Join the Center for Constitutional Rights, National Lawyers Guild, and the Human Rights Coalition in supporting the call to release Maroon from his 20+ years of solitary confinement.
Supporters of Russell Maroon Shoats have launched a campaign to have him released from the torturous solitary confinement that he has been held in for more than twenty years. A letter-writing and petition campaign has been launched and supported by the nation’s leading human rights legal organizations, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the National Lawyers Guild, along with the Human Rights Coalition, a prison abolitionist organization co-founded by Maroon.

Visit the campaign’s website here and sign up for email updates by clicking the “Follow” link at the bottom right.

Commentary by Mumia Abu-Jamal on Maroon: Memories of Maroon

Please take a second to sign the petition and help push back against solitary confinement torture!

Russell Maroon Shoats, a 68-year-old prisoner held at the State Correctional Institution (SCI) Greene in southwestern Pennsylvania, has been kept in solitary confinement for more than 21 years. He has been unable to hold his children or grandchildren or interact with others in a humane setting during this time, despite not having violated prison rules in two decades. He has suffered severe psychological anguish and his physical health has been worsened by the stress of prolonged isolation.

Maroon has spent nearly 40 years within the Pennsylvania prison system, 30 of those in solitary confinement. During this time he has earned a reputation amongst prison staff and prisoners as a leader because of his consistent support for human rights inside and outside the walls. Prison officials claim that Shoats is a security threat due to past escapes and attempts, though new evidence has surfaced that his continued solitary confinement is based on secret and fraudulent evidence of a non-existent plan to takeover a prison in the 1980s. Prison officials also identified Maroon’s political associations as a basis for continuing to torture him via solitary confinement.

We are distressed and outraged that an elderly man who is nearing his 70th birthday continues to be treated in such a cruel manner based on his constitutionally-protected support for human rights and in retaliation for his expressing political opinions disfavored by the prison administration. Not having committed an infraction in more than two decades reveals that Russell Shoats is more than ready to re-enter the general prison population.

Click this link to join us in calling on prison officials to end the solitary confinement torture of Russell Maroon Shoatz by releasing him into the general population of the prison immediately.

Attorney Bruce Afran’s appeal of Sundiata Acoli’s parole-denial and 10 year hit resulted in the New Jersey Appellate Court’s remand to the NJ Parole Board that its 10 year hit be cut to 3 years. It was done and Sundiata has become immediately eligible for a parole hearing again. The Appellate Court must still rule on Sundiata’s 2010 denial of parole but meanwhile he’s preparing to go before the parole board again for his newly won 2012 parole hearing. In that regards he would greatly appreciate any and all letters sent to the parole board urging that he be released.

Sundiata is 75 years of age and has been in prison 39 years resulting from a stop of his car by state troopers on the NJ Turnpike, in 1973, which erupted in gunfire that resulted in the death of his passenger, Zayd Shakur, and a state trooper, Werner Foerster. The other passenger, Assata Shakur,  was critically wounded and captured on the scene where another trooper, James Harper, was also wounded. Sundiata was wounded at the scene, captured in the woods 40 hours later and subsequently sentenced to life in NJ State prison.

Sundiata is now the longest held prisoner in New Jersey’s history of similar convictions. He has maintained an outstanding record in prison and has had only a few minor disciplinary reports over the past 30 years and none during the last 16 years. He’s also maintained an excellent work and scholastic record and has always been a positive influence in prison, particularly in mentoring prisoners toward becoming crime-free benefactors to the community upon return to society and thereby break their cycle of recidivism.

Sundiata is a 75 year old grandfather who has long been rehabilitated, has long satisfied all requirements for parole and has no or “little likelihood of committing another crime:” which is the main criterion for parole in New Jersey. Sundiata is an old man, in declining health, who wishes to live out the rest of his days in peace tending his grandchildren.

Send letters urging the board that “39 years is enough! Release Sundiata Acoli! NJ #54859/Fed #39794-066″ Address the INSIDE LETTER’S HEADING to: The New Jersey State Parole Board, P.O. Box 862, Trenton NJ 08625, BUT ADDRESS/MAIL THE ENVELOPE TO:

Florence Morgan,Esq.
120-46 Queens Blvd.
Queens NY 11415

and the letter will be forwarded to the parole board after a copy is made for SAFC files.

Thank you for your support. Please keep in touch with SundiataAcoli.org at The Sundiata Acoli Freedom Page to stay abreast of Sundiata’s parole situation and additional ways you can express support/solidarity with his parole effort. Sundiata and his Freedom Campaign, SAFC, send their sincerest condolences to the family and comrades of Christian Gomez, the prisoner who died in the California Prisoner’s Hunger Strike – and we send our warmest shout out of solidarity and strength to all those participating in or supporting the California Prisoner’s Hunger Strike.

From:  Sundiata Acoli Freedom Campaign

Sundiata Acoli received word from the NJ State Parole Board that the 10 year hit/extension of his sentence he received during his last parole hearing has been changed to a 3 year hit in response to the appeal filed by his attorney. This means he will come up again for parole in 1 year or less. Free Sundiata!

[col. writ. 2/2/12]  ©’12 Mumia Abu-Jamal

When I heard of the call, just raised In Oakland, California, to “Occupy the Prisons”, I gasped.
It was not an especially radical call, but it was right on time.
For prisons have become a metaphor; the shadow-side, if you will, of America. With oceans of words about freedom, and the reality that the U.S. is the world’s leader of the incarceration industry, it’s more than time for the focused attention of the Occupy Movement.

It’s past time.

For the U.S. is the world’s largest imprisoner for decades, much wrought by the insidious effects of the so-called ‘drug war’–what I call “the war on the Poor.”
And, Occupy, now an International movement, certainly has no shortage of prisons to choose from. Every state, every rural district, every hamlet in America has a prison; a place where the  Constitution doesn’t exist, and where slavery is all but legalized.
When law professor, MichelIe Alexander, took on the topic, her book, The New Jim Crow, took off  like hotcakes–selling over 100,000 in just a few months.
And where there are prisons, there Is torture ; brutal beatings, grave humiliations, perverse censorship–and even murders–all under a legal system that is as blind as that statue which holds aloft a scale, her eyes covered by a frigid fold of cloth.

So, what Is Occupy to do?

Initially, it must support movements such as those calling for the freedom of Lakota brother Leonard Peltier, the MOVE veterans of Aug. 8th, 1978, the remaining two members of the Angola 3: Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, Sundiata Acoli, Russell ‘Maroon’ Shoatz and sisters who’ve spent lifetimes in steel and brick hellholes.

But the Occupy Movement must do more.

As it shifted the discussion and paradigm on economic issues, it must turn the wheel of the so- called ‘Criminal Justice System’ in America, that is, in fact, a destructive, counter-productive, annual $69 billion boondoggle of repression, better-known by activists as the Prison-Industrial-Complex.
That means more than a one-day event, no matter how massive or impressive. It means building a mass movement that demands and fights for real change, and eventually abolition ofstructures that do far more social damage than good.
It means the abolition of solitary confinement, for it is no more than modern-day torture chambers for the poor.
It means the repeal of repressive laws that support such structures.
It means social change–or it means nothing.

So, let us begln–Down with the Prison Industrial Complex!
=============

The Power of Truth is Final — Free Mumia!

