little heat in winter and oppressive heat in summer.
NUTRITIONAL MEALS: Vegetables and fruit are in short supply in DOC facilities while starches and fatty foods are plentiful.
VOCATIONAL AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES: The DOC has stripped its facilities of all opportunities for skills training, self-improvement and proper exercise.
ACCESS TO FAMILIES: The DOC has disconnected thousands of prisoners from their families by imposing excessive telephone charges and innumerable barriers to visitation.
JUST PAROLE DECISIONS: The Parole Board capriciously and regularly denies parole to the majority of prisoners despite evidence of eligibility.

Prisoner leaders issued the following call: "No more slavery. Injustice in one place is injustice to all. Inform your family to support our cause. Lock down for liberty!"

Three and a Half Years for Roger Clement

2010-12-07T23:40:00.000-05:00

From today's CBC:

A retired civil servant who firebombed a Royal Bank branch in Ottawa's Glebe neighbourhood in May has been sentenced to 3½ years in prison for arson.

Roger Clement, 58, pleaded guilty last month to arson causing damage and mischief in the May 18 firebombing of the Bank Street bank branch.

The court also sentenced Clement to an additional six months in prison on the mischief charge. However, the judge credited Clement with 5½ months for time already served.

Clement said during his sentencing hearing on Monday that the firebombing was a protest against the bank's connections to the Alberta oilsands and the Vancouver Olympics.

Clement poured gasoline in front of the bank's ATM machines while his accomplices ignited the fuel with a Molotov cocktail before running off.

No one was injured in the fire, which caused an estimated $1.6 million in damage.

Clement expressed regret during the first day of his sentencing hearing on Monday over the inconvenience he caused for the "high cost" of his incarceration. He also expressed regret that he will no longer be able to fulfil his obligations to friends and what's left of his family.

Clement's lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, told the court on Monday that his client was left to care for a mentally ill brother after his mother died, and both his father and sister committed suicide.

He had argued his client should only serve three years because the attack on the branch at Bank Street and First Avenue was out of character and Clement isn't likely to reoffend.

The Crown had been seeking five to six years.

Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin "Rashid" Johnson featuring exchanges with an Outlaw

2010-11-24T16:11:00.000-05:00

This is the latest book published by Kersplebedeb, and i am pleased to say copies have now arrived, and are ready to ship out!

Follow the author's odyssey from lumpen drug dealer to prisoner, to revolutionary New Afrikan, a teacher and mentor, one of a new generation rising of prison intellectuals. This book consists primarily of letters between Rashid and Outlaw, another revolutionary New Afrikan prisoner, smuggled between the segregation wing and general population over a period of months. These comrades educate themselves - and us as well - on Marxism and Maoism, the Five-Percenters, Dialectical Materialism, Dead Prez, Capitalism, Racism, Imperialism, Class Struggle, Revolutionary Nationalism, New Afrikan Independence, Psychology, and a host of other subjects, as they grapple with how to promote revolutionary consciousness in the most hostile of environments.

Rashid has been in prison for twenty years - the past eighteen of which in segregation (solitary confinement). Shortly after this correspondence between himself and Outlaw, he and his comrade Shaka Sankofa Zulu founded the New Afrikan Black Panther Party–Prison Chapter. The NABPP-PC has since developed branches in various prisons across the u$ empire and has its own newsletter, Right On!

A number of Rashid's essays written as Minister of Defense of the NABPP-PC are also included in this book.

For more about Rashid, including links to his writings available online, please visit the Kersplebedeb website.

