Ever since the mid 1960’s there has been a struggle in this country over whether it holds Political Prisoners (PP’s). In particular, whether or not Blacks fighting against racism should be looked on as PP’s when jailed for related offenses. Moreover, that struggle intensified after it was later learned that the Federal, State and local Governments and their Agencies conspired and carried out it’s Counter-intelligence Program known as COINTELPRO. Furthermore, it was discovered that COINTELPRO not only targeted Blacks, but also Native Americans, Whites and many groups and individuals who had absolutely no idea that this was taking place… even after suffering from it’s suppression, repression, jailings and deaths.

In time, never the less, it became accepted amongst a sizeable segment of people that there were, in fact, PP’s jailed in this country: former Black Panthers, White anti-imperialists, American Indian Movement members, Move members, Black Liberation Army fighters, Puerto Rican nationalists and Chicano/Mexican fighters; as well as all of their offshoots and supporters.

Furthermore, the struggles surrounding these groups and the fight against racism and this countries aggression in Vietnam caused many otherwise politically “unconscious” prisoners to join the fight which created a new segment of PP’s, who after going to prison for committing social crimes, became politically active there, George Jackson remains a model of that type of PP.

By and large, however, those PP’s struggles have been kept on the margins for over 30 years. Although they still remain strongly supported by those aware of them, outside of the governments (suppression) forces.

Ironically, it is the ongoing government suppression that is causing many to examine the whole subject of PP’s and how it should be viewed and dealt with. In that regard, what’s becoming cleared everyday is that in addition to the above “Real Political Prisoners”, there’s literally “hundreds of thousands” of other Potential Political Prisoners” being held in prisons in this country! Some fall in the below categories and are being held in line with:

Death Row convictions
3 Strike and Mandatory sentences
Life without parole
Juveniles sentenced as adults
Immigration laws
Environmental/Ecological defense
Muslims and “suspected’ foreign terrorists
Gang members
Right wingers
1980’s Mariel, Cuban migrants (boat people)
Note: Some of the Real Political Prisoners are also Prisoners of War (POW’s): namely those jailed for fighting to gain independence of self-determination for their peoples.

Since the catastrophic events on “911” it’s roundly agreed that this country jails and holds PP’s suspected of being terrorists, or in league with them. Indeed, the government goes out of it’s way to “terrorize” the general public with warnings of what the (other) Muslim terrorist will do if they are not given more power to imprison and ruthlessly suppress ”anyone” they choose.

On the other hand, hardly a day goes by without the public being bombarded with images of the rounding up and jailing of migrants from Mexico, Central America or Haiti.

Joining them, moreover, are sensational shots of police with guns drawn trying to identify, catalog and arrest (so called) dangerous gang members.

And, of course, the ongoing battles over the death penalty, 3 Strikes and Mandatory sentencing law cannot escape the consciousness of the majority of this countries citizen.

In fact, the only categories within the aforementioned 10 that are not widely known and debated are life without parole, juveniles sentenced as adults, environmental/ecological defense, the 1980’s Mariel, Cuban migrants and right wingers, although the Oklahoma City bombing is a exception.

Regrettably, we cannot reach a consensus on a definition as to just what makes one a PP; the above, notwithstanding, leaves this author to adamantly insist on viewing all of his 10 categories as Potential Political Prisoners! Simply because clear (to some) “political” considerations overshadow the actual alleged criminal acts that landed them in prison. Let’s examine them:

Death Penalty: against 90% of the worlds laws and only kept so that “politicians” can appear “tough on crime”.
3 Strikes and Mandatory Sentences: Instituted by “tough on crime politicians” after their failure to address the underlying causes of the crimes.
Life without parole: Only practiced in a few states and should be outlawed because it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, but tough on crime “politicians” protect it.
Juveniles sentenced as adults: Only applies to certain states and is against International law all together! Again, “tough on crime politicians” protect this violation of the Constitution and International law.
Immigration law violators: Migrants commit no crime in crossing artificial borders seeking to better their lives! The government recognizes that when it allows certain migrants (like “regular” Cubans) to stay in the country.
Environmental/Ecological defenders: They almost never harm any people, but instead concentrate on disrupting the work of people who themselves are attacking everyone by destroying the environment and ecology that sustains us. They too must be suppressed by our “tough on crime, clueless politicians”.
Muslims and suspected foreign terrorists: Since 911 thousands of Muslims and “suspected” foreign terrorists have been jailed, but less then a handful have been convicted of anything! The overwhelming majority are victims of a ruthless bunch of status climbing public bureaucrats, politicians, conflict profiteers and plain old racists!
Gang members: This group is very, very rarely offered any comprehensive programs designed to channel their energies into anything productive! Why? Because most of our educators and politicians having already failed them ”before” they join gangs, chose to abandon them to the police, courts and jail system.
Right-wingers: They’re usually close to the government (as far as immediate aims go) and are allowed to do pretty much as they choose. They, however, are targeted for suppression whenever their “political and law enforcement allies” think they’re becoming too independent.
1980’s Mariel, Cuban migrants (boat people): In the past the government tried to return them to Cuba, with no success. So, to cover the “politicians” total lack of ideas about what to do about them, they’re just kept beyond the laws ability to do anything but keep them locked up.
Finally, there’s another little understood and / or accepted factor that, although not touching all 10 categories, still accounts for more of the “ hundreds of thousands of 21st Century Potential Political Prisons” than any other: The so-called “War on Drugs”. I will not go into it in depth, except to state that that War accounts for 4 of our categories containing astronomical numbers due to the conscious, illegal, immoral, racist, shortsighted and (ultimately) genocidal decisions taken by this countries top former and present politicians; it’s major bankers, foreign government political and military allies; the domestic police, courts and prison administrators.

On the other hand, all of those jailed as a result of the parts they played in “the drug game”, although conscious actors, little did they know that they were truly (unconscious) “pawns” in a international, high stakes game of “Drugs, Money, Racism, Political Corruption and Prisons = GENOCIDE!”

The real criminals all got away!!! Clearly then, when the “player/pawns” really wake up to the fact that they were “played”, and they’re no more guilty then those who continue to make, enforce and get rich off of their misery, then maybe they will join the Drug War “victims” and the Real Political Prisoners in fighting for justice!

Review the accompanying schematic drawing for a graphic outline of some of the above; then, the next moves are on you….

Russell “Maroon” Shoatz #AF-3855
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg PA 15370 USA

freerussellshoatz.com

Dear people…..I send each and every one of you my very warmest greetings from (31) plus years deep inside the Belly of the Beast.

My name is Veronza Bowers Jr. (so named after my father), but many people call me Daoud. I’m a former member and Captain of the original Black Panther Party, and even though government officials claim there are no political prisoners in this country’s prisons and jails, it’s simply not true. Having already “served” over three decades in continuous custody in federal prison, I’m one of the longest held political prisoners in the U.S of A. There are quite a number of us scattered about, but that’s a very long story.

Picture this in your mind…if you dare: After 30 years of being denied release on parole, despite the fact that your conduct has been exemplary for over (20) years and you have long since met the criteria to be released on parole, finally your MANDATORY PAROLE/RELEASE date rolls around. April 7,2004. Everything is set. Your beautiful and precious daughter, who was (5) years old when you were taken away to prison, and is now (36), sent you a top- of- the- line fashion suit of clothes so that you would be properly dressed to “step in the name of freedom, with love.” She along with three of your sisters, fly in from across the country to be there at the prison’s gate to pick you up. In fact, there will be a whole entourage of dear friends and well-wishers who will be out in front of the prison with plans to all gather at the home of a friend about an hour’s new red Cadillac’s ride away. A grand celebration is planned: a big cook-out at which your God Mother had cooked hot-wings and you favorite home-made strawberry cheesecake. Another family of friends from the Island Kingdom of Tonga, in keeping with their cultural traditions, has roasted underground fresh fish. Others are bringing all kinds of food.