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Radio Essays – Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia’s radio commentaries online.
Audio of most of Mumia’s essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org

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Get your copy of the new book by Mumia and Marc Lamont Hill “The Classroom and The Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America” at
http://twpbooks.com/catalog/theclassroomandthecell-p-208.html

Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).

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WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!

New Video: Daughter of Russell Maroon Shoats,

Held in Solitary Confinement for Nearly 30 Years

Theresa Shoats is an activist and the daughter of Russell Maroon Shoats, who was a member of the Black Panther Party and a founding member of the Black Unity Council. He is serving multiple life sentences for the 1970 murder of a Philadelphia area police officer. Now 70 years old, Shoats has spent the last 21 years in continuous solitary confinement at Pennsylvania’s SCI Greene, and he did several earlier terms in solitary as well–for a total of close to 30 years in all.

More information can be found on the blog maintained by Teresa Shoats at http://russellmaroonshoats.wordpress.com/. Solitary Watch reporter and videographer Valeria Monfrini talked with Teresa Shoats last fall.

PLEASE GO HERE TO VIEW THE VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3o1Uj9s8YiY

Greetings All:

I must credit Mary Ratcliffe for encouraging me to update the 2007 piece; I really didn’t want to do all this work :). But I’m glad I did because even I was blown away by the newest realities of mass incarceration. Virginia Lea deserves the credit for sparking all this research when she asked me to do the video for her class presentation at the University of Wisconsin, March 1. Thanks to Hans Bennett who did the videography (traveling to SF to film it at my home) and got it up on the net pronto.

Finally, please take the time to check out these very alarming facts, e.g., In 1995, there were only five private prisons in the country, with a population of 2,000 inmates; now, private companies operate 264 correctional facilities housing some 99,000 adult prisoners.

Who knew???!!!

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/03/02/18708582.php

Slavery On The New Plantation (updated March 2012)
by Kiilu Nyasha
Friday Mar 2nd, 2012 8:49 PM
Longtime San Francisco-based journalist/activist Kiilu Nyasha writes that “Chattel slavery was ended following prolonged guerrilla warfare between the slaves and the slave-owners and their political allies. Referred to as the ‘Underground Railroad,’ it was led by the revolutionary General Harriet Tubman with support from her alliances with abolitionists, Black and White. It only makes sense that this new form of slavery must produce prison abolitionists.”
(A new video of Kiilu addressing the University of Wisconsin, entitled “Slave Farms in the 21st Century: Reflections on the Socio-economic and School Pipeline to Prison,” for which this article was updated to published alongside, can be viewed here here: http://kiilunyasha.blogspot.com/2012/03/slave-farms-in-21st-century-reflections.html )

SLAVERY ON THE NEW PLANTATION (updated March 2012)
By Kiilu Nyasha

“Slavery 400 years ago, slavery today. It’s the same, but with a new name. They’re practicing slavery under color of law.” (Ruchell Cinque  Magee)

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution retained the right to enslave within the confines of prison. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Dec. 6, 1865.

Even before the abolition of chattel slavery, America’s history of prison labor had already begun in New York’s State Prison at Auburn soon after it opened in 1817. Auburn became the first prison that contracted with a private business to operate a factory within its walls. Later, in the post Civil War period, the “contract and lease” system proliferated, allowing private companies to employ prisoners and sell their products for profit.

Today, such prisons are referred to as “Factories with Fences.” (/http://www.unicor.gov/information/publications/pdfs/corporate/CATMC1101_C.pdf)

The Convict-Lease System

In Southern states, Slave Codes were rewritten as Black Codes, a series of laws criminalizing the law-abiding activities of Black people, such as standing around, “loitering,” or walking at night, “breaking curfew.” The enforcement of these Codes dramatically increased the number of Blacks in Southern prisons. In 1878, Georgia leased out 1,239 convicts, 1,124 of whom were Black.

The lease system provided slave labor for plantation owners or private industries as well as revenue for the state, since incarcerated workers were entirely in the custody of the contractors who paid a set annual fee to the state (about $25,000). Entire prisons were leased out to private contractors who literally worked hundreds of prisoners to death. Prisons became the new plantations; Angola State Prison in Louisiana was a literal plantation, and still is except the slaves are now called convicts and the prison is known as “The Farm.” (A documentary of that title is available on DVD.)

The inherent brutality and cruelty of the lease system and the loss of outside jobs sparked resistance that eventually brought about its demise.

One of the most famous battles was the Coal Creek Rebellion of 1891. When the Tennessee coal, Iron and Railroad locked out their workers and replaced them with convicts, the miners stormed the prison and freed 400 captives; and when the company continued to contract prisoners, the miners burned the prison down. The Tennessee leasing system was disbanded shortly thereafter. But it remained in many states until the rise of resistance in the 1930s.

Strikes by prisoners and union workers together were organized by then radical CIO and other labor unions. They pressured Congress to pass the 1935 Ashurst-Sumners Act making it illegal to transport prison-made goods across state lines. But under President Jimmy Carter, Congress granted exemptions to the Act by passing the Justice System Improvement Act of 1979, which produced the Prison Industries Enhancement program, or PIE, that eventually spread to all 50 states. This lifted the ban on interstate transportation and sale of prison-made products, permitting a for-profit relationship between prisons and the private sector, and prompting a dramatic increase in prison labor which continues to escalate.

As the leasing system phased out, a new, even more brutal exploitation emerged — the chain gang. An extremely dehumanizing cruelty that chained men, and later women, together in groups of five, it was originated to build extensive roads and highways. The first state to institute chain gangs was Alabama, followed by Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Montana, and Oklahoma.

Arizona’s first female chain gang was instituted in 1996. Complete with striped uniforms, the women of a Phoenix jail (to this day) spend four to six hours a day chained together in groups of 30, clearing roadsides of weeds and burying the indigent.

Georgia’s chain-gang conditions were particularly brutal. Men were put out to work swinging 12 lb. sledge hammers for 16 hours a day, malnourished and shackled together, unable to move their legs a full stride. Wounds from metal shackles often became infected, leading to illness and death. Prisoners who could not keep up with the grueling pace were whipped or shut in a sweatbox or tied to a hitching post, a stationary metal rail. Chained to the post with hands raised high over his head, the prisoner remained tethered in that position in the Alabama heat for many hours without water or bathroom breaks. (Human Rights Watch World Report 1998).

Thanks to a lawsuit settled by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Alabama’s Department of Corrections agreed in 1996 to stop chaining prisoners together. A few years later, the Center won a Court ruling that ended use of the hitching post as a violation of the 8th Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment.”

In response to the demands of World War II, the number of both free and captive road workers declined significantly. In 1941, there were 1,750 prisoners slaving in 28 active road camps for all types of construction and maintenance. The numbers bottomed out by war’s end at 540 captives in 17 camps.

The Proliferation of Prisons, Jails, and Camps

In the 1940s, California Governor Earl Warren conducted secret investigations into the State’s only prisons, San Quentin and Folsom. The depravity, squalor, sadism, and torture he found led the governor to initiate the building of Soledad Prison in 1951.

Prisoners were put to work in educational and vocational programs that taught basic courses in English and math, and provided training in trades ranging from gardening to meat cutting. At wages of 7 to 25 cents an hour, California prisoners used their acquired skills to turn out  institutional clothing and furniture, license plates and stickers, seed new crops, slaughter pigs, produce and sell dairy products to a nearby mental institution.

