Budget Cuts and the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike

[Keith Millea]

The California prison hunger strike probably will not receive a lot a publicity.The situation NOW though,is starting to get serious.So,I think it is important to give a voice to those prisoners who are putting their lives on the line,for really,just very basic human rights.

Published on Friday, July 15, 2011 by The Nation

Budget Cuts and the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike

by Allison Kilkenny

Prisoners in California's Pelican Bay State Prison's Secure Housing Unit (SHU) began an indefinite hunger strike two weeks ago, and the reports coming in are harrowing.
The Prison Reform Movement posted a testimonial earlier in the week from a SHU nurse, who stated the prisoners have not been drinking water and there have been "rapid and severe" consequences, adding that nurses are crying, and some of the prisoners have been unable to make urine for three days.


The prisoners began the strike "in order to draw attention to, and to peacefully protest, twenty-five years of torture via [California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation]'s arbitrary, illegal, and progressively more punitive policies and practices," according to their official statement, dated July 1, 2011.

Those torturous conditions (years of confinement in steel, windowless cages for more than twenty-two hours a day, no real access to natural light or human contact) are likely to only get worse during these times of economic austerity.

Much attention was paid to Gov. Jerry Brown's plans to "realign" the prison system in order to reduce overcrowding and save the state money, but these orders followed months of harsh cuts that left prisons unable to adequately care for and supervise the hundreds of thousands of prisoners left in California's incarceration system.

In May, Brown eliminated more than 400 positions at CDCR, in addition to 5,550 positions statewide. The move terminated 33 executive-level jobs at Corrections, and more than 100 management and supervisory positions.

Many rightly criticized the whopping annual state prison payroll of $2 billion. However, California's huge prison budget doesn't stem from prisoners dining on caviar and lobster. The budget exploded because of "three strike" laws that rapidly expanded the jailed population.

But even without such unfair laws, California's prison system would still be in trouble, according to the LA Times. Growing numbers of inmates arrive with communicable diseases (nearly a fourth of them have the tuberculosis virus), one in five has mental problems or brain damage, staffing numbers are already among the lowest in the country, and although a third of its employees are women, the department has a history of sexual discrimination. Furthermore, the department has an especially difficult time locating new employees to fill open positions in desolated locales where new prisons are opening.

While some of the Pelican Bay prisoners' demands don't hinge on their prison being sufficiently funded (things like eliminating collective punishment, for example, can be done for free,) other items such as providing better, more nutritious food and expanding constructive programs will cost the state money, and during a time of budget cuts, the governor isn't likely to lend a sympathetic ear to society's pariahs.

Brown will likely be able to neglect the prison system without a majority of his constituents retaliating against him in the voting booths. Unlike when he slashed school spending by $1 billion, Brown is this time neglecting a population that many people feel deserve whatever comes to them, even though, let's remember, prisons are supposed to rehabilitate individuals, and are not simply caves into which we throw and abandon human beings, leaving them to die.

Additionally, movements like the Innocence Project have proven that innocent men and women are incarcerated all the time, and this should always be remembered when political leaders adopt cavalier "to hell with em all" attitudes.




© 2011 The Nation


Allison Kilkenny is the co-host of the progressive political podcast Citizen Radio (wearecitizenradio.com) and independent journalist who blogs at allisonkilkenny.com. Her work has appeared in The American Prospect, the L.A. Times, In These Times, Common Dreams, Truthout and the award-winning grassroots NYC newspaper The Indypendent.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/15-6

[Jan Klimkowski]

The California prison hunger strike probably will not receive a lot a publicity.The situation NOW though,is starting to get serious.So,I think it is important to give a voice to those prisoners who are putting their lives on the line,for really,just very basic human rights.

Keith - I totally agree.

However, I can just imagine Faux News' "fair and balanced" coverage of prisoners going on hunger strike. The neo-fascist presenters will likely be whooping it up and counting down the days.....

[Keith Millea]

"Democracy Now!" has an excellent story on the Pelican Bay hunger strike.You can read the transcript,or watch the segment at the link below.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/15/pr...california

Man,they're already talkin' Bobby Sands.........