There will be a live band playing, jazz and blues, a swimming pool, etc.,etc.,etc. In a word, a lot of caring people have gone through a lot of effort, not to mention expense, to welcome you into their “brave new world” far removed from the world of prison walls that had kept you on ice for so long. They are there to welcome you with unconditional love and support.

On the inside of the prison there has been “going home” gatherings put together by friends, replete with food, music, and emotion- filled, open-hearted, teary-eyed talk and laughter. Everyone came together to wish you well and a prosperous life.

You’d given away to friends all of your meager possessions: watch,alarm clock,sweat clothes, running shorts and tennis shoes, handballs, weight-lifting belt, visiting clothes and shoes, commissary items, rain poncho and winter coat. The only things you kept were (3) Tai-Hei Shakuhachi (bamboo flutes), silver flute and some books. You’d used up all your (300)-for-the-month telephone calling minutes because after April 6th you wouldn’t be needing any more from the B.O.P. You’d made the rounds, shaking hands and hugging so many men you’d probably never see again. You’d even tried to give words of encouragement and hope to young and old men alike who you were leaving behind in a very desperate and hopeless situations. Yes, the time was growing near to leave the world of concrete and steel and razor wire and gun-towers–the land of the living dead–and you were very happy and at the same time
very sad.

The last “official thing” you were required to do, you did. All prisoners, on the day before their acutual release date, are required to “go on the merry-go-round,” i.e you must take a check-out form around to each department head for their signature, which means that you are cleared of all obligations to that department , viz: your commissary account is closed, your telephone access is shut off, the laundry department is satisfied that you don’t have any institutional clothing (you can’t imagine why they would think a prisoner would want to keep
any), the education/library services department are satisfied you don’t have any books checked out, and a perfunctory signature from the psychology department, Lieutenants’ office, hospital and receiving & discharge. You did all of that on April 6th. Everything is all set and good to go. “We have a lift-off, Houston!”

After doing all that, you’re sitting outside in the Native Americans’ Sweat Lodge area with two of your closest friends, just enjoying each other’s company in SILENCE. A loud announcement over the loudspeaker ordering you to “report to your unit-team immediately” breaks your peace. You KNOW that something is not RIGHT…years and years of dealing with representatives of the Beast has honed your sixth sense (maybe even a seventh one) that lets you know the “hidden” right away.

As you walk into your counselor’s office, you know what he’s about to say, even before he says it. So you focus upon that one thing that has sustained you and always pulled you through the roughest of times–even pulled you through those times when knife blades were slashing at flesh, when you learned of the passing of your Dear Mamma and the officials wouldn’t allow you to attend her funeral even though you had only seven months until your mandatory parole/release date. Yeah…one breath at a time. “You won’t be leaving tomorrow.”

You already knew that, but you didn’t know why. A strange silence fills the room, and since it’s quite obvious that some reaction is expected of/from you, you just continuing focusing upon the Breath. “Why?” “Well, all we know is that the National Parole Commission called the institution and ordered that you not be released tomorrow. The warden is very upset and he’s been on the phone with them all day trying to get some clarity.” Just like that! A simple phone call from a National Parole Commissioner in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and all of the
plans for you to be “stepping in the name of freedom, with love” are cancelled, wiped out,voided until further notice. How do you feel?… A. Me too!

September 1st, 2005 marks the 522nd Day of Unlawful Detention of Political Prisoner Veronza Bowers Jr. Check out his website for an up-date and how you can help at: www.veronza.org and/or write him at:

Veronza Bowers Jr. #35316-136
FCC Coleman Medium C-1
P.O. Box 1032
Coleman FL 33521-1032 USA

On the move!

Solitary confinement is a position that most true activists experience regardless of their location. Whether on a cell block or a street block, the life of an activist is one of isolation.

Public officials want to isolate the activist in the community in an attempt to contain them. Old acquaintances distance themselves when they realize the activist is aggressively confronting the same system they have been taught all their lives to fear and avoid. But as old friends distance themselves, new comrades emerge who also feel compelled to confront a system that has terrorized your power of purpose. These comrades, however, are always subject to be snatched away by the system.

Once these same activists are thrown in jail, the isolation tactic increases a thousand fold. All the tactics the system employed in an attempt to break the will and the spirit of the activist are applied non-stop 24/7 to the political prisoner (P.P). The authorities then figure they have the P.P exactly how they want him or her: beaten and silenced. Or so they figure.

In a further attempt to silence and contain the P.P., officials then keep some P.P.s in the holes of the worst prisons in the country. And as demonstrated by the prison guards turned soldiers and sent to Iraqs Abu Gharib terror camp, these guards have employed the same tactics on P.P.s in this country – and continue to do so today. The torture of P.P.s in this country is a continuous tool of the ghouls that run these slave camps. And the more the P.P.s stand up to these cowards, the more they are targeted and isolated.

P.P.s like Mumia Abu Jamal and the Angola 3 have been isolated in these dungeons for a quarter of a century by people who find it intolerable that people stand up and speak the truth. MOVE people have been forced into the holes for five and seven year blocks at various times during the various rigged up sentences we have been given.

The torture and isolation for the P.P. also extend to the families of P.P.s, as was demonstrated by Philadelphia officials when they targeted MOVEs home on May 13, 1985, dropping a third bomb on the house and murdering all inside: four men, two women, and five babies!!! Four of them were the children of the embattled MOVE women and men in the holes from earlier confrontations with the same Philadelphia officials and terror cop brigades that assaulted and massacred MOVE on May 13, 1985.

Being a P.P in isolation means enduring a multitude of gut wrenching experiences on a daily basis. It means watching guards that swear they will find a way to further harass you bring you your meals, your mail, come to get you for a shower where you have to completely expose yourself by coming out of your cell wearing only a towel. It is watching these same guards harass your family and friends when they come to visit you, treating them like criminals as well, in an attempt to discourage them from supporting you.

Being a P.P. in isolation is sometimes getting to see yourself in the mirror and not recognizing the changes in the reflection.

Being a P.P is watching your parents grow old as they continue to visit, less frequently until too many clendars prevent them. It is being told of your loved ones passing by people who hate you and only use the news as another tool to dig at you.

Being a P.P is watching your siblings grow more unfamiliar to you with each passing year. Watch as they struggle to carefully keep disturbing family news away from you. See them not realizing that, after decades of this treatment, you no longer feel like the brother, the son, but a kind of guest in your own family.

Being a P.P makes you feel terrified of touching things that you keep locked up in the recesses of your mind. Like the first day your young children woke up without you anywhere near. How it must have been for them to only know you through an entire lifetime of brief visits under the ever-watchful eye of people they know hate you – and because they hate you, look upon them with much suspicion.

Being a P.P. means watching your family struggle, locked into a lifetime of battles of support on your behalf. Defending you and then having to defend themselves from the corporations that exist only to try to exploit the families and friends of prisoners. The lawyers, the phone companies, the commissaries, the suppliers, all of whom jack up their prices when dealing with prisons.

Being a P.P is watching your sister (Merle Africa, one of the MOVE 9) die in a prison having spent the last twenty years of her life in a goddamn dungeon for a crime that even the mayor of the city admitted he knew she was innocent of and nevertheless would do nothing about as she died in a prison where she was sent by his courts and terrorist cops.

Being a P.P means taking all of these things and using them as motivation to keep fighting, knowing that this is exactly the kind of injustice that compelled you to want to stand against and confront the system in the first place.