Within a decade this “model prison” at Soledad had become another torture chamber of filthy dungeons, literal “holes,” virulently racist guards, officially sanctioned brutality, torture, and murder. Though prison jobs were supposed to be voluntary, if prisoners refuse to work they were often given longer sentences, denied privileges, or thrown into solitary confinement. Forced to work long hours under miserable conditions, in the 1960s, “Soledad Brother,” George Jackson, organized a work strike that turned into a riot after white strikebreakers tried to lynch one of the Black strikers.

The Black Movement’s resistance, led by George Jackson, W. L. Nolen, and Hugo “Yogi” Pinell, eventually brought Congressional oversight and overhaul of California’s prison system. (The Melancholy History of Soledad Prison, by Minh S. Yee.).

California’s prison system rose exponentially to approximately 174,000 prisoners crammed into 90 penitentiaries, prisons and camps stretched across 900 miles of the fifth-largest economy in the world, as Ruth Gilmore’s book, “Golden Gulag” reports. That number can be doubled or tripled by those on other forms of penal control, probation, parole, or house arrest.

Since 1984, the California has erected 43 prisons (and only one university) making it a global leader in prison construction. Most of the new prisons have been built in rural areas far from family and friends, and most captives are Black or Brown men, although the incarceration of women has skyrocketed. Suicide and recidivism rates approach twice the national average, and the State spends more on prisons than on higher education. (The seeming contradiction between the official figure of 33 prisons relates to the additional buildings  constructed at a given prison complex, and the various camps and county jails.)

Between 1998 and 2009, the CDCR’s budget grew from $3.5 billion to $10.3 billion (the latest figures available). At its peak in August 2007, the department had 72 gyms and 125 dayrooms jammed with 19,618 inmate beds.
“They provided an accurate and extremely graphic example of the crowding and inhumanity that engulfed the entire system,” said Don Specter, director of the nonprofit Prison Law Office in Berkeley, which sued to force the state to ease crowding as a way to improve the treatment of sick and mentally ill inmates.

The Privatizing of Federal and State Prisons

Under court order to reduce overcrowding, by 2009, the CDCR had transferred 8,000 prisoners to private prisons in four states –Tennessee, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Arizona, among the most virulently racist states in the country. The rest of the prisoners were transferred to county jails. Currently, the inmate population is about 142,000 and must remove another 17,000 prisoners to reach the June 2013 court deadline.

In 1985, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger lauded China’s prison labor program: “1,000 inmates in one prison I visited comprised a complete factory unit producing hosiery and what we would call casual or sport shoes… Indeed it had been a factory and was taken over to make a prison.” Burger called for the conversion of prisons into factories, the repeal of laws limiting prison industry production and sales, and the active participation of business and organized labor.

Heeding the judge’s call, California voters passed Prop 139 in 1990, establishing the Joint Venture Program allowing California businesses to cash in on prison labor. “This is the new jobs program for California, so we can compete on a Third World basis with countries like Bangladesh,” observed Richard Holober with the California Federation of Labor.

Currently, California’s Prison Industrial Authority (CALPIA) employs, 7000 captives assigned to 5039 positions in manufacturing, agricultural service enterprises, and selling and administration at 22 prisons throughout the state. It produces goods and services such as office furniture, clothing, food products, shoes, printing services, signs, binders, gloves, license plates, cell equipment, and much more. Wages are $.30 to $.95 per hour before deductions.

For the State’s highest wage, $1 hour, prisoners provide the “backbone of the state’s wild land fire fighting crews,” according to an unpublished CDC report. The State Department of Forestry saves more than $80 million annually using prison labor. California’s Department of Forestry has 200 Fire Crews comprised of CDC and CYA (California Youth Authority) minimum-security captives housed in 46 Conservation Camps throughout the state. These prisoners average 10 million work hours per year according to the CDCR.

“Their primary function is to construct fire lines by hand in areas where heavy machinery cannot be used because of steep topography, rocky terrain, or areas that may be considered environmentally sensitive.” (I.e., the most dangerous fire lines).

Now at least 37 states have similar programs wherein prisoners manufacture everything from blue jeans to auto parts, electronics and toys. Clothing made in Oregon and California is exported to other countries, competing successfully with apparel made in Asia and Latin America.

One of the newest forms of slave labor is the U.S. Army’s “Civilian Inmate Labor Program” to “benefit both the Army and corrections systems” by providing “a convenient source of labor at no direct cost to Army installations,” additional space to alleviate prison overcrowding, and cost-effective use of land and facilities otherwise not being utilized.

“With a few exceptions,” this program is currently limited to prisoners under the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) that allows the Attorney General to provide the services of federal prisoners to other federal agencies, defining the types of services they can perform. The Program stipulates that the “Army is not interested in, nor can afford, any relationship with a corrections facility if that relationship stipulates payment for civilian inmate labor. Installation civilian inmate labor program operating costs must not exceed the cost avoidance generated from using inmate labor.” In other words the prison labor must be free of charge.

The three “exceptions” to exclusive Federal contracting are as follows: (1) “a demonstration project” providing “prerelease employment training to nonviolent offenders in a State correctional facility” [CF]. (2) Army National Guard units “may use inmates from an off-post State and/or local CF.” (3) Civil Works projects. Services provided might include constructing or repairing roads, maintaining or reforesting public land; building levees, landscaping, painting, carpentry, trash pickup, etc.

This Civilian Inmate Labor Program document includes in its countless specifications such caveats as “Inmates must not be referred to as employees.” A prisoner would not qualify if he/she is a “person in whom there is a significant public interest,” who has been a “significant management problem,” “a principal organized crime figure,” any “inmate convicted of a violent crime,” a sex offense, involvement with drugs within the last three years, an escape risk, “a threat to the general public.” Makes one wonder why such a prisoner isn’t just released or paroled. In fact, the “hiring qualifications” — makes me suspect the “Civilian Inmate Labor Program” is a backdoor draft, especially in lieu of a military already stretched to its limit.

Note: When I tried to find an updated web page on the Civilian Inmate Labor Program, there was none. The date remains 2005 for its latest report. Could the latest data be classified?

The Federal Prison Industries (FPI), a nonprofit Justice Department subsidiary, that does business as UNICOR, was created in 1935, and began supplying the Pentagon on a broad scale in the 1980s.
The prison privatization boom began in the 1980s, under the governments of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr., but reached its height in 1990 under Bill Clinton when the Wall Street stocks were selling like hotcakes. In fact, President Clinton accomplished a record $10 billion prison building boom in the 1990s.
His program for cutting the federal workforce resulted in the Justice Department’s contracting of private prison corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and high-security inmates. (Global Research, 2008)

By 2003, there were 100 FPI factories working 20,274 prisoners with sales totaling $666.8 million. And currently FPI employs about 19,000 captives, slightly less than 20 percent of the federal prison population, in 106 prison factories around the country. Profits totaled at least $40 million!

In 2005, FPI sold more than $750,000,000 worth of goods to the federal government. Sales to the Army alone put UNICOR on the Army’s list of top 50 suppliers, ahead of well-known corporations like Dell Computer, according to Wayne Woolley, Newhouse News Service.

