[GPSCC-chat] Fw: Fwd: [Ppnews] Statement Suspending the Third Hunger Strike in CA prisons

Thu Sep 5 20:53:12 PDT 2013

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Subject: Fwd: [Ppnews] Statement Suspending the Third Hunger Strike in CA prisons

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From: Political Prisoner News <ppnews at freedomarchives.org>
Date: Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 9:59 AM
Subject: [Ppnews] Statement Suspending the Third Hunger Strike in CA prisons
To: 

Oakland—Supporters
and
advocates of hunger striking prisoners will gather at the
California State building in downtown Oakland on Thursday at 10am to
deliver this important message from prisoners at Pelican Bay State
Prison
to the public.  

Today marks the 60th day they have gone without food in
protest of the torturous conditions of solitary confinement. Their
statement comes amid growing international condemnation of California’s
practice of solitary confinement, as well as the commitment of
California Senate and Assembly Chairs of Public Safety Loni Hancock and
Tom Ammiano to convene a series of hearings in response to the
strikers’ demands that would “address the issues that have been raised
to a point where they can no longer be ignored.”   

Legal
representatives have reported that strikers were able
to have an unprecedented meeting with fellow prisoners at Pelican Bay
where they reached consensus on moving forward in their struggle to end
torture in California prisons, and toward reducing violence among
prisoners.
 Their advocates are encouraging communication between strikers at
Pelican Bay and their fellow prisoners who were forcibly removed to New
Folsom in the past weeks.

Members
of the strikers’ legal, media, mediation teams, along with members of
their family and activist support networks will also make statements at
today's rally. 

Statement
Suspending
the Third Hunger Strike
Greetings of Solidarity and Respect!
                The
PBSP-SHU, Short Corridor Collective Representatives hereby serve notice
upon
all concerned parties of interest that after nine weeks we have
collectively
decided to suspend our third hunger strike action on September 5, 2013.
                To be
clear, our Peaceful Protest of Resistance to our continuous subjection
to
decades of systemic state sanctioned torture via the system’s solitary
confinement units is far from over. Our decision to suspend our third
hunger
strike in two years does not come lightly. This decision is especially
difficult considering that most of our demands have not been met
(despite
nearly universal agreement that they are reasonable). The core group of
prisoners has been, and remains 100% committed to seeing this
protracted
struggle for real reform through to a complete victory, even if it
requires us to
make the ultimate sacrifice.  With that
said, we clarify this point by stating prisoner deaths are not the
objective,
we recognize such sacrifice is at times the only means to an end of
fascist
oppression.
                Our
goal remains: force the powers that be to end their torture policies
and
practices in which serious physical and psychological harm is inflicted
on tens
of thousands of prisoners as well as our loved ones outside.  We also call for ending the related practices
of using prisoners to promote the agenda of the police state by seeking
to
greatly expand the numbers of the working class poor warehoused in
prisons, and
particularly those of us held in solitary, based on
psychological/social
manipulation, and divisive tactics keeping prisoners fighting amongst
each
other. Those in power promote mass warehousing to justify more guards,
more tax
dollars for “security”, and spend mere pennies for rehabilitation--all
of which
demonstrates a failed penal system, high recidivism, and ultimately
compromising
public safety.  The State of California’s
$9.1 billion annual CDCR budget is the epitome of a failed and
fraudulent state
agency that diabolically and systemically deprives thousands of their
human
rights and dignity. Allowing this agency to act with impunity has to
stop! And
it will.
                With
that said, and in response to much sincere urging of loved ones,
supporters,
our attorneys and current and former state legislators, Tom Ammiano,
Loni
Hancock, and Tom Hayden, for whom we have the upmost respect, we
decided to
suspend our hunger strike.  We are
especially grateful to Senator Hancock and Assembly Member Ammiano for
their
courageous decision to challenge Governor Brown and the CDCR for their
policies
of prolonged solitary confinement and inhumane conditions. We are
certain that
they will continue their fight for our cause, including holding
legislative
hearings and the drafting legislation responsive to our demands on
prison
conditions and sentencing laws. We are also proceeding with our class
action
civil suit against the CDCR.  
                The
fact is that Governor Brown and CDCR Secretary Beard have responded to
our
third peaceful action with typical denials and falsehoods, claiming
solitary
confinement does not exist and justifying the continuation of their
indefinite
torture regime by vilifying the peaceful protest representatives. They
also
obtained the support of the medical receiver (Kelso) and Prison Law
Office
attorney (Spector—who is supposed to represent prisoners interests, and
instead
has become an agent for the state) to perpetuate their lie to the
public and to
the federal court--that prisoners participating in the hunger strike
have been
coerced—in in order to obtain the August 19, 2013 force feeding order.  
                We have
deemed it to be in the best interest of our cause to suspend our hunger
strike
action until further notice.
                We urge
people to remember that we began our present resistance with our
unprecedented
collective and peaceful actions (in tandem with the legislative
process) back
in early 2010, when we created and distributed a “Formal Complaint” for
the
purpose of educating the public and bringing widespread attention to
our
torturous conditions.
                After
much dialogue and consideration, this led us to our first and second
hunger
strike actions in 2011, during which a combined number of 6,500 and
12,000
prisoners participated. We succeeded in gaining worldwide attention and
support
resulting in some minor changes by the CDCR concerning SHU programming
and
privileges. They also claimed to make major changes to policies
regarding gang
validation and indefinite SHU confinement by creating the STG/SDP Pilot
Program.
They released a few hundred prisoners from SHU/AD SEG to general
population in
the prison.  But in truth, this is all
part of a sham to claim the pilot program works and was a weak attempt
to have
our class action dismissed. It didn’t work.
                In
response we respectfully made clear that CDCR’s STG-SDP was not
responsive to
our demand for the end to long term isolation and solitary confinement
and thus
unacceptable.  (See: AGREEMENT TO
END HOSTILITIES - http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/agreement-to-end-hostilities.pdf)
                Our
supporting points fell on deaf ears, leading to our January 2013 notice
of
intent to resume our hunger strike on July 8, 2013 if our demands were
not
met.  We also included Forty Supplemental
Demands.
In early July, CDCR
produced
several memos notifying prisoners of an increase in privileges and
property
items, which are notably responsive to a few of our demands, while the
majority
of our demands were unresolved, leading to our third hunger strike, in
which 30,000
prisoners participated and resulted in greater worldwide exposure,
support and
condemnation of the CDCR!
From our perspective,
we’ve gained
a lot of positive ground towards achieving our goals.  However,
there’s still much to be done.  Our resistance
will continue to build and
grow until we have won our human rights. 
Respectfully, 
For the Prisoner Class
Human Rights
Movement 
Todd Ashker, C58191, D1-119
Arturo Castellanos, C17275, D1-121 
Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa (Dewberry), C35671, D1-117
Antonio Guillen, P81948, D2-106 
And the Representatives Body: 
Danny Troxell, B76578, D1-120 
George Franco, D46556, D4-217 
Ronnie Yandell, V27927, D4-215 
Paul Redd, B72683, D2-117
James Baridi Williamson, D-34288. D4-107 
Alfred Sandoval, D61000, D4-214 
Louis Powell, B59864, D1-104 
Alex Yrigollen, H32421, D2-204
Gabriel Huerta, C80766, D3-222
Frank Clement, D07919, D3-116 
Raymond Chavo Perez, K12922, D1-219 
James Mario Perez, B48186, D3-124 

-- 
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Donna Wallach
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Skype: palestinewillbeTwitter: @PalestineWillBe
(h) 408-557-8824
(cell) 408-569-6608

-- 
"Nobody in the world, nobody in history,has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them."
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