Support Demands of PRISONERS UNITED on Hunger Strike, starting in Alameda County Jails
Republished from Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity
Action and ongoing work taken by those on the outside in solidarity with the incarcerated.
Republished from Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity
Republished, with permission, from Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity
A call from the NYC Jericho Movement and Herman Bell's support crew:
Dear Friends,
On Aug. 31, Shaka Shakur, political prisoner and inmate of Wabash Valley Correctional Facility, was involved in an altercation with two correctional officers. Jon Sexton, 71, was taken to the hospital following the incident when Shakur allegedly slipped his restraints and attacked Sexton with a sharpened piece of plastic.
In an message to the New York City Jericho Movement, made public on September 4th, Robert Seth Hayes, a long-term political prisoner incarcerated for his role in the 1970s black liberation struggle, confirmed that he still has not received the potentially life-saving monitor he needs for his insulin pump.
Repression for the September 2016 Prisoner Strike continues to this day. One example is Florida prisoner Julius Smith currently at Hamilton CI.
If there is one thing those doing prison advocacy learn quickly, it’s that the official statements from prison officials never provide a full account of negative conditions and abuses. Looking into the impact of Hurricane Harvey, this is especially true; but looking out for how the aftermath will be handled, this is even more daunting for those who have no voice. Though prisoners endured Hurricane Harvey with the rest of us, aid and concern for their well-being has been slow to follow, leaving basic human needs up to the discretion of prison administrators.
The weekend of August 19 2017, amid the second nationwide inside/outside mass protest against prison slavery in as many years, Jacobin Magazine published an article against prison abolition entitled How to End Mass Incarceration by Roger Lancaster. Jacobin caught a lot of deserved flack from abolitionists on social media for it. Numerous scholars, organizers and journalists decried Lancaster's article, creating such an online storm that Jacobin decided to publish a response article entitledWhat Abolitionists Dopenned by Dan Berger, Mariame Kaba and David Stein. Unfortunately, this response fails to fully critique Lancaster's arguments and instead sells other abolitionists out.
August 19th was the international day of solidarity for prisoners’ rights. Throughout the country, prison abolition groups planned events and worked in solidarity with the main march on Washington D.C.