Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Day of Action in Support of John Bowden Monday 11th June

Imprisoned since 1980, (and in fact for most of his life before that),
John Bowden has been a thorn in the side of the English and Scottish
prison systems for three decades. John has paid a heavy price for being a
staunch defender of prisoners’ rights and a committed opponent of
injustice, spending years in the most brutal conditions, and suffering
numerous physical assaults and treatment that has frequently amounted to
torture.

Over the past decade though, John’s captors have been using a new tactic
to keep him behind bars – the lies of prison social workers and quack
‘psychologists’.

First, a few years ago, Matthew Stillman alleged that the Anarchist Black
Cross were a ‘terrorist organisation’ and that John was therefore a
‘terrorist’ by implication. Brendan Barnett has now made even more
ludicrous allegations against John, but such is the corruption within
Edinburgh ‘Criminal Justice Services’ that John’s complaints have led to
his victimisation, rather than the disciplining of Brendan ‘Pinocchio’
Barnett.

You can read about the affair in these previous articles:
http://leedsabc.org/another-attempt-to-sabotage-john-bowdens-parole-by-prison-hired-social-worker/
,
http://leedsabc.org/update-from-john-bowden-about-lies-written-by-prison-hired-social
-worker-2/ , http://leedsabc.org/support-for-john-bowden/ ,
http://leedsabc.org/corrupt-social-workers-attempt-to-rid-themselves-of-prisoner-john-bowden/
,
http://leedsabc.org/end-lies-and-corruption-in-edinburgh-criminal-justice-
services/ , and
http://leedsabc.org/lying-prison-social-worker-invited-to-audition-for-pinocchio/

As John says in his most recent article
(http://leedsabc.org/corrupt-social-workers-attempt-to-rid-themselves-of-prisoner-john-bowden/):

“Edinburgh Criminal Justice Services, or what used to be known as the
plain Social Work Department, have seriously compromised their
professional integrity by defending a member of staff who deliberately
told lies in a report to the Parole Boards in an attempt to sabotage my
chances of release from prison. Behaving like corrupt policemen instead of
traditional social workers seems now to be acceptable practice at
Edinburgh Social Services.”

To rid themselves of John Bowden, so as to avoid having to deal with his
complaints, Edinburgh ‘Criminal Justice Services’ are now trying to
instigate John’s removal from the Scottish prison system back into the
English one. Two years ago, the Parole Board recommended that John be
moved to an open prison, something the Scottish Prison Service have
stubbornly ignored, and it is inevitable that if John is moved into a
different prison system any ‘progression’ to open conditions will be
delayed even further, if indeed it ever happens at all. John has been a
tireless critic of the human rights abuses frequently perpetrated by the
English Prison Service, and we believe that they would like him to die in
jail.

Once again, as with the Matthew Stillman campaign a few years ago, it is
time for supporters of John Bowden, and opponents of injustice everywhere,
to step up to defend John, and to send a message to the prison
authorities, that whether they are in jail or out of jail, no comrade of
ours is ever alone. Furthermore, these corrupt social workers need to know
that their lies and machinations will not go unchallenged.

We are therefore calling for a Day of Action in support of John Bowden on
MONDAY 11th JUNE. Please organise what you can – banner drops, demos,
phone-ins, letter writing, etc – and please help spread word of this call
as widely as possible.

Some useful contacts:

Brendan ‘Pinnochio’ Barnett, Grindlay Court Social Work Centre, Criminal
Justice Services, 2-4 Grindlay Court, Edinburgh, EH3 9AR. (Telephone: 0131
469 3408 Fax 0131 229 8628)

Michelle Miller, Chief Social Worker, Grindlay Court Social Work Centre,
Criminal Justice Services, 2-4 Grindlay Court, Edinburgh, EH3 9AR.
(Telephone: 0131 469 3408 Fax 0131 229 8628) NB Michelle Miller also works
out of Waverly Court, see details for Peter Gabbitas below.

Peter Gabbitas, Director, Health and Social Care Department, Waverly
Court, Level 1/8, 4 East Market Street, Edinburgh, EH8 8DG. (Telephone
0131 553 8201 Fax 0131 529 6218).

Social Work Advice and Complaints Service, Waverley Court, Level 1/7, 4
East Market Street, Edinburgh, EH8 8BG. (Telephone 0131 529 6217 Email
socialwork.complaints@edinburgh.gov.uk).

Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, 4 Melville Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7NS.
Scottish Prison Service HQ, Communications Branch, Room 338, Calton House,
5 Redheughs Rigg, Edinburgh, EH12 9HW. (Telephone 01259 760 471 Fax 01259
762 003 E-mail gaolinfo@sps.gov.uk

Ian Whitehead (Governor), HMP Shotts, Cantrell Road, Shotts, Scotland, ML7
4LE. (Telephone 01501 824000 Fax 01501 824 001 ).

Letters and cards of support to John at: John Bowden, 6729, HMP Shotts,
Cantrell Road, Shotts, Scotland, ML7 4LE.

You can also send e-mails to John (or any other prisoner) via:
http://www.emailaprisoner.com

You can download John Bowden’s pamphlet ‘Tear Down The Walls!’ free of
charge from the PDF section of the Leeds ABC website at www.leedsabc.org

Where's The Evidence?

Angola 3 Newsletter:  May 29, 2012  

International Coalition to Free the Angola 3
VISITING WITH HERMAN: From left to right are Herman's sister Vicki Wallace, Herman Wallace, Jackie Sumell, Emily Posner, Angad Bhalla. Emily reports that "our group visited with Herman for the full day on Sunday, May 27, 2012. Conversation was lively and filled with hope around Albert's upcoming evidentiary hearing in Baton Rouge. Albert and Herman are currently being housed in adjacent tiers, and have been able to communicate for the first time in three years." Albert is with Herman at Elayn Hunt Correctional Center, in St. Gabriel for his hearing. He returns to David Wade Correctional Center in Homer on Friday.
Amnesty International Launches New Action as Albert Woodfox's Court Hearing Begins



Today Albert Woodfox will appear in court in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, seeking his conviction to be overturned for a third time. As we start this three-day evidentiary hearing, Amnesty International has released a statement about the significance of this hearing for Albert and everyone else's  "right to trial, in full equality and free from discrimination, before a competent, independent and impartial tribunal." A3 supporters are invited to attend the May 29-31 hearing (read more here). 

Determined to secure justice for the Angola 3, today Amnesty will simultaneously launch the second stage of their campaign demanding Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace's immediate release from solitary confinement. Amnesty's new online petition is calling for James M. LeBlanc, the Secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections to account for his comments that Herman and Albert were being kept in solitary to protect prison employees, other inmates and visitors. Amnesty asks "where's the evidence?"
  
We thank all of our supporters who signed the earlier petition to Governor Jindal and now ask you to please take action by signing the new petition to Secretary LeBlanc.

*Amnesty International's new petition and statement about Albert's court hearing are reprinted in full below.

*Keep updated by visiting our brand new Free All The Angola 3 facebook page.  
AlbertUSA: Crucial Hearing Could See Angola 3's Albert Woodfox Freed

(Posted by Amnesty International on May 28 2012) 

40 years in solitary confinement could end

A three-day evidentiary hearing into a claim of racial discrimination in the selection of the grand jury foreperson prior to the 1998 retrial of Albert Woodfox is due to begin in a federal court in Baton Rouge, Louisiana tomorrow (29 May).

A ruling in his favour could result in Albert Woodfox's conviction being overturned for the third time, and could secure his release from prison after being held in solitary confinement for 40 years.