In 2011, the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) released a report that exposes how private prison companies are “working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences.” The report notes that while the total number of prisoners increased less than 16 percent, the number of people held in private federal and state facilities increased by 120 and 33 percent, respectively.
Government spending on so-called corrections rose to $74 billion in 2007. And last year (2011) the two largest private prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group — made over $2.9 billion in profits. These corporations use three strategies to influence public policy: lobbying, direct campaign contributions and networking. They succeeded in getting Arizona’s harsh new immigration laws passed, and came close to winning the privatization of all of Florida’s prisons.
A relatively new ordering tool used by BOP (Bureau of Prisons) is GSA Advantage!, the federal government’s premier online ordering system that provides 24-hour access to over 17 million products and services, solutions available from over 16,000 GSA Multiple Award Schedules contractors, as well as all products available from GSA Global Supply. http://www.gsaadvantage.gov

Since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan in 2001, the Army’s Communication and Electronics Command at Fort Monmouth, N.J., has  shipped more than 200,000 radios to combat zones, most with at least some components manufactured by federal inmates working in 11 prison electronics factories around the country. Under current law, UNICOR enjoys a contracting preference known as “mandatory source,” which obligates government agencies to try to buy certain goods from the prisons before allowing private companies to bid on the work. This same contracting restriction applies to state agencies.

The demand for defense products from FPI became so great that “national exigency” provisions were invoked so the 20 percent limit on goods provided in each category could be exceeded. The rules were waived during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Private manufacturers say they’ve been hurt by such practice, as they are unable to bid on various products.

According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bulletproof  vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.

By 2007, the overall sales figures and profits for federal and state prison industries had skyrocketed into the billions. Apparently, the military industrial complex (MIC) and the prison industrial complex (PIC) have joined forces.

The PIC is a network of public and private prisons, of military personnel, politicians, business contacts, prison guard unions, contractors, subcontractors and suppliers all making big profits at the expense of poor people who comprise the overwhelming majority of captives. The fastest growing industry in the country, it has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs and direct advertising campaigns. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners’ labor lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce.

Replacing the “contract and lease” system of the 19th Century, private companies that have contracted prison labor include Microsoft, Boeing, Honeywell, IBM, Revlon, Pierre Cardin, Compaq, Victoria Secret, Macy’s, Target,
Nordstrom, and countless others.

In 1995, there were only five private prisons in the country, with a population of 2,000 inmates; now, private companies operate 264 correctional facilities housing some 99,000 adult prisoners. The two largest private prison corporations in the US, GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut) and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) are transnationals, managing prisons and detention centers in 34 states, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.

A top performer on the New York Stock Exchange, CCA called California its “new frontier,” and boasts of investors such as Wal-Mart, Exxon, General Motors, Ford, Chevrolet, Texaco, Hewlett-Packard, Verizon, and UPS. Currently, CCA has 80,000 beds in 65 facilities, and GEO Group operates 61 facilities with 49,000 beds, according to Wikipredia.

Employers (Read: slavers) don’t have to pay health or unemployment insurance, vacation time, sick leave or overtime. They can hire, fire or reassign inmates as they so desire, and can pay the workers as little as 21 cents an hour. The inmates cannot respond with a strike, file a grievance, or threaten to leave and get a better job.

On September 19, 2005, UNICOR was commended for its outstanding support of the nation’s military. Deputy Commander of the Defense Supply Center Philadelphia (DSCP), presented the Bureau of Prisons Director with a “Supporting the Warfighter” award. The award recognized UNICOR for its tremendous support of DSCP’s mission to provide equipment, materials, and supplies to each branch of the armed forces. “We at DSCP are very appreciative of UNICOR, especially with our critical need items. With more than $200 million worth of orders during Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005, UNICOR has not had a single delinquency.”

Mass roundups of immigrants and non-citizens, currently about half of all federal prisoners, and dragnets in low-income ‘hoods have increased the prison population to unprecedented levels. Andrea Hornbein points out in Profit Motive: “The majority of these arrests are for low level offenses or outstanding warrants, and impact the taxpayer far more than the offense. For example, a $300 robbery resulting in a 5-year sentence, at the Massachusetts average of $43,000 per year, will cost $215,000. That doesn’t even include law enforcement and court costs.”

Nearly 75% of all prisoners are drug war captives. A criminal record today practically forces an ex-con into illegal employment since they don’t qualify for legitimate jobs or subsidized housing. Minor parole violations, unaffordable bail, parole denials, longer mandatory sentencing and three strikes laws, slashing of welfare rolls, overburdened court systems, shortages of public defenders, massive closings of mental hospitals, and high unemployment (about 50% for Black men) — all contribute to the high rates of incarceration and recidivism. Thus, the slave labor pool continues to expand.

Among the most powerful unions today are the guards’ unions. The California Corrections Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) wields so much political power it practically decides who governs the state. Moreover, its members get the State’s biggest payouts, according to the L.A. Times. “More than 1600 officers’ earnings exceeded legislators’ 2007 salaries of $113,098.” Base pay for 6,000 guards earning $100,000 or more totaled $453 million with overtime adding another $220 million to wages. One lieutenant guard earned more than any other state official, including the Governor, or $252,570.

California’s per prisoner cost has raised to $49,000, and that figure doubles and triples for elderly and high-security captives. That’s enough money to send a person through Harvard!

The National Correctional Industries Association (NCIA), is an international nonprofit professional association, whose self-declared mission is “to promote excellence and credibility in correctional industries through professional development and innovative business solutions.”

NCIA’s members include all 50 state correctional industry agencies, Federal Prison Industries, foreign correctional industry agencies, city and county jail industry programs, and private sector companies working in partnership with correctional industries.

Chattel slavery was ended following prolonged guerrilla warfare between the slaves and the slave-owners and their political allies. Referred to as the “Underground Railroad,” it was led by the revolutionary General Harriet Tubman with support from her alliances with abolitionists, Black and White. It only makes sense that this new form of slavery must produce prison abolitionists.

As George Jackson noted in a KPFA interview with Karen Wald (Spring 1971), “I’m saying that it’s impossible, impossible, to concentration-camp resisters….We have to prove that this thing won’t work here. And the only way to prove it is resistance…and then that  resistance has to be supported, of course, from the street….We can fight, but the results are…not conducive to proving our point…that this thing won’t work on us. From inside, we fight and we die….the point is — in the new face of war — to fight and win.”

Power to the people.

–Kiilu Nyasha is a San Francisco-based journalist and former member of the Black Panther Party. Through the end of 2009, Kiilu hosted a weekly TV program, “Freedom Is A Constant Struggle,” on SF Live, and many shows are archived here: http://kiilunyasha.blogspot.com/

Kiilu also writes for many publications, including the SF Bay View Newspaper and Black Commentator. Also an accomplished radio programmer, she has worked for KPFA (Berkeley), SF Liberation Radio, Free Radio Berkeley, and KPOO in SF. Kiilu can be contacted via email: Kiilu2@ sbcglobal.net
http://kiilunyasha.blogspot.com/

My name is Sundiata Acoli (Soon-dee-AH’-tah Ah-COH’-lee). I’m a former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army (BPP/BLA) who was captured on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973 and am now a Black Political Prisoner and Prisoner of War (PP/POW) who’s been held by the government for the last 37 years.

So why should you care about any of this or, particularly, why should you support Black PP/POWs? Well, maybe you shouldn’t. If you’re happy with the way the U.S. and the world is going – and if you want to see the U.S. and the West continue to dominate and oppress the rest of the world – then you shouldn’t support Black PP/POWs.

