News Flash: Illinois Prisoners on Hunger Strike Refuse Liquids
February 11, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
From Gregory Koger:
February 10, 2014. Prisoners in Menard, Illinois, have refused liquids as they entered the fourth week of a courageous hunger strike opposing their placement into administrative segregation in filthy conditions of severe isolation. (For more background see "Rising From the Pit: Illinois Prisoners Join National Upsurge of Resistance to Torture and Dehumanizing Conditions in U.S. Prisons") Attorney Alice Lynd reported, "The Menard hunger strikers have apparently decided to go without liquid as well as food, and their physical condition could deteriorate rapidly."1 These men's lives are on the line and we must support them.
At least one prisoner has been beaten in retaliation for being on hunger strike and others have reported receiving retaliatory “disciplinary reports.” A Chicago attorney for some of the hunger strikers has also reported that in the first weeks of the hunger strike the Illinois Department of “Corrections” (IDOC) had been barring the prisoners from using the telephone and holding up their legal mail, preventing information about the conditions of the hunger strikers from getting out in a timely manner.
IDOC has issued a number of bald-faced lies in response to journalists’ inquiries into the prisoners' demands. In regards to the prisoners having no notice of the reasons for their placement into administrative segregation, IDOC Director of “Communications” Tom Shaer told Solitary Watch that because prisoners have allegedly been “interviewed about issues causing [their] placement” into ad-seg, they have “a very good idea of the reasons.”2 However, in the next breath Shaer actually revealed that—just as the hunger strikers have claimed—the IDOC has provided no actual formal legal notice of the reasons for their segregation: Shaer admitted that “the placement decisions and 90-day reviews contain confidential information, so issuing copies to prisoners could pose a security threat.”3 Shaer then had the audacity to claim that “we don’t have Solitary Confinement in Illinois prisons” while running down a listing of conditions of confinement that, as Solitary Watch pointed out, exactly fit the definition of solitary confinement used by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and other human rights groups.4
One of the hunger strikers wrote and asked that “you & your friends call the Governor’s office, the Director of IDOC S.A. Godinez, & the Warden of Menard CC, and inquire about our peaceful protest & our reasons & conditions of confinement.”5 He added, “Our conditions are inextricably linked to the social mobilization across the nation against the injustice of mass incarceration. We hope that we have your support & we thank you.”6
Contact information:
Illinois Department of Corrections Director Salvador Godinez, (217) 558-2200, ext. 2008, Illinois Department of Corrections, P.O. Box 19277, Springfield IL 62794-9277 or http://www2.illinois.gov/idoc/contactus/Pages/default.aspx
Warden Rick Harrington, (618) 826-5071, P.O. Box 711, Menard IL 62259
1. "Menard hunger strikers refusing water until face-to-face hearings begin," Alice Lynd, San Francisco BayView, February 9, 2014 [back]
2. Voices from Solitary: Hunger Strike in Menard Prison, Solitary Watch, February 6, 2014 [back]
3. Ibid. [back]
4. Ibid. [back]
5. Ibid. [back]
6. Ibid. [back]
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