All P.P.s should be supported and freed! The system only gets away with this treatment of P.P.s because the people allow it to. The silent give their permission by their silence. It is past time that all P.P.s are freed and given the same kind of support that they have always shown to the people for whom they sacrificed their lives.

On the move!

Michael Africa

Long live MOVE
Long live the revolution

Long live John Africa

by Herman Bell

Loneliness is a prominent fixture in a long-termer’s life. S/he wakes with it and beds with it. It can lead to mental depression that is marked by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration, to a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, to feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes to suicidal tendencies. In such a state the will is fragile: Your hair might come out in clumps. You might pick at your skin, at your nose, or at both. Your lack of hygiene may cause noses to flair, people to talk about you, and even to avoid you. Another prominent feature of prison life is tension, which is so rife that it is worn like an extra layer of skin. Anger is yet another feature: an unpaid debt, a slight – real or imagined – a look, an unguarded word and it flares-up like a volcanic eruption. A person could well take a life or lose his or her own, or wear some hideous, disfiguring scar because of it.

I write this not as a critique of the practice of imprisoning human beings, which I believe is an unacceptable form of punishment, but as a commentary on my observations and experiences in prison. Years ago I read a behavioral science report that said to confine a person in prison beyond five years is potentially damaging to his or her mental health. I knew this pig would not fly. Given the stiff prison sentences meted out to the poor and people of color in america, a five-year stretch is like doing a day. A twenty-five-to-life sentence is more like the norm than the extreme. When judges sentence people, they have no discretionary sentencing power. For the most part they read from a legislated script. (Not to say they would be more lenient. In some cases judges rely on a legal-proviso called “enhanced sentencing” and add even more time to the sentence imposed.) The scale of american justice tilts toward political and corporate interests rather than toward social justice or rehabilitative ones.

Getting out of prison is far more difficult than getting in. From the streets to detention centers, to the courts, and finally to prison. Your rights, or what you imagined them to be, were unquestioned. Now everything is different. Even your family, friends, children, wives, girlfriends, former employers and the like are different. The noblest intention may have inspired you to commit your crime. You may have not even committed a crime or think yourself undeserving of the sentence imposed. It matters not. You are here now, alone, behind bars, and you may be here for the rest of your life.

As I think about the psychological effects of long-term imprisonment, I can only think of it in terms of day-to-day existence. Some days are better than others; none are ever great. In truth, I hate writing about prison. I hate reading or seeing movies about prison. Yet people need to know what goes on in them. Many prisoners and people on the outside fail to discern the political and economic interests that prisons serve. Unfortunately, the economics of prison will not be part of this discussion. While some prisoners see prison as a way of life, people on the streets see it as a necessary evil. But in the main, as regards prison, education, and health care in particular, the nation’s citizenry has grown woefully lax in its civic duty. And as regard to administrations, the current one has embarked on a unilateralist doctrine coupled with a misguided foreign policy that has embroiled the nation in an unjustified war, which depletes precious economic resources and lets pressing domestic needs go unfulfilled. Our nation, as well as our uniformed young men and women who stand in harms way, deserve better. We all get in trouble and suffer when we fail to fulfill our duties and responsibilities.

I have been in prison 31 years. I am not sentenced to “life without parole”, yet I can be here for life. Denied parole at my first parole hearing, I reappear in ’06. If I am denied then, I reappear every two years after that until I am released on parole or by death. How does one grapple with a predicament like that and still feel optimistic? It is as much a physical blow as a psychological one. I cannot think about it. I cannot feel it. I can only “keep it moving.”

I am keenly aware of my time spent in this menagerie, aware of each step I take and of having to decide what to do next. Through the years I have witnessed behavior reminiscent of my youth: the bully, the posse – both inmates and guards – the strong preying on the weak. I have known days when depression sagged my spirits, days when men gave themselves to violent acts against their fellow man, days when the law of the jungle superceded all others. Days that I considered a success because I made it through the day.

Often I have found myself having to choose between what I believe to be right as opposed to what is expedient. The choice taken defines who I am and what I think of myself. Because the conditions of confinement take everything else, all we have in here is our self-respect and “good word.” To lose one is to lose the other. Life in jail is comprised of one decision-making episode after another, some large, some small. In this confusing, intricate network of pathways, the choices we take, what we decide to do in each one, leaves a lasting impression on the psyche. And the individual is compelled to choose how he will live his life in here (or someone will do it for him). Fence straddling is a non-option.

Locked behind gates and cars too numerous to count, the contact we have with the outside world sustains our sanity. Visits from family members and the occasional attorney provide a respite from the tedium. As our visitors provide mental snapshots of life on the outside, people you know – an ex-wife, an old girlfriend, an ailing relative, your son or daughter – we live in the moment with them. A visit is like a dream and when it’s over your wonder if it ever happened. But the “life-giving” force inside you affirms that the smiles, the tears, the holding of hands, the style of dress, and the perfume were real. You hate to see your people go and they hate having to go. But the portal connecting one reality to another remains open only for a short while. Then suddenly, like ripples from a stone cast into water, they disappear as though they never were.

When my cell door suddenly unlocks and guards stand in front of it, hands sheathed in rubber gloves, ordering me to step-out for a cell search, crashing waves, instead of ripples, rush over me. The search is routine they tell me; it’s never routine to me, regardless the number of recurrences. My private space is violated each time I go through this. It transforms me into a non-person, as if I were an object, to be lifted-up and set aside, during the search, and the disconnect magically vanishes when I am allowed back inside.

We prisoners are “trained” to be obedient to authority and “conditioned” to obey it. “Trained,” which suggests, “however long it takes to achieve the desired mental state,” bears more of a sinister connotation than does “conditioned”. The “training” process is fixed in the management of prison operations: “Hands on the wall and don’t move until ordered to do so,”; “I order you to …”; “For violating rule # …, I hereby sentence you to segregation … with loss of phone and commissary privileges.” The “conditioning” process presents itself through prison operations: that is, through rules, enforcement of rules, giving and withholding of privileges and the like. With everything else remaining equal, the jail runs itself. Authority and obedience to it plays big in jail. In absence of one’s liberty, obedience or non-compliance to authority is the main bone of contention inside of prison – how much do you concede to authority weighed against how much it demands of you.

Because of its violent and coercive nature, authority, in prison, is tolerated at best. A prisoner soon recognizes that a certain look from a guard, hand gesture, facial expression, jangle of keys, and the like are a language that is as coercive as a verbal order. The prisoner even learns the unspoken “I’ll get you later look.” In this light, how much you concede to authority, weighed against its demands, is no small deliberation in the mind of a prisoner. Depending on the choice s/he makes, a slow methodical “weeding-out” process beings. At this point a prisoner affirms or gains some sense of who s/he really is as a person. At that point, whatever part of himself of him/herself s/he wishes to hold onto, s/he has to fight to keep it.

For a black prisoner, his or her choice is like the Sword of Damocles suspended over his/her head by a hair. The historic enslavement of blacks in america and their maltreatment by white slaveholders is well documented, though much of it still remains to be told. When Lincoln freed u.s. slaves, vestiges of the slave system remained firmly in place, and blacks remained subordinate to white authority. And while the intervening years and subsequent battles won black civil rights victories, some would argue that the more things would seem to change for blacks, the more they remain the same. For blacks, taking this history into account – arrested by white police, prosecuted by white prosecutors, sentenced by white judges, and confined in american jails and overseen by white guards and administrators – how much to concede to authority weighed against its demands is no small consideration indeed. This very construct evokes strong imagery of overseer and slave on the plantation and its psychological underpinnings.

