Prisoners Begin Hunger Strike at Three Facilities In NC

On Monday July 16th 2012, prisoners at Central Prison in Raleigh, Bertie CI in Windsor, and Scotland CI in Laurinburg all began a coordinated hunger strike. The men have issued a series of demands revolving around food, healthcare, abuse by guards, and in particular for a return of prison law libraries, and are encouraging other prisoners to join in with their own actions and demands. They are also calling for the release of those on I-Con status and the abolition of separate control statuses. The prisoners have vowed not to eat until their demands are met. [see prisoners' demands below]

Correspondence with the prisoners has confirmed the strike at several facilities, and that at least at Central Prison over 100 prisoners began the strike on Monday. Prisoners have encouraged supporters to call or fax the administrations of these different facilities as well as Director Robert Lewis (see information below), to “march or protest in front of Central Prison and others,” “boycott all products being sold in these prisons,” and to “contact media outlets and let them know what we are doing.” 

From Our Friends at the US Human Rights Network and the Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoners’ Rights:

Contact the Governor.
Tell him you support the prisoner hunger strike, and the prisoners' FIVE DEMANDS! 
Tell him to stop the retaliation by the CDC (California Department of Corrections) against the hunger strikers!

Governor Jerry Brown
State Capitol, Suite 1173
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 445-2841

CDCR Bans Lawyers: TAKE ACTION NOW!

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!

Special US prison units fill with Muslims

By Lucile Malandain, Agence France-Presse , March 6,2011

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.