New Retaliation Targets California Prisoner Hunger Strikers
December 16, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
From a reader:
On September 5, after 60 days on hunger strike, prisoners in CA collectively decided to suspend their action which demanded an end to solitary confinement torture in prisons in California and throughout the U.S. At least 30,000 people in 24 California prisons participated at the outset of the hunger strike, and 40 people went without solid food for 8 ½ weeks. Thousands of prisoners supported or took part on and off during the two month period.
Since the suspension of the hunger strike, the prisoners who were involved have been targeted for vicious retaliation by the prison authorities. According to reports from Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition, every person who participated in the strike has received a serious Rules Violation Report (a "115 write up"), accusing him of committing a serious rules violation.
This is a serious development, as a "115 write-up" can extend a prisoner's prison time or their period of solitary confinement by months or years and can be a basis for denying parole. It affects the nature of a prisoner's imprisonment. And, if these Rules Violations Reports are considered "gang related," the results can be used to "validate" a prisoner as a "gang member" or a "gang associate"—which can then be used to move prisoners into the Security Housing Units (SHUs) or be the pretext upon which people are kept in the SHU for longer periods of time.
Prisoners in the SHUs live in 8' x 10' concrete boxes, with no opportunity to breathe fresh air, feel the sun, see the moon or the stars, or hear birds sing. Thousands have suffered under these conditions of sensory deprivation and state-sponsored psychological torture for years and decades. More than 500 prisoners serving indeterminate SHU terms have spent more than 10 years in the SHU at the Pelican Bay prison, more than 200 have spent 15 years or longer, and 78 people have spent over 20 years in these conditions.
As of this writing 3,880 people in California are in SHUs and over 6,700 people are isolated in Administrative Segregation Units (ASUs), which in some cases can be even more extreme than SHUs. In other words over 10,000 people in California prisons are held in conditions that fit the international definition of torture. 80,000 are held in solitary confinement throughout the U.S.
There are reports that the authorities who have been issuing the Rules Violation Reports against prisoners involved in the hunger strike are trying to intimidate them in order to prevent them from appealing these outrageous actions.
Moreover, disciplinary reports have been filed against a group of prisoners at Pelican Bay known as the Short Corridor Collective (sometimes also called the Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement) who authored the Agreement to End Racial Group Hostilities in 2012. This was an inspiring and historic statement that called for people of different nationalities in the prisons to unite, and to "stop the violence between us that only divides us, weakens us and hurts us." In a November 2013 letter, the Short Corridor Collective called for a campaign to step up the promotion of the Agreement to End Racial Group Hostilities "in prisons and in our communities."
Now these prisoners are being disciplined, labeled "prison gang" members who are "using their influence," and being targeted because they collectively discussed, forged agreement on and authored this Agreement in an effort to cease hostilities between all racial groups in all California prisons as well as county jails. This only goes to prove precisely what the prisoners have stated, which gave rise to the Agreement to End Racial Group Hostilities in the first place: that the prison system itself pits racial groups against each other… that the whole setup in the prisons serves to foster and enforce the ways and thinking bound up with people and different nationalities being played against each other. After thousands stood up together and said NO! to the criminal torture of long-term isolation, the prisoners are now being retaliated against and in fact being criminalized by the prison system for daring to act collectively and transcend the divisions and racial conflicts the prisons officials and guards actively foment.
***
This summer's hunger strike was the third hunger strike by California prisoners in two years. The strikes have had five core demands decided upon by prisoners, centering on ending solitary confinement torture – specifically the conditions in the SHUs where prisoners suspected of "gang affiliation" have been housed (without any due process) for indeterminate terms until they either complete their sentences, "debrief" (snitch) on others, or die.
These hunger strikes are truly acts of heroism and resistance taken under extraordinarily harsh and challenging circumstances, and the hunger strikers have exhibited an inspiring "largeness of mind" in their initiation of this movement. Hunger striking prisoners have made crystal clear they were putting their lives on the line to not only abolish the solitary torture they themselves confront, but so tens of thousands throughout the U.S. and future generations would not have to endure such medieval torment.
In a recent correspondence, the Pelican Bay Short Corridor Collective state how, as their collective unity grew stronger, they began "discussing the manipulative tactics employed by the fascist element within the CDC (California Department of Corrections) ranks, elements that are strongly rooted here at Pelican Bay… how the guards pit racial groups against each other to the point where 'lock down' is the common state of affairs in California prisons." The Short Corridor Collective and a Representative Body at Pelican Bay called for all prisoners to cease hostilities between racial groups in all California prisons as well as county jails beginning October 10, 2012—this is the Agreement to End Racial Group Hostilities mentioned earlier.
During the summer 2013 hunger strike, prison officials reacted savagely and with cold-blooded vengeance, targeting in a myriad of ways the prisoners who were on strike. In the media, the CDCR head Jeffrey Beard systematically spread disinformation about the hunger strike being a "gang power-play," in order to cover up the actual torture the CDCR inflicts on prisoners. Many hunger strikers were taken from their SHU cells and placed in Administrative Segregation ("the hole") with ice cold air blasting on them 24/7. Prisoners' cells were ransacked. Some had their property seized, and prison authorities confiscated any type of canteen items, like Kool Aid packets (which contain glucose), that could help the hunger strikers with sustenance; medicine was withheld from prisoners who have chronic illnesses.
At one point during the hunger strike confidential legal material was confiscated from some of those on strike at Pelican Bay, and an important legal representative was banned from the prison, in an effort to isolate the prisoners. In addition to Pelican Bay, in prisons like Corcoran State Prison, hunger strike participants had sandbags and mattresses placed at their doors to reinforce, psychologically, the feeling of being isolated. Prisons were also given a green light to force-feed hunger striking prisoners—which is a gross violation of human rights (a tactic that the U.S. military carries out against prisoners on hunger strike at the Guantanamo torture/detention camp). At Corcoran, one prisoner, Billy Sell, allegedly hung himself and died after being on the hunger strike for 13 days.
****
The vindictive punitive measures against the prisoners in California—who acted courageously and went on a hunger strike to assert their humanity and to shine a light on the torture they are subjected to—are totally outrageous. National and international attention must be forced on this repression, and a broad, determined movement needs to be built to condemn and oppose it—and this must become part of the overall campaign to stop the torture of solitary confinement in the U.S. prisons.
If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.