The Call:
Hunger strike to begin July 1
SF Bay View, June 3, 2011
By Mutope Duguma
by Mutope Duguma (s/n James Crawford)
This is a call for all prisoners in security housing
units (SHUs), administrative segregation (ad-seg), and general populations
(GP), as well as the free oppressed and non-oppressed people, to support the
indefinite July 1 peaceful hunger strike in protest of the violation of our
civil and human rights here at Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit
(PBSP-SHU), short corridor D1 through D4 and its overflow, D5 through D10.
It should be clear to everyone that none of the hunger strike participants
want to die, but we are taking this dire action due to our circumstances: The
state of California has sentenced all of us on indeterminate SHU program to a
“civil death” merely on the word of a prison informer – a snitch.
The purpose of the hunger strike is to combat both the psychological and
physical torture in ad-seg and the SHU, as well as the justifications used to
support treatment of the type that leads to prisoners being subjected to a
civil death. Those subjected to indeterminate SHU programs are neglected and
deprived of the basic human necessities while withering away in a very isolated
and hostile environment.
Prison officials have utilized the assassination of prisoners’ character by
each other as well as the general public in order to justify their inhumane
treatment of prisoners. The guards’ “code of silence” allows them the freedom
to use everything at their disposal in order to break those prisoners who
prison officials and correctional officers (COs) believe cannot be broken.
It is this mentality that set in motion the establishing of the short
corridor, D1 through D4 and its D5 though D10 overflow. This mentality has
created the current atmosphere in which COs and prison officials have agreed
upon their plan to break indeterminate SHU prisoners.
This protracted attack on SHU prisoners cuts across every aspect of the
prison’s function: food, mail, visiting, medical, yard, hot/cold temperatures,
privileges (canteen, packages, property etc.), isolation, cell searches, family
and friends, and socio-culture, economic and political deprivation. This is
nothing short of the psychological and physical torture of SHU and ad-seg
prisoners. It takes place day in and day out, without a break or rest.
The prison’s gang intelligence unit was extremely angered at the fact that
prisoners who had been held in SHU under inhuman conditions for anywhere from
10 to 40 years had not been broken. So the gang intelligence unit created the
“short corridor” and intensified the pressure of their attacks on the prisoners
housed there. The object was to use blanket pressure to encourage these
particular isolated prisoners to debrief – i.e. snitch – in order to be
released from SHU.
The COs and administrative officials are all in agreement and all do their
part in depriving prisoners in the short corridor and its overflow of their
basic civil and human rights. None of the deliberate attacks are a figment of
anyone’s imagination. These continuous attacks are carried out against
prisoners to a science by all of them. They are deliberate and conscious acts
against essentially defenseless prisoners.
It is these ongoing attacks that have led the short corridor and overflow
SHU prisoners to organize ourselves around an indefinite hunger strike in an
effort to combat the dehumanizing treatment we prisoners of all races are
subjected to on a daily basis.
Therefore, on July 1, 2011, we ask that all prisoners throughout the state
of California who have been suffering injustices in general population,
administrative segregation and solitary confinement to join in our peaceful
strike to put a stop to the blatant violations of prisoners’ civil and human
rights. As you know, prison gang investigators have used threats of validation
and other means to get prisoners to engage in a protracted war against each
other in order to serve their narrow interests. If you cannot participate in
the hunger strike, then support it in principle by not eating for the first 24
hours of the strike.
I say that those of you who carry yourselves as principled human beings, no
matter your housing status, must fight to right this and other egregious
wrongs. Although it is “us” today – united New Afrikans, Whites, Northern and
Southern Mexicans and others – it will be you all tomorrow. It is in your
interests to peacefully support us in this protest today and to beware of
agitators, provocateurs and obstructionists, because they are the ones who put
90 percent of us back here because they could not remain principled even within
themselves.
The following demands are all similar to what is allowed in other supermax
prisons (e.g. federal Florence, Colorado, Ohio and Indiana State
Penitentiaries). The claim by CDCR and PBSP that implementing the practices of
the federal prison system or that of other states would be a threat to safety
and security are exaggerations.
This call is co-signed by D. Troxell, B-76578; T. Ashker, C-58191; S.N.
