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Thursday, March 11, 2010 Occupied London

35 year-old comrade Lambros Foundas was murdered by cops on Wednesday morning in the suburb of Dafni (south Athens).

The police claims that he was a “terrorist” and that he was shot while trying to steal a car, and that was carrying firearms. Fountas was one of the over 500 anarchists arrested at the Polytechnic riots of 1995, in Athens.

The flier above reads: “HONOR TO THE ANARCHIST LAMBROS FOUNDAS”

more info as it comes

Posted on March 11, 2010 by denverabc

On Monday, March 8th, 2010, Elliot accepted a plea deal as his trial for two counts of gross misdemeanor assault on an officer and one count of misdemeanor obstructing legal process was about to commence. Elliot fell off his bike following a collision with a St. Paul bike cop during the RNC and was promptly arrested. He was tortured in jail so badly that he was coughing up blood all night long. He was outspoken about the torture he suffered and notified the City of St. Paul last year that he intends to sue for police brutality. Several months later, he was charged in a clear attempt for the cops to justify their actions (this is a common occurrence in the criminal injustice system).

His plea agreement entails having the two gross misdemeanor charges dropped and a plea of guilty being submitted for the misdemeanor obstruction charge. He will need to do 50 hours of community service and pay a $150 fine within the next year, at which point his misdemeanor conviction will be dismissed and vacated. This agreement leaves him open to suing the cops for the torture they inflicted on him.

Elliot’s case was one of the few remaining RNC cases still open except for the RNC 8 (see http://www.rnc8.org for more info).

March 10, 2010 denverabc

Denver ABC recently heard back from David McKay of the Texas 2, and confirmed that he’s now being held in Herlong, California.

David was moved from Texas to California in order to participate in a 9-month drug program. There is a small chance that completion of the program will get him a reduction of his (4 year) sentence by as much as 12 months. If nothing else, he will be transferred (sometime around September or October 2010 we estimate) to a minimum security facility. Thus far David has been held in medium-security prisons.

David writes that he has beef with the skinheads at the new prison because he’s participating in an integrated program (meaning inmates of ‘different races’ are cellmates) which is usually a big no-no in prisons. The threats of violence have not materialized yet.

David hasn’t received many letters since the transfer from Beaumont Texas. He’d probably appreciate a letter if you have a moment to write to him:

DAVID McKAY #14130-041
FCI HERLONG
FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
P.O. BOX 800
HERLONG, CA 96113

If anyone knows how to get in touch with his support crew or whoever runs the Free the Texas 2 website, let us know because the mailing / commissary information they list is inaccurate at this point in time.

By Erwin James, The Guardian March 10, 2009

Link to video:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2010/mar/09/in-the-land-of-the-free-trailer

In 1972, three men in a Louisiana prison were placed in solitary
confinement after a prison guard was murdered. Two of them are still there
– even though many believe they are innocent


Angola prison, the state penitentiary of Louisiana, is the biggest prison
in America. Built on the site of a former slave plantation, the 1,800-acre
penal complex is home to more than 5,000 prisoners, the majority of whom
will never walk the streets again as free men. Also known as the Farm,
Angola took its name from the homeland of the slaves who used to work its
fields, and in many ways still resembles a slave plantation today. Eighty
per cent of the prisoners are African-Americans and, under the watchful
eye of armed guards on horseback, they still work fields of sugar cane,
cotton and corn, for up to 16 hours a day. "You've got to keep the inmates
working all day so they're tired at night," says Warden Burl Cain, a
committed evangelist who believes that the rehabilitation of convicts is
only possible through Christian redemption.

Undoubtedly there is less violence and abuse among the prisoners under his
wardenship than there was under his predecessors. But Angola is still a
long way from being a "positive environment that promotes responsibility,
goodness, and humanity", as he proclaims in the prison's mission
statement. In fact at the heart of Cain's prison regime is an inhumanity
that would make Jesus weep.

For more than 37 years, two prisoners, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox,
have been locked down in Angola's maximum security Closed Cell Restricted
(CCR) block – the longest period of solitary confinement in American
prison history.

Having experienced the isolation of "23-hour bang-up" during my own 20
years of imprisonment, for offences of which I was guilty, I can attest to
the mental impact that such conditions inflict. My first year was spent on
a high-security landing where the cell doors were opened only briefly for
meals and emptying of toilet buckets. If decent-minded prison officers
were on duty we were allowed to walk the yard for 30 minutes a day. The
rest of the time we were alone. The cells were 10ft x 5ft, with a chair, a
table and a bed. You could walk up and down, run on the spot, stand still,
or do push-ups and sit-ups – but sooner or later you had to just stop, and
think.

As the days, weeks and months blur into one, without realising it you
start to live completely inside your head. You dream about the past, in
vivid detail – and fantasise about the future, for fantasies are all you
have. You panic but it's no good "getting on the bell" – unless you're
dying – and, even then, don't hope for a speedy response. I had a lot to
think about. When the man in the cell above mine hanged himself I thought
about that, a lot. I still do. You look at the bars on the high window and
think how easy it would be to be free of all the thinking.

Such thoughts must have crossed the minds of Wallace and Woodfox more than
once during their isolation. They are fed through the barred gates of
their 9ft x 6ft cells and allowed only one hour of exercise every other
day alone in a small caged yard. Their capacity for psychological
endurance alone is noteworthy.

Wallace and Woodfox were confined to solitary after being convicted of
murdering Angola prison guard Brent Miller in 1972. But the circumstances
of their trial was so suspect that there are no doubts among their
supporters that these men are innocent. Even Brent Miller's widow, Teenie
Verret, has her reservations. "If they did not do this," she says, "and I
believe that they didn't, they have been living a nightmare."

One man who understands the nightmare that Wallace and Woodfox are living
more than anyone else is Robert King. King was also convicted of a murder
in Angola in 1973, and was held in solitary alongside Wallace and Woodfox
for 29 years, until his conviction was overturned in 2001 and he was
freed. Together, King, Wallace and Woodfox have become known as the
"Angola three".

The case of the Angola three first came to international attention
following the campaigning efforts of the Body Shop founder and
humanitarian Anita Roddick. Roddick heard about their plight from a young
lawyer named Scott Fleming. Fleming was working as a prisoner advocate in
the 1990s when he received a letter from Wallace asking for help. The
human tragedy Fleming uncovered had the most profound effect on him. When
he qualified as a lawyer, their case became his first. "I was born in
1973," he says. "I often think that for my entire life they have been in
solitary."

Through Fleming, Roddick met King and then Woodfox in Angola. Their story,
she said later, "made my blood run cold in my veins". Until her death in
2007 Roddick was a committed and passionate supporter of their cause. At
her memorial service King played two taped messages from Wallace and
Woodfox. In the congregation was film-maker Vadim Jean who had become good
friends with Roddick and her husband Gordon during an earlier film
project. "Anita's big thing was, 'Just do something,'" says Jean. "No
matter how small an act of kindness. Listening to Herman and Albert's
voices at her memorial was like having Anita's finger pointing at me and
saying, 'Just do something'." And so he decided to make In the Land of the
Free, a searing documentary, released later this month.

The story Jean's film tells is one that has resonance on many levels. All
three men were from poor black neighbourhoods In New Orleans. They grew up
fearing the police, who would regularly "clear the books" of crimes in the
area, according to King, by pinning then on disaffected young black men.
"If I saw the police, I used to run," King says. He admits to being
involved in petty crime in his early years, but "nothing vicious".
Eventually King was arrested for an armed robbery he says he did not
commit and was sentenced to 35 years, which he began in New Orleans parish
prison – and there he met Albert Woodfox.

Woodfox had also been sentenced for armed robbery – and given 50 years. On
the day he was sentenced he escaped from the courthouse. He made his way
to Harlem in New York, where he encountered the Black Panthers, the
revolutionary African-American political movement. He witnessed the
Panthers engaging with the community in a positive, constructive way,
educating and informing people of their rights. He says it was the first
time in his life that he had seen African-Americans exhibiting real pride,
pride that emanated from the young activists, he says, "like a shimmering
heatwave".

Two days later Woodfox was caught and taken to New York's Tombs prison
where he saw first-hand the militant tactics of imprisoned Panthers who
resisted their guards with organised protests. In Tombs, Woodfox was
labelled "militant" and sent back to New Orleans where he joined King on
the parish prison block, known – due to the high concentration of Panther
activists – as "the Panther tier". There Woodfox became a member of the
Black Panther party.

Outside, confrontations between the Panthers – described by FBI director J
Edgar Hoover as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the
country" – and the police were escalating. In an attempt to undermine the
influence of the Panthers in New Orleans parish prison, officials tried to
shoehorn men they termed "Black Gangsters" on to the tier – men like
Wallace, also serving decades for armed robbery. One day Wallace was
suffering from the pain of ill-fitting shoes. One of the Panthers, on his
way to a court appearance, took his shoes off and handed them to Wallace.
"Right then I knew that that was what I needed to be a part of," he says.
In the summer of 1971 Wallace and Woodfox were shipped to Angola.

The civil rights bill had been signed in 1964, but seven years later
Angola was still operating a segregated regime. Prisoner guards carried
guns and were also responsible, according to well-documented sources, for
organising systematic sexual abuse of vulnerable prisoners, which
flourished in the prison's mostly dormitory accommodation. And violence
between prisoners had reached such levels that Angola was known as "the
bloodiest prison in America".

Woodfox and Wallace quickly extended the New Orleans chapter of the Black
Panthers into Angola, establishing classes in political ideology and
exposing injustices. They organised work stoppages, demonstrating to
fellow prisoners the liberating power of acting with a "unity of purpose"
and worked to eradicate the prevalent sexual abuses. But their political
activities made them targets for the administrators. By the spring of
1972, tensions in the prison were dangerously high.

These were the conditions in which Brent Miller met his untimely death.
That April, a prisoner work strike drew the attention of the guards who
were called from normal duties to deal with the disturbance. Miller, a
strong, athletic young man of 23, stayed behind alone. He entered a
dormitory holding 90 prisoners and sat on an elderly prisoner's bed,
drinking coffee and chatting. Moments later he was attacked and stabbed 32
times.

Two days later, four men identified as "black militants", including
Wallace and Woodfox, were accused of the murder. It was quickly
ascertained that one of the four had been inserted into the case by the
prison administration. Charges against him were dropped. Another, Chester
Jackson, admitted to holding Miller while the guard was stabbed to death.
Jackson turned state's evidence in return for a plea to manslaughter. The
case was tried in a town called St Francisville, the closest courthouse to
Angola. The jury had been picked from the local populace, many of whom
earned their living from the prison or had families and friends that
worked there; all were white. Wallace and Woodfox were found guilty of
Miller's murder, sentenced to life imprisonment without parole and taken
from the court straight to Angola's CCR block to begin their life in
isolation.

Robert King was brought to Angola from the parish prison two weeks after
Miller's killing, as part of a roundup of black radicals. King had never
met Miller and was in a prison 150 miles away when the murder took place.
Yet he was investigated for the crime and identified as a "conspirator"
before being transferred to lockdown on CCR alongside Wallace and
Woodcock.

