July 8: Mobilize to Support the Prisoner Hunger Strikes!
Posted 10 years ago on July 2, 2013, 7:07 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Tags:
california,
days of action,
prisoner rights
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Unless the Governor and the Department of Corrections take decisive action, prisoners throughout California will resume a hunger strike and work stoppage ONE WEEK FROM TODAY to protest the torturous conditions in solitary confinement--and other parts of the prison system.
Stand in Solidarity with the Hunger Strike and other Job Actions Being Called for July 8th!
Communities across the state, country, and world plan on taking action to help the strikers win their demands. [Ed. Note: Including this noise demo in Seattle, among many other places outside California!]
Sign up for updates [and find local actions, more info, background, prisoners' demands, resources, endorsers of the actions, etc] at prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com.
Wherever you are, please take some form of action on July 8th. Big or small, every voice counts!
Click here for more: http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
On Twitter: @CAhungerstrike
On this Day of Action, we're asking for people all over the world to do whatever they can to draw attention to the struggle of these prisoners against torturous conditions-- public rallies, banner drops, candlelight vigils, marches and other forms of public demonstration.
We strongly encourage that these actions center the Five Core Demands made by the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike prisoners:
**1. End Group Punishment & Administrative Abuse.
- Abolish the Debriefing Policy, and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria.
- Comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons 2006. Recommendations Regarding an End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement.
- Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food.
- Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for those living in the SHU.**
We also hope that your actions will join the coalition and the strikers in demanding that the Governor and the CDCR enter into good-faith and accountable negotiations with the strikers immediately.
For more information about the Five Core Demands, please visit http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com
People who stand up to organize events on the Day of Action (or any other date) are asked to act in true solidarity by following these guidelines from the Coalition based on communication with the prisoners:
- Support the prisoners by advocating for the Five Core Demands rather than agitating for other goals or our own demands.
- Remember that the prisoners chose a "nonviolent peaceful protest" and plan your solidarity actions with that spirit in mind.
- Honor the strikers, their loved ones, supporters, and the larger community of prisoner-rights and anti-prison organizations by refusing to claim leadership of the solidarity campaign.
Let us know what you have planned and we'll add it to our Action Calendar for all to see.
To add your event, please click here. http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/take-action-2/add-your-event/
And, if you are in California, please support the statewide mobilization to Corcoran State Prison on July, 13! Details below.
Mobilization to Support the Prisoner Hunger Strikes
Corcoran State Prison
Saturday July 13, 2013
facebook event
Rides available by bus and carpool. Contact rachel-at-criticalresistance.org or 510-444-0484
Caravans will leave from MacArthur BART in Oakland at 9:00 AM and Chuco’s Justice Center in Inglewood at 9:00AM. We will gather at Cesar Chavez Park in Corcoran (1500 Oregon) at 2PM and then march to Corcoran State Prison where our demands will be heard!
In 2011, over 12,000 California state prisoners engaged in a hunger strike to end long term solitary confinement and to demand changes to the way that prisoners are assigned to torturous cells, known as the SHU (security housing units). Although the Department of Corrections acknowledged that their demands were reasonable and would be addressed - very little has changed for California prisoners since 2011. California is still spending millions of dollars a year to keep people in solitary confinement for decades!
Statewide Hunger Strikes Resume
On July 8, 2013 California Prisoners will begin an indefinite hunger strike and work strike until meaningful changes are made within the Department of Corrections.
On July 13, 2013 we will rally at Corcoran State Prison to show our support for the prisoners and pressure Jerry Brown to meet their demands! Like Pelican Bay, Corcoran isolates nearly 2,000 people in solitary confinement.
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Thank you peoples for that you support my country. Love from Bulgaria. Thank you Egypt Brazil Anonymous Turkey Greece...and all other good peoples from no matter where they live. Stand in Solidarity = OK I am with you evolution+revolution=better world.