What the Comrades Say

"Kevin 'Rashid' Johnson has put together an outstanding compendium of political essays and letters that addresses many of the critical issues of today. His intra-prison correspondences with his comrade, Outlaw, is a rewarding study in the determined and ingenious maneuvers that prisoners have to go through to politically educate and organize themselves – and others around them. As a result, just reading the book itself provides one with the basic foundation of a political education."
- from the Afterword by Sundiata Acoli, New Afrikan political prisoner of war

"Your mission (should you decide to accept it) is to buy multiple copies of this book, read it carefully, and then get it into the hands of as many prisoners as possible. I am aware of no prisoner-written book more important than this one, at least not since George Jackson’s Blood In My Eye. Revolutionaries and those considering the path of progress will find Kevin “Rashid” Johnson’s Defying The Tomb an important contribution to their political development."
- Ed Mead, former political prisoner, George Jackson Brigade

"The correspondence of Rashid and Outlaw, carried on within the tenuous cracks of a supermax prison, offers the reader a compelling blend of psychological insight, political analysis, and passion for learning. Their defiance in the face of oppression is matched by their broad human solidarity. As they grapple with ideas, they also think as organizers, probing the dispositions and motivations of their fellow prisoners. Their struggle for justice is informed by a commitment to reason."
- Victor Wallis, Professor, Liberal Arts Department, Berklee College of Music

Product Details
price: $20.00
paperback
386 pages
published by Kersplebedeb in 2010
ISBN 978-1-894946-39-1

To order, all you have to do is click right here!

News and Analyses from BASICS Community News Service

2010-11-24T15:48:00.001-05:00

BASICS is newspaper put out by some revolutionaries in Toronto, with a popular and working class orientation. Would definitely say it's worth checking out... material from the latest issue is going up online, here's a list of some of the pieces:

Also, be sure to listen to this important discussion on Radio Basics (November 22, 2010), about Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Canada Today, including a discussion with a victim of a recent Nazi home invasion. Anti-Racist Action member Jason Devine is interviewed about the home invasion he suffered at the hands of neo-Nazis on the night of Nov 7-8, while his four children and wife were in the house. The Nazi thugs beat him and another friend with bats, hammers, and other blunt weapons. Includes a discussion of fascist and anti-fascist politics across Canada and throughout history.

The hardcopy of Issue #24 is coming out in early December. To help with community distribution, please contact them at basics.canada@gmail.com.

"Abu Ghraib Comes to Amerika: Torture Unit Under Construction at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison" by Kevin "Rashid" Johnson

2010-11-22T17:43:00.001-05:00

Kevin "Rashid" Johnson, New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter Minister of Defense, and author of the recent book Defying the Tomb (available from leftwingbooks.net), has written an important expose of a new torture unit being constructed in Virginia's Red Onion prison.

The entire article, with footnotes, has been posted to the Kersplebedeb website, and is also available as a PDF from here.

In it, Rashid details the plans for this sensory deprivation unit, where cells are to be constructed out of steel, and prisoners will be required to hand over their bedding first thing in the morning, leaving them to sit or stand of cold steel all day long. Cells will have no access to natural light, and exercise will be in a cage, only a few hours each week, with strip searches in front of other prisoners and staff enforced both before and after.

This new torture unit is to be justified by the invented problem of prisoner violence at Red Onion. As Rashid notes, quoting a prisoner whose observations were cited in a 1999 report from Human Rights Watch to the effect that, "Inmate on inmate violence virtually does not exist [at Red Onion]. Inmate on guard violence virtually does not exist here. Guard on inmate violence is high."

Indeed, Rashid reveals how the prison authorities have been instigating white-on-black racism and violence in order to create a pretext for this new unit.

Finally, this is an important piece as it places torture at Red Onion, and at Abu Ghraib before it, in the context of post-war amerika's investment in and development of "clean torture." As readers of this blog may be aware, such techniques were not only developed within the united states, but in other countries too, for instance in West Germany, where they were used to devastating effect against political prisoners. (See: Staying Alive: Sensory Deprivation, Torture, and the Struggle Behind Bars on the germanguerilla website.)