The following year a prisoner named August Kelly was murdered on King's
CCR tier. A man named Grady Brewer admitted that he alone was responsible
for the killing, which he said he carried out in self-defence. But King
was also charged. The two men faced trial together in the same St
Francisville courthouse where Wallace and Woodfox had been convicted the
year before. The sole evidence against King came from flawed prisoner
testimony. He and Brewer had not been allowed to speak to their attorneys
for any length of time before their trial. When they protested, the judge
ordered their hands to be shackled behind their backs and their mouths
gagged with duct tape for the duration of their trial. The men were
convicted and sentenced to life without parole. King later won an appeal;
the federal court ruled that he had not been sufficiently unruly in the
dock to warrant the shackling and gagging. He went back to trial in 1975,
was re-convicted and immediately sent back to CCR.

When, after Scott Fleming's intervention in the case of Wallace and
Woodfox in the 1990s, new lawyers reviewed the original trial of both men,
discovering "obfuscation after obfuscation". The state had used a number
of jailhouse informants against them, many of whom gave contradictory
accounts of what they saw. One was registered blind. The key witness in
the case was a man called Hezikiah Brown who testified he witnessed the
murder. In his initial statement to investigators however, Brown said he
had not seen anything. Three days later, when he was taken from his bunk
at midnight by prison officials and promised his freedom if he testified,
he agreed to say that he saw Wallace and Woodfox kill Miller. At the time
Brown was serving life without parole for multiple rapes. Immediately
after he agreed to testify he was given his own minimum security private
house in the prison grounds and a weekly cigarette ration.

Wallace and Woodfox did not give up. They fought their convictions from
their cells and in 1993 Woodfox was granted an appeal, forcing a new
trial. The case was sent back to the same courthouse to be tried in front
of a new grand jury. A local author, Anne Butler, who had published a book
in which she detailed the case and was convinced that the right people had
been convicted, acted as jury chairperson. No witnesses were called.
Instead Butler was called upon to explain the case. Once again, the jury
was composed of people who worked in Angola or were related to people who
worked there. Butler's husband and co-author was Murray Henderson, who had
been the warden of Angola when Brent Miller was murdered. It is worth
noting that Henderson was a key member of the original investigation team
and that, during that investigation, a bloody fingerprint was found close
to Brent Miller's body. It was determined that it did not belong to
Woodfox nor to Wallace, but despite the prison holding all the
fingerprints of all the prisoners, no attempt was made to find out whose
it was. The bloody print was also ignored at Woodfox's retrial. He was
reconvicted and sent back to isolation in Angola's CCR.

It was 26 years before King won the right to another appeal. In 2001 the
Federal court found that the jury in King's original trial had
systematically excluded African-Americans and women and agreed that the
case should be reheard. This time around the prisoner witnesses recanted
and the federal court sent the case back to the district court for review.
The state negotiated a deal with King. Reluctantly, and with his left hand
raised instead of his right, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy; an hour and
a half later he was freed.

In September 2008, Woodfox's conviction was overturned; the federal court
ruled that his core constitutional rights had been violated at his
original trial. Louisiana attorney general Buddy Caldwell could have set
Woodfox free immediately. Instead he decided to contest the federal
decision and Woodfox, now 64, was returned to Angola's CCR, where he
remains. Herman Wallace, now 68, was moved to another Louisiana prison
last year, where he too continues to be held in solitary confinement.

Today King, now 67, is still campaigning for justice for his friends.
Albert Woodfox: "Our primary objective is that front gate. That is what we
are struggling for and we are actually fighting for our freedom. We are
fighting for people to understand that we were framed for a murder that we
are totally, completely and actually innocent of." Robert King says he is
free of Angola, but until his friends are free, "Angola will never be free
of me."

Jean hopes his film will make a difference. "These men need help," he
says. "Louisiana needs to be shamed into doing the right thing."

Further information: angola3(dot)org. If you wish to help highlight the
plight of the Angola 3, you can write to the Governor of Louisiana at the
Office of the Governor, PO Box 94004, Baton Rouge, LA 70804, US.

In the Land of the Free is released on 26 March

Infoshop News March 10 2010

Catalan anarchist prisoner Amadeu Casellas Ramon was released from prison
at midday on Tuesday, 9 March!!!

The director of the penitentiary center at Girona (Catalunya, Spanish
State) finally considered all the complaints and petitions submitted by
Casellas' lawyers and concluded that Casellas had been imprisoned for 8
years too long, and ordered his immediate release.

Casellas spent 24 years in prison for bank robberies to support workers'
struggles in the 1970s, during periods of strong struggle against the
state during the stage-managed transition from dictatorship to democracy.
In the 1980s he took part in the strong prisoners' resistance movement.

He conducted two extremely long hunger strikes for his release, in 2008
and 2009, and received a great deal of solidarity from the outside. He has
vocally protested torture and repression inside the Catalan prisons, and
stood in solidarity with all prisoners.

Although the state pretends to find a legal basis for his release, we are
sure that without the solidarity actions he would have been left to rot in
prison indefinitely.

Over the past several years, Casellas has received solidarity from all
over the Spanish state, and from other countries as well. Anarchists have
written letters, raised money, visited, stayed in contact with his family,
protested outside embassies and Spanish government buildings, made
thousands of protestors and graffiti on all the walls calling for his
release, sabotaged train lines, attacked police vehicles, smashed or set
fire to banks and cash machines, held info events, put up stickers,
blocked roads, sent letters of protest to prison officials, and worked
within legal channels. Though there were conflicts between different
support groups, they kept their sights on liberty for Amadeu and avoided
unnecessary infighting, despite strong differences in politics and
strategy.

Meanwhile, the anarchists have not watered down their goals but continue
to vocally advocate freedom for all prisoners and the destruction of all
prisons. Although legal arguments were used for part of the support
campaign, that Amadeu has been imprisoned longer than he should be
according to their own laws, the fundamental message is that no one should
be in prison and that we want him out here with us. There were never any
arguments that Amadeu was innocent, or that prison in any form is
legitimate.

In the past year, anarchists have won freedom for the two main Catalan
prisoners they have supported, Amadeu Casellas and Ramon Garces. They
continue to support all prisoners and not make distinctions for "political
prisoners" but after major failures in the prisoner solidarity movement
earlier in the decade they have focused on supporting prisoners who are
active within the prisons and can lead their own struggles.

Freedom for all prisoners! Down with all walls!
Llibertat per Amadeu! Llibertat per a tots i totes!!

Infoshop News March 11, 2010

Three members of the Fierce and Fabulous collective based out of Guelph,
Ontario, Canada were arrested on Friday, March, 6th, 2010 with charges of
allegedly assaulting a peace officer (campus cop) outside of a drag show
at the University of Guelph on Friday night. They were held over night at
the Guelph police station. All were released with conditions. Two have
curfews of 11:00 pm and one has a curfew of 9:00 pm. All three of the
kidnapped queer/trans folk have conditions to not associate with each
other. One of the folks arrested who is trans. identified is also charged
with a breech of probation. The specifics of the arrests are not being
talked about due to legal reasons.

The folks arrested were brutally fucked up by the pigs. One person was
slammed into the ground, had their head smashed onto the cruiser multiple
times, and was kept in tight handcuffs to the point of having cuts and
bruising on their wrists. These violent actions will NOT be tolerated, nor
will the choices of the university security (The Brass Taps) who called
them. The cops hope to serve their role by instilling fear into us and
repressing us. Together we need to stay strong and make sure that not only
their repression backfires, but that we also gather strength from these
experiences.

Although Fierce and Fabulous can’t say a whole lot about the context of
the arrests, the real reasons for these arrests and the police violence
are very clearly not because of the alleged charges of “assaulting a peace
officer.” It wasn’t coincidence that the arrests happened outside of a
drag show or that they were harassed by a private security company
beforehand. These arrests are yet another ridiculously obvious attack on
queers/transfolk. The war against us all becomes even more apparent, and
makes seeing through the state’s and the university’s “queer positive”
(but only if yer assimilationist, and straight) bullshit facade even more
transparent.

Their next court dates are March 15th, March 22nd and April 19th. At the
Guelph Ontario Court Of “Justice”, 36 Wyndham St. South. 9:30 a.m Come out
and support them, or send e-mails of support to
fierce.n.fabulous1969@gmail.com

Up The Queers, Up The Trannies!

In Love And Even More Rage,

The Fierce and Fabulous Krew!

Slingshot #102

The Long Haul community space in Berkeley beat a government motion to
dismiss its federal lawsuit November 30, 2009 meaning that the government
defendants have to answer the lawsuit and a trial is now scheduled for May
16, 2011. Long Haul filed suit a year ago against all law enforcement
involved in an August 27, 2008 police raid on the space by a joint
terrorism task force composed of University of California police, sheriffs
and the FBI. The police seized all computers at Long Haul after breaking
in with guns drawn to execute a search warrant as part of an investigation
of threatening emails allegedly sent to UC Berkeley animal researchers
from a public-access computer connected to the internet at Long Haul.

Long Haul is a non-profit organization that publishes Slingshot and
operates an infoshop and library at 3124 Shattuck in Berkeley. It is clear
that the police never would have gotten such a broad search warrant to
seize every computer at the Berkeley Public Library if the email in
question had come from the public library, rather than at a radical
Infoshop. While the police perhaps intended their raid to intimidate local
activists, Long Haul was able to reopen the night of the raid. The
public-access computer room reopened a month later with new (used) donated
computers. The police searched and copied hard drives from the seized
computers.

The lawsuit, filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU of
Northern California, seeks relief against law enforcement using the data
from the seized computers for improper purposes. While the legal process
has so far moved very slowly, the struggle goes on to push back against
big brother police tactics against activist spaces.

A British soldier who refused to return to duty in Afghanistan and
went on to speak at anti-war rallies was sentenced to nine months'
detention in a military prison on 5th of March. Support group in
London is going to appeal, but it's not known whether that can change
the situation. Though, people from all over the world already could
show, how much solidarity can be effective, organised on 4th and 5th
of March actions in support of Joe in UK, Italy, USA, Germany,
Greece, Russia and earlie, in january, also in New Zealand and Poland.
Thanks to those people, charge of desertion was dropped and instead of
10 years detention in prison Joe was sentenced to 9 months.

Anyway, support of Joe, particularly international, is very important.
Soon there will be new actions of protest and solidarity.

We want to attract the most possible attention to the case of Joe
Glenton, because we think, that everyone has the right to life, right
to choice, and it doesn't matter whether he is soldier or not. We are
against wars, in which murders are tried to be justified in the name
of "benevolent intentions".

You can write to lance corporal, using this address:

Joe Glenton
Military Corrective Training Centre
Berechurch Hall Camp
Colchester
CO2 9N
United Kingdom

International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban

US Personalities Demand Humanitarian Visas for Wives of the Cuban Five

March 8th, 2010

Coinciding with International Women's Day, a
group of personalities from the United States
have sent a letter to US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton and to the Secretary of Homeland
Security Janet Napolitano, asking them to
immediately grant humanitarian visas to two Cuban
women so they can visit their husbands in US prisons.

