California
Prisoners Set to Hunger Strike July 8
Who:
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition
What: California Prisoners Begin 3rd Peaceful Hunger Strike and Work Actions
When: Monday, July 8, 2013, 11am
Where: Elihu Harris CA State Office Building, 1515 Clay St, Oakland, CA
What: California Prisoners Begin 3rd Peaceful Hunger Strike and Work Actions
When: Monday, July 8, 2013, 11am
Where: Elihu Harris CA State Office Building, 1515 Clay St, Oakland, CA
Oakland—Family
members,
advocates, and lawyers will announce their support for the peaceful
hunger strike and job actions beginning today throughout the California
prisons
starting on Monday July 8. Prisoners
have been clear since January that they are willing to starve
themselves unless
the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)
agrees to negotiate
honestly about their demands.
On
June
20, prisoners being held in solitary confinement at the
notorious Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit describe their
actions:
“The principal prisoner
representatives from the PBSP SHU Short Corridor
Collective Human Rights Movement does hereby present public
notice that
our nonviolent peaceful protest of our subjection to decades of
indefinite
state-sanctioned torture, via long term solitary confinement will
resume today,
consisting of a hunger strike/work stoppage of indefinite duration
until CDCR
signs a legally binding agreement meeting our demands, the heart of
which
mandates an end to long-term solitary confinement (as well as
additional major
reforms).
Our decision does not come lightly. For the
past (2) years
we’ve patiently kept an open dialogue with state officials, attempting
to hold
them to their promise to implement meaningful reforms, responsive to
our
demands. For the past seven months we have repeatedly pointed out
CDCR’s
failure to honor their word—and we have explained in detail the ways in
which
they’ve acted in bad faith and what they need to do to avoid the
resumption of
our protest action.
On June 19, 2013, we participated in a
mediation session
ordered by the Judge in our class action lawsuit, which unfortunately
did not
result in CDCR officials agreeing to settle the case on acceptable
terms. While
the mediation process will likely continue, it is clear to us that we
must be
prepared to renew our political non-violent protest on July 8th to stop
torture
in the SHUs and Ad-Segs of CDCR.
Thus we are presently out of alternative
options for
achieving the long overdue reform to this system and, specifically, an
end to
state-sanctioned torture, and now we have to put our lives on the line
via
indefinite hunger strike to force CDCR to do what’s right.
We are certain that we will prevail…. the
only questions
being: How many will die starvation-related deaths before state
officials sign
the agreement?
The world is watching!”
While
the CDCR has claimed to have
made reforms to its SHU system—how a prisoner ends up in the solitary
units,
for how long, and how they can go about getting released into the
general
population—prisoners’ rights advocates and family members point out
that the
CDCR has potentially broadened the use of solitary confinement, and
that
conditions in the SHUs continue to constitute grave human rights
violations. The California prison system
currently holds over
10,000 prisoners in solitary confinement units, with dozens having
spent more
than 20 years each in isolation. Conditions in Pelican Bay State
Prison’s SHU
sparked massive waves of hunger strikes in 2011 that saw the
participation of 12,000
prisoners in at least a third of California’s 33 prisons.
For
more
information visit: https://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
Questions and comments may be sent to claude@freedomarchives.org
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SIGN THE JERICHO COINTELPRO PETITION!
Free All Political Prisoners!
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