Click on http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=194722523914909 for info on TWO DAYS OF MASS CALL-INS FOR PRISONERS IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT INCLUDING CALIFORNIA HUNGER STRIKERS; Thurs. July 21, 12 a.m. to Friday, July 22 at 12 a.m.
Human Rights Examiner
July 18, 2011 – Like this? Subscribe to get instant updates.
Crisis stage, media silence in mass hunger strike California prisons
On Day 18 of America’s historical, human rights-based, Pelican Bay Prison Hunger Strike, a mass suicide being committed due to what The New York Times described Sunday as “Barbarous Confinement,” Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity notes that, after unanimously rejecting an “insulting” offer by CDCR on Saturday, the prisoners are continuing their strike for meaningful changes in Security Housing Unit (SHU) conditions and policies. Despite prisoners now in critical condition due to rejecting food and water, rights defender Michael Novick noted Monday that press coverage of this monumental United States human rights abuse event has been inadequate.
The less sympathetic public might believe prisoners deserve the abuse inflicted. This is partially due to a lack of unawareness that it is not the most violent, the “worst of the worst,” being tortured in prisons reported veteran human rights defenders Jean Casella and James Ridgeway of the lockdown watchdog group, Solidarity Watch on Monday.
“Officials at Pelican Bay, in Northern California, claim that those incarcerated in the Security Housing Unit [SHU] are ‘“the worst of the worst,’” reported Colin Dayan in an Op Ed piece in The New York Times. “Yet often it is the most vulnerable, especially the mentally ill, not the most violent, who end up in indefinite isolation.”
To raise awareness without mainstream media coverage, on Friday, as prison authorities refused negotiating even while hunger striker inmates are dying in prison clinics, human rights defenders marched through downtown San Francisco in heavy 5:00 pm traffic to the UN Plaza in protest of United State human rights abuses in California prisons described as worse than hell.
Among other human rights rallies being conducted across the nation in solidarity with the suiciding prisoners, approximately 100 marchers in San Francisco loudly chanted in peak hour traffic Friday, “Support! The hunger strikers! At Pelican Bay!” (See: Indymedia video, “San Franciscans rallied and marched to show their solidarity with hunger strikers at Pelican Bay State Prison,” on this page above.)
The San Francisco march coincided with leaders of Pelican Bay hunger strike unanimously rejecting a proposal from the California Department of Corrections to end the strike, despite many prisoners now in clinic pending death according to advocates such as Michael Novick.
Many of the prisoners are “now in medical crisis since going without food or water since July 1,” says noted Los Angeles human rights defender, Michael Novick, head of Anti-Racist Action LA and People Against Racist Terror (ARA-LA /PART).
Mr. Novick has spearheaded ARA/PART’s high-profile participation in LA Coalition for Justice for Oscar Grant, Jericho Amnesty Movement to Free All Political Prisoners and POWs, Southern California Immigration Coalition, Adult Educators for Justice, No Nazis in LA Coalition, and Grassroots KPFK campaign to bring voices of resistance and internal democracy back to Pacifica radio and KPFK (90.7 FM, www.kpfk.org on-line). His organization encourages Europeans to see AWARE-LA (Association of White Anti-Racists Everywhere). He also maintains an email list about police abuse of power, Stop Police Abuse Now!.
The five demands, based on human rights, that the prisoners prefer to die if not met are:
1. End Group Punishment & Administrative Abuse
2. Abolish the Debriefing Policy, and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria
3. Comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006 Recommendations Regarding End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement
4. Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food
5. Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates.
Historical Pelican Bay Prisoner Hunger Strike: 10 ways to support
Locked up in barbarous confinement, over 6,000 prisoners across California, most never having committed violent crime, are risking their lives to join America’s historic hunger strike in solidarity with Pelican Bay Prison hunger strikers and their five demands, each based on basic human rights. The challenge for people outside prison is to match this courage.
Historically, people have participated in civil disobedience to prevent mass death, and such a moment is now. Church and civic groups are uniting across the nation to stand in solidarity with prisoners treated in a manner that would prompt charges if people abused an animal in the same way.
There is a deafening silence among mainstream media that could be reporting this historical event of over 6,000 prisoners choosing death over life in hell on earth.
“It’s very, very clear that the [California Department of Corrections] is more than willing, if not wanting, people to start dying,” Molly Porzig, member of Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition and a spokesperson for Critical Resistance told Amy Goodman on NPR‘s Democracy Now! (“Statewide Calif. prison strike called, human rights protests spread nationally“)
Human rights defenders through the nation are calling on the goodwill of fellow Americans to support the prisoners in winning their human rights set forth in their five demands.
Matching prisoners’ courage: Ten actions for people of goodwill
2. Send this info to friends *See info below*
3. Stay informed! Subscribe here and to Prisoner Solidarity Hunger Strike at its home page and
4. Attend events, demonstrations, and other actions. Click Here for more info on demos and actions in the US and Canada.
5. Organize a solidarity demonstration or action. Click Here for some suggestions on solidarity actions, demos and events
6. Urge California Department of Corrections and *California elected officials* to honor the prisoner’s demands. Click Here for a list of officials and their phone numbers.
7. Write to everyone you know locked up in prison and let them know about the hunger strike and the many ways thousands of people outside and inside prison are supporting it (Since mail referring to the hunger strike is being rejected, we find it’s helpful to be clever with language, and to describe this action as best you can without using the exact words “hunger strike” to increase the chances of the letters getting through)
8. Write to the strike leaders at Pelican Bay and send them your words of encouragement and support. Click here for contact info.
9. Donate to Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity California Prison Focus’s paypal and identify your donation by writing “hunger strike” or “pelican bay”. Donations will be used for mass mailings to prisoners, flyers, posters, and rides to the prisons for advocates and families members.
10. Contact any media/journalists/press, politicians, or influential people you know and urge them to get involved by going to visit Pelican Bay and check on the hunger strikers, plus ensure that the California Department of Corrections negotiates on all 5 demands immediately in good faith.
Source: Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity
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