For more than a decade the US government has
continued to deny entry visas to Olga Salanueva
and Adriana Perez whose only purpose to come to
the US is to visit their husbands in prison. Rene
González and Gerardo Hernández respectively are
two of the Cuban Five, who are serving long and
unjust sentences in the United States.

The signers of the letter are US members of the
International Commission for the Right of Family
Visits that is comprised of more than 170 known
figures from 27 countries. Recently, Argentinean
members of the commission delivered a letter to
the US embassy in Argentina. This letter was also
sent to the US Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security.

The letter in the United States was signed by two
religious personalities; former Bishop of Detroit
Thomas Gumbleton and former General Secretary of
the US Council of Churches Reverend Dr. Joan
Brown Campbell. Also, union leaders such as the
co-founder of the Farm Workers Union Dolores
Huerta and the President of the ILWU Local 10
of San Francisco California Melvin MacKay.

In addition, others who added their name to the
letter includes the following personalities and
intellectuals: Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, the
Mayor of Richmond, Gayle McLaughlin, former
Congressman Esteban Torres, actor Danny Glover,
writer and poet Alice Walker and Angela Davis
professor of History in the University of Santa Cruz, California.

The letter also includes the former Chief of the
US Embassy in Havana, Wayne Smith, as well as the
Civil Rights activist Yury Kochiyama, and the
President of the Media Freedom Foundation /Project Censored Peter Phillips.

The fourteen personalities sent the letter
telling Clinton and Napolitano that the gesture
of granting visas to Ms Salanueva and Perez "will
show the world that we are represented by elected
officials who want better relations with other
nations and who have compassionate and humanitarian hearts."


The Letter Sent to Hillary Clinton and Janet Napolitano
March 8, 2010

US Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton

US Secretary of Homeland Security
Janet Napolitano

c/c United Nations Human Rights Council
Rapporteur Against Torture
United Nations Group on Arbitrary Detentions
Amnesty International
Ombdusman


Dear Ms Clinton and Ms Napolitano:

We respectfully write to you to ask the State
Department of the United States and the
Department of Homeland Security to immediately
grant HUMANITARIAN VISAS to two Cuban citizens,
Adriana Perez and Olga Salanueva, wives of
prisoners Gerardo Hernandez and Rene Gonzalez
respectively. They have been denied visits to
their husbands in prison for 11 years.

On December 18, 2009 the Department of Homeland
Security denied a humanitarian visa to Olga
Salanueva. Without any explanation, they denied
this elementary recourse to come to the US with
the sole purpose to see her husband, Rene
Gonzalez, unjustly sentenced to 15 years in prison.

At the time of her husband's arrest, Olga
Salanueva was living with him and their two
daughters; the youngest daughter is US born as
well as Rene Gonzalez himself. After the arrest
of her husband Ms Salanueva was detained with the
purpose of pressuring her husband to collaborate
with the prosecutors assuming a crime that he
never committed. Three months later in December
2000, Olga was deported to Cuba. After 10 years
since the deportation, the US government
continues to punish this woman. There has not
been any accusation or legal process against her.
Additionally her status of being a mother and a
wife of US citizens makes a compelling connection to the United States.

In the case of Adriana Perez; in July 2002, she
traveled to the United States to visit her
husband Gerardo Hernandez, unjustly serving two
life sentences plus 15 years in US prison. But
upon her arrival, she was detained in the Houston
Airport, photographed, finger printed,
interrogated for 11 hours, prevented from
speaking to a lawyer or Cuban diplomats and
subsequently sent back to Cuba, cruelly
preventing Adriana to see her husband. That was
the last time that she was granted a visa to see
him during the 11 years he has been imprisoned.

The last visa denial for Adriana was on July 15,
2009, the day of their 21st wedding anniversary.
Four months later, on November 2, Gerardo
Hernandez's mother died. Not even on a sad event
like this in the life of any human being was
Adriana Perez allowed to visit her husband to console him.

The applications for humanitarian visas for Olga
Salanueva and Adriana Perez are supported by an
important number of religious, legal and human
rights institutions. From the World Council of
Churches to the US Council of Christian Churches,
the Cuban Council of Churches, the Association of
American Jurists, Amnesty International, 170
personalities including several Nobel Prize
winners, parliamentarians, elected officials, and
intellectuals from all over the world.

Until the Cuban Five are freed, the below
signatories demand the immediate granting
of HUMANITARIAN VISAS to ADRIANA PEREZ and OlGA
SALANUEVA and MULTIPLE VISAS TO ALL THE FAMILY OF THE CUBAN FIVE.

This gesture will show the world that we are
represented by elected officials who want better
relations with other nations and who have compassion and humanitarian hearts.

Sincerely,

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton - Former Catholic Bishop of Detroit

Reverend Dr. Joan Brown Campbell - Former
Secretary General of the National Council of Churches of the United States

Dolores Huerta - Co-Founder of the United Farm Workers Union

Melvin MacKay - President of ILWU Local 10, San Francisco, California

Danny Glover - Actor

Gayle McLaughlin - Mayor of Richmond, California

Alice Walker - Writer

Noam Chomsky - Linguist and Writer

Howard Zinn - Historian and Writer (Honorary Member)

Esteban Torres - Former US Congressman

Wayne Smith - Former Chief of the US Interest Section in Cuba

Michael Parenti - Author

Angela Davis - Professor of History, California University, Santa Cruz

Yury Kochiyama - Civil Right activist

Peter Phillips - President of Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored


International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5

International Committee for the Freedom of the
Cuban 5 | P.O. Box 22455 | Oakland | CA | 94609

from http://zinelibrary.info4strugglemag Issue 15: Views, Thoughts and Analysis from the Hearts and Minds of North American Political Prisoners and Friends

Issue 15 – International Women’s Day, Revolutionary & Prison Struggle, Book Reviews, Sri Lanka and National Liberation, Political Prisoner Updates

Read online at www.4strugglemag.org
Download printable version at: http://4strugglemag.org/9/

Welcome to 4SM #15, a major voice of u.s. political prisoners. Whether you are checking us out online or are reading the hardcopy, you see that both editions are coming at you in an improved and updated form. With our upgraded hardcopy we are also initiating an effort to increase its outreach and subscriptions, to prisoners and outside people. Share your copy and spread the word about this unique revolutionary voice. Let us know what you think of our upgraded format and look.

We begin this issue with a major salute to International Woman’s Day (IWD – March 8th), and the contribution and struggle of the sisters.

Section 2 has book reviews. A new and important book on Fred Hampton’s murder is reviewed by Sundiata Acoli. A thought provoking artistic book of poetry, by long held political prisoner Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa, entitled The Black Panther is an African Cat, is also reviewed. A review of Will you Die with Me: My LIfe and the Black Panther Party will be included in the next (July) issue.

Section 3 covers revolutionary struggle, prison struggle and more. We salute May Day, bring you information from the Chairman of the New African Black Panther Party and have many other very interesting and informative articles.

The final section is a long, informative and analytical essay on the civil war in Sri Lanka. Bill Dunne lays out the struggle of the past 30 years and also draws broader conclusions and begins a discussion on the entire question of national liberation struggles. This discussion is begun by the article that follows, which I wrote, on nations, national liberation and revolution. 4SM will welcome further input on this question and will print readers’ thoughts, if we receive them, in future issues.

We have updates on various political prisoners throughout the issue. Check this out and do what you can to help.

See you in issue 16, out in July 2010. This will include our yearly salute and words on Black August, information on the Fall 2010 Running Down The Walls runs, and more. We welcome your thoughts and input on any ongoing 4SM discussions, as well as analysis and information on other revolutionary topics. 4SM wants your best, edited, well thought out and laid out writings — graphics also. See you in July.

Freedom Is A Constant Struggle!
Jaan Laaman, editor
10372-016
P.O. Box 24550
Tucson, AZ 85734

AttachmentSize 4SM15Collated.pdf2.41 MBMiami Model, The

a guide to the events surrounding the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Ministerial in Miami, November 20-21, 2003

.A Collaborative Work.

Download at:

http://zinelibrary.info/files/miamimodel.pdf (11 mb)

May Day and Anarchism

remembrance and resistance from Haymarket to now

Edited by Anna Key

Kate Sharpley Library

http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net

AttachmentSize maydayanarchism.pdf6.75 MBFuck You Bearden

Look! it's another zine from anarchist prisoner Rob Los Ricos

AKA

Rob thaxton

Featuring Rob's thoughts about:

prison life, riots, the just us system, illegalism, rioting and more words than necessary, with not enough artwork

AttachmentSize bearden.pdf6.8 MBSuperprisons in Canada

This pamphlet was written in Kingston Ontario, the city with the largest concentration of prisons in Canada, and our hometown. We wrote it to bring people up to speed with what we see as a dangerous agenda at work within the federal government with respect to the Canadian prison system. At this very moment, the federal Conservative Party, their various corporate partners, and their provincial proxy-parties are pushing hard for a major expansion of the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). This is the term we use to refer to the interest groups, businesses, and government institutions that rely on locking people up to increase their bottom line. While private contractors are a major aspect of the PIC – one we’ll delve into later in this pamphlet – this issue is about more than privatization. It’s about an ideology of “Law and Order” driven by fear, racism, and moral panic. It’s about the extent to which the logic of prison is being extended into society generally, through increased surveillance and heavier-handed policing in the name of “public safety.” And it’s about our town, Kingston, Ontario, where the first Canadian prison was ever built, and what it means to be a city that experiences economic booms when more people are being put in prison.

This pamphlet touches on a few specific issues relating to the ongoing Conservative revolution in prisons and policing, and tries to strategically show a few points of intervention for people who want to resist this expansion. Most of our research has focused on the internal plan to construct new super-prisons, but related issues such as the closing of the prison farms, the backdoor privatization of the prison system, and the introduction of draconian amendments to the Criminal Code are all elements of the Conservative transformation in its vulnerable and weak introductory phase, which could be resisted simultaneously in order to disrupt this current process. The strong link between the ousted Mike Harris regime in Ontario, and the key players in the Corrections transformation sheds light on what we might expect in the next year. Drawing on the experiences of the anti-Harris movement could provide insight into effective tactics and strategies with which to resist and ultimately defeat the current government and any future governments determined to implement such policies.

Get in touch with us at epic (at) riseup.net

AttachmentSize superprisonreading.pdf1.71 MB superprisonprinting.pdf1.72 MBUnder the Yoke of the State

Selected Anarchist Responses to Prisons and Crime

Vol. 1; 1886-1929

Download at:

http://zinelibrary.info/files/yokeofthestate.pdf (12 mb)

Unnamed Codefendant, The #6

Issue 6 Fall/ Winter 2006

The Newsletter of the Books 4 Prisoners Crew

Download at:

http://zinelibrary.info/files/unnamed_codefendant.pdf (8.81 mb)

Off the Hook #12

The newsletter of the Missouri Prisoners' Labor Union

Issue 12 Sept. 2006

At the dawn of industrialism, factories were modeled after prisons...

in its twilight, prisons are modeled after factories.