Jamaa-Dewberry, C-35671; A. Castellanos, C-17275; and G. Franco, D-46556. They,
along with the call’s author, Mutope Duguma (s/n James Crawford, C-35671), can
be contacted by writing to them at PBSP-SHU, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA
95532.
Hunger strikers’ five core demands
Prisoners in the Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit D-Facility
Corridor will begin an indefinite hunger strike on July 1, 2011, in order to
draw attention to and to peacefully protest 25 years of torture via the
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s arbitrary, illegal and
progressively more punitive policies and practices, as summarized in our
“Formal Complaint,” which can be read at www.prisons.org/hungerstrike.htm.
PBSP-SHU inmates’ hunger strike protest is to continue indefinitely until the
following changes are made:
1. Individual Accountability: This is in response to PBSP’s
application of “group punishment” as a means to address individual inmates’
rule violations. This includes the administration’s abusive, pretextual use of
“safety and concern” to justify what are unnecessary punitive acts. This policy
has been applied in the context of justifying indefinite SHU status and
progressively restricting our programming and privileges.
2. Abolish the Debriefing Policy and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status
Criteria: The debriefing policy is illegal and redundant, as pointed out in
the Formal Complaint on page 7, section IV-A. The active/inactive gang status
criteria must be modified in order to comply with state law and applicable CDC
rules and regulations – e.g., see Formal Complaint, page 7, section IV-B – as
follows:
A) Cease the use of innocuous association to deny an active status.
B) Cease the use of informant and debriefer allegations of illegal gang
activity to deny inactive status, unless such allegations are also supported by
factual corroborating evidence, in which case CDCR and PBSP staff shall and
must follow the regulations by issuing a rule violation report and affording
the inmate his due process required by law.
3. Comply with U.S. Commission 2006 Recommendations Regarding an End to
Long-Term Solitary Confinement:
CDCR shall implement the findings and
recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s
Prisons’ final 2006 report regarding CDCR SHU facilities as follows:
A) End Conditions of Isolation (page 14): Ensure that prisoners in SHU and
ad-seg (administrative segregation) have regular meaningful contact and freedom
from extreme physical deprivations that are known to cause lasting harm (pages
52-57).
B) Make Segregation a Last Resort (p. 14): Create a more productive form of
confinement in the areas of allowing inmates in SHU and ad-seg the opportunity
to engage in meaningful self-help treatment, work, education, religious and
other productive activities relating to having a sense of being a part of the
community.
C) End Long-Term Solitary Confinement: Release inmates to general prison
population who have been warehoused indefinitely in SHU for the last 10 to 40
years (and counting).
D) Provide SHU Inmates Immediate Meaningful Access to:
i) adequate natural sunlight;
ii) quality health care and treatment, including the mandate of
transferring all PBSP-SHU inmates with chronic health care problems to the New
Folsom Medical SHU facility.
4. Provide Adequate Food:
Cease the practice of denying adequate
food, provide wholesome nutritional meals including special diet meals and
allow inmates to purchase additional vitamin supplements.
A) PBSP staff must cease their use of food as a tool to punish SHU inmates.
B) Provide a sergeant/lieutenant to independently observe the serving of
each meal, and ensure each tray has the complete issue of food on it.
C) Feed the inmates whose job it is to serve SHU meals with meals that are
separate from the pans of food sent from kitchen for SHU meals.
5. Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for
Indefinite SHU Status Inmates.
Examples include:
A) Expand visiting regarding amount of time and adding one day per week.
B) Allow one photo per year.
C) Allow a weekly phone call.
D) Allow two annual packages
per year. Base a 30-pound package on “item” weight and not packaging and box
weight.
E) Expand canteen and package
items allowed. Allow us to have the items in their original packaging. The cost
for cosmetics, stationary and envelopes should not count towards the max draw
limit.
F) Allow more TV channels.
G) Allow TV-radio combinations or TV and a small battery operated radio.
H) Allow hobby craft items – art paper, colored pens, small pieces of
colored pencils, watercolors, chalk etc.
I) Allow sweat suits and watch caps.
J) Allow wall calendars.
K) Install pull-up/dip bars on SHU yards.
L) Allow correspondence courses that require proctored exams.
For more information and ongoing updates about the hunger strike, check the
California Prison Focus website, www.prisons.org/hungerstrike.htm.