Against this backdrop are people inside u.s. prisons who have fought long and hard against american social and economic injustice. They are political prisoners (pps) whose spirit is cast in the tradition of Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, John Brown, and Malcolm-X, to name a few. In some quarters they are called Freedom Fighters. They display cat-like independence in prison, which is taboo in an environment that cultivates dependence and insecurity. Therefore special treatment for them is foreordained. They are imprisoned not for social crimes – robbery, murder for hire, extortion, drug sales, and the like – but for fighting racist, unjust laws and insensitive social and economic policies that ignore the needs of the poor, disenfranchised, and marginalized.

Already sentenced to the maximum allowable time and severely penalized for prison rule violations, the pp as well as everyone else is damaged by the prison experience. And the longer they are in, subjected to years and years of unremitting anguish, the deeper the scars and, hopefully, the stronger the resolve … .

Sundiata’s “Loveboat in the Milky Way”

Acrylic on 14 x 11 canvas

Sundiata’s “Loveboat in the Milky Way” was a birthday gift for his goddaughter, Sis. Dawn McGhee. Sis. Dawn is currently struggling mightily to create the film “A Power Sun,” the subject of our current Monthly Action Alert (please check it!) He explained that it has her eyes and lips, her daughter (fist raised), she & a friend from a previous film she created called “Streetwalkers,” along with the nose/upside down heart. Beautiful!

I want to thank the AFSC for renewing its commitment to issues of isolation and torture in US prisons; the AFSC Healing Justice staff for their collective brilliance and spirit and Naima Black and the Stopmax Team for organizing this extraordinary community.

In the mid 80’s I received a letter from Ojore Lutalo who had just been placed in the Management Control Unit at Trenton State Prison. He asked what a control unit was, why he was in there and how long he would have to stay. At that point, we knew little of control units, except for the ground breaking work of Nancy Kurshan and Steve Whitman of the Committee to End the Marion Lockdown (CEML) and the many prisoners who reached out to the AFSC, which, in 1985 produced a pamphlet called “The Lessons of Marion”. We began hearing from people throughout the country saying that they were prisoners being held in extended isolation for political reasons. We also heard from jailhouse lawyers, Islamic militants and prisoner activists – many of whom found themselves locked down in 24/7 solitary confinement. The AFSC began contacting people inside and outside the prisons to see who was interested in working specifically on control unit isolation issues, and in 1994 (after eight years of organizing) we hosted the formation of the National Campaign to Stop Control Unit Prisons. This was done with the help of CEML, Komboa Ervin, who was one of the Marion Brothers, Corey Weinstein of California Prison Focus, Alejandro Molina from the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, students from Oberlin College, young people across the country who belonged to the Anarchist Black Cross, the United Church of Christ, Yaki Owusu of Spear and Shield, the input of the women held in small group isolation at Lexington, Ky. and many others who gave strength and purpose to the work. Some of these people were actively involved in the different political movements of the 60’s and 70’s and understood how control units were being used against us all. Getting issues of isolation and torture into the light has been a long road and I bow in gratitude to those inside who so gracefully and patiently mentored those of us on the outside.

In 1996, the National Campaign held four Regional Hearings across the country, giving voice to people in prison, ex-prisoners, family members, advocates, lawyers and others whom were impacted by the use of isolation. In 1997 we came out with the Interim Report which held data on the emergence of over 45 control units or supermax prisons in almost every state. We matched inside and outside monitors in each state and formed the testimonies we received into a Listening Project called “Testimonies of Torture” and the “Survivor’s Manual”. In 1998, the National AFSC folded the work of the Campaign into Newark, NJ’s Prison Watch Project of the New York Metropolitan Regional Office. During the four years of its existence, NCSCUP trained dozens of students in organizing principles, including helping to develop about half a dozen campus Prisoner Awareness groups. Many of those former students are still working for social change today.

The history of the National Campaign to Stop Control Unit Prisons really began with the movements of the 60’s and 70’s. My generation belonged to a society where we genuinely believed that each of us was free to dissent politically. In those years, people acted out this belief in a number of ways. Native peoples contributed to the formation of the American Indian Movement dedicated to self determination; Puerto Ricans joined the movement to free the island from US colonialism; white students formed the Students for a Democratic Society and other groups, while others worked in the southern Civil Rights movements. This was also a time that the New Afrikan Independence Movement reasserted itself, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense was formed, as well as a time where there was a distinct rise in the prisoner’s rights movement. It was time when television news had graphic pictures of State Troopers, Police, the FBI, and the National Guard killing our peers. It was a time when I saw on the evening news the bullet holes fired by police into Panther Fred Hampton’s sleeping body, a time when young people protesting the Viet Nam War died on the Jackson and Kent State campuses killed by the National Guard, a time when civil rights workers were killed with impunity, and a time when we felt as if there was no opportunity to stop mourning because each day another activist was dead. These killings and other acts of oppression led to underground formations such as the Black Liberation Army and the Weathermen Underground.

The government, in response to this massive outcry against social inequities and for national liberation, utilized an FBI Counter Intelligence Program called COINTELPRO, which had as its objective the crippling of the Black Panther Party and other radical forces. Over the years that this directive was carried out, many of those young people who weren’t murdered were put in prisons across the country. Some, now in their 60’s and 70’s are still there. Those directives are still being carried out, only now we have an entire office of Homeland Security monitoring what it calls “radical prisoners”.

While the US denied that there were people being held for political reasons, there was no way at the time, to work with prisoners without hearing repeatedly of the existence of such people, including individuals who clearly fit the United Nations definition of political prisoners and prisoners of war – and the particular treatment they endured once in prison. As early as 1978, Andrew Young , who was US Ambassador to the United Nations, was quoted in newspaper interviews as saying that “there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of people I would describe as political prisoners” in US prisons.

Across the nation, we saw an enhanced use of sensory deprivation/isolation units for such people, and it was this growing “special treatment” which we began monitoring. At the time, Ralph Arons, a former warden at Marion, was quoted at a congressional hearing as saying, “The purpose of the Marion Control Unit is to control revolutionary attitudes in the prison system and in society at large”.

For those of us who have been in the struggle for decades, the deliberate use of long term sensory deprivation is haunting. People that we’ve known, worked with and loved have been, and some still are, being held in this manner. Some of those are people in the audience today. The names – Ojore Lutalo; Sundiata Acoli, who the Management Control Unit in NJ was built for in 1975; Assata Shakur, who was held for over five years in isolation. Marshall Eddie Conway, Albert Nuh Washington, who died in prison; Geronimo Pratt; Dhoruba Bin Wahad, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Mumia Abu Jamal; Leonard Peltier, David Gilbert, Marilyn Buck, Sekou Odinga, Ray Luc Levasseur, Kazi Toure, Masai Ehehosi; Leonard Peltier, Oscar Lopez Rivera, Alejandrina Torres, Dylcia Pagan, Bashir Hameed, Standing Deer and Sekou Odinga, Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin; Richard Williams, Tom Manning, Merle and the rest of the Africas, Africa, Susan Rosenberg, Laura Whitehorn, Linda Evans, Marilyn Buck, Sylvia Baraldini, Mutulu Shakur, Imam Jamil Al-Amin – these names and dozens of others – haunt the spaces of every control unit, SHU, DDU, ad seq unit and special housing unit in the country. No matter what name they are given, their purpose is the same as it is in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo – the breaking of minds. For every name I’ve read, there are a thousand more.