If you want to see one country or one race or the capitalist system continue to dominate other countries, other races and the world, then you shouldn’t support Black PP/POWs. And if you, yourself, are about trying to dominate, manipulate or exploit other peoples and organizations for personal benefit, then you definitely shouldn’t support black PP/POWs or any other revolutionary PP/POWs, because we’re about ending racism in all its forms and wherever it exists, plus we’re about ending capitalism, sexism and all unjust oppressions of people and life in general on earth and throughout the universe.

Now if you can relate to that – and are about freedom, equality, human rights and self-determination for all people; creating a non-exploitative, non-oppressive society and economic system; making the world a better place and living in harmony with other people, the environment and the universe – then you should support Black PP/POWs because that’s what we’re about and have been about for generations, centuries and millenniums. But mostly you should support Black PP/POWs, and all revolutionary PP/POWs, because it’s the right thing to do.

And last, how should you support them? Well, you should support Black and all PP/POWs by supporting organizations that support them and by contacting PP/POWs individually to ask how you can best support them.

Friends,

Rashid called Prison Radio today with this new info.
He was transferred to Oregon. Guards came to his Wallens Ridge cell, shackled him and put him in a van (or ?) and drove him for two days (not telling him where he was going) to Wilsonville, Oregon, where he has been in a “holding cell” for one day in a receiving center, going through a “reception process”, from which he will be transferred to another Oregon facility.
Here is his new i.d. number:  70384537 (he said this may change)
He has none of his personal belongings from Red Onion, including your address and phone number. He asks that you send these to him now.
He has a better means on calling people now with a prepaid debit account phone system. here is that number: 1-800-786-8521
There is a $25.00 initial minimum deposit, additional payments are $10.00 minimum. He will need to add phone numbers he wishes to call to a list soon.
Here is the address to write him (for 30 days):
Kevin Johnson
# 70384537
Coffee Creek Correctional Facility
24499 SW Grahams Ferry Rd.
Wilsonville, Oregon 97070

Rashid sounded positive about this transfer. The authorities told him it was a “brand new slate”. He said he would be in “medium security, not maximum security”. He said the authorities asked him how he was going to act. He got the impression that the Virgina prison authorities had told the Oregon people that he was a crazy, out-of-control, person. He said he would be in general population, “a whole new start.”

Rashid indicated that phone and mail will be less restricted, than in Virginia. He can receive mail as long is it is less than 1/4 inch thick. He says he can receive books from the publishers (and probably Amazon, but he wasn’t sure about that.) [Mumia cannot receive books from Amazon at SCI Mahanoy in Pennsylvania.]

His main request was for you to write him immediately with your address and phone number.

In Solidarity,
Carole

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

From bad to worse

Transferred from Red Onion to Wallens Ridge State Prison

by Kevin “Rashid” Johnson

Rashid Johnson

On Jan. 20, 2012, I was transferred from Virginia’s Red Onion to Wallens Ridge State Prison. This transfer came on the heels of a Dec. 12, 2011, incident where a large portion of my hair was ripped out by a Red Onion guard; an investigation was staged by Virginia Department of Corrections Internal Affairs agent Johnny Acosta, and I sent out an article and report on it all. Obviously, no coincidence.

From one set-up to another

On the morning of Jan. 20, I was confronted at my cell by Red Onion C-Building Unit Manager Michael Younce and Lt. Delmer Tate, who both lied telling me that agent Johnny Acosta wanted to speak with me in the prison’s video-court area. I was, upon being handcuffed and leg shackled, “escorted” by them to the prison’s transport area, put into a cell and told to strip down to be searched by security chief Kevin McCoy because I was “taking a trip.”

Numerous guards entered the area, including one Joseph Ely, a prior Red Onion guard who’d transferred to Wallens Ridge to be promoted to lieutenant. Ely was carrying transportation restraints and a 50,000 volt electric stun belt, which prisoners are made to wear when taken on road trips. I instantly realized I was being transferred to Wallens Ridge.

I asked McCoy several times about my property. He assured it’d be right behind me. It wasn’t. It was all left at Red Onion, where much of it will likely be destroyed, “lost” and taken.

McCoy attempted to provoke a situation by having me given a pair of pants to wear that were too small. I refused to wear them. After a standoff, I was given a pair in the correct size, restrained, belted and taken to a transport van. Inside the van, I was crushed and locked inside a tiny steel cage measuring about 5 feet high and 2 by 2 feet square, in which I could barely move.

Once on the road, Ely asked if I knew where I was going. I answered, “Obviously to Wallens Ridge.” He then asked did I really not know I was being transferred? I told him no, that I was told I was going to see someone. He added, “You know why you’re going back, don’t you?” “Not really,” I answered. He then stated, “Well, you know a lot of people don’t like you. You probably won’t leave walking.” I was to receive numerous similar threats by guards that I was being sent to Wallens Ridge to be set up for violence.

Upon reaching Wallens Ridge, I was met by numerous guards, especially ranking guards, whom I’d known from my 2000-2003 confinement at Wallens Ridge. All displayed openly hostile attitudes. One of the guards, who was holding one of my arms and “escorting” me from the van to the intake area, Dixon, repeatedly dug his fingers into my right arm. I was also accompanied during this walk by two large dogs barking loudly and straining wildly against their leashes.

I went through the strip search and endured another standoff over too-small clothes, by Sgt. Cochrane and Lt. Swiney, both obviously trying to provoke a situation to “justify” using violence. So I relented and wore the clothes for the brief walk to the unit.

I was leg-shackled, cuffed from behind and “escorted” by a mob of guards to the D-3 housing unit. Every cell in the unit was empty. I was put into D-301, one of only two cells in the block with a steel box approximately 8 by 12 by 18 inches with a Plexiglas cover, welded to the outside of a cell door and around the opening in the door through which food and other items are passed and handcuffs applied and removed. I was made to kneel to have the leg shackles removed and to put my hands outside the slot into the box where the handcuffs were removed. I then removed my hands from the box and a steel plate was slid in place across the door opening, closing off access to the box.

Rashid was assaulted by staff at Red Onion on Dec. 12. He has a dislocated shoulder and is yet to receive proper medical attention. He had a 3 by 7 inch swath of hair pulled out by the roots. This occurred when he refused to turn his back on an officer as he came out of the exercise cage. Please contact VDOC Director Harold Clarke at (804) 674-3000.

Cochrane and Swiney came to the door in turns, repeating the same threats Ely had made, adding that “this time there won’t be any witnesses,” indirectly referring to my placement in a completely empty unit. Major Combs then came to the cell asking if I’d changed, commenting that I’d gotten grey hair since last he’d seen me and was “getting old.” Every guard I’ve encountered from then to now has been invariably hostile, and verbally insulting. I’ve been called a “nigger” no less than 15 times and subjected to numerous homosexual taunts in efforts to provoke and enrage me, which I pay no mind to. One guard, R. Ricketts has gone out of his way to repeatedly verbally taunt and threaten me with abuses to come.

I’ve had my meals and beverages dropped into the visibly filthy box on the door which is never cleaned, indeed it can’t be where it contains rust, peeling paint, fermented food and beverages residue, and one must place dirty clothes, shoes, toilet cleaning items, etc. into the box to be searched by or exchanged with guards. Using the box for meal service is a per se health hazard. Not only is my food contaminated by being placed into direct contact with the box’s surfaces, but I’ve found paint particles, dirt, lint, etc. in my food and beverages from the box.

