Prisoners on Hunger Strike Write: Day 9 and Day 10
August 4, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The following letters from prisoner hunger strikers were sent to the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund:
Day 9
Today marks day nine of our peaceful protest hunger strike/work strike. We have heard on the news that people are being rehoused in an effort to isolate people further! The whole purpose of what we are doing is to protest isolation and as a result this concentration kamp reacts by further isolating us!
The news said 30,000 people participated in this prison strike which made history. But the state has also made history by torturing thousands throughout Amerikkka and its gulags. We are facing an extermination, a neutralization of thousands of oppressed mostly Brown and Black people. But this soft genocide is an extension of the long lineage of colonization that Chicanos, New Afrikans and First Nations people have been facing for 500 years. Prisons in the U.S. today are but appendages of this legacy of oppression on these shores.
Although we live in this advanced Imperialist state with all its high tech modes of repression and ultra secret technology it continues to underestimate the power of the people. We sit here in a supermax isolation torture center and yet we managed to mobilize 30,000 people in gulags throughout the state and beyond to rise up to these barbaric conditions and we resist this barbaric practice of torturing us en masse.
What seems to anger the state the most is that we have broken with reactionary views and have taken on a more revolutionary stance in our struggle for human rights behind prison walls. We have come to see that the ruling class has pitted us against one another within prisons but this wasn't the first time. For hundreds of years the state has found ways to use divide and conquer tactics to keep us unable to come together for a resolution to our common oppression.
Our biggest advancement has been in our ability to form this United Front and it frightens the state because if we can do this in prisons then our Barrios and Ghettos can also form United Fronts out in society and this is when real people's power can be exercised outside the State's influence, it is when the people can be introduced to alternative forms of authority.
Today we continue in our indefinite hunger strike as we face the beasts to stop the torture and this is but one step toward some real transformations in U.S. prisons and throughout Amerikka.
People's power!
*****
"Day 10… many of us are not wavered with these distractions…"
July 17, 2013
Revolutionary Greetings Brothers and sisters! With opportunity at hand in the midst of our struggle we felt compelled to extend insight and update of our circumstances and conditions here at "Duel Vocational Institution" Tracy California Prison. We are presently housed here in the notorious K-Wing Administrative Segregation Unit ["the hole"]. Through Your Paper and other Civil Right's New's we have Joined in on this Peaceful Protest Hunger Strike. Today is day 10 that many of us have gone without food in hopes to accomplish some type of Substantial Changes here at DVI as well.
From the beginning of this protest Administration has already had numerous tactics prepared to undermine our efforts and discredit us as participants. The first day CO's came and told us that we have to step out of our cell to be searched or we would not be marked as participants, once people would step out CO's would enter cell's and confiscate personal canteen items coffee and food and told they would get their items back/property after Hunger Strike came to a cease. This was conducted with no "Due Process of Law" under the 5th amendment. Those of us who refused to step out of our Cell were supposedly marked off as non-Participants even though CO's can clearly see that we have no food item's from the bars. However, we have still been escorted out for medical check up's. Most of us have already Lost 7-12 Pounds. During our check up's we are told to drink Koolaid or water. The next day a different nurse come's and ask inmates if they have drank Koolaid. If the inmate Say's Yes the nurse then tells them they are no longer part of the Hunger Strike because they drank Koolaid.
This morning July 17th 2013 they had a nurse come with a clip board looking in cell's trying to see people's cup's claiming that cup's had food in them because they look brown & telling them they are no longer on the hunger Strike because their cup's look like they had food or coffee in it—which is false. CO's have been lying to other inmates saying that everyone is eating so take your tray. However, many of us are not wavered with these distractions and have remained steadfast in our daily endeavor's accepting nothing off CDCR food cart's. Our Canteen purchases priveleges have been modified or cut altogether when we have done nothing wrong. Specifically food Item's & Coffee are not being given to us.
It Should be noted that this specific Institution has the highest Rate in California for the Validation process here in California. Many of us are housed here 2 years plus waiting While they run us through the process resubmit paper work, falsify document's, Staff openly telling P.C.s/snitches Information about inmates that is false. Which is then returned to them in form's of 1030s confidential information chrono's [notice of confidential information without citing source] which are used against us to extend our Stay's in these S.H.U.s We stand in Solidarity with you all in our Goal's and objectives in hope's that some substantial changes could be made as these adverse tactics effect many lives and many of us have family's who need us home. We are forced to do extended sentence's when we've already completed Administrative disciplinary term's We are then validated and forced to Live Entombed!
We Continue the March in Solidarity
Power to the People.
….could you please add this [new] number to my addressed mail so that I can continue to receive my Revcom.us Paper it is the only one here on [this] side. I share it with 2nd and 3rd tier alot of inmates out of this unit are transferred to other facilities and spread the word about Revcom.us & all ongoing Revolutionary protest thank You for You time and Patience.
Sincerely
If possible Could I please get a copy of Oct 2012 Paper [includes "Agreement to End Hostilities" between different nationalities issued by prisoners in Pelican Bay SHU, including leaders of the Hunger Strike] Thank You.
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