AttachmentSize offthehook12.pdf3.36 MBStockade Stood Burning, The : rebellion and the convict lease in tennessee's coalfields, 1891-1895

This zine covers an obscure but phenomenal story of coal miners' and convicts' joint rebellion against the convict leasing system in post-Civil War Tennessee. Touching on the issues of prison growth, racial identities in the south, the limitations of demand-oriented movements, and the application of contemporary insurrectionary perspectives in understanding historical phenomena, it is "required reading" for anyone interested in appalachian social movements, insurrection, or historical positioning of the southern white worker. Brought to you by the North Carolina Piece Corps. Email NCpiececorps@gmail.com for physical copies.

AttachmentSize thestockadestoodburning.pdf3.54 MBFire to the Prisons-Issue #8-Winter 2010

Fire to the Prisons
An Insurrectionary Quarterly
Issue #8 Out Now
Winter 2010

Download at:

http://zinelibrary.info/files/firetotheprisons8.pdf (8.16 mb)

Glossy print copies are available for re-distribution by contacting us at:

firetotheprisons (at) gmail (dot) com

or

Fire to the Prisons
c/o Shoelacetown ABC
P.O Box 8085
Paramus, NJ
07652, USA

If you are a project that distributes free literature to prisoners or a not-for-profit project that feels as if it shares the outlook of this magazine, please contact us to find out information on getting free copies to re-distribute.

For bookstores and other types of distributors, please contact us for payment information (paypal and money order are both options). All money made from copies sold goes either to our postage or print fees.

Issue #8 Table of Contents

WHAT AND WHY:
A quick briefing - Pg. 3

TURNING THE TABLES
IN DEFENSE OF THE EXCEPTIONS:
Advocating a revolutionary voice in defense of the “cop-killer”.
By Another Delinquent - Pg. 10

WE’LL GET WHAT WE CAN TAKE:
A brief chronology of recent events in the
California Student-Worker Movement. - Pg. 17

THE BRICKS WE THROW AT POLICE TODAY WILL BUILD THE LIBERATION SCHOOLS OF TOMORROW
By Three Non-Matriculating Proletarians - Pg. 23

BLAST FROM THE PAST:
BLACK MASK AND
UP AGAINST THE WALL MOTHERFUCKER
The story of a small underground 1960’s
Revolutionary group in New York City. - Pg. 28

OUR TEARS MAKE THE FLOWERS GROW
On the situation in greece. - Pg. 37

RIOT:
The Olympics are coming. - Pg. 41

WE DID NOT HAVE OUR “BROKENHAGEN”
On the actions against the climate summit “Cop15” in Copenhagen.
By Some Unwanted Children of Capitalism - Pg. 46

REPRESSION:
Updates on the legal cases or situations of those enemy to the state. - Pg. 48

REVOLUTIONARY SOLIDARITY
Actions claimed in solidarity with other struggles, arrested individuals, or unrest. - Pg. 73

A CHRONOLOGY:
Of North American Prisoner Resistance. - Pg. 80

ANARCHIST RESISTANCE
Attacks claimed by Anarchists. - Pg. 84

NATIVE CONFLICT:
Under reported actions of Indigenous and “Third” World struggles. - Pg. 87

REMEMBERING IVAN KHUTORSKOY
+ RESISTING FASCISM - Pg. 90

ETC:
Shout Outs, Further Reading, News. - Pg. 94

March 7, 2010

An open letter to concerned citizens

Approximately two years ago, in 2008, while incarcerated, I was given a politically
motivated “administrative transfer” from the Harrisonburg jail,
to the Middle River Regional Jail in Verona, Virginia, after writing
to the local Health Department informing them that the facility in
Harrisonburg had ceased making available HIV-testing for prisoners.
After being housed at Middle River for about three months, I was
charged by that facility's institutional investigator with two
separate Class 6 felony charges (near misdemeanors) for: (1)
“possession of a deadly weapon,” and, (2) “destruction of a
fire system:. The “deadly weapon” was a half-broken $.72 cent
toothbrush holder, and the “fire system” was a sprinkler button,
with an estimated value of less than $100.00. These charges, although
the most minuscule and petty of “offenses” under Virginia law,
carry a maximum of 10 years in prison; which I have been threatened
with potentially being sentenced to, in the Augusta County Circuit
Court.

I was released from prison nearly a year ago for good behavior after
having participated in the VA Department of Corrections' Therapeutic
Community prison facility at Indian Creek Correctional Center, for
past issues with addiction and alcoholism. Since my release, I have
maintained employment at Tyson Foods Corporation, and have not failed
a single drug screen, for which I am tested regularly.

Consequently, for the very first time, I was recently awarded visitation rights by
the courts with my only child, my 5-year-old son, Stephen Thomas.
However, the authorities in Augusta County are seeking to prosecute
me, now, nearly two years later, for the previously mentioned alleged
offenses. The authorities in Augusta County have refused our repeated
efforts to simply make restitution for the broken items in question
and are intent on sending me back to prison now, during this most
stable period of my adult life. Any plea or finding of guilt by the
court in Augusta County will result in an immediate parole violation
and a return to prison for several years, for me. The devastation
that this ordeal would cause my family, myself, and particularly my
5-year-old, is simply unimaginable.

Because of the clear racial dynamics of this case, given the constant
race-oriented insults that I was subjected to by the blatantly
white-supremacist correctional officers at Middle-River Jail on the
date of the incident 2 years ago, I am desperately requesting the
interest, investigation, attention, and support of all sympathetic
parties. I humbly request the assistance of the community in bringing
these matters to a logical, rational, and amicable conclusion. Our
community does not need yet another fatherless African-American
child, nor another unwarranted African-American prisoner.

Thank you for all your time and interest.

Sincerely,

Steven L. Thomas

http://www.mediacoop.ca/newsrelease/2977

March 8th, 2010, Splitting The Sky vs. George W. Bush, Calgary Court House hearing
and solidarity demonstrations

Canada's International Obligation To Arrest And Prosecute Credibly Suspected War
Criminals, No Impunity


by Jason Divine, Nicole Baker. and BJ Douthwright
For Immediate Release

CANADA PROVIDES SAFE HAVEN FOR SUSPECTED WAR CRIMINAL;
CHARGES CITIZEN ENFORCING WAR CRIMES ACT

(March 1, 2010) Calgary - According to legislation enacted in 2000,
the Crimes Against Humanity & War Crimes Act bans all who are
credibly suspected to have committed war crimes or crimes against
humanity from entering Canada or, if they have managed to get in, to
arrest them on the spot. This law is supported by international laws to
which Canada is signatory.

Yet on March 17th 2009 George W. Bush was in Calgary, Alberta,
Canada for a speaking engagement at the Telus Convention Centre which
was sponsored by the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.

George Bush stands credibly accused and internationally condemned
for war crimes committed, during his reign, in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay
as well as in numerous CIA black sites stationed around the world. As
Commander-In-Chief of the United States military, George Bush meets the
definition of both 'military commander' and superior' of the Crimes
Against Humanity & War Crimes Act (2000) (sec 7) and thus should
have been prevented from entering the country or arrested upon entry.

Splitting the Sky, a Mohawk activist from Six Nations, invoking
international law and Canada's own war crimes legislation, requested
Calgary police officers to arrest ex-US-president G.W. Bush.

When police refused his demand to uphold the law, Splitting the Sky
attempted to carry out a citizen’s arrest of Bush, moving through the
police line with his hands over his head yelling, “I am not touching
anyone.” He was then arrested and beaten, sustaining a concussion and
painful soft tissue injuries.

Splitting the Sky was charged with obstruction of justice and
released on $500 bail after being held in jail for 24 hours. All this,
in his words, for his attempt “to do MY civic duty, to arrest the
credibly suspected war criminal George W. Bush.”

He now faces the possibility of 6 months in jail and a $5000 fine. His trial begins
on Monday, March 8, 2010.

There will be a rally to support Splitting the Sky on Monday, March
8, 2010 at 9 am at the Calgary Court House, 601 5 Street S.W.

-- 30 --

For more info:

Splitting The Sky
Email: splitting_the_sky@yahoo.com

The "National Socialist Movement" (NSM), a neo-nazi formation with a
base in Riverside CA, has issued a call for a national gathering of
their organization in Los Angeles, featuring a rally on the lawn of
L.A. City Hall for which they have already applied for and received a
permit, on Saturday, April 17. They will be bringing a substantial
number of uniformed nazi thugs and boneheads from around the US as
part of their so-called "Reclaim the Southwest Campaign" and pose a
clear and serious threat of racist and sexist violence which always
follows open nazi organizing. Two years ago, when a similar nazi
group rallied in L.A. to commemorate the death of a founder of the
racist Silent Brotherhood Aryan underground, several of their members
were involved in a racist shooting incident on their way into town
from the Inland Empire.


There will be a planning meeting for a revolutionary anti-fascist,
anti-imperialist counter-mobilization next Saturday, March 13 at 11 AM
at Chuco's Justice Center, 1137 E. Redondo Blvd., Inglewood
(that's 2 blocks west and one block north of Florence & Crenshaw). It
is important to develop a front or pole of opposition to the nazis
that is based in revolutionary pro-liberation anti-imperialist
politics, so that it is clear that opposition to the nazis is not a
defense of the status quo.

Open nazis are not the main enemy in a struggle against colonialism,
capitalism and imperialism, but they are a significant element,
particularly in a period of ongoing economic crisis and political
instability within the belly of the beast. The National Socialist
Movement and similar open fascist forces are seeking greater
political legitimacy as well as influence within larger white
nationalist and reactionary social and political forces, such as the
anti-immigrant movement, the "tea-baggers," and the re-emerging
militia movement.

The NSM and similar nazi forces base themselves on two key elements:
they present themselves as a para-military type operation prepared to
use violence (and in fact are violence-prone, promoting racist,
anti-immigrant, anti-gay and anti-communist thuggery and bullying),
and they claim to be anti-capitalist and revolutionary (as Hitler
did). Liberal-type opposition, which tends to portray them as
"extremists," and to defend "multi-racial democracy and tolerance"
within the existing system, essentially concedes these strong points
to the nazis. It also relies on the police to "maintain peace,"
conceding the power of the state, which always protects the nazis in
the name of "free speech." It is essential to expose the cowardly
nature of the nazis as well as the reactionary, pro-imperial nature
of their politics by manifesting an opposition based on
pro-liberation, anti-colonial/capitalist politics, the right to
self-determination and self-defense, and independent direct action.