I was also brought clothes by Swiney that had been sprayed with mace or gas. I’ve been kept incommunicado – denied phone use, all property and kept in a completely empty unit.

I’ve also received two trays with foods containing broken pieces of metal and rocks. Guards, including Cochrane, refuse to provide me with or to accept for filing forms needed to pursue emergency and other grievances and complaints. I had to go through a Lt. Bergan to obtain complaint forms from Cochrane, who then gave me only two out of five requested by me.

The Dec. 12, 2011, assault where my hair was ripped out was preceded by threats by the assaulting guard, in that I’m now being faced with a consistent series of threats by a staff known to abuse and even kill prisoners – which I’ll elaborate on below. It is important that this situation be made known as broadly as possible. I believe outside exposure, support and pressure has kept many of the more serious, violent official intentions at bay. These threats under the circumstances must be taken very seriously.

Wallens Ridge: A nest of vipers

Several of the threats here have been accompanied by guards making disparaging remarks about me being a “protester,” “Black Panther” etc., often accompanied by racial slurs. It is well known that Black prisoners known to challenge or protest abuses or who are politically active are abuse targets at Wallens Ridge. John Gaskins, aka Mac, who was recently released from Wallens Ridge, has been both witness and victim. While at the prison, he witnessed prisoners inclined to protest being set up by guards, beaten and thrown into segregation. He was himself, for this reason, set up on a false infraction and thrown in segregation until he was released from Virginia’s prisons. He expected to be beaten by the guards himself at any time.

Rashid explains: “This method of ‘escorting’ segregation prisoners is used ostensibly so guards can maintain complete control while remaining behind the prisoner so he cannot butt, spit or otherwise assault them and can be easily maneuvered to place and pinned against a wall. During such escorts, guards are to remain behind and to the side of the prisoner.”

A—-, aka Outlaw, the prisoner with whom I engaged in written political exchanges in my book, “Defying the Tomb,” was also brutally beaten and hospitalized at Wallens Ridge a couple years ago.

In my prior update/article, I discussed a 2001 beating by three ranking Wallens Ridge guards of a Black prisoner, last name Plummer, which resulted in the guards being prosecuted. The charges were circumvented by the entire prison’s staff coming together to stage a scene at the prison to sway the jury to acquit the guards, and the investigator – Johnny Acosta – who found the guards to have assaulted Plummer, was in turn sued by them. Many of the guards involved in that coverup still work at Wallens Ridge, including Major Combs, Cochrane, Swiney etc.

Prisoners have also been killed by Wallens Ridge officials or at their prompting. Most recent was the controversial killing of Harvey Lee Watson by his cellmate, Robert Gleason, who pled guilty to the killing and implicated Wallens Ridge staff as complicit and responsible. Several were fired after the fact, when autopsies found Watson had been dead for half a day when discovered by guards inside the cell.

The guards had falsified records, claiming they’d been making routine checks of the prisoners. However, those who caused his death were passed over. Gleason personally told me numerous times that he only realized after killing Watson that Wallens Ridge officials had used him, set him up to kill Watson to remove a thorn from their side. He vowed to plead guilty to the killing and to use the case to expose what they’d done. Which he did, to no avail.

In that case, they wanted to silence Watson, who kept protesting that officials had knowingly transported him from Sussex One State Prison in Waverly, Virginia, to Wallens Ridge with a dead prisoner sitting with him in the van. Watson had also just set his cell on fire the night before being transferred and had recently set another prisoner on fire.

He had outstanding punitive segregation sentences to serve and was not supposed to have been released to population. He also was supposed at all times to have been housed in cells alone, even in population, due to his mental health status. However, ranking Wallens Ridge officials and the counselor, wife of Lt. A. Gallihar, conspired to put Watson in Gleason’s cell in population. Gleason was known to have been convicted, suspected and charged with numerous killings. Officials felt he was their man for the job.

In the cell, Gleason complained to staff counselor Gallihar, ranking officials, the warden, even people on the outside that Watson was sick and needed to be moved out of his cell before he was forced into a drastic reaction. Watson would drink urine, masturbate in the open, talk loudly to himself all times of night etc. Lt. Gallihar, his wife and others told Gleason, “You know how to deal with it,” refusing to move Watson.

Gleason admittedly snapped and killed Watson. The scandal has been widely reported in the media and Gleason is open about what happened and why. The day after the killing, A. Gallihar, who wasn’t at the prison the day of the killing, fabricated an incident report as though he was, on his wife’s behalf to cover for her.

During or about 2003, a white Connecticut prisoner was strangled to death by Wallens Ridge guards who claimed the death a suicide hanging. A similar attack was attempted against another white prisoner, Michael Austin, now confined at Red Onion, during or about 2010. The guards disliked Austin because he’d grown up around and embraced Black urban culture and clashed with the prison’s rural white guards who’d ridicule him and try to influence him with racist values.

In his case, guards premeditatedly rushed into his cell, claiming falsely he was attempting to hang himself, put a thick string around his neck and began choking him. Their designs to strangle him to death were foiled only because the string broke.

During 2003, another Connecticut prisoner, a Black man named Lawrence Frazier, was electrocuted to death by numerous Wallens Ridge guards while he was restrained to a steel bed frame by his extremities. The death was dismissed as caused by insulin shock, however an examining doctor found the electrocutions contributed to, if not caused, his death.

A documentary, “Up the Ridge,” was filmed by a local radio group exposing the racism and abuses surrounding the prison and reporting on Frazier’s killing.

During 2001, I was myself the victim of a brutal assault by a mob of Wallens Ridge guards, including two who beat Plummer just months later. In my case, I was drawn out of my segregation cell while fully unrestrained by a guard G. Sexton, inviting me to an off-the-record one-on-one fight – what we call “a fair one” in prison. His intentions, however, weren’t to fight but to set me up for a mob attack.

Sexton never once put up a fight, but was knocked down almost immediately and began screaming for backup. I was subdued without resisting and upon being handcuffed and shackled was repeatedly kicked in the face and head, electrocuted with multiple 50,000 volt stun weapons, had all but three of my then almost 2-foot-long dreadlocks systematically ripped out, and was left with multiple facial lacerations that had to be stitched closed, burns across my upper body and arms, and blood red and purple contusions covering the entire whites of my eyes across their front halves.

The attack was covered up by Wallens Ridge officials at all levels and Internal Affairs agents who destroyed pod surveillance camera footage of the attack, moved all vocal prisoner witnesses to other units and colluded on reports claiming all my injuries were inflicted by Sexton defending himself against an unanticipated attack by me when the cell “accidentally” opened. At first they’d claimed I opened it, whereas Sexton himself told guards in the control booth to open it.

What’s more, Wallens Ridge’s present warden, Gregory Halloway, has subjected me to extensive past torture while a unit manager at Greensville Correctional Center, during 1998. At that time he kept me on an illegal status, called “white cell status,” when I was left for eight months, even during winter, with nothing inside the cell but one pair of boxer shorts. No property was permitted. I could not even brush my teeth and ended up having to have several filled for cavities as a result. I was only allowed a mattress and bedding from 10 p.m. through 6 a.m. I contracted the flu, sinus infections and colds. Throughout the white cell confinement, my cell window to the outside was broken, letting in freezing cold outside temperatures.