Albert Woodfox was convicted in 1973 - along with a second prisoner, Herman Wallace - of the 1972 murder of a prison guard called Brent Miller. Both men, who have vigorously denied involvement in the crime, were placed in solitary confinement in Closed Cell Restriction at Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as Angola prison). A third man, Robert King, who was accused of a different crime, was also held in these conditions and the three were jointly known as the "Angola 3". King was released in 2001 after serving 29 years in solitary.

Meanwhile, Woodfox's conviction was overturned in 1992, but he was re-indicted and convicted again at a 1998 trial. In 2008, a federal District Court judge ruled that Woodfox had been denied his right to adequate assistance of counsel at his 1998 retrial and ordered the state to re-try or release him. The District Court had also found that his lawyers had made a prima facie case of discrimination in relation to the selection of the grand jury foreperson, and that this warranted a federal evidentiary hearing to give the state an opportunity to rebut the claim. The state appealed against the District Court order for a retrial and in June 2010 a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned the decision. The case was remanded to the District Court for an evidentiary hearing on the grand jury discrimination claim: it is this hearing that is about to begin.

The foreperson of the grand jury that indicted Albert Woodfox for his 1998 retrial was white. Woodfox's lawyers have presented evidence of the consistent under-representation of African Americans serving as grand jury forepersons compared to their numbers in the general population of the parish in which Albert Woodfox, who is himself African American, was tried.

Amnesty International considers the issue of discrimination in the selection of the grand jury foreperson to be a significant one. The right to trial, in full equality and free from discrimination, before a competent, independent and impartial tribunal lies at the heart of due process of law and requires that justice must not only be done, it must also be seen to be done. Actual impartiality and appearance of impartiality are both fundamental for maintaining respect for the administration of justice. The organisation will continue to monitor developments in this case.

On 17 April, Amnesty submitted a petition to the Governor of Louisiana with over 67,000 signatures from individuals in 125 countries urging that Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace be removed from long term isolation.
Take Action and Ask the Department of Corrections --Where's the Evidence?


The Angola 3. Left to right: Herman Wallace, Robert H. King, and Albert Woodfox.
Sign petition here!
(below is the full text of the new petition and accompanying statement by Amnesty Intl.)



On April 17th, Amnesty International submitted a petition to the Governor of Louisiana with over 67,000 signatures from individuals in 125 countries demanding that Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace be removed from long term isolation. The two men have spent nearly 40 years in solitary confinement in Closed Cell Restriction (CCR) at Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as Angola prison).


Despite the overwhelming number of signatures in the petition, and the presence of representatives from local and national organizations as well as political figures, Governor Jindal refused to meet with the delegation, and referred the issue to the Department of Public Safety and Corrections. The Secretary of the Department, James M. LeBlanc, in turn justified their continued placement in CCR by stating that they were a danger to prison employees, other inmates and visitors.  He also denied that conditions for the men were inhumane.


After years of working on the case, Amnesty International is not aware of ANY evidence to suggest that the men are a danger to themselves or to others. Prison records show that neither man has committed any serious disciplinary infraction for decades nor do the prison mental health records demonstrate that they pose a threat to themselves or others.


Amnesty International is firm in its belief that conditions for the men in CCR - 23 hour cellular confinement in stark, tiny cells; limited access to books, newspapers and TV; no opportunities for mental stimulation, work and education; occasional visits from friends and family and limited telephone calls - amounts to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

PHOTO: Campaigners handing over a petition signed by more then 67,000 people in over 125 countries to the Governor of Louisiana, 17 April 2012.
© Amnesty International 
Hold Secretary LeBlanc to account and add your voice to the 67,000 others to demand that the men be removed from long term isolation.


(full text of online petition below)

On 17 April 2012, you issued a statement that Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace are held separately from other prisoners to protect prison employees, other inmates and visitors. Where is the evidence to back up this statement?

Records show that neither man has committed any serious disciplinary infraction for decades. Prison mental health records indicate that the men pose no threat to themselves or to others.

In a recent report, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture condemned prolonged isolation as amounting to torture or inhuman and degrading treatment. He refers to the case of Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace in his report.

Along with over 67,000 others who signed a petition to Governor Jindal, I urge you to remove Albert and Herman from isolation.
Keep in Touch with Herman and Albert


H&A 
Albert Woodfox #72148            Herman Wallace #76759
David Wade Correctional Center        Elayn Hunt Correctional Center
N1 A3                                                        CCR D #11
670 Bell Hill Road                                    PO Box 174
Homer, LA  71040                                  St. Gabriel, LA  70776

Monday, May 28, 2012

Prisoners at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison on hunger strike

May 27, 2012 SF BayView
by Mary Ratcliff

 
On May 22, brave prisoners at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison began a hunger strike. Their decision to starve themselves in an effort to be heard is the latest in a recent series of prison strikes, one of the very few forms of peaceful recourse available to prisoners to protest intolerable conditions.

The series started Dec. 9, 2010, with a sit-down strike by thousands of prisoners in Georgia, tired of being forced to work for free like slaves, followed by Lucasville prisoners’ hunger strike at Ohio State Penitentiary in January 2011 and the mass hunger strikes in California beginning July 1, 2011, that involved 12,000 prisoners in 13 prisons simultaneously refusing food at their peak. Hunger strikes worldwide, from Palestine, where prisoners acknowledged being inspired by their peers in California, to Kyrgysztan, where prisoners literally sewed their mouths shut, have followed.
Red Onion State Prison in rural Virginia sits in the barren crater of a formerly lush green mountain whose top was blown off to remove the coal that used to be mined the old-fashioned way. Built in 1998, it’s the new economic development model for Appalachia: mountaintop removal covered by prisons and Wal-Marts, now the only job options for out-of-work miners and their families, according to JJ Heyward, a veteran activist who volunteered at the Bay View before moving to the East Coast.

Now the miners who used to mine “black gold” – coal – mind Black prisoners. Heyward says that Washington, D.C., has no prisons, so anyone sentenced to five years or more is shipped out of state, often to Red Onion, culturally a world away. Creative activists to the rescue, the staff of WMMT Mountain Community Radio in Whitesburg, Kentucky, broadcast a show connecting prisoners and their families back home that can be heard in Red Onion and seven more state and federal mountain prisons plus many regional jails and detention centers.

“Red Onion State Prison was opened a dozen years ago amid a major prison-building effort in Virginia. It was designed to confine the most dangerous criminals – often in solitary cells where they have almost no interaction with others,” reads the caption published with this photo by The Virginian-Pilot newspaper.
“In recent years, central Appalachia has seen a boom in prison construction, and many of those who have subsequently been incarcerated in our region’s growing prison system come from places far, far away from the coalfields,” explains WMMT. “Due to this distance and the often prohibitive cost of phone calls in prison, many have no contact with their friends and family, being far outside of a travel range that many loved ones can afford. In response, WMMT began the Holler to the Hood project 10 years ago in an effort to connect those in prison to their families, friends and the outside world.”

The show, now called Hot 88.7 – Hip Hop from the Hilltop and Calls From Home, airs Mondays 9-10 p.m. Eastern Time (6-7 p.m. Pacific Time). Go to WMMT to listen live. This week’s show will focus on the Red Onion hunger strike. Call 1(888) 396-1208 to record your message between 7-9 p.m. (4-6 p.m. PT) on Monday for broadcast that night.

A statement released by one of the hunger strike representatives says: “Regardless of sexual preference, gang affiliation, race and religion, there are only two classes at this prison: the oppressor and the oppressed. We the oppressed are coming together. We’re considered rival gang members, but now we’re coming together as revolutionaries. We’re tired of being treated like animals.”