For people of my generation, this work is done with a compelling and lifetime passion and an understanding that the work is not risk free. We’ve made a promise to those dead and alive to abolish these torture chambers. People throughout the world are beginning to understand what the prisoners have been saying to us for decades about the oppressive tactics of the US government. The department of corrections is more than a set of institutions, it is a state of mind. It is that state of mind which has expanded the use of isolation, the use of devices of torture and the Counter Intelligence Program, as part of Homeland Security, against activists, both inside and outside the walls. Ojore Lutalo, the man who first contacted us in 1986, was released from the control unit via litigation in 2002 after 16 years in isolation. In 2004, he let us know that he had been placed back into the Management Control unit with no charges pending or any explanation. When I called the Department of Corrections, it took many conversations before I was bluntly told that this was upon the order of Homeland Security, that he is one of a number of prisoners across the country who they have targeted in this way.

The latest progression of control units are called “security threat group management units”. This is particularly egregious because it is the government which gets to define what a “security threat group” is. According to a national survey done by the Department of Justice in 1997, the Departments of Corrections of Minnesota and Oregon named all Asians as gangs, which Minnesota further compounds by adding all Native Americans. The State of NJ DOC lists the Black Cat Collective as a gang. The Black Cat Collective is my free foster son along with two friends who put on Afro-Centric cultural programs in libraries. Because my own background stems from the Civil Rights Era, I am very mindful of who is considered a “security threat” to this country and how they are treated.

Prison gang policies occur within the context of larger society and the wider criminal justice system, and the growth of security threat group management units are part of the larger policy agenda regarding US prisons. One of the standards that the federal government sets in order for states to receive prison construction subsidies is to mandate the building of supermax prisons or security threat group management units.

One of the things that makes this such an exciting time to re-new our efforts through Stopmax, is that we now have the growing understanding of the validity United Nations international law. The Convention Against Torture, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, The UN Convention on Political and Civil Rights and other international and regional treaties help give us a new set of legal, educational and organizing tools for social change.

Our work this weekend is very rooted in struggle against the system and political oppression. It is deeply touching to me to have representatives of so many long time political formations present. Those of us in AFSC rooted in these issues, continue to hear from prisoner activists, the mentally ill, people charged with being gang members and thousands of others – all being housed in extended isolation where devices of torture are used with impunity. After each Homeland Security Code change, Prison Watch is flooded with calls from people reporting loved ones with Islamic names being placed in solitary without charges.

Our work this weekend is a time when the building of new relationships and the broadening of our base can truly create social change. I think we all need to be mindful of the deep sense of grief that many of us feel as it impacts on our work and interactions. There may be groups here who need to work through differences with one another. There may be groups here who can form working alliances no matter what those differences are. Our priority has to be to work cooperatively to shut down these torture chambers.

I want to honor our foremothers and forefathers in this movement for abolition of prisons, isolation and torture with a poem of Assata Shakur’s called “No One Can Stop the Rain”, which reminds us that no one can stop a righteous movement. We, all of us, are a powerful community of resistance, and this is a dream come true for me.

Watch, the grass is growing.
Watch, but don’t make it obvious.
Let your eyes roam casually, but watch!
In any prison yard, you can see it, growing.
In the cracks, in the crevices, between the steel and the concrete,
Out of the dead gray dust,
The bravest blades of grass shoot up, bold and full of life.
Watch, the grass is growing.
It is growing through the cracks.
The guards say grass is against the Law.
Grass is contraband in prison.
The guards say that the grass is insolent.
It is uppity grass, radical grass, militant grass, terrorist grass,
They call it weeds.
Nasty weeds, nigga weeds, dirty, spic, savage indian, wetback, pinko,
Commie weeds – subversive!
And so the guards try to wipe out the grass.
They yank it from its roots.
They poison it with drugs.
They maul it.
They rake it.
Blades of grass has been found hanging in cells, covered with
Bruises, “Apparent suicides”.
The guards say that the “GRASS is UNAUTHORIZED”.
“”DO NOT LET THE GRASS GROW:”
You can spy on the grass. You can lock up the grass.
You can mow it down, temporarily.
But you will never keep it from growing.
Watch, the grass is beautiful.
The guards try to mow it down, but it keeps on growing.
The grass grows into a poem.
The grass grows into a song.
The grass paints itself across the canvas of life.
And the picture is clear and the lyrics are true,
And the haunting voices sing so sweet and strong
That the people hear the grass from far away.
And the people start to dance, and the people start to sing, and the song is freedom.

Watch the grass is growing.

Thank you.

The Indiana courts have set a new date for a trial before a jury on the sole issue of Zolo’s sentence, which could be the death penalty, on October 20, 2008.

Since 1981, for more than 25 years, he has been imprisoned by the state of Indiana. He is recognized by the Jericho Movement and others as a political prisoner. Zolo did not receive a fair trial and has always maintained his total innocence of any involvement in the crime for which he is imprisoned.

Zolo is a prolific writer and an accomplished artist whose work has been exhibited in many places around the country. His writing and his art reflect who he is: A man who lives his political convictions. At the time of his arrest for the shooting death of a policeman, Zolo was a well known activist in his hometown of Gary, Indiana. He was an ex-con who had grown up in extreme poverty, but he was also the valedictorian of his CETA federal job training class and had received a scholarship to Purdue University just prior to his arrest.  He was involved in the campaign to make Martin Luther King’s birthday a national holiday and had designed a button used by campaigners in Gary. He also declared himself a conscious citizen of the Republic of New Afrika and was involved in the struggle for self-determination of African people in America.

Since his arrest Zolo has fought the charges against him from his prison cell, often on death row.  His tireless efforts have exposed the unfair and racist way his case has been handled by the authorities.  He has defended his own rights and the rights of other prisoners, winning the respect of fellow prisoners and jailers alike.  His victories, overturning his death sentence twice, have set precedents cited by other prisoners.

As Indiana Circuit Court Judge Steve David wrote in a May, 2005 decision: “fundamental principles of fairness, due process, and speedy justice” were violated in Zolo’s case.  Judge David also pointed out that “the State bears most of the responsibility for the delay between the defendant’s 1982 conviction and the currently pending penalty proceeding.” In 1993, the Indiana Supreme Court overturned Zolo’s original death sentence because the prosecution had failed to turned over a gunshot residue test. In 2002, the Indiana Supreme Court overturned Zolo’s second death sentence because “the jury pool selection process was fundamentally flawed,” including the unconstitutional exclusion of Blacks.

Judge Steve David ruled that prosecutors could no longer seek the death penalty because Zolo’s constitutional rights to a speedy trial and due process would be violated.  But prosecutors appealed and two years later, the court ruled that “neither the delay nor any prejudice that Azania may suffer from it violates his constitutional rights. The State may continue to seek the death penalty.” The Court then appointed Marion Superior Court Judge Robert Altice as special judge to preside over Zolo’s new penalty phase, because Judge Steven David was called to active military duty.

Now the Indiana courts have set a new date for a trial before a jury on the sole issue of Zolo’s sentence on October 20, 2008.  The proceeding will probably be in Fort Wayne. However, Zolo and his lawyers, Jesse A. Cook of Terre Haute, Indiana and Michael E. Deutsch of the National Lawyers Guild and the People’s Law Office in Chicago are fighting for a change of venue to Gary, Indiana or Indianapolis, both cities with a more diverse jury pool.  Zolo hopes that progressive activists will again pack the courtroom to show their opposition to the death penalty as they have in the past.

The Indiana courts have also held that Zolo’s new sentencing proceeding will be conducted pursuant to the current  Indiana death penalty statute enacted in 2002, which means that when the trial court judge receives a sentencing recommendation from the jury, the judge is to sentence the defendant “accordingly,” whether the jury recommends the death penalty, or a term of years.

