30,000 California Prisoners Join Hunger Strike
July 9, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The California prisoner hunger strike has gotten off to a very powerful and significant beginning. On July 8, California prison authorities admitted that over 30,000 prisoners had joined the hunger strike by refusing meals. The Los Angeles Times said this "could be the largest prison protest in state history."
People with family members who are in SHU isolation prison units protest in front of the city hall in Norwalk, California, July 8. Photo: Special to Revolution
According to the LA Times, "Inmates in two-thirds of the state's 33 prisons, and at all four out-of-state private prisons, refused both breakfast and lunch on Monday, said corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton. In addition, 2,300 prisoners failed to go to work or attend their prison classes, either refusing or in some cases saying they were sick."
Prisoners from other states had announced their intention to join the fight with hunger strikes, work stoppages, and other actions. In some cases, prisoners in other states have already launched hunger strikes or other protests.
Nearly 4,000 prisoners in California are imprisoned in barbaric conditions in "Security Housing Units," or SHUs, some for decades. Over 6,000 more California prisoners and some 70,000 nationwide face other forms of solitary confinement. Legal and human rights groups hold that long-term solitary confinement constitutes torture.
In a June 20 statement, prisoner representatives from the Pelican Bay State Prison SHU Short Corridor Collective Human Rights Movement had said that on July 8, "our nonviolent peaceful protest of our subjection to decades of indefinite state-sanctioned torture, via long-term solitary confinement will resume…consisting of a hunger strike/work stoppage of indefinite duration until CDCR [California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] 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)."
People with family members who are in SHU isolation prison units protest in front of the city hall in Norwalk, California, July 8. Photo: Special to Revolution
Rallies and protests supporting the prisoners' hunger strike took place across California, from a dozen people outside the gates of Pelican Bay State Prison in the northwest corner of the state where the hunger strike began, to the San Francisco Bay Area where a number of actions were held by different groups including Stop Mass Incarceration Network-Bay Area and the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition, to Los Angeles where, among other actions, there was a rally of some 200 people, mostly families of the incarcerated. At UC Berkeley, a number of students—some of whom had served time in the SHU—launched a rolling fast in support of the hunger strikers.
The courageous prisoners on hunger strike are putting their lives on the line to fight for their humanity and for justice, and they need broad public support. Their action is a living demonstration of the potential of those the system has cast off—and declares to be the "worst of the worst"—to be the backbone of a revolution that overthrows the system responsible for horrible crimes around the world, including the barbaric prison conditions, and to emancipate all humanity.
Stay tuned to revcom.us for coverage of this extremely significant struggle.
For background, including the core demands of the prisoners, see:
- Revolution Interview: Carol Strickman, from Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition: Prisoners' Struggle Against "Cruel and Unusual Punishment Amounting to Torture"
- Interview with Jules Lobel, Lead Attorney for California Lawsuit Against Solitary Confinement
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