Too often, even militant anti-racists, socialists and anarchists
opposed to the nazis have operated without regard to questions of
self-determination and international solidarity, functioning
independently of the leadership of anti-colonial liberation forces.
It is essential, here in Los Angeles, that opposition to the nazis be
based on support for indigenous/Mexicano sovereignty, African
liberation, and decolonization for Asian and other oppressed people.
The provocation by the NSM provides an important opportunity to bring
home the point that ANY revolutionary action and initiative must be
based on such principles and on revolutionary anti-colonial leadership.

A little history is pertinent to the importance of organized
anti-fascist action led by revolutionary liberation forces. In 1981,
the Ku Klux Klan scheduled a rally in Washington DC to celebrate the
election and inauguration of Ronald Reagan (who had announced his
candidacy in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where civil rights workers
Schwerner, Cheney and Goodman were assassinated by the KKK with
police compliance). Massive community opposition by local Black DC
residents, supported by a national mobilization by, among others, the
John Brown
Anti-Klan Committee, a group of European-descent anti-racists in
solidarity with the Black liberation struggle, broke up the Klan
rally and chased off the Klansmen. Here in Los Angeles in 1992, the
neo-nazi Populist Party, fronted by pseudo-nationalist Robert Brock,
put on a program denying Hitler's genocide against European Jews in
south-central L.A., dishonestly claiming the participation of Prof.
Jeffreys from NY and the local Committee Against Black Exploitation
in the film industry. The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, supported by
ARA-LA/People Against Racist Terror, called a counter-demonstration,
exposing the lies propagated by both the nazis and the zionist
Anti-Defamation League. The LAPD ran riot against community opponents
of the nazi gathering, probably one of the factors that fed the '92
rebellion. More recently, a counter-demonstration with leadership
from the Black Riders Liberation Party and Union del Barrio silenced
and neutralized a Crenshaw-area rally by the racist Minuteman group
and their reactionary Black front-man attempting to provoke
Black-Brown contradictions. These were important victories in which
there was clear revolutionary internationalist anti-capitalist leadership.

However, there are other, less successful examples. In 1983, here in
L.A., the nazis, the Aryan Nations, the Klan, and Metzger's White
Aryan Resistance, were able to hold a triple cross-burning in the San
Fernando Valley/Sunland area, with the complicity of the LAPD and the
compliance of the racist zionist Jewish Defense League, which had
advance intel on the time and place of the cross-burning. Several of
the people involved later became fugitives as members of "the Order"
Aryan underground, responsible for a number of racist killings and
robberies. In Toledo, OH, 3 years ago, a nazi group called a
pro-police rally and march in the Black community. Anti-Racist Action
and local anarchists called a counter-action, but the principal
response and opposition arose spontaneously from local Black
residents outraged at the nazis and their police protectors. A
mini-rebellion ensued, in which police brutalized community people
and made mass arrests, out of which several people were eventually
imprisoned on felony charges, despite ARA support for legal defense
efforts. In Riverside CA last year, the NSM was able to hold a second
rally, after their first one was broken up by militant opposition
(while liberal forces held a counter-rally several miles away). At
the second rally, police were in massive control, as the dominant
anti-nazi forces accepted police "free speech" pens separating them
from the nazis. The Brown Berets on the one hand, and direct action
anarchist anti-fascists on the other, were isolated and either
subjected to arrest (Berets) or marginalized (anarchists). The
lessons from those experiences point to the need for united action
based on international solidarity, respect for self-determination,
solidarity and self-defense to lead the anti-fascist protests that
are sure to emerge.

In the current period, the nazis are attempting to 'seize the time'
of the deepening economic crisis of militarism, unemployment,
foreclosures and austerity in education and social services to
project themselves as a pseudo-revolutionary alternative to business
as usual, by scapegoating African and indigenous people, migrants,
Jews, LGBTQ people and the left. Opposing them means putting forward
that authentic anti-capitalist revolution, anti-imperialist social
transformation and decolonization is the only solution to the crisis
of the empire. Such a pole of attraction can win over the poor and
working people of all nationalities who are increasingly
disillusioned with and frustrated by corporate domination and
politics as usual.

All who are committed to joint anti-imperialist anti-fascist work, on
the basis of international solidarity and support for
self-determination and self-defense, are invited to participate in a
campaign to shut down the nazis and send them packing, beginning with
the 3rd planning meeting next Saturday, March 13 at 11 AM at Chuco's
Justice Center, 1137 E. Redondo Boulevard, Inglewood CA (bordering
south LA -- 2 blocks west of Crenshaw, one block north of Florence at
West Blvd.). The next following meeting will be Sunday, March 21 (the
day after the big peace march) at a location TBA downtown.

Please call Anti-Racist Action-LA/People Against Racist Terror
(ARA-LA/PART) at 310-495-0299 for more information. Below,
FYI, are the 4 Points of Unity of Anti-Racist Action for those
interested in joining ARA. If you want to call or FAX the city to
stop wasting their money protecting nazi lowlifes,
Mayor Villaraigosa and the city councilmembers' phone numbers can be
accessed by calling 311.

The unity of the counter-protest is flush the nazis out and send 'em
packing, support for human rights and liberation for Black, Brown, Native,
Asian, women, LGBTQ and all poor and working people, no to racism,
sexism, imperialism, anti-semitism & genocide; we will not accept
penning by the police. We respect tactical diversity.

In solidarity,
Michael Novick, Anti-Racist Action-LA/People Against Racist Terror
(ARA-LA/PART)


ANTI-RACIST ACTION NETWORK FOUR POINTS OF UNITY
1) WE GO WHERE THEY GO: Whenever fascists are organizing or active in
public, we're there. We don't believe in ignoring them or staying
away from them. Never let the nazis have the street!
2) WE DON'T RELY ON THE COPS OR THE COURTS TO DO OUR WORK FOR US:
This doesn't mean we never go to court. But we must rely on ourselves
to protect ourselves and stop the fascists.
3) NON-SECTARIAN DEFENSE OF OTHER ANTI-FASCISTS: In ARA, we have lots
of different groups and individuals. We don't agree about everything
and we have a right to differ openly. But in this movement an attack
on one is an attack on us all. We stand behind each other.
4) We support abortion rights and reproductive freedom. ARA intends
to do the hard work necessary to build a broad, strong movement
against racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and discrimination
against the disabled, the oldest, the youngest and the most oppressed
people. We want a free classless society. WE INTEND TO WIN!


Anti-Racist Action-Los Angeles/People Against Racist Terror (ARA-LA/PART)
PO Box 1055 Culver City CA 90232
310-495-0299
antiracistaction_la@yahoo.com
www.antiracistaction.org (click on "publication" for PDFs of "Turning
the Tide" or to subscribe to the ARA E-News.

When the journalist becomes part of the story

By Sheila Regan, TC Daily Planet

March 05, 2010

Back at the beginning of November, Brian
Hokanson, a writer acquaintance of mine from TC
Indymedia, wrote me and asked me if I would be
interested in covering the story of Carrie
Feldman and Scott Demuth, two animal rights
activists who had been subpoenaed to a grand jury
in Davenport Iowa. I had read a little bit about
the case on TC Indymedia, and I passed along
Hokanson's email to my editor, Mary Turck, and
asked if she wanted me to write about the two
cases. Little did I know then that I would
eventually become a part of the story myself.

I met Feldman and Demuth on November 12 at a
potluck fundraiser for them at the Seward Café. I
had ridden my bike there and realized as I was
parking that I was wearing my down winter coat,
which might not have boded so well with a
gathering of animal rights activists. "Oh well",
I thought. "They'll eiter talk to me or they won't."

It turns out that the pair were both gracious and
charming. Feldman is a shy, fresh-faced young
woman who had a look of trepidation as she
prepared to drive down to Iowa. Demuth, with long
hair and rosy cheeks, was earnest and articulate.

They told me that they hadn't been told why they
were being subpoenaed, but they had a guess.
Feldman said she had gotten a call from her high
school teacher who told her that government
officials had asked for Feldman's attendance
records for 2004. Feldman did a google search,
typing in "communiqué" (a term commonly used for
activist actions) "Iowa" and "2004" and concluded
the subpoena must be about an incident at the
University of Iowa in 2005 in which animals were released from labs.

As a reporter, it's not my job to decide if
Feldman and DeMuth are guilty or innocent. I just
report what happens. If they had been involved in
the incident, that would be a story: two high
school sweethearts, freeing animals together. If
they weren't involved, that's a story too: two
twenty-somethings wrongly accused of a crime that
happened when they were young teenagers in a city where they didn't even live.

It turns out the story I ended up writing about
was the unusual court process that the two went
through, and continue to go through. They were
not originally charged with any crime at all.
They were instead
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2009/11/15/minneapolis-ewoks-ordered-iowa-grand-jurysummoned

to appear before a grand jury.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_juryA grand
jury meets and hears testimony in a private room,
with no judge or attorney for the witness present
-- only a prosecutor. Both Feldman and Demuth
felt that the grand jury process was
ideologically unsound and both planned to refuse to testify.

A witness can assert the Fifth Amendment
protection against self-incrimination in refusing
to testify before a grand jury. If the court
grants immunity, the witness can still be ordered
to testify. Immunity means that the testimony
cannot be used against that witness, so, under
the law, that means their testimony will not be self-incriminating.

The prosecutor got the court to grant immunity,
but both Feldman and Demuth still refused to
testify. Feldman said she didn't trust that
immunity would protect her. Demuth said that he
was not willing to risk his academic integrity by
being forced to answer questions about his
research. He is a graduate student at the
University of Minnesota in the Department of
Sociology and has conducted many interviews with
animal rights and environmental activists.

Demuth
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2009/11/17/minnesota-ewoks-jailed-iowawas
eventually charged in November with conspiracy
to commit animal enterprise terrorism in
connection with the break-in. He is currently
back in Minneapolis, out on bail and wearing an ankle bracelet monitor.

Feldman, meanwhile, was jailed for contempt of
court for refusing to testify before the grand
jury. She could be held until next October. (When
witnesses refuse to testify, they can be jailed
until the term of the grand jury is over.)

I have written a number of articles about Feldman
and Demuth's cases. In January, my editor asked
me to do an update. Feldman was being held in
jail for what seemed an indefinite amount of
time, and I was going to write about that.
However, as I started to do some research I
realized that writing about the case was going to
be very difficult, because all the court documents were sealed.

Feldman's lawyer, Jordan Kushner, told me that he
found the secrecy regarding Feldman's case
extremely problematic. He said the prosecuting
attorney, Cliff Cronk, was allowed to enter
evidence against Feldman which would prevent her
release but which Kushner, as her lawyer,
couldn't see He said one of the appellate judges
wrote a very strong dissenting opinion against
the court's decision. However, I could not read
that dissenting opinion because the court's opinion, too, was sealed.

Kushner put me in touch with Ben Rosenfeld, an
attorney from San Francisco who had been working
to unseal the documents. Kushner said that it
would be helpful if a journalist affiliated with
an official news organization would file a motion
to unseal the court dockets and filings for the
case. After conferring with Mary Turck and with
my father, who advises me on all legal matters, I
decided that I wanted to file a motion.