After exhausting legal and administrative remedies, the Red Onion prisoners issued 10 demands (printed in full below) and vowed to starve themselves until their demands are met. They include the right to have fully cooked meals, the right to clean cells, the right to be notified of the purpose and duration of their detention in segregation and a call for an end to indefinite segregation. Red Onion has been repeatedly criticized since it opened in 1998. A 1999 Human Rights Watch report on Red Onion concluded that the “Virginia Department of Corrections has failed to embrace basic tenets of sound correctional practice and laws protecting inmates from abusive, degrading or cruel treatment.”

 

Torture, Red Onion style

I first heard of Red Onion when Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, a nationally known prison writer and artist often compared to George Jackson, designed what became the symbol of the California hunger strikes. It shows black, brown and white arms clasped together indicating racial unity around a fork and spoon on a map of California crossed out as in a “no smoking” sign.

Rashid Johnson, who drew this self portrait, is a founding organizer of the New African Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter (NABPP-PC) and author of the book “Defying the Tomb.” With a foreword by Russell “Maroon” Shoats and afterword by Sundiata Acoli, renowned political prisoners, the book has been banned as “gang literature” by Pelican Bay State Prison.
 
Rashid’s acclaim did not protect him at Red Onion, where, in one of countless episodes of torture, he was assaulted by staff on Dec. 12, 2011. They dislocated his shoulder and pulled a 3-inch by 7-inch swath of his dreadlocks out by the roots. This occurred when he refused to turn his back on an officer as he came out of the exercise cage.

Mac Gaskins, a prisoner at Red Onion for 14 years released only last June, was interviewed May 22, the day the hunger strike began, on Voices with Vision on Pacifica station WPFW in Washington, D.C. Listen to the show here and read the transcript of the entire interview below, following the 10 demands.

Mac discusses torture at Red Onion: “having your fingers broken inside of these places, being bitten by dogs, being strapped to beds for days, as we’ve talked about many times, being forced to defecate on yourself – I mean all of this has led to these men demanding to be treated as human beings. It’s like if you are put inside prison, you forfeit that right to be treated as a human being. …

“Access to adequate medical care inside of prison, especially in supermax prison, it’s almost nonexistent. You have men there, they have chronic illnesses that aren’t being treated. There was one guy when I was at Red Onion, he died from undiagnosed advanced diabetes. This guy had diabetes for years and he was never diagnosed. …

“So maybe your fingers were broken, as mine were multiple times at these places, and then you’re denied any sort of medical care. Your bones are never reset, any of that. It’s like they don’t even have medical staff at the prison.

“They come in with riot gear – I’m talking about jump boots, shields, dogs, pepper spray – to assault you. Maybe eight men come in. They wrestle you down.

“You’re totally subdued – handcuffed, shackled – and then they proceed to break your fingers. They bend them back one by one, trying to break as many of your fingers as they can. They try to break your toes. And the whole time they are yelling out, ‘Stop resisting! Stop resisting!’ to make it look like you’re the one who is escalating the situation.

“When you’re taken out, they put the spit mask on your face ‘cause they usually bust your face up pretty bad. They put the spit mask on so the camera can’t see the damage that has been inflicted. The nurses come over allegedly to assess the damage.


John “Mac” Gaskins, a prisoner at Red Onion State Prison for 14 years, was released just last June.
“My hand looked like a volley ball. I mean you couldn’t even see the definition of my hand. My whole hand was like a ball. The nurse told me I had full range of movement and no bones in my hand were broken. …

“I have watched men eat feces in prison; I’ve watched men throw feces on each other. I would hear men in their cells screaming at night, basically just escaping to some place of insanity. They are driving men insane. …

“At Red Onion, all of the light is artificial in your cells – there are no windows in the cells – and it’s total sensory deprivation. So they asked this guy Ron D’Angelo, how do you justify sending men here? There are no educational programs, no vocational programs, men are just rotting and deteriorating in these places. …

“He said, ‘We didn’t bring these guys up to the mountains to rehabilitate them; we brought them to the mountains to die.’ …

“Now at Red Onion and Wallens Ridge, they are taking away books for guys that are in segregation. You have to meet a certain behavioral criteria to receive books. So, for guys in the old days like George Jackson, that was their only escape. Now you don’t even have that. They have taken that away.”

 

How you can help

Call WMMT’s Calls From Home show to give a shout out of support to the hunger strikers. The Monday, May 28, show is especially critical; it’s the first since the strike began and will air the 10 demands of the hunger strikers. Prison officials are likely to respond by removing all prisoner radios before the next Monday show, so this will be the last chance to let these brave men know we are out here standing in solidarity with them and doing our best to make their voices heard.

In order to preserve the longevity of the show – which is an important method by which men receive messages weekly from their loved ones back home – WMMT is asking everyone calling in to be conscious of some constraints on what you say:
  1. Don’t mention the pending ROSP hunger strike directly.
  2. No cursing!
  3. Don’t mention any of the men by name.
  4. Don’t make your statement a call to action; this is considered inciting a riot by officials and will give them fuel to impose restrictions on access to the show in the future
They suggest that you:
  1. read a quote from a hunger striker in California, Ohio, Palestine or elsewhere.
  2. offer vague solidarity and support for the “struggle”; those who need to know will know what you’re talking about.
  3. read a short quote from George Jackson, their most beloved revolutionary, or other revolutionary figure.
  4. keep it short; 50 short messages will be a more powerful display of support than fewer long messages. The men need to know that there are many people out here standing in solidarity.
Calls are taken and recorded from 7-9 p.m. ET (4-6 PT) and then these calls are aired from 9-10 p.m. ET (6-7 p.m. PT). The number to call is (606) 633-1208 or 1(888) 396-1208 to give a shout out. You can listen to the show live at http://appalshop.org/.

Write to Virginia prisoners to spread the word. Red Onion is a supermax prison; prisoners are isolated and communication among them is difficult. Supporters are calling for volunteers to send short, personal, creatively written letters into everyone in the Virginia prison system they have contact information for to inform them of what’s going on. Email katherinecolespiper@gmail.com or JJ Heyward at tortakin@gmail.com for prisoners’ names and addresses. The VDOC (Virginia Department of Corrections) will try hard and fast to silence this and keep the hunger strike from spreading as it did in California. We need to be harder and faster.

Call Virginia officials who have the power to meet the hungers strikers’ demands:
Sample phone call or email: Hello, I’m calling to express my support for the hunger strikers in Red Onion State Prison. These men are on hunger strike to call attention to inhumane conditions at Red Onion, from fully cooked meals and medical attention to sanitary living conditions and an end to solitary confinement. We demand an immediate response to the strikers’ demands. Red Onion has a long history of public scrutiny for conditions, and we, the broad movement to support the Red Onion hunger strikers, won’t let up until their demands are met and until Red Onion guarantees that there will be zero retaliation on the hunger strikers.

Sign the petition in support of the Virginia hunger strikers at http://www.change.org/petitions/grant-the-ten-demands-of-the-hunger-strikers-at-red-onion-state-prison. Sign and share!

Stay updated at http://virginiaprisonstrike.blogspot.com/ and, on Facebook, Solidarity for Virginia Prison Hunger Strikers.

The Red Onion hunger strikers, like those who preceded and will inevitably follow them, are dead serious. Their support website, Solidarity with Virginia Prison Hunger Strikers, reports the participants are in good spirits and are encouraged by the outside attention and response to their call for solidarity and support from their communities.