In March of 2009 Dr. Atul Gawande wrote an extensive piece on isolation, clearly detailing the psychological and physical harm that it can inflict on people (reposted here). But despite the grave harm is inflicts, isolation is the perfect punishment for a self-styled "democracy", for in leaving no physical trace it allows people to doubt that anything really horrible is going on. As such, isolation constitutes a particularly pernicious form of torture, one which is spreading throughout the prison system as inexorably as an oil slick.

To read "Abu Ghraib Comes to Amerika: Torture Unit Under Construction at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison" in html click here, as a PDF click here.

Roger Clement Pleads Guilty in RBC Firebombing, Refuses to Rat Out

2010-11-10T16:06:00.001-05:00

Roger Clement, one of the individuals charged with the attack on the RBC branch in Ottawa in April, has plead guilty. He remains steadfast in his refusal to provide information incriminating anyone else. Charges have been stayed against Matthew Morgan-Brown, who was initially also charged in this case.

Read more from Ottawa Movement Defense:

Tuesday November 9th, Ottawa Movement Defense

Update from Court Proceedings

In solidarity with our friends who are not free!

Today, Roger, one of the three June 18 arrestees, pled guilty to charges related to the arson of the RBC branch in the Glebe in May. Charges against Matt have been stayed. Charges against Claude related to a February 1st incident of mischief have also been stayed. However, Claude is still fighting other charges for which he was arrested on June 18th. [Please Note: Claude was never charged in relation to the arson, but was arrested at the same time as Matt and Roger and faced unrelated charges.]

This is heavy news for all of us, and we would like to take this opportunity to thank all who are standing by the three arrestees. By no means is this over. Roger returns to court for sentencing in early December. Ottawa Movement Defense would like to reiterate its full support for all three of the J18 defendants. This is a difficult process for all three arrestees, as well as their families, friends and coworkers who have been missing them.

Support for Roger is very important in the coming weeks while he awaits sentencing on December 6th. You can write to him at:

Joseph Roger Clement
Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre
2244 Innes Road
Gloucester, ON
K1B 4C4

We are also still taking donations to help with the legal costs.

Ottawa Movement Defense now has a bank account with the Ottawa Women's Credit Union. Cheques can be made out to 'Ottawa Movement Defense' and mailed to the mailing address below.

furthermore we would like to express our solidarity to all political prisoners, and wish the best to the G20 arrestees across Ontario who are currently going through the court system and fighting for their freedom.

=========================================================

Ottawa Movement Defense is a legal and political support committee for the June 18th Defendants. We take direction from the June 18th defendants. Our support activities include: coordinating visits, fundraising towards legal and support costs, informing friends and supporters of the court proceedings, etc. We do not provide legal advice to the defendants.

Email: ottawamovementdefense@gmail.com

Mailing Address:
Ottawa Movement Defense
207 Bank Street
Suite 453
Ottawa, ON
K2P 2N2

=========================================================

What follows is a mainstream news story from the Ottawa Sun:

OTTAWA — The man who pleaded guilty to arson in the May firebombing of a bank refuses to rat out his accomplice.

Joseph Roger Clement admitted to being the first of two men to enter the RBC branch in the Glebe neighbourhood late on May 18. According to video evidence, the first man doused the bank with a liquid believed to be gasoline and the second man threw a Molotov cocktail, starting the blaze.

But Clement's lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, said Clement taking responsibility doesn't extend to naming his accomplice.

Clement also pleaded guilty to mischief over $5,000 for vandalizing another RBC branch at 745 Bank St. on Feb. 1.

Charges against co-accused Matthew Morgan-Brown, 32, were stayed due to insufficient evidence.

Claude Haridge, a co-accused in the Feb. 1 vandalism case, was never directly implicated in the May firebombing. Charges against him from the vandalism case were stayed Tuesday but ammunition storage charges laid during the firebombing investigation will be dealt with Dec. 14.

Clement will be held in custody until his sentencing hearing Dec. 6.