Before filing the motion, Rosenfeld advised me to
first take action myself to access the documents.
So on January 25 I attempted to access the docket
for Carrie Feldman's case through PACER, an
on-line access to federal court records, only to
read the message: "case under seal".

Then I called Michael Gans, a clerk for the
United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth
Circuit. I asked him why the documents were
sealed and he said that the case was "not a
public matter," and that it "happens all the
time," for court documents to be sealed. "That's
a decision for the judge to make," he said.

Realizing that attempting to see the court
documents was indeed not going to get me any
access, I gave Rosenfeld the go ahead to add my
name to the motion he had drafted.

The motion that Ben Rosenfeld filed for me on
January 26 contains this paragraph:

A search of the Federal Rules of Appellate
Procedure and this Court's Local Rules reveal no
rule or practice which provides for the automatic
sealing of a recalcitrant witness appeal such as
this one, nor any such rule requiring the blanket
sealing of procedural appeals related to grand
jury matters. Quite the contrary, opinions in
grand jury related appeals, published and
unpublished and often titled "In re Grand
Jury...," are legion and abound throughout the
public record in all of the appellate Circuits including the Eighth.

So that's
howhttp://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2010/01/26/secret-case-against-carrie-feldman
I entered the story. On February 25, Rosenfeld
emailed me and told me that the court had ruled,
granting my motion to unseal, but at the same
time giving the government an extra three weeks
to state any specific objections. One judge
voiced dissent in the decision. Judge Kermit Bye
wrote that while he agreed that certain portions
of the court documents should remained sealed, he
didn't agree that the entire motion be sealed. He
also disagreed with the three-week wait, saying
that the government had already been given ample time. He wrote:

Finally, I echo the third party movant's
suggestion that this court review its general
procedures for handling grand jury related
appeals. Such appeals should be treated as
presumptively open to the public unless and until
one of the parties specifically brings a
meritorious motion to seal portions which reveal secret grand jury information.
I wholeheartedly agree with Bye's last statement,
because I think that if we are to exist as a
democratic society, we should, whenever possible,
keep court proceedings and documents open to the public.


I talked to my editor the day that I found out
about the court's ruling, and she suggested that
I write a first hand account of my experience. I
was a little irked when I discovered, via
Twitter, that Abby Simons from the Star Tribune
had
http://www.startribune.com/local/85438027.html?elr=KArks:DCiUnP::DE8c7PiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUbeat

me to the chase and written about me before I
could write about myself. On the other hand,
though, I am glad she did, because as a larger,
more mainstream news organization, the Star
Tribune does reach a wider audience than the Twin
Cities Daily Planet. Because I disagree so much
with the secrecy involved in Carrie Feldman's
case, I hope that other news organizations will
also cover the issue and show their support in
keeping our court system open to the public.

ELP Information Bulletin (6th March 2010)

Dear friends

ELP has just received the following e-mail from supporters of Swedish eco-prisoner
Jonatan Strandberg.

>
Hi

Jonatan has been moved

After two weeks in the isolation unit at Västervik and the prison
administrations' decision to upgrade him - for "security reasons" - to the
status of grade B prisoner, Jonatan has been moved to Hällby.

In Sweden, closed prisons are divided into four categories: A to D - class
A being the harshest ones. Hällby is a class B prison, which means that it
focuses much more on security and control and that the conditions there
are harsher than at a class C prison like Västervik.

The reason for putting Jonatan in solitary confinement and then moving him
to Hällby? At Västervik, Jonatan had been active in the prisoners' council
of trust. This along with an uncompromising stance towards the prison
adminstration and articles he had written for the latest issue of the
prisoner paper Kåkbladet - some of it describing the conditions at the RO
unit and the chief prison guard - was reason enough to classify him a more
"difficult client".>
Write letters of solidarity! Jonatan Strandberg, KVA Hällby, Box 100,
64045 Kvicksund

Can you forward the update? Thanks a lot.

In solidarity,


+++++

Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network

BM Box 2407
London
WC1N 3XX
England
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Dear Friends,

This Easter Day and Passover Week coincide with
the 30th anniversary of Carlos' Alberto Torres'
arrest. Please join IPOC both in observing and
inviting other organizations and communities of
faith and conscience to observe this significant
moment in the quest for freedom for him and for
and his imprisoned compatriots, Oscar López
Rivera and Avelino González Claudio.

Thank you for your support and solidarity!

In struggle and hope,

Nozomi Ikuta

Interfaith Prisoners of Conscience Project
PO Box 770608
Lakewood, OH 44107

216 624-6781
ipoc@sbcglobal.net

Steering Committee:

Rev. Dr. C. Nozomi Ikuta, Rev. Sala Nolan
Gonzales, Toby Emmer, Dr. Diane Fujino, Alejandro
Molina, Irma Romero

March 1, 2010

This year, on Sunday, April 4, as Christians
celebrate Easter and Jews celebrate Passover,
Carlos Alberto Torres will complete 30 years in
prison for acts and beliefs in favor of Puerto
Rican independence. Carlos has served more time
in prison than Nelson Mandela had in South
Africa; he is also the longest-held political
prisoner in Puerto Rican history and among the
longest-held political prisoners in the world.

When Carlos sought release on parole in 1994, the
Parole Commission denied his request and said
they would consider his case after he served an
additional 15 years. That hearing was set for
January of 2009. The week before his scheduled
hearing, prison officials claimed to find
home-made knives in a light fixture in the ten
man cell they assigned him to. The hearing was postponed.

One of the cell occupants took sole
responsibility for the knives, swearing that he
hid them from Carlos and the others cell
occupants, and that they knew nothing about them.
Yet, deviating from routine disciplinary
practice, Carlos and the others were all found
guilty of possessing the knives. Fortunately,
Carlos’ administrative appeal resulted in the dismissal of the charges.

Carlos finally had his parole hearing on May 26,
2009, and was recommended for release.

Inexplicably, the false charges were reinstated a month later.

In a subsequent parole hearing, in January of
2010, another hearing examiner again recommended his release.

We support the hearing examiners' recommendations
to release Carlos from prison and look forward to welcoming him home.

In 1999, President Clinton heeded the call of
people in the US and Puerto Rico who had united
in calling for the release of Carlos and the
other Puerto Rican political prisoners. Now, more
than ten years later, we are renewing our call
for Carlos to rejoin his friends, families, and
communities, and our society as a whole.

As we approach the Easter and Passover holidays,
we encourage all people of conscience to sign the
call for his release, to take part in the April 3
observances of the 30th anniversary of his
arrest, and to raise additional prayers for him
throughout Passover, on Easter, April 4, and on
other significant moments appropriate to their
faith tradition. Our prayers are also with
Carlos’ imprisoned compatriots, Oscar López
Rivera and Avelino González Claudio.

In this season of reconciliation and new
beginnings, it is time for Carlos to begin his
new life with us. It is time for him to come home.

United States Parole Commission
5550 Friendship Boulevard, Suite 420

Chevy Chase, MD 20815-7286

Re: Carlos Alberto Torres,
88976-024, FCI Pekin

Dear Commissioners:

We write to urge you to adopt the recommendation
of your hearing examiner and order the release of Carlos Alberto Torres.

We believe that there is no reason for the
intervening disciplinary charges to adversely
affect your decision. Not only has Carlos
maintained an impeccable disciplinary record for
29 years; but the person responsible for
possessing the hidden weapons confessed, telling
the prison disciplinary committee that Carlos knew nothing about the weapons.

There is no risk in ordering his release. He
enjoys wide support from the whole of civil
society in Puerto Rico, and his co-defendants
have accumulated an impressive record of support
and respect in the ten years since their release.

We urge you to order his release as recommended.
We are anxious to welcome Carlos home after three long decades behind bars.

Signature:
______________________________________

Printed Name:
___________________________________

Address:
_______________________________________

City, State, Zip Code:
______________________________

Educating Advocating and Organizing for The Return
Celebrating Ten Years of Al-Awda!

Eighth Annual International Al-Awda Convention
The Embassy Suite Hotel, Anaheim South
11767 Harbor Boulevard
Garden Grove, California 92840
April 30 to May 2, 2010

Together with our families in the homeland, we are struggling to
reclaim our narrative for the right to return to a Free Palestine!

Along with our expanding network of grassroots, student and
solidarity activists, help design and energize for the coming
year's work. This year significant discounts for the convention
will be made available (see below).


JOIN US
at the largest annual gathering of Palestinians and their
supporters to work together to bring the days of Return closer!

CELEBRATE with us the 10th year since the founding of our
organization!

This year's convention will mark the 62nd year of the Nakba and
the Palestinian struggle to return home. It comes just one year
after the murderous attack on our people and the continuing siege
of the Gaza Strip. It will also take place in the midst of the
intensification of the dispossession and expulsion of our people
from Jerusalem, and Zionist efforts to take over our holy sites
throughout Palestine.

Invited speakers include:
a.. His Excellency Hilarion Capucci, exiled archbishop of Jerusalem
b.. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti (confirmed), Palestinian political figure
c.. Congressman Dennis Kucinich
d.. Hamdi Qandil, renowned Egyptian journalist and commentator
e.. Dr. Tamim Al-Barghouti, Palestinian poet, author, political
scientist
f.. Abbas Al-Nouri, Syrian actor, activist (Abu Esam in Bab el
Hara)
g.. Ali Abunimah (confirmed), Palestinian author, co-founder
Electronic Intifada
Tactics and planning discussions will include:
a.. Refugee support
b.. Boycotts & divestment
c.. US aid to Israel in this time of financial crisis
d.. Round-table discussion with keynote speakers followed by Q & A
e.. Youth program with hands on workshops


Mobilizing our efforts now is crucial! Your participation is
urgently needed!
This is your chance to get involved in the educational, advocacy
and organizing projects Al-Awda is leading.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Significant discounts for dues-paying members for all events.
Saturday sessions are free of charge for members and non-members
except for the Lunch and Evening Banquet. To become a member go
to: http://www.al-awda.org/membership.html


Reservations: http://www.al-awda.org/convention8/reserve.html
Baby Sitting: http://www.al-awda.org/convention8/cbs.html
Sponsorship: http://www.al-awda.org/convention8/sponsor.html
Advertising: http://www.al-awda.org/convention8/ads.html
Exhibitors: http://www.al-awda.org/convention8/table.html
Hotel Accommodation: http://www.al-awda.org/convention8/hotel.html


For other information: http://al-awda.org/convention8/index.html
and keep revisiting that page as it is being updated regularly
DON'T DELAY! RESERVE YOUR PLACE TODAY!

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-918-9441
Fax: 760-918-9442
E-mail: office@al-awda.org
WWW: http://al-awda.org

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC) is
dedicated to advocacy for the restoration in full of Palestinian
human, national, legal, political and historical rights with
particular emphasis on the right of Palestinians to return to
their homes and lands of origin from which they have been
dispossessed since 1948. PRRC is a not for profit tax-exempt
educational and charitable 501(c)(3) organization as defined by
the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States of
America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations to PRRC are
tax-deductible. To donate, please go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the instructions.