From Wiki:

Robert Gerard "Bobby" Sands (Irish: Roibeárd Gearóid Ó Seachnasaigh;[1] 9 March 1954 5 May 1981) was an Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and member of the United Kingdom Parliament who died on hunger strike while imprisoned in HM Prison Maze.
He was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the removal of Special Category Status. During his strike he was elected as a member of the United Kingdom Parliament as an Anti H-Block/Armagh Political Prisoner candidate.[2][3] His death resulted in a new surge of IRA recruitment and activity. International media coverage brought attention to the hunger strikers, and the republican movement in general, attracting both praise and criticism.[4]

[Keith Millea]

Apparently,there is one death being reported by inmates so far.Also,there are reports of inmates that are in dire shape.This could/will get ugly,no doubt..........

Urgent state-sponsored prison torture protests uniting inmates, churches, towns


Deborah Dupre

, Human Rights Examiner
July 15, 2011

Rights defenders, peace workers from all creeds and religions rally in defense of state-sponosered torture victims in American prisons

As some 6000 participating inmates in thirteen California state prisons ended a second week of their historic hunger strike protesting what some human rights defenders identify as torture, this largest coordinated protest by state inmates is uniting over 300 religious groups and communities from California communities to Harlem to stand in solidarity with abused inmates and against US state-sponsored torture, while more inmates are dying from hunger and California state government officials conduct a disinformation campaign according to rights advocates.

California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's state government is continuing its "disinformation campaign" about the hunger strike, declaring it was "probably synchronized … through organized criminal networks" reported SFGate of the San Francisco Chronicle Thursday.

Terry Thornton, a California's state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) spokesperson said, "This goes to show the power, influence and reach of prison gangs. Some people are doing it because they want to do it, and some are being ordered to do it."

Human rights defenders supporting the strikers dismissed the gang ties, and told the Chronicle that prison inmates across the California rallied to support the 150 prisoners who started the hunger protest inside Pelican Bay Prison's Secured Housing Unit.

Oakland attorney, Carol Strickland who is working with the hunger strikers, stated, "I don't think this is something that represents gang control. This was an unusual example of unity among groups within the CDCR, and that's knocked them back in a way.

"Here, the CDCR has managed to unite the groups inmates are seeing their enemy is not the brown person across the way."
Strickland and other rights defenders are proving to be correct now that others across the nation are standing in solidarity with the Pelican Bay prisoners, just as inmates have done.

Over 300 religious groups have called on the California government to respond to the inmates striking and solidarity fasts and other actions are surfacing across the US to end torture and cruel and unusual punishment in California prisons.

The group that in May 2011, submitted a formal complaint to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, requesting his office to "investigate the widespread use of long-term isolation for prisoners in the United States in what are known as supermax prisons," the National Religious Campaign Against Torture issued a statement on Friday advising that California state government must respond to the hunger strikers.

The ongoing hunger strike by California inmates has strengthened unity and is increasing membership in a consortium of national denominations and faith groups, regional organizations and local congregations according to Executive Director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture Rev. Richard Kilmer in a statement released on Friday to the Examiner. Rev. Kilmer explained that hunger strikes are the last resort a person takes when tortured.

"Hunger strikes are the last resort of prisoners protesting inhumane confinement conditions," Rev. Kilmer said.

"We have seen prisoners protest their treatment in this manner at Guantanamo Bay, and now inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison in northern California among various other prisons in California are taking similar drastic measures."

At Pelican Bay Prison, hundreds of prisoners are held in prolonged solitary confinement, a practice that qualifies as torture due to its destructive physical and psychological effects on human beings according to Rev. Kilmer.

"Conditions are so bad in California, these inmates prefer to starve themselves possibly to death rather than live another week in prolonged solitary confinement," Rev. Kilmer stated on Friday.

"The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) vehemently believes that even those convicted of crimes are human beings with inherent dignity and worth, and they deserve humane treatment."

NRCAT, headed by Rev. Kilmer, is a coalition of religious organizations committed to ending torture sponsored by or enabled by federal or state government in the United States.