Clement, 58, was brought into court in a rumpled tan blazer and blue shirt with no tie. The retired civil servant smiled, nodded and winked at some of those in court, including former co-accused Morgan-Brown in the front row.

"It's been a long time coming for him," said Greenspon. "He took responsibility for his actions at the time and he's now formally taken responsibility in court and will be facing sentencing."

Crown prosecutor Mark Holmes said there simply wasn't enough evidence to prosecute Morgan-Brown but said charges could be reinstated within a year.

"If more evidence comes to light, the Crown will proceed," he said.

Video evidence from the bank fire will be played at Clement's sentencing hearing next month.

Morgan-Brown's lawyer, Ian Carter, said the only evidence against his client was that two years ago he had a similar jacket to one worn by one of the firebombers.

He said Morgan-Brown was known to have been part of political protests and investigators perceived him as being among "the usual suspects."

"They simply didn't have enough evidence to place my guy as one of the individuals," said Carter, adding he's been told the investigation is no longer active.

Carter said Morgan-Brown hopes to get his old job back, but wouldn't say what that was.

doug.hempstead@sunmedia.ca

2011 Slingshots!

2010-10-22T08:24:00.004-04:00

2011 Slingshot Pocket Organizer

The 2011 slingshots are here! This is the classic, pocket version...

price: $8.00 (US)

Click here to order or for more information.

2011 Slingshot Large Organizer

They're back - the superb, beautiful, and ever-so-radical Slingshot yearbooks, for 2011!

price: $13.50 (US)

Click here to order or for more information.

Another Bust in Toronto: Court Support Needed This Morning!

2010-09-30T08:41:00.001-04:00

*URGENT COURT SUPPORT *
10am
College Park Courthouse
Yonge St. & College St.
Courtroom 507

At 10pm last night, 10 police officers arrested Jaroslava Avila outside Queens Park Subways, a prominent Indigenous sovereignty and solidarity activist from Chile. She will be appearing in court Thursday morning at 10am. Her family has called for supporters to be present in court.

Jaroslave has been arrested on G20 related conspiracy charges.

Prisoner being TORTURED at SCI Coal Township: Urgent Solidarity Needed!

2010-09-28T13:29:00.000-04:00

The following is an Action Alert from the HRC-FedUp! Emergency Response Network, about prisoner-advocate Andre Jacobs who is being tortured in retaliation for his speaking up in defense of a fellow prisoner who was being deprived food.

Take action for one who has taken action for others!

Please take action immediately

HRC just received a report from Andre Jacobs' grandmother that last Thursday he was taken from his solitary confinement cell and strapped to a restraint chair for 17 straight hours after he spoke up in defense of another man being deprived food by guards.

See the Call-in Guide below and take action today. Forward this message wide and ask people to subscribe to our action alert list. Torture thrives in secrecy and we need numbers. Spread this on Facebook. Please help.

We only know of Andre's situation because his grandmother went to visit him today (Monday).

He has been held without clothing for days and given only a thin garment to cover himself. Andre has been deprived of showers, legal property, hygiene and cleaning items. This is the 2nd time Andre has been stripped of clothing and property in less than two months. He is not supposed to be given property or clothing until Thursday.

Please take action immediately. Andre Jacobs is a leader in the human rights struggle inside the prison walls and has been subjected to systematic, racist dehumanization by prison personnel with the full knowledge and consent of the DOC hierarchy for years. Just last week he was in Luzerne County for a preliminary hearing for "riot" charges stemming from a series of retaliatory assaults, taserings, and pepper-spraings perpetrated against himself and 6 others at SCI Dallas at the end of April. This incident is featured in the HRC report Resistance and Retaliation.

Andre is a 28-year-old jailhouse lawyer being targeted for neutralization because he inspires prisoners to stand up for their human rights, to fight racism via constitutionally-protected means, and to educate themselves and their families about the real function and purpose of these prisons.