The jury will thus be presented with the stark choice of the death penalty or Zolo’s release within a short time, and the danger is that the jurors will choose the death penalty because they may succumb to media hysteria and believe that a person convicted of killing a police officer is too dangerous to let out of prison.  The Indiana Supreme Court has written that  ”In Azania’s case, the specter of an unconstitutional sentence particularly arises where the jury might consider Azania’s future dangerousness. We held that future dangerousness was not a concern in Azania’s re-sentencing, because the trial judge would have the final say in applying the death penalty and because the jury system requires that we trust juries to follow the law in their deliberations. With the trial judge’s sentencing discretion limited by the 2002 death penalty statute amendment, we emphasize again that a trial judge is not expected, and indeed not permitted, to enter a sentence where the sentence, or the manner of arriving at it, is illegal.”

The stakes are high for this next step in Zolo’s more than a quarter century of fighting for justice, for his freedom and for his very life. Those who oppose the death penalty need to continue to get the word out that Zolo is a wonderful person who contributed much to the lives of others and still has much to contribute, and that the government should not be allowed to put him to death.

What can we do to support Zolo?

Plan to come to court in October 2008, and write to Zolo at:

Zolo Azania #4969, Indiana State Prison, P.O. Box 41, Michigan City, IN 46361

by Safiya Bukhari of the Jericho Movement

Sitting in a cell in the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia under the name of Freddie Hilton is Kamau Sadiki. Kamau is awaiting trial on a 30-year old murder case. A Fulton County Police Officer found shot to death in his car outside a service station. A case that they refused to try 30 years ago because they didn’t believe they could win it. The question is “Why him? Why now?”

Who Is Kamau Sadiki?

Kamau Sadiki is a former member of the Black Panther Party. At the age of 17 he dedicated his life to the service of his people. He worked out of the Jamaica office of the Black Panther Party. Having internalized the 10 Point Program and Platform, the 3 Main Rules of Discipline and 8 Points of Attention, Kamau used his knowledge to guide his organizing efforts within the Black Community.

He worked in the Free Breakfast Program, getting up every morning, going to his designated assignment and cooking and feeding hungry children before they went to school. When the Free Breakfast Program was over for the day, he reported to the office, gathered his papers and received his assignment for the day, and went out into the community to sell his papers. While selling his papers he continued to educate the people, while organizing tenants, welfare mothers, whomever he came in contact. At the end of the day, he reported to the office. He wrote his daily report and attended political education classes.

Kamau Sadiki was one of the thousands of young Black men and women who made up the Black Panther Party. The rank and file members of the Party who were made the Black Panther Party the International political machine it was. While the media followed Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and others the day to day work of the Party was being carried out by these rank and file brothers and sisters, the backbone of the Black Panther Party. They were these nameless and faceless tireless workers who carried out the programs of the Black Panther Party, without whom there would have been no one to do the work of the Free Health Clinics, Free Clothing Drive, Liberation Schools, and Free Breakfast for Children Program. It was to these brothers and sisters that the people in the Black community looked when they needed help and support.

COunterINTELligencePROgram

It was because of this tireless work in the community that J. Edgar Hoover, the then FBI Director, declared the Black Panther Party to be the greatest threat to National Security and sought to destroy it. It was not because we advocated the use of the gun that made the Black Panther Party the threat. It was because of the politics that guided the gun. We had been taught that politics guide the gun, therefore our politics had to be correct and constantly evolving. We had to study and read the newspapers to keep abreast of the constantly changing political situation. But this was not the image that the government wanted to portray of the Black Panther Party. It preferred the image of the ruthless, gangster, racist gun toting thug. Every opportunity that came up to talk, or write about the Black Panther Party was used to portray this image.

When the opportunity didn’t arise on it’s own, they created situations and circumstances to make the claim. An all out propaganda war was waged on the Black Panther Party. Simultaneously a psychological and military campaign was instituted. The governments was of terror against the Black Panther Party saw over 28 young black men and women of the Black Panther Party killed over a period of less than four (4) years, hundreds more in prison or underground, dozens in exile and the Black Panther Party in disarray. Even though the Black Panther Party, as an entity, had been destroyed the government never ceased observing those Panthers who were still alive. Whether or not others believed it, the government took seriously that aspect of the Black Panther Party’s teaching that included the 10-10-10 Program.

If one (1) Panther organized ten (10) people, those ten (10) people organized ten people, and those ten people organized 10 people exponentially we would organize the world for revolution. The only way to stop that was to weed out the Panthers. Not only must the Black Panther Party be destroyed, but all the people who were exposed to the teachings must be weeded out and put on ice or destroyed. During this turbulent time, Kamau had been among the members of the Party who had gone underground. He was subsequently captured and spent five (5) years in prison. While he was on parole he legally changed his name from Fred Hilton to Kamau Sadiki.

The Waters are Muddied!

About eighteen (18) months ago a story appeared in the Daily News in New York about a former Panther being arrested and charged with child sexual abuse. The newspaper identified the former Panther as Freddie Hilton. The first thing that comes into the minds of most people when such an allegation is read in the newspaper is that it must be true. We, in the Black Panther Party, have been taught from day one, the adage, “No investigation, no right to speak”. In a case like this, a political case, it’s extremely important to get to the bottom of such an allegation as quickly as possible. Part of the pattern of COINTELPRO has been to demonize individuals, destroy their credibility, and discredit their character, thereby making them vulnerable to the enemy because their base of support has been eroded.

It appears that the charge was brought against Kamau by the woman he had been living with for a number of years to get him out of the house. Kamau had been, and still is, very sick and suffering from Sarcoidosis, Cirrhosis of the Liver and Hepatitis C. He had been out of work sick for an extended period. Everyone believed he was going to die. However, he didn’t die. He went into remission, got better and returned to work. The problem was his woman friend had moved on with her life and wanted him out of the way. She told the police that he had abused her daughter three (3) years earlier. When that didn’t stand up to scrutiny they were told he had a gun in the house and where it could be found and that he was a former Black Panther etc.

Even though the government did not initiate this arrest, they seized the opportunity, based on today’s climate, to get Kamau off the street. A domestic dispute was handled in an incorrect manner and a man’s reputation and character has been sullied and destroyed. People are more interested in the fact that this allegation was made then they are about the fact that he is going on trial for the murder of a police officer. Says Kamau, “All I have is my name and my honor. They can’t be allowed to take that away from me.” The molestation charge was dropped and Kamau pled guilty to a disorderly conduct charge. While he was serving his sentence the warrant from Georgia was issued.

The damage had already been done. A seed had been planted in the minds of the people. While the story of the charge being made had appeared in the newspaper, there was no story of the disposition of the case. Kamau Sadiki had never, at any time, molested any child.

Why Him? Why Now?

While the people who would normally come to his defense were still reeling from these charges and being told not to make a big deal out of it, the state was using this time to put pressure on Kamau. Knowing that he suffers from Hepatitis C, Cirrhosis of the Liver and Sarcoidosis they told him that unless he helped them capture Assata Shakur that he would ‘die in prison’. They told him that if he worked with them and got Assata to leave Cuba and go to some other country where they could apprehend her that they would not prosecute on the police killing. This seemed to be the right time to play this card. So many different forces were congealing in the world that had changed the mood of the country in favor of mania and fear. The conflict in the Middle East had heightened the stakes with 9/11. The Patriot Act had been passed, giving new meaning to what it meant to be patriotic and making disagreeing with or not going along with the policies of the government unpatriotic.

Police and other uniformed personnel were heroes/heroines and above the law…untouchables. What would not have been able to be prosecuted thirty (30) years ago was now, in this climate, possible. Then too, Kamau has not been in the spotlight in the last 25 years. What people don’t know is he never was. After being released from prison, he went to work. Having two daughters and himself to support, He went to work. He worked for the telephone company in New York for over eighteen years. Both of his daughters finished college and are now married with families of their own. No, Kamau wasn’t out beating the drums, he was being the quiet warrior that he is. He is a Muslim. Another liability in these United States where the term is almost synonymous to terrorist now.