"Our members' moral convictions and our commitments to international and constitutional protections against cruel and inhumane treatment require that we call on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to respond to the prisoners' reasonable demands, put an end to its egregious use of prolonged solitary confinement, and take immediate steps to improve the conditions in California's prisons."

NRCAT works to end what it states is U.S.-sponsored torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in American prisons. Since January 2006 when NRCAT formed, over 300 religious organizations have joined it, including Catholics, evangelical Christians, mainline Protestants, Unitarian Universalists, Quakers, Orthodox Christians, Jewish, Muslims, Hindus, Baha'is, Buddhists, and Sikhs.

Type of inmate inspiration that led the historic prisoner hunger strike

In an update about the hunger strike in its first days, the following was written by an inmate at California's Corcoran Prison about a fellow inmate, 57-year old Haribu Mugabi Soriono, an imprisoned human rights worker. (See: //prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/voices-from-inside/a-brief-update-from-the-front-lines-of-the-struggle-at-corcoran/)

"There has been an unfortunate development here, and though we knew the probability of this occurring was high, we didn't know it would come this sudden. At approximately 1845 hrs. (6:45 pm) for picking up trash and trays from our white and northern Mexican brothers, one of the CEOs here began to call our staunch a beloved brother Haribu Mugabi Soriono's name repeatedly. He did not respond. She notified the tower 'Soriono's unresponsive, called EMT and notify the watch commander.'

"Then the alarm was triggered. Multiple custody and medical staff responded, but because Haribu was unconscious he could not comply with their directions to come to the door and cuff-up. A tactile team was assembled and they entered his cell. As they were putting him in mechanical restraints he regained consciousness briefly, and quickly lost it again. EMTs arrived, he was secured to the gurney and rushed by ambulance to A.C.H. (Hosptial) where he remains.

"Comrade Haribu is a 57-year-old veteran prisoner and human rights activist who just waged and won a protracted battle with cancer (Leukemia) and suffers from multiple chronic medical conditions, yet he started fasting two days before the hunger strike started, in solidarity with our Afrikan brothers and sisters in the Horn of Afrika suffering famine and death with no food or water because of a 2-year drought.

"A beloved brother went five days without eating, knowing his body was already severely damaged to uphold our collective pursuit of basic human rights and dignity. This brother brave death to free us all from torture without end, and to make you all aware that it's being carried out right here in the borders of your nation; not halfway around the world in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, or some CIA blacksite No Right Here in Pelican Bay, Corcoran, and Tehachapi SHUs; human experimentation torture units are being ran and expanded. Haribu is an inspiration to us all, a hero of the people, and his undaunted fighting spirit abides with us all.

"Pray for our beloved brother and comrade pray for us all."

San Francisco to Harlem, rights defenders standing in solidarity with inmates ask other human rights and peace groups to do same

Isolation used as punishment in prisons across the country confines prisoners alone in a cell, 23 hours a day, for weeks, months, and even years, a condition that would result in charges against people if they did the same to pets. Some inmates are released from these conditions directly to their families when they complete their prison sentence. NRCAT works to enable people of all faiths to advocate for legislation that would limit or end the use of isolation.

As for some of the now dying California inmates, a prison spokesperson told San Francisco Chronicle that the prison staff will not force-feed inmates, but will allow them to die. Some are already in renal failure.

World Can't Wait activists in San Francisco have joined daily protests all week and encourage citizens across the nation to find a way to "speak out and protest, whether in the streets, or via letters to the editor, calls to radio shows, or to CA prison officials."

An "Emergency Demonstration & Speak Out" will be held Saturday, July 16 at noon in Harlem in solidarity with Prisoners on Hunger Strike at Pelican Bay State Prison's Security Housing Unit (SHU). The demonstration will be at the State Office Building, Harlem, 125th St. & Adam Clayton Powell Blvd.

Travis Morales, of Revolution Books stated Friday, "Some of the prisoners are close to death. All people and voices of conscience need to step forward urgently! This is the most significant resistance by prisoners in the U.S. to torture and inhumane and barbaric conditions since Attica, 40 years ago.