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BBC interviews Ricardo Alarcon on Cuban Five and democracy in Cuba.

05 March 2010

The BBC have broadcast an exclusive 18 minute interview with Ricardo
Alarcon, President of the Cuban Parliament, the National Assembly of
People's Power.

The interview is another breakthrough in the news coverage of the
campaign to free the Cuban Five who are being held in US prisons.

Last Friday the BBC broadcast a specific report on the case of the
Cuban Five on its national television news bulletins.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/world_news_america/8540218.stmWatch
the interview with Ricardo Alarcon here.

The Terrible Case of Jamie Scott

By JAMES RIDGEWAY March 5, 2010 Solitary Watch

On February 25, a small crowd gathered outside
the state capitol in Jackson, Mississippi, to
push for the release of sisters Jamie and Gladys
Scott, who are serving two consecutive life
sentences apiece for a 1993 armed robbery in
which no one was injured and the take, by most
accounts, was about $11. Supporters of the Scott
sisters have long tried to draw attention to
their case, as an extreme example of the
distorted justice and Draconian sentencing
policies that have overloaded prisons, crippled
state budgets, and torn families apart across the
United States. But in recent months, their cause
has taken on a new urgency, because for Jamie
Scott, an unwarranted life sentence may soon become a death sentence.

Jamie Scott, 38, is suffering from kidney
failure. At the Central Mississippi Correctional
Facility (CMCF) in Pearl, where Jamie and Gladys
are incarcerated, medical services are provided
by a private contractor called Wexford, which has
been the subject of lawsuits and legislative
investigations in several states over inadequate
treatment of the inmates in its care. According
to Jamie Scott’s family, in the six weeks since
her condition became life-threatening, she has
endured faulty or missed dialysis sessions,
infections, and other complications. She has
received no indication that a kidney transplant
is being considered as an option, though her sister is a willing donor.

Jamie Scott’s family and legal advisors believe
the poor health care she is receiving in prison
places her life at risk. They have sent pleas for
clemency or compassionate release to Governor
Haley Barbour, whose tough-on-crime posturing and
dubious record on issuing pardons do not bode
well for Jamie. The Mississippi Department of
Corrections (MDOC) has a provision for what it
calls “conditional medical release,” but Scott is
not a candidate, department spokesperson Suzanne
Garbo Singletary said in an email last week,
because “MDOC policy provides that an inmate must
have a condition that is ‘incapacitating, totally
disabling and/or terminal in nature’ in order to
qualify.” So Jamie Scott appears to be caught in
a deadly Catch-22: In order to be released from
prison, she must convince the MDOC that her
illness is terminal or “totally disabling”; but
the only sure way for her to prove this is to die in prison.

Cruel and Unusual Health Care

In telephone interviews earlier this week, the
Scott sisters’ mother, Evelyn Rasco, described
the treatment Jamie has received at Central
Mississippi Correctional Facility (CMCF), based
on her own observations and information provided
by her two daughters. Jamie, who has diabetes and
bouts of high blood pressure, said that medical
staff at the prison first diagnosed possible
kidney problems in 1997–but until recently, she
received minimal treatment outside of her regular
insulin. Jamie’s physical and mental health
suffered last fall when she spent 23 days in
solitary confinement (for being found in an
“unauthorized area” in the prison gym) and was
cut off from her routine of work, classes,
church, and occasional visits with her sister.
Then, in mid-January, Jamie became seriously ill
when both her kidneys began shutting down. She
was sent to the prison infirmary and, after a
week’s delay, taken to the hospital. There,
doctors inserted a shunt in Jamie’s neck to allow
her to receive dialysis through a catheter, and
she was promptly returned to prison.

Rather than letting Jamie Scott leave the prison
regularly for dialysis, prison authorities chose
to truck in dialysis machines. About three times
a week, Jamie has received hemodialysis in a
trailer on the prison grounds­if the machines are
working properly, which she reports isn’t always
the case. At one session, Jamie told her mother,
the blood was flowing out of her through a
catheter into the dialysis machine­but it wasn’t
flowing back in, so the treatment had to be
stopped. At the end of January, another inmate
looked in on Jamie, who was locked up alone in
her cell, and found her unconscious. She was
rushed to the hospital, where doctors told her
there were problems with the shunt inserted into
her neck. They made adjustments, and she was again taken back to prison.

Evelyn Rasco lives in Pensacola, Florida, where
she cares for her daughters’ five children while
they are behind bars. Since Jamie and Gladys went
to prison, Rasco’s husband of 30 years died of a
heart attack; another daughter died of congestive
heart failure; and her oldest son was away for
several years serving with the Army in Iraq. In a
letter to supporters last year, Jamie Scott
wrote: “When I think of the word ‘strongest,’ I
think of my mother. She is 4 feet 9 inches tall
and has the strength of Job in the Bible.”

Rasco lacks the time and financial resources to
visit her daughters often, but in mid-February,
she managed to make the trip to Mississippi. When
she visited the prison on February 18, along with
Jamie’s 18-year-old son, Jamie was feeling sick
but was able to make it to the visiting room.
When Rasco returned two days later, she found
Jamie in a cell attached to the infirmary. “She
was real weak,” Rasco said. “She couldn’t walk.”
An infection appeared to have developed at the
site of Jamie’s catheter, which had filled with
blood and pus. Nurses reportedly told Rasco that
Jamie should be in the hospital, but the paperwork hadn’t been done.

Rasco said that when she entered her daughter’s
cell, Jamie was sitting on the edge of a hospital
bed with dirty linens, near a toilet and wash
bowl that had not been cleaned. Prison staff
arrived with a plate of food­a hamburger swimming
in grease, some side dishes, and a cookie–but
Jamie said it looked so bad she couldn’t eat it.
The doctors at the hospital had given her a list
of foods she should eat, including meat, fish,
and vegetables, but they were not available, and
she did not have permission to purchase food at
the prison commissary. (That permission has since
been granted.) So Jamie sat on her grimy bed
eating a Snickers bar. “She sat right there with
me,” Rasco said, “and tried to give me a piece.”
Knowing it was the only nourishment her daughter
was likely to have, her mother declined.

Since Evelyn Rasco’s visit, Jamie was back in the
hospital for a day after experiencing chest pains
following dialysis, and to a clinic where her
dialysis shunt was again adjusted and she was
tested for infections. To date, the family does not know the results.

Evelyn Rasco also said that when Gladys Scott,
34, learned of her sister’s kidney failure, she
immediately offered to give Jamie a kidney. If
Gladys were to prove a viable match, this would
be by far the best medical option for Jamie:
Studies show that patients in their thirties who
receive successful transplants live considerably
longer than those who remain on dialysis. Gladys
says that CMCF staff told her that state
prisoners don’t qualify as donors, and that a
transplant would be too expensive, though there
is no indication that their statements reflect
official MDOC policy. Rasco said that she was
hoping the prison would at least let Gladys to
care for Jamie­feed her and bathe her­as inmates
are sometime allowed to do for ailing relatives.
When Rasco last spoke to her, Gladys had not received the necessary permission.

Chokwe Lumumba, a longtime activist and attorney
who also serves on the Jackson City Council, is
representing the family in the medical matter. In
an interview last week, Lumumba said, “Our first
idea is to get some medical attention into the
jail. Asking for a private doctor to go in there
and see her.” But what Jamie Scott really needs,
he told me, is “to be in hospital until a kidney transplant.”

Suzanne Garbo Singletary, Director of the MDOC’s
Division of Communications, replied to several
email inquiries regarding Jamie Scott’s care. In
one email, she wrote that “MDOC cannot comment on
any specific medical condition or treatment for
an inmate.” In another, she referred to patient
privacy laws when asked whether a kidney
transplant was being considered for Jamie Scott.
Regarding transplants for state prisoners in
general, Singltary said that “the state would pay
for a needed and necessary transplant” and would
do so “when evaluated the Dr. as needed [sic].”
Singletary added in another message: “Dialysis
units are fully operational with no malfunctions
documented in the past several years.” She also
restated the MDOC’s policy that “chronic, but
stable, medical conditions are not eligible for
conditional medical release consideration.”

At the Central Mississippi Correctional Center,
Jamie Scott’s care is in the hands of Wexford
Health Sources, a Pittsburgh-based private
company that provides prison medical services.
According to information compiled by the Private
Corrections Working Group, Wexford’s record
includes lawsuits by prisoners and current or
former employees in at least four states, as well
as allegations involving racial discrimination
and improper gifts to public officials. In 2006,
the Santa Fe Reporter launched an investigation
into Wexford, which supplied health care to New
Mexico’s 6,000 prisoners. It discovered
widespread complaints about Wexford’s care.

Those who have raised concerns about Wexford
include the company’s former regional medical
director, the former medical director of Lea
County Correctional Facility (LCCF) in Hobbs and
numerous former and current Wexford medical
employees. Their allegations are all hauntingly similar:
Wexford refuses to fill critical medical
positions. Wexford refuses to grant off-site
visits for seriously ill inmates. Wexford refuses
to renew critical prescription medicine for
inmates. And, according to those who worked for
the company, and some who still do, the company’s
insistence on the bottom line over the care of
its charges causes inmates to suffer, sometimes
with lasting, even fatal, results.

The investigation prompted hearings on prison
health care in the New Mexico state legislature,
and in December 2006, after just two years with
Wexford, Governor Bill Richardson ordered the New
Mexico Corrections Department to find a new health care provider.

Wexford’s reported resistance “to grant off-site
visits for seriously ill inmates,” is
particularly relevant to the case of Jamie Scott,
and the potentially dangerous delays she has
experienced before being sent to the hospital.
The same issue surfaced in a 2002 case in
Pennsylvania, where a 26-year-old prisoner named
Erin Finley suffered a fatal asthma attack in
prison while under Wexford’s care. According to
the Wilkes Barre Times Herald, Finley’s family
eventually received a $2.15 million settlement,
after their lawyer presented evidence showing
that “Finley desperately sought medical care for
severe asthma she had had since she was a child,
but she was repeatedly rejected based on a prison
doctor’s belief that she was ‘faking’ her
symptoms.” On the day of her death, Finley was
taken to the prison infirmary several hours after
complaining that she was having trouble
breathing. A physician’s assistant examined her
and told the doctor she needed to go to a
hospital, “but he refused to see her and left the
prison at 2:40 p.m. Twenty minutes later, Finley
lost consciousness and stopped breathing,”
according to the Times Herald. Finally she was
sent to the hospital­only to be pronounced dead.

In Mississippi, where Wexford took over health
care for the majority of the state’s prisoners in
2006 under a three-year, $95 million contract,
the Jackson Clarion Ledger reported in November
2008 that “a search of the federal court system
found more than a dozen open lawsuits filed by
inmates against MDOC on medical issues.” At
Central Mississippi Correctional Facility–the
prison where the Scott sisters are housed­the
sister of a dead inmate said she watched her
brother waste away for months from inadequately
treated Crohn’s Disease, an inflammation of the
digestive tract. “He literally starved,”
Charlotte Byrd said of her brother William Byrd,
who died in November 2008. “We watched him turn
into a skeleton.” Byrd told the Clarion Ledger
that people might lack sympathy for prisoners
like her brother, a convicted rapist, but “Even a
dog needs medical attention.” She said she
believes that “If they are doing him that way,
they are going to let somebody else die, too.”