In addition to refusing to eat, the men are also refusing the three weekly showers they are allowed and the one hour of recreation they are permitted each day. They do not want to leave their cells until they are able to talk with a third party outside observer.

On the first day of the strike, strikers in one of the segregation pods were informed that the phone in their pod had “broken.” The same day, one striker was moved from his pod to a different pod in segregation and was threatened with losing his prison job and being charged with a false charge if he did not stop striking.

Strikers expect they will soon be split apart into separate pods (or cell blocks) in an attempt to break the strike. While being separated is not ideal, strikers also realize this could help them to spread word about the strike.

In the words of veteran prisoner advocate Marpessa Kupendua, “We must support these courageous comrades who are actively revolting against the incarceration nation. Go to http://virginiaprisonstrike.blogspot.com and take action!”

 

Ten demands of ROSP hunger strikers

We (prisoners at Red Onion State Prison) demand the right to an adequate standard of living while in the custody of the state!

1. We demand fully cooked food and access to a better quality of fresh fruit and vegetables. In addition, we demand increased portions on our trays, which allow us to meet our basic nutritional needs as defined by VDOC regulations.

2. We demand that every prisoner at ROSP have unrestricted access to complaint and grievance forms and other paperwork we may request.


The New York City Ad-Hoc Committee staged a solidarity action May 25 with the Red Onion prisoners on hunger strike.
3. We demand better communication between prisoners and higher-ranking guards. Presently higher-ranking guards invariably take the lower-ranking guards’ side in disputes between guards and prisoners, forcing the prisoner to act out in order to be heard. We demand that higher-ranking guards take prisoner complaints and grievances into consideration without prejudice.

4. We demand an end to torture in the form of indefinite segregation through the implementation of a fair and transparent process whereby prisoners can earn the right to be released from segregation. We demand that prison officials completely adhere to the security point system, insuring that prisoners are transferred to institutions that correspond with their particular security level.

5. We demand the right to an adequate standard of living, including access to quality materials that we may use to clean our own cells. Presently, we are forced to clean our entire cell, including the inside of our toilets, with a single sponge and our bare hands. This is unsanitary and promotes the spread of disease-carrying bacteria.

6. We demand the right to have 3rd party neutral observers visit and document the condition of the prisons to ensure an end to the corruption amongst prison officials and widespread human rights abuses of prisoners. Internal Affairs and Prison Administrator’s monitoring of prison conditions have not alleviated the dangerous circumstances we are living under while in custody of the state, which include, but are not limited to: the threat of undue physical aggression by guards, sexual abuse and retaliatory measures, which violate prison policies and our human rights.

7. We demand to be informed of any and all changes to VDOC/IOP policies as soon as these changes are made.

8. We demand the right to adequate medical care. Our right to medical care is guaranteed under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, and thus the deliberate indifference of prison officials to our medical needs constitutes a violation of our constitutional rights. In particular, the toothpaste we are forced to purchase in the prison is a danger to our dental health and causes widespread gum disease and associated illnesses.

9. We demand our right, as enumerated through VDOC policy, to a monthly haircut. Presently, we have been denied haircuts for nearly three months. We also demand to have our razors changed out on a weekly basis. The current practice of changing out the razors every three weeks leaves prisoners exposed to the risk of dangerous infections and injury.

10. We demand that there be no reprisals for any of the participants in the Hunger Strike. We are simply organizing in the interest of more humane living conditions.

 

Interview with recently released Red Onion prisoner John ‘Mac’ Gaskins

This interview was broadcast on Pacifica station WPFW’s Voices with Vision, Washington, D.C., May 22, 11 a.m. It was transcribed by human rights advocate Kendra Castaneda.

Ryme Katkhouda: Good morning, Naji. Share with listeners what has been going on with the mobilizations about prisoners?

Naji Mujahid: As we speak, there’s a press conference going on in Richmond, Virginia, to announce the beginning of a hunger strike at Red Onion State Prison. Red Onion State Prison is a maximum security Virginia state prison down in the southwestern corner of the state where there has been a longstanding problem of abuse.

While in the torturous Red Onion State Prison in Virginia, Rashid Johnson drew what became the symbol of the California hunger strikes.
The prisoners, I would assume, have been inspired by other hunger strikes that have been going on around the country for the past year. We’ve seen them in Ohio, California; there was the work stoppage in Georgia. Also the Palestinian prisoners in Israel have been on strike for some time now. So it’s activity that has been gaining traction; what it seems to be is an attempt at the folks down there to tap into that.

In the studio with us we have John “Mac” Gaskins of the D.C. chapter of SPARC, Supporting Prisoners and Acting for Radical Change, and also somebody who has first-hand experience, having been at Red Onion, and he can speak further to that.

There is a list of 10 demands and the headline of them reads: “We the prisoners at Red Onion State Prison demand the right to an adequate standard of living while in the custody of the state.” And running down the list of demands is real basic stuff; it’s stuff that people shouldn’t have to ask for.
I guess, Mac, you can begin by explaining some of the demands; and one thing that strikes me, having known you and having discussed some of the things going on at Red Onion, you know, this list is kind of tame. It could be miles long but it’s just this basic stuff like toothpaste.

John “Mac” Gaskins: Right, in those prisons, not only in Red Onion, Wallens Ridge, in all those prisons in Southwest Virginia, you’re denied access to basic necessities such as toothpaste, soap. The toothpaste they sell is such low quality they actually sell it in a packet – it’s like a packet of ketchup – and it’s like a dollar. It will last you a couple of days – two days tops. That’s maybe brushing once a day.

All these things from having your fingers broken inside of these places, being bitten by dogs, being strapped to beds for days, as we’ve talked about many times, being forced to defecate on yourself – I mean all of this has led to these men demanding to be treated as human beings. It’s like if you are put inside prison, you forfeit that right to be treated as a human being. So this list is pretty basic. I feel that on this list, medical should be up at the top.

Ryme: What do you mean exactly by medical, Mac? For some listeners, they don’t have a clue about how bad it can be on the inside.

Mac: Access to adequate medical care inside of prison, especially in supermax prison, it’s almost nonexistent. You have men there, they have chronic illnesses that aren’t being treated. There was one guy when I was at Red Onion, he died from undiagnosed advanced diabetes. This guy had diabetes for years and he was never diagnosed.

The guards, which is common practice, they abuse prisoners. One of the demands on here is better communication with prisoners and higher ranking guards. They are demanding that the guards, the higher ranking officials, at least take prisoners complaints into consideration. Because right now they are basically forced to act out in order to get these guys’ attention.

So maybe your fingers were broken, as mine were multiple times at these places, and then you’re denied any sort of medical care. Your bones are never reset, any of that. It’s like they don’t even have medical staff at the prison. It’s totally nonexistent.

Ryme: We always see in the movies, Mac, and for some people that’s their only reference, that there is an infirmary, that there are nurses that are very well dressed and ready to serve you, doctors, and everything looks fine. And we always have this scene – until there is a major uprising – of a really smoothly running prison.

And here you are talking about broken bones and whatever. Where was everybody when your bones were broken? What was going on? Still, give people the story. I know it’s painful, but we need to hear painful. This idea of sugarcoating the world so we don’t see blood about the wars, we don’t hear the pain about what goes on in the prison keeps people complacent and they are not giving support on the outside.

Mac: Yes, yes, I totally agree. So one scenario: Maybe some guy is denied his tray at Red Onion, his meal tray, so he asks for a complaint form, which is totally denied to him. You have to go through the sergeant. They’re not accessible in the office or anything like that. You have to go through the sergeant, and he determines if your complaint is valid or not, which most of the time he’s going to say it isn’t. So maybe this guy floods his cell, which I’ve done, floods his cell or kicks his door to bring attention on himself.