Bill Hicks best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e02rn2FJe9o
If an inmate brutally murders his cellmate then he deserves more than 5 days in solitary, and really come on, torture. What the Vietnamese did to American soldiers is torture. Sitting in a room by you're self isn't torture. Now there has been abuse in prison systems but come on, it's also wrong that prisoners can get tv in their cells.
Really??? Go spend a month in a walk-in closet - empty it 1st - meals delivered to you there - be sure to have a bucket handy so you don't have to break the experience to go to the bathroom - or if you don't like that idea - Remove every thing from your bathroom and spend a month there - promise not to shower - that would not make the experience real. OH - and remember to block the window ( if it has one ) wouldn't want you to be distracted.
If you murder someone or rape a young girl then you deserve that, frankly in the majority of prisons they aren't shitting in a bucket.
Do you have a toilet in your walk-in closet? NO ? That is why you were given the option of spending the time in your bathroom.
Neither part of your comment addresses what you said previously =
"Sitting in a room by you're self isn't torture."
When you are placed in solitary - you do not leave that room.
Because it isn't, torture is intentional physical harm.
Psychological torture is so much worse than physical torture.I have experienced both.The scars of the physical torture I have endured have no influence on my life now,but the scars of psychological torture have continuously had a negative impact on my life.When you have experienced psychological torture and PTSD,your opinions on the subject will carry far more weight.But it is my hope that your life NEVER includes any for of torture.
Bullshit = Because it isn't, torture is intentional physical harm.
Go live in your Bathroom for a month - do not leave it - do not shower while you are there - no radio - no Tv - no window to look out of - no reading material - the only breaks in your day being when a food tray is slipped through a slot in the door. Do That - Then Come Back And Tell Me What a Cake walk it was.
MURDERERS AND RAPISTS DO NOT DESERVE TV OR RADIO, if they are in there then they are in there for a reason. It would suck living in a bathroom for a month but frankly you and me don't have to because we are not violent criminals.
They send pot smokers and shoplifters to the very same place.
Torture is wrong no matter who you do it to.
FORCING anyone to live in a virtual cage IS torture.
that's why they do it.
Pot smokers and shoplifters usually aren't cell mates with a rapist, most of the time they don't go to solitary.
They're in the same facility.
PS, nice hedge with "usually". At least you can admit that it could happen.
Anyway......No matter how you cut it, putting people in cages IS a form of torture.
Psychical and psychological.
When you say cages do you mean normal prison cells?
What's normal about a prison "cell?
You're still avoiding the FACT that prisons are a form of torture.
That's ridiculous, so what would you do wih a child rapist or a gangbanger who killed a few people in a drive by.
Start answering the questions asked by me and others, and we may be able to talk, but as I see it, you are just avoiding the simple FACT that prison is a form of torture.
I guess there are some people you enjoy torturing?
Prison isn't torture, if you break the law then you need to be punished. Having a bed and three hot meals a day isn't torture, prison is dirty and can be dangerous bit it isn't torture.
Again not the point of your earlier comment = "Sitting in a room by you're self isn't torture."
Pray you are never in the wrong place at the wrong time - and arrested prosecuted and convicted.
Don't start with the line that a lot of rapists and murderers are innocent and were convicted solely on their presence and race.
Living in the California State Prison system is not TV, radio and 3 meals a day. It is MENTAL and PHYSICAL torture. In addition to unhealthy food, incompetent medical and mental health care, living in an unsafe environment that is more crowded than sardines in a can, where the cops stand by and watch prisoners gang up on one another and beat someone to death and don't do anything about it... heaven forbid they actually do the job they are being paid to do... inmates are physically and verbally abused by prison staff in such an inhumane manner that they would be prosecuted if they treated an animal that way...but since they are unaccountable to the public they get away with it. In violation of Title 15 regulations. It is so bad that I am no longer proud to be an American since obviously our Bill of Rights that is supposed to protect us from cruel and unusual punishment is BULLSHIT. Also, the punishment is supposed to fit the crime. Yeah right. Not in California. Your posts display your ignorance.
Nope won't go there - though it does happen a lot.
Lets stick with your 1st misstatement = "Sitting in a room by you're self isn't torture." BullShit.
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