In fact, Mississippi has one of the highest
prisoner death rates in the nation, according to
a review of prison statistics carried out by the
Jackson Clarion Ledger’s Chris Joyner, and the
death rate in 2007 was 34 percent higher than in
2006­the year Wexford took over the MDOC’s
medical care. A December 2007 report conducted by
the Mississippi Legislature’s Joint Committee on
Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review
(PEER) concluded that inmates were not receiving
timely and adequate medical treatment from
Wexford. Among other things, the PEER report
found that Wexford “did not meet medical care
standards set forth under its contract with the
state,” and that the company “did not adhere to
its own standards in following up on inmates with
chronic health problems.” When questioned about
the report and the high prisoner death rates, the
Clarion Ledger reported, Corrections Commissioner
Chris Epps “said he is satisfied with the
contractor’s performance.” The budget presented
by Epps for the coming fiscal year, which begins
on July 1, 2010, shows a request of $37.4 million
to Wexford for medical services.

In response to questions about care provided by
Wexford, MDOC spokesperson Suzanne Garbo
Singletary wrote: “Jamie Scott is receiving
quality medical care for her condition. Wexford
provides basic medical care for all inmates at
MDOC prisons. Inmates are sent to hospitals if
the need for hospital care arises.” Singletary
stated that such decisions are made by the
attending doctor at the prison, who is a Wexford
employee. Wexford did not respond to requests for comment.

Unpardonable Offenses

Nancy Lockhart, a legal investigator and analyst
based in South Carolina, has been working with
Evelyn Rasco for several years, organizing a
grassroots campaign to secure decent treatment
for the Scotts and either a review of their case
or some provision for their early release. In
interviews last week, Lockhart said that she had
helped Rasco appeal to the Obama Justice
Department, which informed her that the statute
of limitations was up for civil rights claims.
They plan to try again, offering proof of earlier
letters to the DOJ. They have also organized
letter writing and email campaigns to numerous
state and MDOC officials, and set up a web site.
The Scott sisters’ group of supporters is
growing, but they have received no meaningful responses to their pleas.

During her recent visit to Mississippi, Evelyn
Rasco had the opportunity to confront Corrections
Commissioner Christopher Epps in person when she
attended a meeting at the state capitol on prison
budget cuts. She spotted the Epps, whom she
recognized from his photograph, walked up to him,
and told him about her daughter’s poor health and
the problems with her medical treatment.
According to Rasco, Epps said that he was getting
a lot of messages about Jamie Scott, and that he
would do what he could obtain a pardon or
clemency for the Scott sisters. He told her that
he was “giving his word on this,” although he had
no power to actually make it happen himself.

The person who could make it happen is Governor
Haley Barbour, whose past record on pardons does
not bode well for Jamie and Gladys Scott.
Barbour, who took office in 2004, was initially
known for refusing to grant any pardons. In his
second term he changed course–but only for a
particular set of offenders. A 2008 investigation
by the Jackson Free Press found that Barbour had
pardoned or suspended the sentences of five
murderers, four of whom had killed their former
or current wives or girlfriends. All five men
were part of a prison trusty program under which
they did odd jobs at the governor’s mansion.
Writing in Slate, Radley Balko summarized Haley
Barbour’s policy on pardons as “show[ing] mercy
only to murderers who work on his house.”

Jamie Scott’s health crisis has also coincided
with a protracted struggle between the governor
and state legislators over how to handle budget
shortfalls. Throughout, the ambitious Barbour,
who is talked about as a possible 2012
presidential candidate, has appeared determined
to polish his reputation for being both fiscally
conservative and tough on crime. With revenue
down due to the recession, Barbour implemented a
series of deep, across-the-board cuts to state
spending in the current fiscal year. Last week
the he vetoed a bill that would have restored
some of that funding, primarily to education. At
the same time, he asked the legislature to put
$16 million back into the Department of
Corrections budget. “We have the resources to
restore funding to our priorities this year,” the
governor said in a statement, “including law enforcement and corrections.”

Against opponents who argued that Mississippi
already spends more on prisoners than it does on
schoolchildren, Barbour held up the specter of
what could happen if prison spending was cut:
3,000 to 4,000 inmates would have to be released
early. “The threat of convicted criminals on the
streets,” the Jackson Free Press wrote earlier
this month, “has provided Barbour a rhetorical
trump card in budget negotiations.”

Jamie and Gladys Scott

Even amidst this kind of rhetoric, it would be
difficult to see the Scott sisters as dangerous
or violent offenders, although the state of
Mississippi went to great lengths to depict them
as such. On Christmas Eve of 1993, Jamie and
Gladys, then 22 and 19, were both young mothers
with no criminal records. They were at the local
mini-mart buying heating fuel when they ran into
two young men they knew, who offered to give them
a ride. Sometime later that evening, the two
young men were robbed by a group of three boys,
ages 14 to 18, who arrived in another car, armed with a shotgun.

Jamie and Gladys say that they had already left
the scene to walk home when the robbery took
place, and had nothing to do with it. The state
insisted they were an integral part of the crime,
and in fact had set up the victims to be robbed.
Wherever the truth lies, trial transcripts
clearly reveal a the case based on the highly
questionable testimony of two of the teenaged
co-defendants–who had turned state’s evidence
against the Scott sisters in return for
eight-year sentences­and a prosecutor who appears
determined to demonize the two young women.

Jamie and Gladys Scott were not initially
arrested for the crime. But ten months later, the
14-year-old co-defendant–who had been in jail on
remand during that time–signed a statement
implicating them. When questioned by the Scotts’
attorney, the boy confirmed that he had been
“told that before you would be allowed to plead
guilty” to a lesser charge, “you would have to
testify against Jamie Scott and Gladys Scott.”
The boy also testified that he had neither
written nor read the statement before signing it.
It had been written for him by someone at the
county sheriff’s office, he said, and he “didn’t
know what it was.” But he had been told that if
he signed it “they would let me out of jail the
next morning, and that if I didn’t participate
with them, that they would send me to Parchman
[state penitentiary] and make me out a
female”­which he took to mean he would be raped.
The 18-year-old co-defendant who testified
against the Scott sisters also said he was
testifying against the Scotts as a condition of
his guilty plea to a lesser charge.

But the prosecutor succeeded in depicting Jamie
and Gladys Scott not only as participants in the
crime robbery, but as its masterminds­two older
women who had lured three impressionable boys
into the robbing the victims at gunpoint. (This
despite the fact that the oldest of the
co-defendants was just a year younger than
Gladys, and was driving around with a shotgun in
his car.) In his summation, he told the jury:

They thought it up. They came up with the plan.
They duped three young teenage boys into going
along and doing something stupid that is going to
cost them the next eight years of their lives in the penitentiary.
That probably makes me, at least, as mad about
this case, simply at least as much, as the fact
that two people got robbed. That three young boys
were duped into doing the dirty work.

The prosecutor also reminded jurors that while
Jamie and Gladys Scott admittedly did not have a
weapon, the judge’s instructions “tell you that
if they encourage someone else or counsel them or
aid them in any way in committing this robbery they are equally guilty.”

It took the jury just 36 minutes to convict the
Scott sisters. And while there was a range of
possible sentences for the crime of armed
robbery, the state asked for­and received­two
consecutive life sentences for the Scott sisters.
In contrast, Edgar Ray Killen, the man convicted
in 2005 of manslaughter in the 1964 deaths of
civil rights workers Schwerner, Cheney, and
Goodman, received a sentence of 60 years–meted
out by the same judge who presided over the trial
of Jamie and Gladys Scott. A direct appeal,
carried out by the same lawyers who defended them
at trial, failed to overturn the Scotts’ conviction.

Because they were tried for a crime committed
before October 1994, when even harsher sentencing
rules were put in place in Mississippi, the Scott
sisters will be eligible for parole in 2014,
after they have served 20 years­though there is
no guarantee they will receive it. In the
meantime, Evelyn Rasco is praying for mercy, for
a good lawyer­and for her daughter Jamie to live that long.

James Ridgeway can be reached at
Solitary
Watch, where this article originally appeared.

Just got done opening 30 Days for 30 Years:
A 30 day Interactive Art Installation!

We worked till 3am. But its up and running. Come visit. From 9AM-9PM
a prisoner will be on display.

176 E. 106th ST. El Barrio New York- Next to FB Lounge.
First Prisoner is Ray from the Welfare Poets!

This project will be taking place simultaneously in four locations:
Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

[]

Prisoner #001, Day one of "30 days for 30 years"

For Immediate Release 30 Days for 30 Years: A 30 day Interactive Art
Installation

FB Lounge 172 East 106th Street New York in Manhattan and will run 30
days consecutively from March 4th- April 3rd

The National Boricua Human Rights Network is excited to announce the
opening of an art installation titled: "The experience of Puerto
Rican political prisoner Carlos Alberto: 30 Days for 30 years"

In response to the 30th year of incarceration of Puerto Rican
Political Prisoner Carlos Alberto Torres, the NBHRN has recreated the
isolation of prison. One participant has volunteered to spend 12
hours in a makeshift prison cell, with only notepad pencil and book
for comfort.

The installation will take place at the 176 East 106th Street next to
FB lounge, El Barrio, New York in Manhattan and will run 30 days
consecutively from March 4th- April 3rd. This project will be taking
place simultaneously in four locations: Chicago, New York,
Philadelphia and San Juan, Puerto Rico. People can stop by and view
the cell and participants 12 hours a day and learn more about Carlos
Alberto Torres and the other remaining Puerto Rican political
prisoner, Oscar Lopez Rivera and Avelino Gonzalez Claudio.

Carlos Alberto Torres was arrested in 1980, accused of seditious
conspiracy and sentenced to 78 years in federal prison. April 4, 2010
will mark the 30th year of his incarceration. In response to the 30th
year of incarceration of longest held Puerto Rican Political
Prisoner- Carlos Alberto Torres - the National Boricua Human Rights
Network has re-created the isolation by the US Government of Puerto
Rico's patriot. It is also to bring awareness and to send a message
to release them.

The National Boricua Human Rights Network is an organization composed
of Puerto Ricans in the US with 3 main concerns: (1) The
decontamination of the island of Vieques to its people; (2) The
release of the remaining Puerto Rican political prisoners; (3) An end
to the continuing political repression and criminalization of the
Puerto Rican community.

Log on at
http://www.boricuahumanrights.orghttp://www.boricuahumanrights.org
for more information. Family and loved ones, as well as lawyers and
activists familiar with the campaign for their excarceration are
available for interviews.

Please contact Melissa Montero at
mailto:zoemontero@hotmail.comzoemontero@hotmail.com for more
information and a list of possible interviewees.