Naji: About flooding his cell, what do you mean, like clogging up the toilet?

Mac: Clogging up the toilet, yeah, and like flooding his cell.

They come in with riot gear – I’m talking about jump boots, shields, dogs, pepper spray – to assault you. Maybe eight men come in. They wrestle you down.

You’re totally subdued – handcuffed, shackled – and then they proceed to break your fingers. They bend them back one by one, trying to break as many of your fingers as they can. They try to break your toes. And the whole time they are yelling out, “Stop resisting! Stop resisting!” to make it look like you’re the one who is escalating the situation.

When you’re taken out, they put the spit mask on your face ‘cause they usually bust your face up pretty bad. They put the spit mask on so the camera can’t see the damage that has been inflicted. The nurses come over allegedly to assess the damage.

My hand looked like a volley ball. I mean you couldn’t even see the definition of my hand. My whole hand was like a ball. The nurse told me I had full range of movement and no bones in my hand were broken.

The medical staff at the prison, they lie to protect the higher ranking officials at the prison. They would not allow me to go out to see an outside doctor. I never had an x-ray done on my hand, any of that.

So the medical staff there, I mean it’s like they are totally in cahoots with the corruption that’s going on inside the prison. There was another guy where the bone in his hand had been totally snapped in half, and only because of that where they forced to take him to the hospital. His family had come in, they saw it, they made a big fuss about it; but only in extreme cases do you have access to doctors or any sort of adequate medical care in prison. At Red Onion, it’s nonexistent.

They have this guy Ron D’Angelo – they asked him once how do you justify keeping a man in these sorts of conditions? Taking them outside to recreation cages that are like dog kennels. If you are about 6 feet tall, you have to duck down to get inside of this cage – very small, maybe half of this booth, not even that. And you go out there maybe four times a week, for about 45 minutes. And that’s at the discretion of the guards, since they have to get two officers, stripsearch you, handcuff you, both walk you outside, so maybe they don’t feel like giving you rec, so they don’t give you rec that day.

Ryme: And this means time to be in the yard outside your cell, right?

Mac: Yes, but not a yard, not a yard. They have this illusion that you’re outside on the yard. At Red Onion there is no yard; they have dog kennels which are inside of the building. They do have the roof cut off where it looks like you are outside, but you are in this plexiglas enclosure that is surrounded by fence, so you’re not outside.

This drawing by Rashid is called “Control Unit Torture.” To see a mind-blowing display of his work – all of it done while he himself is being tortured in a control unit – go to http://rashidmod.com/art/. Rashid encourages the use of his art for free. You’ll find a drawing on almost every topic you care about. – Art: Kevin “Rashid” Johnson
At Red Onion, all of the light is artificial in your cells – there are no windows in the cells – and it’s total sensory deprivation. So they asked this guy Ron D’Angelo, how do you justify sending men here? There are no educational programs, no vocational programs, men are just rotting and deteriorating in these places. He said in response, “We didn’t bring these guys …”

Ryme: What does that do to men mentally?

Mac: It destroys them. I have watched men eat feces in prison; I’ve watched men throw feces on each other. I would hear men in their cells screaming at night, basically just escaping to some place of insanity. They are driving men insane. I think all of us, I don’t think you can live under those sorts of conditions and not be damaged by that to some degree, so I think you slip in and out of insanity. For someone like me, I just happened to escape and still have some sense of sanity but …
Naji: What were you about to say about what Ron D’Angelo said?

Mac: He said, “We didn’t bring these guys up to the mountains to rehabilitate them; we brought them to the mountains to die.”

There’s this good video – if anyone listening hasn’t seen it, they need to see it – it’s called “Up the Ridge.” They have this footage of when they are doing the ribbon cutting for Wallens Ridge State Prison; there’s this big sign on top of it that says something like Future Home of Virginia’s Exiles, basically meaning all of the guys who can’t fit in the legitimate framework of society, this is where we exile them to, a supermax prison

Ryme: You are listening to Voices with Vision on WPFW, Washington D.C., 89.3FM on your dial. We have with us Mac, who is talking to us about the prisoners’ strike and about Red Onion. This was heavy, so you said there are the medical conditions and there’s also the mental pressure that’s put on the men?

Mac: Yes, and there’s nothing. At one point you couldn’t be sent to Red Onion because they didn’t have any sort of services that accommodated someone with a mental illness. But, in the interest of money, even though it’s a state prison, it’s pretty complicated, because Virginia is building prisons to hold prisoners from other states. That’s what this video “Up The Ridge” is all about.

They have one prison called Green Rock, which only has Pennsylvania prisoners. They don’t hold Virginia prisoners. And Red Onion, Wallens Ridge, was doing that to some degree for a while. They had prisoners from New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Virgin Islands, so they wanted to fill those beds.

When they first built the prisons, there was a criteria: You had to be one of the most violent prisoners in the state. But the guys weren’t really meeting that criteria to fill 1,500 beds or something, so they just started lowering what the required criteria was to be sent to a supermax prison so anyone could go.

 

When they first built the prisons, there was a criteria: You had to be one of the most violent prisoners in the state. But the guys weren’t really meeting that criteria to fill 1,500 beds or something, so they just started lowering what the required criteria was to be sent to a supermax prison so anyone could go.

Naji: I saw the Wallens Ridge documentary; if I remember correctly, like you said it is supposed to be for the worst of the worst. But you ended up having people come in there for nonviolent offenses and so forth. I think there was a kid from Connecticut, you know they were bringing guys all the way down from Connecticut to Virginia with relatively minor charges. You know, poor fellow ended up committing suicide from the stress that was put on him. I think you told me before, suicide – successful suicides and suicide attempts – is not at all uncommon.

Ryme: There is also a masquerade around suicides that all of us all know just too well, which is when somebody just needs to disappear, there’s suddenly a so-called suicide. This is pretty sad and intense. What besides these two conditions, Mac, are the demands of the prisoners that are on strike?

Mac: The prisoners’ first demand is the demand for fully cooked food and access to a better quality of fresh fruit and vegetables, in addition to increased portions on their food trays. This is a minimal request just to meet their basic nutritional needs as defined by the Virginia Department of Corrections. The food that you get – I can’t explain in words the poor quality of this food – you probably wouldn’t feed this food to your dog, not that a dog is anything less than a human being, that a dog deserves less. You wouldn’t even feed to an animal the food they are feeding to prisoners.
The second demand is that every prisoner at Red Onion State Prison have unrestricted access to complaint and grievance forms and other paperwork they may request. They will give you a grievance form but not a complaint form, and you have to have a complaint form in order to write a grievance form. So if you write the grievance, send that out to the regional director or whatever, he’s going to send it back saying you didn’t take the proper steps first. You’ve got to go through the warden first, but if they are denying you access to complaint forms, then it’s useless to have a grievance form.

Third, we talked about better communication between prisoners and guards.

The fourth, which is very important: “We demand an end to torture in the form of indefinite segregation through the implementation of a fair and transparent process whereby prisoners can earn the right to be released from segregation.” When you go to Red Onion State Prison, it’s not like the typical solitary confinement situation. When you go to Red Onion State Prison, we are talking years no matter what you go there for; everyone goes to segregation. You have to stay in segregation for multiple years. There are guys that have been in segregation since they built the place in 1998.
Naji: Can you explain what segregation is for those who are unfamiliar with it?

