From Stop Mass Incarceration Network:
Drop the Charges on the #ShutDownRikers Freedom Fighters Clark Kissinger & Miles Solay!
April 5, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Clark Kissinger (left) and Miles Solay (right) with their attorney Kenny Gilbert. Clark was National Secretary of Students for a Democratic Society in 1964-65. In 1965 he organized the first march on Washington to stop the war in Vietnam, and has never stopped fighting against injustice and working for revolution. He is the manager of Revolution Books in Harlem. Miles is founder of the revolutionary rock band Outernational, touring Europe, Latin America & the U.S.
EVERYONE WHO IS APPALLED at the brutality and beatings of prisoners at Rikers, the torture of solitary confinement, and the killings of people held for no reason other than they cannot make bail, is needed to demand that the charges against #ShutDownRikers Freedom Fighters Clark Kissinger and Miles Solay be dropped. They face one year in the torture cells of Rikers for daring to put their bodies on the line at the entrance to Rikers on October 23, 2015, in answer to the call of Rise Up October to #ShutDownRikers which says:
The time for wringing our hands is over. The time for cosmetic but essentially meaningless reforms is over. A line must be drawn. People of conscience must put our bodies on the line to stop the depravity and barbarity, else we ourselves are complicit.
In response to this call, 100 people – including family members of people murdered by police, students from Columbia and New York Universities, artists, war resisters, revolutionaries and the Revolution Club, and religious leaders – marched to the entrance of Rikers Island, holding high huge portraits of people who had died and suffered from brutality, sexual assault, medical neglect, years of solitary confinement and other forms of Rikers torture.
When they reached barricades that police had put across the road, some sat down, and 16 were arrested, most of whom were released without penalty. But Clark and Miles were given much heavier charges. They are scheduled for trial Tuesday, April 12. In answering the call to Shut Down Rikers, Clark and Miles joined others in refusing to be complicit with crimes against humanity that go on at Rikers daily and at hell-hole prisons and penitentiaries across the country. They set an inspiring example that must be defended and become a model for others. This effort to convict them of a criminal offense is an outrageous attack on the right of the people to protest and fight against atrocities like Rikers. Approximately 10,000 prisoners are held at Rikers every night – 85 percent of whom have not had a trial or been convicted of a crime and are there because they cannot make bail. They are not less human and their lives not less valuable than the lives of people who live a short distance across the East River in Manhattan or anywhere else in NYC or across the country. Clark and Miles are facing Rikers themselves for standing with these prisoners. Now we call on you to stand with Clark and Miles.
Which SideAreYou On?
Stand with Clark and Miles!
Demand that all charges be dropped!
Sign the Statement of Support at stopmassincarceration.net
Share on social media.
Invite Clark and Miles to speak at your school or organization.
Join court support at the trial Tuesday, April 12, 9:00 am.
Queens Criminal Court, 125-01 Queens Blvd. (Kew Gardens stop on the E/F)
646.709.1961 • @stopmassincnet stopmassincarceration.net
Facebook.com/StopMassIncarcerationNetwork
SIGN ON to the message to the Queens District Attorney, calling on him to DROP the charges on Clark & Miles
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