While on white cell status, Holloway accused me of knocking him unconscious in the medical department while my blood pressure was being taken with my hands cuffed, supposedly in response to his torturing me. I remained on white cell status until I was transferred to Red Onion in 1998 from Greensville.

Therefore not only is Holloway an official who’s known to illegally torture and abuse – and will admit having me on that illegal status – but one who has cause for vengeance against me. It is highly unlikely I can expect to receive any semblance of just treatment under him, nor that he would act to prevent threatened abuses. Indeed it is probable that he is privy to such abuses.

Furthermore, Holloway is but a token Black figurehead, recently appointed to Wallens Ridge to counter a widespread image and reputation for racism like at Red Onion. Similarly, at Red Onion, a token Black warden was appointed in the early 2000s, under whose supervision racism and abuse escalated. Indeed, he went out of his way to avoid making waves with the local entrenched white supremacist status quo that de facto ran Red Onion, as it does Wallens Ridge.

Dark faces in high places is today’s chief tactic for masking institutionalized racism.

Conclusion

If officials did not send me to Wallens Ridge with deviant designs, then this admits I qualify to be housed at any other Virginia Department of Corrections prison of the same Level 5 security classification, such as Sussex One or Two State Prisons, where a more racially diverse and tolerant staff exists. At Wallens Ridge and Red Onion, I and other politically active prisoners and those who challenge abuses have been targeted in a clear pattern with official violence and abuse.

This icon of the California hunger strikes, now recognized around the world, was drawn by brilliant artist and writer Rashid Johnson. It inspired 12,000 prisoners in California and more across the U.S. and as far away as Palestine and Australia to defy the state by starving themselves.

It’s my request to supporters and readers to raise as much protest and awareness about this situation as possible and press for my reassignment to a less volatile and more racially diverse and tolerant environment, such as the Sussex prisons. And to also be aware of the foul conditions that we live under on these razor wire plantations. For me, it just went from bad to worse.

Dare to struggle! Dare to win!

All Power to the People!

About Rashid and how you can help

Kevin “Rashid” Johnson is a long-time revolutionary prison organizer, accomplished artist, Marxist theoretician and the Minister of Defense of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter (NABPP-PC). He has been held in segregation for the past 19 years, since 1993. Some of his writings have been published in the book “Defying the Tomb” (Kersplebedeb, 2010), available from leftwingbooks.net and AK Press. Its foreword is by Russell “Maroon” Shoats, introduction by Tom Big Warrior and afterword by Sundiata Acoli.

More of his writings and artwork are featured on his website, rashidmod.com. In 2011, from Virginia, Rashid added his voice to those of thousands supporting the demands of California prisoners hunger-striking against isolation torture; his writings have been banned in many California prisons.

To read Rashid’s account of deteriorating conditions at Red Onion State Prison and the assault by guards on Dec., 12, 2011, see rashidmod.com. Rashid can be contacted at: Kevin Johnson, 1007485, Wallens Ridge State Prison, P.O. Box 759, Big Stone Gap, VA 24219.

Supporting Prisoners and Acting for Radical Change (SPARC) is a non-sectarian revolutionary mass organization based in Virginia and Washington, D.C., focused on building effective opposition to the prison-industrial complex. SPARC is demanding that the staff of Red Onion and Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) cease their consistent campaign of targeted physical violence, harassment and administrative repression against the cadre of the NABPP-PC, which is clearly being carried out with the intention of suppressing the basic human and democratic rights of prisoners in VDOC facilities. Furthermore, SPARC supports Rashid’s request to be transferred to a less hostile environment, for instance one of the Sussex prisons.

Sign the petition: A petition to support an end to political repression against the NABPP can be downloaded from http://www.kersplebedeb.com/vdoc_petition.pdf. It is also posted as an online petition at Change.org. Spread the word!

Protest to the director of corrections: People are also encouraged to contact VDOC Director Harold Clarke in support of these demands: Harold W. Clarke, Director, Department of Corrections, P.O. Box 26963, Richmond, VA 23261-6963. His phone is (804) 674-3119, fax (804) 674-3509 and email harold.clarke@vadoc.virginia.gov.

Please send copies of all correspondence to SPARC, P.O. Box 345, Floyd VA, 24091.

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

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

The Bay View thanks Kersplebedeb for typing and transmitting this letter with afterword. Kersplebedeb can be reached at info@kersplebedeb.com.

The Israeli Palestine conflict is often the story of Palestinians killed in defense of their lands occupied by Israel, whose blood is leading the oppressed nation to a gradual but final victory.
Mustafa Tamimi was a 28-year-old resident of the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. His meticulously trimmed beard served as the centerpiece of his handsome face. In December 2011, when an Israeli soldier shot him from a short distance with a tear gas canister, half of Mustafa’s face went missing. More soldiers laughed as his horrified family tried to accompany him to a nearby hospital, according to activists present at the scene. Only the mother was finally able to obtain a special permit from the Israeli military, which allowed her to be with her son.
Mustafa’s crime? He, along with Palestinians, Israeli and international peace activists, protested the besiegement of Nabi Saleh by the illegal Jewish settlement of Halamish which has existed since 1977 and drastically grown in size and population ever since, taking over privately-owned Palestinian land.
Nabi Saleh, on the other hand, has been struggling for mere survival as its fresh water spring has been seized by settlers under the watchful eye of the Israeli army. Mustafa died so that the village of Nabi Saleh could live. The struggle will continue for years.
The young man may now be gone, but he also left behind a legacy which has become the cornerstone of the augmenting international solidarity with Palestinians around the globe. The struggle for justice in Palestine is ultimately between a Palestinian – protesting, with a rock or rifle in hand – and an Israeli, often equipped with the latest killing technology the arms industry has to offer. The former fights for basic rights – land, water, freedom, equality and such – while the latter is determined to intimidate, silence, imprison, and, when compelled, commit murder or ever large scale massacres to prolong Israeli occupation and military dominance over Palestinians. Things are not always so clear-cut. of course. Some Palestinians have learned with time the benefits of co-existing with the occupation. Some Israelis have jointly struggled with Palestinians against the inhumanity of the occupation, the brutality of the military and the illegality of the land seizure.
One such Israeli is Tamar Fleishman, of Machsom Watch. She is simply indefatigable. Her mission is to document the daily violation committed by the Israeli army at a series of checkpoints extending between Ramallah A(in the West Bank) and Jerusalem. Showing a complete disregard for international law. and even the official foreign policy of the United States, Israel has insisted that the entirety of Jerusalem is Israel’s eternal capital. But illegally occupied East Jerusalem – or al-Quds – has been the beating heart of Palestinian national, religious and even intellectual identity for many generations. To split the heart  from the body, Israel has been choking occupied East Jerusalem since 1967, encircling it with illegal Jewish settlements, Jewish-only bypass roads, and a dizzying checkpoint structure intended to create a permanent divorce between the West Bank and a city that Palestinians see as their future capital. Armed with a camera and her own willpower, Tamar is relentless. She knows  by name all the tired-looking children who sell tea in plastic cups, newspapers and gum at all the checkpoints. She narrates their stories of humiliation, pain and struggle. She tells of the people crammed between glass walls, barbed wire and blocks of cement. As long as these women and men keep the checkpoints populated, Jerusalem will maintain its historic attachment with the rest of Palestine. And Tamar, the habitual visitor of these very spots, will resume her daily toil to convey the stories that capture the essence of this enduring conflict.
But without the numerous media outlets that challenge the inherent pro-Israeli biases, censorship and apathy of mainstream media, Mustafa’s story and Tamar’s photos would have remained confined to Nabi Saleh, or some checkpoint manned by cruel soldiers. In fact, the story of Palestine is getting more than a good share of coverage in old and new alternative media outlets. 2011 has concluded on a positive note as far as media coverage of this conflict is concerned. In an article entitled “The media consensus on Israel is collapsing,” Jordan Michael Smith reveals that “slowly but unmistakably, space opening up  among  the commentariat for new, critical ideas about Israel and its relationship to the United States” (salon.com, December 21).
While Smith rightly credits the academics Tony Judt, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer for “expanding the permissible,” the pressure on mainstream media has been obstinately championed by numerous individuals from all walks of life. It is they, who for many years, refused to subscribe to the convenient narrative that venerates and vindicates Israel – not only at the expense of Palestinians, but at the expense of the United States’ foreign policy. The popular solidarity movement continues to score new victories with each passing day. Israel’s attempt at countering its gains seem to achieve little more than inviting controversy, which actually recruits more support for Palestinian rights.
One platform that has become very successful in recent years, and particularly so in 2011, was the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. “The BDS movement is growing relentlessly, wrote Eric Walberg, author and editor at al-Ahram Weekly. His ‘BDS Updates’ regularly highlight the overwhelming success of the worldwide initiative that is partly modeled on the triumphant anti-Apartheid movement of South Africa. His year-ender updates for 2011 included the cancellation of an Israel tour by the famous musician Natacha Atlas (though sadly, not all artist were so principled.) Walberg also reported that “in a wonderfully shocking divestment move, Israel powers-that-be are furious at BNP Paribas for shutting down its operation in Israel. (They) believe the bank’s board of directors caved to pressure groups, in the first case in years of foreign bank leaving Israel…” Such reports are now stable items crowding social media channels on a regular basis. True, 2011 had its share of tragedy. Human lives were lost in Palestine. But hope was also sustained be the sacrifices of numerous ‘ordinary’ people who collectively managed to achieve many hard-earned feats. It is these numerous small victories that will make it difficult for Israel to continue with its futile campaign to occupy and dominate a people so determinately entrenched in their land – from the small village of Nabi Saleh to the proud Palestinian city of al-Quds.