"By standing up and resisting, these prisoners are asserting their own humanity, and by doing so, challenging others to reclaim their humanity by standing with the prisoners. Everyone should ask themselves what it says about the conditions that prisoners face that they are willing to starve to death rather than live another day with torture and barbaric treatment. People everywhere need to know about these prisoners, why they are on a hunger strike, and on that basis support them."

Morales highlights that conditions in the Pelican Prison Security Housing Unit are similar what tens of thousands of prisoners across the U.S. share in "supermax" prison facilities, including in New York.

"Prison authorities use sensory deprivation and solitary confinement with no human contact that have been documented to lead to mental illness and is deemed as torture under international law, brutality, lack of medical care, inadequate food, denial of legal due process, and more."

http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-...ches-towns

[Magda Hassan]

Thank you for this important but underreported story Keith

[Keith Millea]

PELICAN BAY HUNGER STRIKE ENDS ON DAY 21

• Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity blog
  

The hunger strike succeeded in:


* putting the prisoners' demands on the CDCR and political agendas

* bringing the issue of torturous SHUs (supermax/control units) to public attention and to mainstream media
* mobilizing support throughout California, nationally, and internationally for their reasonable demands

Make your voices heard in the months to come.

-- Keep the pressure on until the 5 core demands are fully met!
-- Public awareness is all that protects the hunger strikers from retaliation.

UPDATE: July 21, 2011

• 6:30 pm local time: California Prison Focus confirmed that the hunger strike leaders at Pelican Bay entered into an agreement with CDCR officials today to end their hunger strike in exchange for a major policy review of SHU housing conditions, gang validation process, and debriefing process.
  
• The end of the strike is not the end of the struggle, according to the prisoners. We must now make sure that CDCR will follow through on their promises.
  
• CDCR issued a press release today stating that the hunger strike at Pelican Bay State Prison is over. Members of the Prisoner Hunger Strike Coalition and the Prisoners' mediation team are in the process of verfiying the truthfulness of these claims by obtaining direct confirmation from the prisoners themselves. The CDCR claims that the only items conceded to the prisoners were watch-caps in cold weather, the permission to have wall calendars, and the restoration of proctored exams for prisoner paid correspondence courses.
  

http://www.prisons.org/hungerstrike.htm

[Magda Hassan]

Legendary Comedian Dick Gregory On Hunger Strike To Protest Capital Punishment, Death of Troy Davis

VIDEO HERE
Civil rights activist and comedian Dick Gregory was among the people who filled the 2,000-capacity Jonesville Baptist Church that hosted Troy Davis' funeral on Saturday in Savannah, Georgia. Afterward, he told Democracy Now! he was starting a year-long hunger strike that night to protest against the death penalty. "I will not be eating solid food until next fall," Gregory says. He called on others to pray and meditate that "the truth will come out" in Davis' conviction for the 1989 killing of off-duty police officer, Mark MacPhail a crime which Davis has always maintained he did not commit. [Includes rush transcript]

Filed under Troy Davis, Death Penalty

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Dick Gregory, comedian, civil rights activist and longtime opponent of the death penalty