Mac: Segregation is, I guess we could, to make it easier, call it solitary confinement, where you are placed in a cell all by yourself for a minimum 23 hours a day, sometimes 23½. You have restricted access to books, media. Your food choices are a lot worse; you get the worst of the food that they serve at the prison. Even though all food they serve at the prison is horrible, in segregation it’s worse. You are only able to take showers three days a week. Your visits are restricted.

You are in this box and the conditions are horrible: sensory deprivation, no windows in the cell. When I came out, Naji, not to get released from prison but to go into a general population setting, it felt like I was getting released from prison.

One, because I had not smelled fresh air in six years because I had been in this cell for six years straight. I had not seen a tree or anything related to nature in years. It doesn’t mean that much until it’s taken away, where you are in some box 23½ hours a day in five or six years.

 

When I came out, Naji, not to get released from prison but to go into a general population setting, it felt like I was getting released from prison. One, because I had not smelled fresh air in six years because I had been in this cell for six years straight. I had not seen a tree or anything related to nature in years. It doesn’t mean that much until it’s taken away, where you are in some box 23½ hours a day in five or six years.

You haven’t seen another person other than guards that come to the door, and they are totally hostile towards you. Every time that you move from your cell, whether it’s from a visit or to go see a doctor or go to the dog kennels, whatever it is you have to strip naked to go through this humiliating process, bend over, spread your buttocks, open your mouth. They are going to make you do this multiple times until they’re satisfied with your level of humiliation.

Then they are going to chain you up – your wrists, your ankles – and put this belt around your waist, then put this dog leash on – that’s literally a dog leash – to the handcuffs wrapped around your hands. So it’s about a 2- or 3-inch span between you and the officers, like right up on your back, and they march you outside typically at a speed faster than you can walk, so the shackles scrape your legs. It’s horrible conditions, man; that’s solitary confinement.

Now at Red Onion and Wallens Ridge, they are taking away books for guys that are in segregation. You have to meet a certain behavioral criteria to receive books. So, for guys in the old days like George Jackson, that was their only escape. Now you don’t even have that. They have taken that away.

Ryme: So much is going on and so much is going on without us realizing it, while really it’s our tax dollars and other countries’ goods and assets that are being pulled to do these things. When we learned that it was happening in Abu Ghraib in Iraq, we said that it is torture and we said it was unacceptable. And here we are in the back yard of the United States, where we sit comfortably in our houses looking at TV and crying over what happens to prisoners abroad, and this is going on.
The strike started this morning. Can you tell the listeners what exactly they can do to support it and for how long is it going to be going on?

Mac: It is going to be going on for a minimum of four days, about four days, Naji?
Naji: I’m not certain.

Mac: In any case, in any hunger strike we want it to be as brief as possible. These are men’s lives we are talking about here. After a couple of weeks, organs start to shut down and men start to die. The hunger strike in any case is a short campaign. It can’t go on forever.

Ryme: How can people get to know more about what’s going on?

Mac: Well, there is some contact information.


Naji: is the website up?

Mac: Yes, contact Virginiasolidraity@gmail.com and the website is Virginiaprisonstrike.blogspot.com.

Naji: There is also a group on Facebook dedicated to solidarity and support of the Virginia hunger strikers. There are tweets coming out at hashtag VA hunger strike.

Ryme: And also, for full disclosure, all the producers and hosts of this show and co-hosts are with the prisoner solidarity movements in different ways. I’m with Stop Mass Incarceration. Naji and Netfa [Freeman] also work on that. This issue is so serious that you’ve got to cross the line, and is there really a line? We are people and this is Voices with Vision.

Mac: I want to add something else. I want folks to, even in your personal space, start to humanize prisoners. There’s this widespread belief that most prisoners are in prison for some heinous violent act, and that is totally untrue. Most of these guys are in prison for drugs and drug related offenses, property crimes.

I was having a discussion a couple nights ago and I said that for me, I want to redefine what it means to be a political prisoner. Not just because you are in prison because of a political act, but most folks in prison are political prisoners because the basis of their incarceration is all built around a political agenda: The war on poverty, that’s a political agenda. The war on drugs, that’s a political agenda. So these guys are political prisoners. Even though they don’t know it, they are political prisoners.

 

I want to redefine what it means to be a political prisoner. Not just because you are in prison because of a political act, but most folks in prison are political prisoners because the basis of their incarceration is all built around a political agenda: The war on poverty, that’s a political agenda. The war on drugs, that’s a political agenda. So these guys are political prisoners. Even though they don’t know it, they are political prisoners.

So the way we stay in solidarity, man, is getting involved with whatever efforts folks doing on the ground – standing in solidarity with that – maybe even doing a hunger strike ourselves out here on the outside. Contact your legislators. Wherever you are, man, do whatever you can to show support to prisoners, because this isn’t a Virginia issue; this is a human rights issue.

This thing with Wells Fargo is still going on, so we’ve got to ramp that up a little bit.
Ryme: Well Fargo funding private prisons?

Mac: Wells Fargo, the biggest funder of Geo Group, the second largest provider of private prisons in this country.

Ryme: Thank you, Mac. This is really important to keep in the consciousness in the people.]

Naji: Mac mentioned to contact the legislators. You can contact the state legislators in Virginia, or even if you don’t live in Virginia, the state legislators here. In Washington, the senators. Also send this out to different media outlets. Just support by getting the word out and by getting in touch with people whom you know to be possibly influential and helpful in this situation.

Anarchist Simos Seisidis acquitted by court and due to be released tomorrow (May 29)

May 28, 2012 Occupied London

Earlier today, anarchist Simos Seisidis was acquitted in court and will be finally be released tomorrow (May 29th, 2012). Simos was shot in the leg by police on May 3, 2010 and had his leg amputated soon thereafter. He has been targeted by authorities for more than 15 years.
Full background on his case at the Simos Seisidis tag and Act for Freedom.

Athens – Solidarity Benefit Consert for the Revolutionary Struggle case

May 24, 2012 Athens Indymedia

Athens – Solidarity Benefit Consert for the Revolutionary Struggle case

Athens, Saturday May 26th 2012, 21.00
PEDIO TOY AREWS (GREEN PARK)
Assembly for R.S. case
The concert is being held in order to cover a part of the court expenses of the comrades
who are tried for the case of the Revolutionary Struggle as well as for the organization of a two-day event on June 7th and 8th at Pandio university
– For the struggle and the Revolution- where will participate invited comrades from Europe.
http://actforfree.nostate.net/


Athens Greece – EVENT FOR THE STRUGGLE AND THE REVOLUTION 7 – 8 JUNE 2012
από S 15:03, Σάββατο 26 Μαΐου 2012
θεματικές: Καμμία θεματική
Athens Greece – EVENT FOR THE STRUGGLE AND THE REVOLUTION 7 – 8 JUNE 2012
May 26, 2012
by actforfreedom

Athens Greece – EVENT FOR THE STRUGGLE AND THE REVOLUTION 7 – 8 JUNE 2012

Translated Act for freedom now/boubourAs

POSTER SAYS:

 

7 – 8 JUNE 2012

Pandio University,

Athens Sakis Karagiorgas Amphitheatre

EVENT FOR THE STRUGGLE AND THE REVOLUTION

THURSDAY JUNE 7TH: Armed movements in Europe and
their history.

FRIDAY JUNE 8TH: The struggle today and the prospec
t of the international
social revolution as an answer to the systemic
crisis.