RB/AZ

-Ramzy BAroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter. Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).

A proposal passed Jan. 10 by the General Assembly of Occupy Oakland stumps, one might be unaware that America is the international leader in incarceration with no competition in sight. Monday, Feb. 20, amidst American Black History Month, has also been declared by the United Nations as “World Day of Social Justice.”

The call coincides with a recent call to action by supporters of Mumia Abu Jamal to condemn solitary confinement as a means of torture. Mumia had been transferred to solitary for seven weeks after leaving Death Row. The call also comes amidst growing awareness of the relationship between Wall Street, prisons, prison labor and paid lobbyists pushing policies that create more prisoners.

The call for a National Occupy Day in Support of Prisoners comes amidst growing awareness of the relationship between Wall Street, prisons, prison labor and paid lobbyists pushing policies that create more prisoners.

We are calling for Feb. 20, 2012, to be a National Occupy Day in Support of Prisoners. In the Bay Area we will Occupy San Quentin to stand in solidarity with the people confined within its walls and to demand the end of the incarceration as a means of containing those dispossessed by unjust social policies.

Reasons

Prisons have become a central institution in American society, integral to our politics, economy and culture.

Between 1976 and 2000, the United States built on average a new prison each week and the number of imprisoned Americans increased tenfold.

Prison has made the threat of torture part of everyday life for millions of individuals in the United States, especially the 7.3 million people – who are disproportionately people of color – currently incarcerated or under correctional supervision.

Imprisonment itself is a form of torture. The typical American prison, juvenile hall and detainment camp is designed to maximize degradation, brutalization and dehumanization.

Mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow. Between 1970 and 1995, the incarceration of African Americans increased 7 times. Currently African Americans make up 12 percent of the population in the U.S. but 53 percent of the nation’s prison population. There are more African Americans under correctional control today – in prison or jail, on probation or parole – than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.

Mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow. There are more African Americans under correctional control today – in prison or jail, on probation or parole – than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.

The prison system is the most visible example of policies of punitive containment of the most marginalized and oppressed in our society. Prior to incarceration, two thirds of all prisoners lived in conditions of economic hardship – while the perpetrators of white-collar crime largely go free.

In addition, the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated that in 2008 alone there was a loss in economic input associated with people released from prison equal to $57 billion to $65 billion.

We call on Occupies across the country to support:

1. Abolishing unjust sentences, such as the death penalty, life without the possibility of parole, three strikes, juvenile life without parole, and the practice of trying children as adults.

2. Standing in solidarity with movements initiated by prisoners and taking action to support prisoner demands, including the Georgia Prison Strike and the Pelican Bay/California Prisoners Hunger Strikes.

3. Freeing political prisoners, such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Lynne Stewart, Bradley Manning and Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald, a Black Panther Party member incarcerated since 1969.

4. Demanding an end to the repression of activists, specifically the targeting of African Americans and those with histories of incarceration, such as Khali of Occupy Oakland, who could now face a life sentence on trumped-up charges, and many others being falsely charged after only exercising their First Amendment rights.

5. Demanding an end to the brutality of the current system, including the torture of those who have lived for many years in Security Housing Units (SHUs) or in other forms of solitary confinement.

6. Demanding that our tax money spent on isolating, harming and killing prisoners instead be invested in improving the quality of life for all and be spent on education, housing, health care, mental health care and other human services which contribute to the public good.

Bay Area

On Feb. 20, 12 noon-3 p.m., we will organize in front of San Quentin, where male death row prisoners are housed, where Stanley Tookie Williams was immorally executed by the state of California in 2005 and where Kevin Cooper, an innocent man on death row, is currently imprisoned.

At this demonstration, through prisoners’ writings and other artistic and political expressions, we will express the voices of the people who have been inside the walls. The organizers of this action will reach out to the community for support and participation. We will contact social service organizations, faith institutions, labor organizations, schools, prisoners, former prisoners and their family members.

Get a ride or give a ride at 10 a.m. at either Oscar Grant Plaza, 14th and Broadway, Oakland, or 1540 Market St., San Francisco.

National and international outreach

We will reach out to Occupies across the country to have similar demonstrations outside of prisons, jails, juvenile halls and detainment facilities or other actions as such groups deem appropriate. We will also reach out to Occupies outside of the United States and will seek to attract international attention and support.

Endorsers include Angela Davis, California Coalition for Women Prisoners, Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Jack Bryson, Kevin Cooper Defense Committee, Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu Jamal, Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu Jamal, National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, Occupied Oakland Tribune, Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression, Prison Activist Resource Center, Prison Watch Network, San Francisco Bay View newspaper, All of Us or None, Critical Resistance, Michelle Alexander, Occupy SF and the Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Network.

“Social justice is more than an ethical imperative, it is a foundation for national stability and global prosperity. Equal opportunity, solidarity and respect for human rights – these are essential to unlocking the full productive potential of nations and peoples.” – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Anti-prison activist Bruce Reilly can be reached on his blog, Unprison, where this story first appeared.