HRC will send an update and call for further action later in the week. Thank you all for caring and taking action. It does matter. Please email and/or call 412-654-9070 and inform HRC that you have taken action. It helps us monitor the response and keep updated on the situation.

******* CALL-IN GUIDE **********************************

Please call
Supt. Varano 570.644.7890
Regional Secretary Klopotoski 717.975.4865
DOC Secretary Shirley Moore Smeal 717.975.4918
OPR Director Barnacle 717.214.8473

Also Representatives Waters, Vanessa Brown, and Caltigirone (who were at the recent hearing on solitary), local and federal law enforcement, and all other appropriate persons. (click the links for phone numbers)

Spread the word to anybody with the decency to speak out. Tell them you are with the Human Rights Coalition (if you want to be identified as such) and that these actions are criminal.

Inform the prison officials and legislators of the ongoing abuse. Tell them the details above.

Demand the following when speaking to the prison and the DOC officials:

1) Andre is to be given clothes immediately
2) Andre is to be given writing materials immediately
3) Andre is to be given his legal property immediately
4) Andre is to be given all his state issue items and personal property immediately
5) these racist guards are to keep their hands off of him and stop abusing him

Ask the following (specifically of SCI Coal Township, whose Supt. Assistant is Kandis Dascani--she will say confidentiality prevents her from speaking, don't fall for this, don't let her put you off, tie up her phone and do not lay off):
1) when did Varano authorize this?
2) what is the justification for this?
3) Does Andre have clothes yet? does he have his property? does he have writing materials?
4) what policy number and section is this authorized by?

Inform DOC officials: That HRC intends on filing criminal charges and launching an investigation into the systematic torture of prisoners at SCI Coal Township.

Request that legislators investigate the prison system.

Love, Solidarity, and Struggle,

HRC-Fed Up!
Contact Information

phone:412-654-9070

Click here to subscribe to the HRC's mailing list

Tell No Lies

2010-09-27T20:14:00.000-04:00

Last week's Got Your Back conference included an interesting mix of speakers and workshops - and due to the physical layout of the event, for a change i actually got to listen in to the closing panel's each day, as they were in the area right next to where i was tabling

Just want to mention this real interesting observation by Dean Spade, founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, during Saturday's panel discussion on self-determination.

Dean explained that the hunger for funding, grants, subsidies, etc. leads many organizations to engage in dishonest practices, downplaying real defeats or else seizing on some partial symbolic victory and pretending it is a real victory. All in order to "look better" and get more $$$ in the grant-getting-game. He also explained how this can play out in legal-defense-oriented groups, where a choice may be made to concentrate on helping someone with a better chance of winning, because donors like to hear about victories - the corollary being that someone in really dire straits and facing really long odds would appear as a really unattractive "cause" to support.

Anyway, these were just a few observations made in a wide-ranging and interesting discussion, but they struck me as particularly important.

Hopefully the entire panel discussion will be up online soon...

Call for Emergency Demonstrations Monday Against FBI

2010-09-26T09:40:00.000-04:00

A call for action at Federal Buildings and FBI Offices.

We denounce the Federal Bureau of Investigation harassment of anti-war and solidarity activists. The FBI raided seven houses and an office in Chicago and Minneapolis on Friday, September 24, 2010. The FBI handed subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury to eleven activists in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan. The FBI also attempted to intimidate activists in California and North Carolina.

This suppression of civil rights is aimed at those who dedicate their time and energy to supporting the struggles of the Palestinian and Colombian peoples against U.S. funded occupation and war. The FBI has indicated that the grand jury is investigating the activists for possible material support of terrorism charges.

The activists involved have done nothing wrong and are refusing to be pulled into conversations with the FBI about their political views or organizing against war and occupation. The activists are involved with many groups, including: the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee, the Palestine Solidarity Group, the Colombia Action Network, Students for a Democratic Society, and Freedom Road Socialist Organization. These activists came together with many others to organize the 2008 anti-war marches on the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

We ask people of conscience to join us in fighting this political repression, as we continue working to build the movements against US war and occupation.