[B][B]AMY GOODMAN: After the burial of Troy Davis, the family and hundreds of supporters, families, friends, went to the International Longshoreman's Hall in Savannah. Among those who had eulogized Troy Davis was civil-rights activist, comedian Dick Gregory. At the Longshoreman's Hall, I got a chance to talk to him about what he announced that he is starting, a year-long hunger strike to protest the death penalty.[/B][/B]
[B][B]AMY GOODMAN: So why did you come down to Savannah, Georgia.?[/B][/B]
[B][B]DICK GREGORY: Well, I'm ashamed to live in a country that kills people, the state. I'm ashamed as a Christian, well though a Christian is different. My momma always said, "Accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior". OK, Jesus ain't gonna hear ya, a Jew, you know. But how can Christians cry over the crucifixion of Christ and don't get rid of capital punishment, when the state killed Jesus, the state. He wasn't mugged to death or run down by some drunken chariot driver, the state killed him. It's easy to sing some cheap song. Were you there when they crucified the Lord-2000 years. You weren't there then and most of us wouldn't be there now.[/B][/B]
[B]I'm not against capital punishment. When I started off fighting against I had a gun in my house. I am not against capital punishment because poor folks get it or somebody might be accused wrong, I'm against killing. The state, the state. The one thing that happened with Troy Davis, America was the loser, and China was the winner. No longer can America talk to China now about human rights, OK. Now there was a time, they could do it but with the fastness of the news shows heard all over the world, the Chinese are sitting there saying I wish they would come over here again and tell me about it again. It's like me, as a father, saying to my children, you can't get drunk, you can't spit on the floor, you can't smoke dope, but I do it. See, I've lost the moral authority, and that's what happened with this. And the reason is this case, see.[/B]
[B]Many of us forget that Northern Ireland solved their problem by some men willing to fast till they die. No other reason. It embarrassed Britain so bad all over the world, Bobby Sands. I remember all the stuff I got in my head. Bobby Sands, god, starved to death. And that whole thing and the hatred that existed over there in Northern Ireland was just incredible, and yet, they was able to resolve that when was able to make that supreme one. That's what they just did here. They have been able to get away with it, but not with the quickness of the news today.[/B]
[B][B]AMY GOODMAN: You said you are going to start a fast at midnight tonight?[/B][/B]
[B][B]DICK GREGORY: Midnight tonight until next... Well, see, it's an easy day to remember. They killed him on the equinox, the fall equinox, now I don't believe that's no accident. On the 21st was the equinox. I will not be eating no solid food until next fall. And this asks people, not to fast, but to tune in at 12:00 noon, that the truth. Let me tell you about that prayer. The cop's mother who's glad he's dead, she should join us if she's interest in the truth. We didn't say prove that he wasn't guilty, we just say pray and meditate that the truth will come out. That's powerful and I tell you what, it won't be in a year, that's so powerful for that to happen. It will happen.[/B][/B]
[B][B]AMY GOODMAN: On September 21st, 2011, when Troy Davis was executed at death row prison in Jackson, Georgia, you were at another execution in Texas, the execution of Lawrence Brewer. Can you talk about why him? Why were you there? Who he was?[/B][/B]
[B][B]DICK GREGORY: I would have been there if Hitler was there. The state does not have a right to kill people. If you and I are in the military and we are trying to kill these people, and give their country to our country, if they capture us, they can't snatch our teeth out or give us electric shock treatment. If them barbarians at war have certain laws to war and America don't? See, if I kill somebody and they give me life, that's punishment; when they give me death, that's revenge. That's altogether different a different group. And again I say this, if a white man raped my three-year old granddaughter, and so I go out and started raping three-year old white children, I'd stoop below them. So, that's my problem here. Somewhere, it has to stop.[/B][/B]
[B][B]AMY GOODMAN: Now, with Lawrence Brewer's execution-this is the man was involved with the killing of James Byrd, that brutal ex-killing where they ripped this African American man apart-James Byrd's family members are opposed to the death penalty for the white supremacist who killed him?[/B][/B]
[B][B]DICK GREGORY: I don't base my thoughts on what somebody else is. The first time he came up for, to be executed, I took Martin Luther King the Third down there, and we fasted and James Byrd's son. I brought him to Houston and I asked him a question, "The night they killed your daddy and lynched him where were you?" He said, "I was in Camp Lejeune". Said, "Tell me about this." Said, "I just volunteered for the Marines. I was in boot camp." I said, "tell me what happened." Said, "Well a company commander came and told me what happened. Gave me a three week pass, and I went to the funeral, went back to Camp Lejeune, went to training, went to Iraq. So why should I care what they think?"[/B][/B]
[B][B]AMY GOODMAN: And he didn't want to see his father's killer killed?[/B][/B]
[B][B]DICK GREGORY: After we told him how stupid it was, he'd sit there us and when they get ready to kill that other white boy that was with him, he said, "Here is what they did. It was three white boys did it. This one told on the other two. So he don't get it." There is something wrong with that.[/B][/B]
[B][B]AMY GOODMAN: That was activist and comedian Dick Gregory.[/B][/B]