SPEAKERS: 1. Brigitte Asdonk, Germany– Red Army Faction (RAF)

2. Andreas Vogel, Germany – June 2nd Movement

3. Bertrand Sassoye, Belgium- Combatant Communist Cells

4. Jean Weir, England

 5. Jose Rodriguez, Spain

6. Comminsion for an International Red Help – Switzerland

7. Christos Tsigaridas, Greece – Revolutionary Popular Struggle

8. Pola Roupa, Greece – Member of  Revolutionary Struggle

9. Nikos Maziotis, Greece –   Member of  Revolutionary Struggle

Assembly for the case of
the Revolutionary Struggle

http://actforfree.nostate.net/?p=9700

Footballer’s dad asks sports world to speak out for hunger-striking son as Israel violates prisoner deal

May 24, 2012 Electronic Intifada 

The father of Mahmoud Sarsak, a member of the Palestinian national football team jailed without charge or trial by Israel for almost three years, has called on the sporting world to speak out for his son who remains on hunger strike after more than two months without food.

Ten days ago, more than 2,000 Palestinian prisoners ended a month-long mass hunger strike, but already Israel is violating the terms of the agreement that ended it, according to prisoners’ rights groups.

Sports community must not reward or be silent about Israeli abuses

For us it is unbearable to see Israel has been awarded the hosting of the UEFA Under 21s football championship in 2013 and gears up to participate in the London Olympics, while it routinely arrests, tortures, imprisons and kills Palestinians, including football players, without consequence,” Mahmoud Kamel Muhammad Sarsak said in a statement given to Stop the Wall.
A poster of Mahmoud Sarsak, and some of his athletic trophies.
(Rami Almeghari / The Electronic Intifada)
The younger Mahmoud Sarsak, 25, was detained by Israeli forces as he traveled from his home in Gaza to the West Bank in 2009 to join the Palestinian national football team.

We ask fellow football players and athletes to speak out in support of Mahmoud - don’t be silent when Israeli cruelty and arbitrariness has destroyed the aspirations of a rising athlete and keeps thousands under inhumane conditions in their jails,” Sarsak said, “We ask sports teams and anti-racist fan clubs to organize in support of Mahmoud and all the other Palestinian political prisoners. Your voice can contribute to saving his life and to a little victory against injustice.”

Earlier this month, Football Beyond Borders, a student-led international organization “which uses the universal power of football to tackle political, social and cultural issues” released a letter of solidarity with Sarsak and thousands of Palestinian prisoners and announced that it would boycott the UEFA 2013 Under-21 European Championships.

And last week, Amnesty International issued an action alert calling on people to contact Israeli authorities regarding Mahmoud Sarsak.

Two prisoners still on hunger strike

Sarsak, now on his 67th consecutive day of hunger strike, is one of two Palestinian prisoners still maintaining their fasts. Akram Rikhawi is on his 43rd day of hunger strike. Both men were visited on 23 May by Mona Neddaf, a lawyer from Palestinian prisoner’s rights group Addameer.

The two “remain on hunger strike and are in increasingly critical conditions, without access to independent medical care,” Addameer said.

Israel violating agreement that ended mass hunger strike

The elder Sarsak’s appeal for solidarity with his son and other prisoners came as Addameer reported in a statement that “Israel has already violated the terms of the agreement addressing the demands of approximately 2,000 Palestinian political prisoners just over one week since they ended their historic mass hunger strike.”

That agreement included limitations on the use of “administrative detention” without charge or trial.
Yet, Addameer said that it:
has already documented cases in which Israel has blatantly ignored the signed agreement as it pertains to the practice of administrative detention. Though the agreement stated that the use of administrative detention would be restricted, multiple extensions of orders for current administrative detainees have been issued this week. Newly arrested persons have also received administrative detention orders.
Currently, 322 Palestinians are held by Israel in administrative detention.

Attempt at force-feeding

Addameer expressed concern about another prisoner, Muhammad Taj, who said Israeli prison guards had attempted to force-feed him:
Mohammad Taj broke his 60-day hunger strike for one day when he was told that his demand to be treated as a prisoner of war would be met, and re-launched it on 15 May when the Israeli Prison Service did not adhere to the verbal agreement. He since ended his hunger strike on 21 May and reported to Ms. Neddaf the details of the ill-treatment he was subjected to after re-launching his hunger strike. According to his affidavit, Mohammad was transferred from Ramleh to Al-Jalameh interrogation center on 15 May. He was severely beaten and his clothes were forcibly stripped from his body. Prison guards also attempted to force milk down his throat.

Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh update

Addameer also reported on the conditions of Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh:
Ms. Neddaf [Addameer’s lawyer] also visited Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh, who ended their 77-day hunger strikes on 14 May. According to Ms. Neddaf, Bilal is experiencing pain in his stomach and head and his body rejects most nourishment except for soup and milk. The prison doctor told him that his recovery period will most likely continue for the next two years. In spite of the agreement to ease restrictions on family visits, Bilal’s mother was denied permission to visit him on the basis of vague “security” reasons two days ago. Thaer is feeling sharp pains in his stomach, pancreas and back. On 20 May, he was transferred to Ofer for interrogation and then brought back to Ramleh prison medical center. Thaer and Bilal are scheduled to be released upon the expiration of their current administrative detention orders, on 5 June and 11 August, respectively. Both noted that they will immediately resume their hunger strikes if the agreement for their release is broken.

An Hour Before Release, Prisoner Transferred to Administrative Detention

May 24, 2012 PNN
asra5
Wednesday, May 23rd, Al-Ahrar Centre for Prisoners' Studies and Human Rights stated that prisoner Sameh Elaiwe, 50, was transferred from Nablus city to Administrative detention one hour before his scheduled release date.

Administrative detention is detention without charge or trial that is authorized by administrative order as oppose to a fair and just judicial decree.
Foad al-Khafsh, head of Al-Ahrar, affirmed that on Tuesday the Israeli military brought Elaiwe's case before the courts, accompanied by his lawyer Fares Abu al-Hassan. The courts issued a release decision for Elaiwe for the following day.

However, Israeli intelligence overturned the decision after Elaiwe's lawyer had left the courts, and transferred the prisoner to the administrative detention centre for four months.

Al-Khafsh alleged that the Israeli intelligence deliberately intends to break the spirits of the prisoners, and that the military may not have agreed to stop administrative detention policies, but they have now increased it.

More than 25 cases have been transferred to administrative detention since Israel's prisons administration and the Supreme Committee for Prisoners signed their agreement on May 14th.

Living In Two Cities: Tarif And Evelyn Warren

May 23, 2012 Gay City News

Tarif and Evelyn Warren at a May 14 press conference. | GAY CITY NEWS

BY SUSIE DAY | On May 14, Evelyn Warren and Michael Tarif Warren, attorneys at law, held a press conference. They stood outside the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse and announced that their case, Warren v. City of New York, had been settled. They had dropped their lawsuit against the city and the NYPD officers who had beaten and arrested them five years before.

Early in the evening of June 21, 2007, the Warrens were driving in Brooklyn when they saw police chasing a young man into a McDonald’s parking lot. The cops tackled the youth, handcuffed him, threw him to the ground, and began kicking him in the head. The Warrens pulled over, got out of their car, and respectfully asked one Sergeant Steven Talvy of the NYPD Street Narcotic Enforcement Unit why he and his officers were battering someone who was obviously helpless.
At the press conference, Tarif Warren, with his usual soft-spoken dignity, described how Sergeant Steven Talvy yelled at them to “get the ‘F’ back in your vehicle, stay the ‘F’ out of our business.” The Warrens got back into their car.