The Lies…The Distortions…The Drawbacks

There are many lies and distortions of the truth that come to play in this case. The most glaring and insidious is that Freddie Hilton had been in hiding under the name Kamau Sadiki and that’s why it has taken so long to find and indict him. A bald face lie. The entire five (5) years Kamau spent in prison he wrote and signed all him mail under the name Kamau Sadiki. All of his mail was censored. When he was released from prison he was on parole and while he was on parole he had his name legally changed to Kamau Sadiki. His parole officer was aware of this. When he went to work, he didn’t obtain a new social security number under Kamau Sadiki, but his name was changed on his old card to Kamau Sadiki. There was never an attempt to hide from anything. How could he? One of his daughters was also the daughter of Assata Shakur and he couldn’t hide from that. He was always under the scrutiny of the federal government, if for this reason alone.

Kamau Sadiki did not ‘come to the attention’ of the police because of the molestation charge, but the charge was a convenient way to arrest him and keep him in jail while they attempt to use him. They knew who he was and where he was all the time. What they didn’t have was a convenient excuse to arrest him that wouldn’t get every one up in arms. Once in jail, they knew they didn’t have a lot of time because the molestation charge would not hold up. So they placed the warrant from Georgia on him to give them additional time to put pressure on him.

New Evidence?! No. No new evidence. The same old story from the 70’s that was supposedly told to them by Sam Cooper. The same old story that was not enough to indict at the time of the death of the police officer in 1972, is now enough to indict in 2002. Thirty years later, they are able to find independent witnesses to corroborate Sam Cooper’s story. It boggles the mind that they have found a way to make memories that usually fade over time, reverse themselves and grow stronger.

The Implications of this Case

We have long held that there is a diabolical scheme going on in the minds of the those who run this government. It is not something that started yesterday or the day before. It is not something that will end tomorrow or the day after. This scheme is to rid the world of those who disagree with the politics of the United States. The Black Panther Party was such an entity and it no longer exists. It was systematically and meticulously destroyed almost thirty (30) years ago. But the effort to destroy the legacy of the Black Panther Party continues. Books are continually written attacking the Party. Daily, articles still appear in newspapers and periodicals redefining the work of the Black Panther Party. Panthers are still in prison and still going to prison from cases dating back to the 60’s and 70’s.

The further we get away from the 60’s and 70’s the more likely that people forget what happened and what we were really about. When issues are taken out of their historical place and placed into another day and time, people tend to get confused. The government banks on that. Historically, it has worked for them. In this new day and time. In the shadow of 9/11, in Atlanta, Georgia, one of the greatest historical figures of the Civil Rights/Black Power era was convicted and sent to prison for life without the possibility of parole. The response of the community was, ‘We told you we were capable of convicting him.’ This gave impetus to the government’s plan to clean up the streets of dissent. In 1967 it was disclosed that one of the goals of COINTELPRO was to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize… no opportunity must be missed to exploit through counterintelligence techniques … for maximum effectiveness … long range goals are being set… prevent [them from] gaining respectability … and a final goal should be to prevent the long range growth of militant black organizations, especially among youth.”

COINTELPRO didn’t go away. It continues today. This case, as well as the case of Mumia Abu Jamal and Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin are prime examples of the existence of COINTELPRO and it’s agenda. We have a tendency to forget and think that things have changed. The enemy doesn’t forget. They maintain files and lists. They maintain think tanks and, when it is convenient and at the proper time they move. The movement’s of the ‘60s, caught them by surprise. They rushed to catch up and won the first skirmish. We still have casualties. While we were busy they were preparing so they wouldn’t be caught off guard again. This round of activity on the part of the state is their efforts to clean up the books. We must not allow them to do this. We must defend Kamau Sadiki. We must push back the state. We must not allow them to use Kamau as a scapegoat… we must Free Kamau Sadiki and all Political Prisoners.

Abdullah, Haki Malik (s/n Michael Green) # C-56123
PO Box 3456, Corcoran, CA 93212

Abu-Jamal, Mumia #AM 8335
SCI-Greene, 175 Progress Drive, Waynesburg, PA 15370
Birthday: April 24, 1954

Acoli, Sundiata #39794-066
FCI Otisville, P.O. Box 1000, Otisville, NY 10963
Birthday: January 14, 1937

Africa, Charles Simms #AM4975
SCI Graterford, Box 244, Graterford PA 19426
Birthday: April 7, 1956

Africa, Delbert Orr #AM4985
SCI Dallas Drawer K, Dallas, PA 18612
Birthday: June 21, 1951

Africa, Edward Goodman #AM4974
301 Morea Road, Frackville, PA 17932
Birthday: October 21, 1949

Africa, Janet Holloway #006308
451 Fullerton Ave, Cambridge Springs, PA 16403-1238
Birthday: April 13, 1951

Africa, Janine Phillips #006309
451 Fullerton Ave, Cambridge Springs, PA 16403-1238
Birthday: April 25, 1956

Africa, Michael Davis #AM4973
SCI Graterford, Box 244, Graterford, PA 19426-0244
Birthday: October 6, 1955

Africa, William Phillips #AM4984
SCI Dallas Drawer K, Dallas, PA 18612
Birthday: January 1, 1956

Africa, Debbie Sims #006307
451 Fullerton Ave, Cambridge Springs, PA 16403-1238
Birthday: August 4, 1956

Al-Amin, Jamil Abdullah # 99974-555
USP Florence ADMAX, P.O. Box 8500, Florence, CO 81226
Birthday: October 4, 1943

Azania, Zolo #4969
Indiana State Prison, P.O. Box 41, Michigan City, IN 46361
Birthday: December 12, 1954

Barnes, Grant #137563
San Carlos Correctional Facility, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002

Bell, Herman 2318931
San Francisco County Jail, 850 Bryant St., San Francisco CA 94103
Birthday: January 14, 1948

Beltrán Torres, Haydée #88462-024
SCI Tallahassee, 501 Capitol Circle NE, Tallahassee, FL 32031

Block, Nathan #36359-086
FCI Lompoc, 3600 Guard Road, Lompoc, CA 93436

Bomani Sababu, Kojo (Grailing Brown) #39384-066
USP Coleman 1, P.O. Box 1033, Coleman, FL 33521

Boudreaux, Ray 2301300
Out on bail, but can be reached at:
Committee for the Defense of Human Rights
P.O. Box 90221, Pasadena, CA 91109, (415) 226-1120

Bowers, Veronza #35316-136
USP Atlanta, P.O. Box 150160, Atlanta, GA 30315
Birthday: February 4

Brown, Richard 2300819
Out on bail, but can be reached at:
Committee for the Defense of Human Rights
P.O. Box 90221, Pasadena, CA 91109, (415) 226-1120

Buck, Marilyn #00482-285
Unit B, Camp Parks, 5701 Eighth Street, Dublin, CA 94568
Birthday: December 13

Campa, Rubén #58738-004
(envelope addessed to Rubén Campa,
letter addressed to Fernando Gonzáles)
FCI Terre Haute, P.O. Box 33, Terre Haute, IN 47808
Birthday: August 18, 1963

Conroy, Jacob # 93501-011
FCI Victorville Medium I, P.O. Box 5300, Adelanto, CA 92301

Conway, Marshall Eddie #116469
MD. Correctional Training Center
18800 Roxbury Rd., Hagerstown, MD 21746
Birthday: April 23, 1946

Coronado, Rodney #03895-000
FCI El Reno, P.O. Box 1500, El Reno, OK 73036

Dunne, Bill #10916-086
USP Big Sandy, P.O. Box 2068, Inez, KY 41224
Birthday: August 3

