----- Original Message ----- From: kwazinkru...@aol.com To: mlk_coalit...@yahoogroups.com ; keithjame...@yahoo.com Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 12:38 AM Subject: [May 19th Movement] Fwd: CALL for Encampment! -- Solidarity With Pelican Bay Hunger Strike
-----Original Message----- From: Keith James <keithjame...@yahoo.com> To: keithjame...@yahoo.com <keithjame...@yahoo.com> Sent: Tue, Jul 12, 2011 2:07 pm Subject: CALL for Encampment! -- Solidarity With Pelican Bay Hunger Strike URGENT! -- Please distribute far and wide Dear Friends, On Wednesday, DAY 13 of the Pelican Bay prisoner hunger strike, an Encampment at KRST Unity Center in South Central LA begins (KRST Unity Center is at 7825 S. Western). Wednesday, July13, marks the 13th day of the hunger strike at Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit (SHU) and other CA prisons. This is a serious situation. This Encampment will be a center for all those who support the just demands of the hunger striking prisoners; a space where people will participate in a solidarity hunger strike / fast, in unity with the prisoners and opposed to the torture going on in the Pelican Bay SHU and other CA prisons. Will you take part in this solidarity hunger strike / fast (for 24 hours)? Will you add your name publicly to the call for this solidarity hunger strike / fast? Will you write a statement in support? A solidarity hunger strike / fast is one key way, not the only way, but certainly one key way actors, academics, artists, lawyers, faith based people, youth and students, families of the incarcerated and everyone can show their support right now; a way to coalesce, unite and collectively make impact. Will you participate in a press conference at KRST Unity Center Wednesday to announce this? The 5 core demands of the prisoners are listed below. Your voice and support is needed, now. Please get back to us by email or phone ASAP. Thanks. California Prison Hunger Strike Action Network Call 213-840-5348 ---------------------------------------------------------- For background info: Firedoglake wrote this article on the Pelican Bay hunger strike: http://my.firedoglake.com/kgosztola/2011/07/11/pelican-bay-prison-hunger-strike-shines-light-on-true-character-of-us-prison-system/# Revolution newspaper revcom.usfor reportage and analysis; Laura Magnani’s study on long-term isolation in CA prisons -- “Buried Alive”: http://afsc.org/sites/afsc.civicactions.net/files/documents/Buried%20Alive%20%20PMRO%20May08%20.pdf ---------------------------------------------------------- Basic Core Demands From Pelican Bay Prisoners (Security Housing Unit) 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 long-term 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 long-term 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). 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