Support the Prisoner Hunger Strike -
Demand an End to Torture
by Isaac Ontiveros, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity
From NYC Anarchist Black Cross
The call-in days are Monday, August 1 and Tuesday, August 2nd. Wabash Valley administration can be reached at (812) 398-5050. The Indiana Department of Corrections commissioner can be reached at (317) 232-5711
On the morning of 7/16, a member of the Aryan Brotherhood was stabbed by other prisoners. The attack took place at Pendleton Correctional Facility in the Maximum Security area of the prison. The administration used the stabbing as a justification for putting every prison in the state on lockdown and conducting system-wide searches, raids, and beatings. Since the lockdown began, inmates at the Secure Housing Unit at Wabash Valley had been denied access to water for bathing, sanitation, and cleaning their cells.
In response, a protest took place at the SHU last week. Inmates initiated a response to the administration's refusal of basic sanitation needs. The inmates flooded the range and have begun a campaign of noise disturbance. In response, the guards cut off all water and electricity to the SHU...
Inmates threw a t-shirt over the security camera on the range and bombarded the guard pod with feces and piss thrown from their cells:
“If we have to live in filth, so do you.” Electricity and water were turned back on at 4 am, after many hours without either. Their demands for sanitation and clean water were finally addressed later that evening.
As a condition of coming off this brutal lockdown, the prisoncrats have instituted an intervention by the Internal Affairs Security Threat Group officers to subject the entire prison to interrogations and forced debriefing, including photographing of tattoos and forced declarations of organizational allegiances. The prison officials have said that they won't come off lockdown until everyone has been subjected to these measures.
Struggles in prison can't sustain themselves if, on the outside, they only encounter the deadening silence of social submission. By remaining passive on the outside, we give the prison system more room to do whatever it wants to the prisoners in struggle. The inmates at Wabash Valley are protesting to end the system-wide lockdown, to defend their access to basic needs and their dignity. Without solidarity, this protest could be drowned in beatings and blood, so let's break the social silence that allows the Secure Housing (isolation) Units and prison to play their normal, murderous role. Indeed, raids against the rebellious blocks are ongoing right now.
Close the Secure Housing Units and isolation regimes – Isolation is always torture!
WASHINGTON – US federal prisons for the past three years have housed special units filled disproportionately with Muslim inmates whose every communication with the outside world is strictly monitored.
Known as "Guantanamo North," the so-called Communication Management Units (CMU) were secretly opened in 2007 in maximum security prisons in Terre Haute, Indiana and Marion, Illinois and currently have 71 prisoners, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) told AFP.
The US public radio network, NPR, recently published the names, nationalities and reasons for incarceration of 86 of more than 100 detainees who have passed through them, information never before disclosed by the Bureau of Prisons.
NPR found that a number of detainees were convicted of terrorism offenses but mixed in with them were white supremacists and common criminals.
Sheriff Gary Philp
Undersheriff Mike Downey
Humboldt County Sheriffs Department
Records Supervisor
Records Section Division
826 Fourth Street
Eureka, CA 95501
Via facsimile and certified US. mail
Re: Retaliatory Intimidation in response to request to inspect records pursuant to California Public Records Act, Cal. Gov’t Code §§ 6250 et. seq.
Dear Sirs/Madams:
On June 23, 2008, my request Pursuant to California Public Records Act, Cal Gov’t Code §§ 6250 et. seq. (dated June 16, 2008) was sent via certified mail and also hand delivered to your office(s).
REDWOOD CURTAIN COPWATCH December 9, 2007
To Chief Garr Nielson and all to whom it may concern:
It has come to our attention that Officer Terry Liles recently has been at the residence of Margorie Burgess and her children on at least two occasions. This letter is to firmly request that Officer Liles no longer be sent to her residence, that he be stopped in the future of going to any residence of Ms. Burgess, and that Officer Liles be reprimanded for threatening and harassing Ms. Burgess’ current roommates, who are her extended family.
REDWOOD CURTAIN COPWATCH December 9, 2007
To Chief Garr Nielson and all to whom it may concern:
It has come to our attention that Officer Terry Liles recently has been at the residence of Margorie Burgess and her children on at least two occasions. This letter is to firmly request that Officer Liles no longer be sent to her residence, that he be stopped in the future of going to any residence of Ms. Burgess, and that Officer Liles be reprimanded for threatening and harassing Ms. Burgess’ current roommates, who are her extended family.