Fitzgerald, Romaine “Chip” #B-27527
Centinela State Prison, FC-2-110, PO Box 921, Imperial, CA 92251
http://www.freechip.org/

Gazzola, Lauren # 93497-011
FCI Danbury, Route #37, Danbury, CT 06811

Gilday, William # W33537
MCI Shirley, PO Box 1218, Shirley, MA 01464-1218

Gilbert, David #83A6158
Clinton Correctional Facility, P.O. Box 2001, Dannemora, NY 12929
Birthday: October 6, 1944

González, René #58738-004
FCI Marianna, P.O. Box 7007, Marianna, FL 32447-7007
Birthday: August 13, 1956

Guerrero, Antonio #58741-004
U.S.P. Florence, P.O. Box 7000, Florence CO 81226
Birthday: October 18, 1958

Hameed, Bashir #82-A-6313
Great Meadow CF, Box 51, Comstock, New York 12821
Birthday: December 1, 1940

Harper, Joshua # 29429-086
FCI Sheridan, P.O. Box 5000, Sheridan, OR 97378

Hatcher, Eddie #0173499
Central Prison, 1300 Western Blvd., Raleigh, NC 27606

Hayes, Robert Seth #74-A-2280
Wende CF, Wende Rd., PO Box 1187, Alden, NY 14004-1187
Birthday: October 15, 1948

Hernández, Alvaro Luna #255735
Hughes Unit, Rt. 2, Box 4400, Gatesville, TX 76597
Birthday: May 12, 1952

Hernández, Gerardo #58739-004
U.S.P. Victorville, P.O. Box 5500, Adelanto, CA 92301
Birthday: July 4, 1965

Hilton, Freddie (Kamau Sadiki) #0001150688
Augusta State Medical Prison, Bldg 13A-2 E7
3001 Gordon Highway, Grovetown, GA 30813

Jones, Henry W. (Hank) 2301301
Out on bail, but can be reached at:
Committee for the Defense of Human Rights
P.O. Box 90221, Pasadena, CA 91109, (415) 226-1120

Kambui, Sekou (William Turk) #113058
Box 56, SCC (B1-21), Elmore, AL 36025-0056
Birthday: September 6, 1948

Kjonaas, Kevin # 93502-011
Unit I, FCI Sandstone, P.O. Box 1000, Sandstone, MN 55072

Koti, Mohamman Geuka 80A-0808
354 Hunter Street, Ossining, NY 10562-5442

Laaman, Jaan Karl #W 87237
MCI Cedar Junction, Box 100, South Walpole, MA 02071-0100
Birthday: March 21, 1948

Lake, Richard Mafundi #079972
Donaldson CF, 100 Warrior Lane, Bessemer, AL 35023-7299

Langa, Mondo We (David Rice) #27768,
Nebraska State Penitentiary, P.O. Box 2500, Lincoln, NE 68542
Birthday: May 21, 1947

Latine, Maliki Shakur # 81-A-4469
Great Meadow CF, P.O. Box 51, Comstock, NY 12821

López Rivera, Oscar #87651-024
FCI Terre Haute, P.O. Box 33, Terre Haute, IN 47808
Birthday: January 6, 1943

Luers, Jeffrey (Free) #13797671
CRCI, 9111 NE Sunderland Ave, Portland, OR 97211-1708
Birthday: December 5

Lutalo, Ojore # 59860
PO Box 861, #901548, Trenton NJ 08625
Birthday: August 6

Magee, Ruchell Cinque # A92051
3A2-131 Box 3471, C.S.P. Corcoran, CA 93212

Majid, Abdul (Anthony Laborde) #83-A-0483
Drawer B, Green Haven CF, Stormville, NY 12582-0010
Birthday: June 25, 1949

Manning, Thomas #10373-016
MCFP, Springfield Medical Center,
P.O. Box 4000, Springfield, MO 65801
Birthday: June 28, 1946

McDavid, Eric 16209-097
FCI Victorville Medium II, PO Box 5700, Adelanto, CA 92301

McGowan, Daniel #63794-053
FCI Terre Haute, P.O. Box 33, Terre Haute, IN 47808

Medina, Luís #58734-004
(envelope is addressed to Luis Medina, letter to Ramón Labañino)
USP McCreary, P.O. Box 3000, Pine Knot, KY 42635
Birthday: June 9, 1963

Muntaqim, Jalil (Anthony Bottom) #2311826
San Francisco County Jail, 850 Bryant St., San Francisco CA 94103
Birthday: October 18, 1951

Odinga, Sekou #05228-054
USP Florence ADMAX, P.O. Box 8500, Florence, CO 81226
Birthday: June 17, 1944

Olson, Sara #W94197
506-10-04 Low, CCWF, P.O. Box 1508, Chowchilla, CA 93610-1508
Birthday: January 16, 1947

O’Neal, Richard 2300818
Out on bail, but can be reached at:
Committee for the Defense of Human Rights
P.O. Box 90221, Pasadena, CA 91109, (415) 226-1120

Paul, Jonathan #07167-085
FCI Phoenix, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086

Peltier, Leonard #89637-132
USP Lewisburg, P.O. Box 1000, Lewisburg, PA 17837
Birthday: September 12, 1944

Pinell, Hugo “Dahariki” # A88401
SHU D3-221, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City, CA 95531-7500
Birthday: March 10, 1945

Poindexter, Ed # 27767
Nebraska State Penitentiary, P.O. Box 2500, Lincoln, NE 68542
Birthday: November 1, 1944

Rodríguez, Luis V. # C33000
Mule Creek State Prison, P.O. Box 409000, Ione, CA 95640

Shabazz Bey, Hanif (Beaumont Gereau) #295933
Keen Mountain CC, P.O. Box 860, Oakwood, VA 24631
Birthday: August 16, 1950

Shakur, Mutulu #83205-012
USP Florence ADMAX, PO Box 8500, Florence, CO 81226
Birthday: August 8, 1950

Shane Chubbuck, Byron #07909-051
USP Coleman I, P.O. Box 1033, Coleman, FL 33521
Birthday: February 26, 1967

Shoats, Russell Maroon #AF-3855
SCI Greene, 175 Progress Drive, Waynesburg, PA 15370
Birthday: August 23, 1943

Stepanian, Andrew # 26399-050
USP Marion, P.O. Box 1000, Marion, IL 62959

Taylor, Harold 2305584
Out on bail, but can be reached at:
Committee for the Defense of Human Rights
P.O. Box 90221, Pasadena, CA 91109, (415) 226-1120

Torres, Carlos Alberto #88976-024
FCI Pekin, P.O. Box 5000, Pekin, IL 61555
Birthday: September 19, 1952

Torres, Francisco 2307534
Out on bail, but can be reached at:
Committee for the Defense of Human Rights
P.O. Box 90221, Pasadena, CA 91109, (415) 226-1120

Tyler, Gary # 84156
Louisiana State Penitentiary, ASH-4, Angola LA 70712

Wallace, Herman #76759
CCR Lower B Cell #3, Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola, LA 70712
Birthday: October 13, 1941

Waters, Briana 36432-086,
FDC – Seatac, P.O. Box 13900, Seattle, WA 98198

Watson, Gary #098990
Unit SHU17, Delaware Correctional Center,
1181 Paddock Road, Smyrna, DE 19977

Woodfox, Albert #72148
CCR Upper B Cell #14, Louisiana State Pen, Angola LA 70712
Birthday: February 19, 1947

Zacher, Joyanna #36360-086
FCI Dublin, 5701 8th St, Camp Parks, Unit E, Dublin, CA 94568