Take Action:

Call the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder at 202-353-1555 or write an email to: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov.

Demand:
Stop the repression against anti-war and international solidarity activists.
Immediately return all confiscated materials: computers, cell phones, papers, documents, etc.
End the grand jury proceedings against anti-war activists.

Plan and Support national days of protest at FBI offices or Federal Buildings, September 27 and 28th. A demonstration has been called at the Minneapolis FBI Office Monday, 4:30, September 27th(111 Washington Ave. S.).

In Solidarity, the Anti-War Committee

from Twin Cities Indymedia

Friday Afternoon Update on Today's FBI Raids

2010-09-24T19:30:00.000-04:00

From Twin Cities Indymedia:

UPDATE 4pm: The office of the Anti-War Committee was also reportedly raided earlier today. See also: Search warrant for Mick Kelly's residence and subpoena to Chicago grand jury (via TheUptake.org)
Press Conference: 4pm, 2911 Park Ave., Minneapolis
Community Meeting: 5:30pm, Walker Church, 3100 16th Ave S., Minneapolis
See also Fight Back News: Activists Denounce FBI Raids on Anti-War and Solidarity Activists' Homes
The social justice community in Minneapolis continued to respond Friday afternoon to the raids of several of its members homes, which started before 7am this morning. (See previous TCIMC article--Minneapolis Houses Raided)
Since then, a dozen activists have been served with grand jury subpoenas, including many in Minneapolis, according to Fight Back News. It is believed the federal grand jury is centered in Chicago, and is investigating alleged ties to "foreign terrorist organizations"--a charge which activists have immediately dismissed as illegitimate and unjustified.
The Star Tribune reported earlier today that according to an FBI spokesperson, a total of six homes were raided in Minneapolis and two in Chicago. This statement is unconfirmed by activists, who have identified at least four of the homes in Minneapolis--one above Hard Times Cafe in Cedar-Riverside, one north of Powderhorn Park, one on Park Avenue near Lake Street and one in Stevens Square. Antiwar leaders have said that other members of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization were targeted with raids, surveillance and subpoenas in Michigan, North Carolina and potentially California.
Grand juries are a mechanism historically used to repress and gather information on unpopular social movements; no attorney or judge is present in a grand jury interrogation. Activists who defy grand juries risking imprisonment on civil or criminal contempt.
Outside the raid above Hard Times Cafe, one person at the cafe as the raid began said that he saw about a dozen FBI agents, some with large guns, outside. Conflicting reports from the other raids indicate that agents attempted to keep their presence low-key, without large marked vehicles or heavily armed SWAT teams--although Jess Sundin told the AP that a SWAT team entered her house first, then left to be replaced by other agents. But outside Hard Times Cafe, a number of the unmarked vehicles included at least one with an "official business" sign from the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) in addition to the FBI.
The mood outside the cafe and apartment was one of defiance, with activists and supporters vowing solidarity in the face of repression. Early in the afternoon, agents began to remove boxes with unknown contents from the apartment, and eventually departed. The search warrant for 1823 Riverside called for search and seizure of such a laundry list of items, including electronic equipment, documents, financial records, literature, and more, that "it might have well just said 'everything'," someone remarked after seeing a copy.
The Uptake, in addition to almost every local corporate news outlet, was present at two of the raids in the morning and posted a short video report on their site. (Photo credit above)
No immediate information was available Friday afternoon about the raids in Chicago. The FBI spokesman, however, said that like in the Minneapolis raids, there were no arrests. He added to the AP in Chicago that there was no "imminent threat to the community" - raising the question of how anyone could be suspected of terrorist ties without an imminent danger.
The answer, of course, lies in the increasing trend of the state in using "terrorism" charges to justify repression against activists, lately in Minnesota through the Green Scare, the RNC 8, and as many have predicted might happen, now against antiwar activists as well.