But, said Tarif, “because the police weren’t wearing identification or badges, we started taking down license plate numbers of what we thought were police vehicles. Sergeant Talvy saw us, came over, and began to punch me on the left side of my head, bursting both my lips. When my wife asked why he did that, he punched her in the jaw. Then he yanked me out of the vehicle with such force that he ripped all the buttons off my shirt and ripped the entire left pants leg of my suit. He slammed me up against the vehicle, handcuffed me, and shoved me in a police van, injuring my shoulder and my head. Something that will always be with me is the wild rage I saw in Steven Talvy’s eyes. Evelyn and I knew that if I had made one slight move, we would not be here today.”

Tarif and Evelyn were charged with resisting arrest, obstructing government administration, and disorderly conduct — offenses carrying seriously penalties. But after a year of court dates, prosecutors dismissed the charges, confessing to the judge that they had no evidence.

New York City, while admitting no wrongdoing in the settlement, awarded Evelyn and Tarif $360,000. And so a traumatic event upending the Warrens’ lives is resolved. Life for Evelyn and Tarif can return to normal. Right?

Have I mentioned that the Warrens are African-American? Did I need to? Do you need to ask the race of the youth whose beating they tried to stop?

China Miéville’s book “The City and the City” takes place in two cities occupying the same geographical space. One city is upscale and thriving; the other, in decline. What keeps the cities inviolably separate is the conscious perceptions, sculpted from birth, of their citizens. To travel between cities without a permit is worse than criminal; to be in both at once, unthinkable.
In New York, New York (they had to name it twice), there are also two cities.

On one hand is the city of Normal. Normal residents assume that, though unfairness may exist, their world is basically all right. Normal life allows one to ignore or “unsee” the city of Pogrom.
Pogrom, on the other hand, runs on fear and a paranoiac onslaught of police and the courts against mostly brown and black people. Pogrom operates impersonally, under the cool, reptilian assumption that atrocities are a useful way to manage a dangerous population. Pogrom’s stop-and-frisk practices, its beatings and arrests coexist alongside the hardworking, God-fearing people of Normal, who, given the benefit of the doubt, are simply trying to live their lives.

On June 21, 2007, the Warrens chose to transgress boundaries — they lived in both cities at once, without a permit.

At the press conference, Evelyn and I talked. “To witness Sergeant Talvy beating my husband, who was offering no resistance and doing nothing wrong,” she said, “has taken a mental and emotional toll on me. I’m no longer as open or receptive to people. I don’t nurture my relationships. It’s like I’ve gone into a shell.”

Though relieved the case is officially over, Evelyn described how disheartened she is that the NYPD hasn’t changed; that, after the incident, Sergeant Talvy was even promoted to lieutenant. In fact, Talvy and his officers were in court last week for jury selection, before the case settled.

“It was like they were at a ball game, laughing, kidding around like they had no real concerns. It’ll sound crazy, but the defendants’ table was behind ours, and it was just killing me that if we went to trial, Talvy would be sitting behind me.”

Later, I described this case to a friend. He’d seen a clip of the press conference on TV news; he was clearly upset that these upstanding people were treated unjustly. But when I mentioned two black men, Ramarley Graham and Kenneth Chamberlain — an 18-year-old in the Bronx and a 68-year-old in White Plains — who were recently shot to death in their own homes by police, my friend backed off a little.

“It’s always been this way,” he said, trying to Normalize the situation. “Maybe it’s worse under Kelly and Bloomberg, but things have always been this way.”

Tarif and Evelyn came of age during the era of civil rights and black nationalism. Different as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were tactically, they shared a conviction in an inherent human goodness. They believed things don’t have to be this way.

That’s why Evelyn talks about “remaining vigilant.” “In spite of what’s happened to us,” she said, “I hope, if we were confronted with the same situation, we’d do the same thing.”

The point is, you usually don’t realize which city you live in until something like this happens to you.
“What they want is to frighten people so no one stops and bears witness,” Evelyn added. “If people have the courage to say, ‘No, what you’re doing is wrong and I’m not going to move on,’ then maybe one day, something will change.”

Then maybe one day, we will all live in the same city.

Oscar Lopez Rivera - Message for Anniversary of his arrest

Oscar López Rivera is a Puerto Rican political
prisoner serving a 70 year sentence for seditious
conspiracy. He was arrested on May 29, 1981 and
as part of the campaign for his freedom, the
National Boricua Human Rights Network, Batey
Urbano and Latin@ Coalition have created "31 DAYS
FOR 31 YEARS" - A Multimedia and Interactive
Exhibit for the Release of Oscar López Rivera.

Oscar Lopez Rivera message for May 29, 2012

Greetings with Much Respect and Love

i want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the
Puerto Rican people in PR and in the diaspora for
the support you have given me during the past 31
years. i also want to express the same gratitude
to the freedom and justice loving people in the
u.s. and in different parts of the world for the
solidarity they've shared with me. The support
i've received has been a fountain of strength
that has helped me face and deal with the
difficult challenges i've experienced in prison
during the past 31 years, and to remain morally
and spiritually strong to continue struggling and resisting.

The 31 years seem to have passed fleetingly. Many
radical changes have occurred all over the world
during this period of time. In Latin America
progressive presidents rule in Venezuela,
Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay, El Salvador,
Nicaragua, Brazil and Argentina. In the last two
countries the presidents are progressive women.
And in Puerto Rico the us navy is no longer
present in Vieques. Unfortunately, the most
important change Puerto Ricans need has not taken
place. Because colonialism seems to be more entrenched now than ever.

It was Jose Marti who said that for a people to
be free they needed to be cultured. i believe
Puerto Ricans are a cultured people. Yet we still
are a colonized people. We are also a morally,
mentally, spiritually strong people. But we
haven't been able to make Puerto Rico a free and sovereign nation.

It was Albert Einstein who said that by repeating
the same experiment the results were always going
to be the same. Doing that is nothing else than
an exercise in futility. And Puerto Rican
independentists have been repeating the same
experiment for decades and obtaining the same
results without being able to achieve their goal
of an independent and sovereign nation. The
celebration of plebiscites has been such an
experiment. So why do we continue engaging in
Sisyphean tasks? What should we do? Let's pay
heed to Einstein's wise warning.

My proposal is a simple one. Let's work on the
problems we can resolve with the means and
resources we have at our disposal. For example,
let's take one problem related to the health
issue we are facing - obesity. To resolve this
problem a simple change in lifestyle will
do. Eat a healthy diet, exercise and create a
support network. We can also start programs of
urban gardening. There's space for such a program
in the 78 municipalities in Puerto Rico. And in
those spaces we can grow healthy products that
can help with a nutritional diet. We can look
for alternative sources of energy and of
transportation. Let's start thinking of changes
we can make in our lifestyles and we can resolve
some of the difficult problems we face. Problems
shouldn't intimidate or scare us. They should
produce ideas in our heads and challenge us to
find solutions. Finding solutions to problems
give us confidence, and help us transcend our
colonized mentality. And that transcendence gets
us closer to our goal of achieving an independent
and sovereign nation and a better and more just
world. We are intelligent enough to know what
needs to be done. We can change lifestyles in
Puerto Rico and in the Puerto Rican diaspora and
by doing so we will grow stronger morally,
physically, spiritually and mentally. We can
make Puerto Rico a free and sovereign nation.
En resistencia y lucha, OLR.


WE CAN FREE OSCAR LÓPEZ RIVERA

Alejandro Luis Molina
alejandrom@boricuahumanrights.org
Skype: alejandromann

Coordinating Committee
National Boricua Human Rights Network
2739 W. Division Street
Chicago IL 60622
www.boricuahumanrights.org