Families Trek From SoCal to Pelican Bay In Hopes of Seeing Loved Ones Held in Solitary Confinement

Press Contact:  Azadeh Zohrabi
Cell:  310.612.9706
Interviews and photos available by request

San Francisco – A group of family members of prisoners in Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing Units (SHUs) have organized a charter bus to offer free rides for other family members to visit their loved ones at Pelican Bay. The trip is being organized by California Families Against Solitary Confinement (CFASC) in an effort to support families who have been unable to make the long trip to Pelican Bay due to financial restraints. The trip will begin in Los Angeles leaving at 3:00 a.m. on Friday, December 7^th, and will stop briefly in San Francisco to pick up other families. They will return from Pelican Bay on Sunday, December 9^th, after the last visits around 3:00 p.m.

The bus is full, and taking 55 family members including children to Pelican Bay. Organizers plan to reunite families before the winter holidays. It takes roughly 16 hours to drive from Los Angeles to Pelican Bay. “The long distance and costs associated with travel make it incredibly difficult for family members to visit their loved ones who are locked up at Pelican Bay. The state says our family members that we love are the ‘worst of the worst’, which not only gives the state power to lock them in cages in horrible conditions, but empowers the state to make visiting with those they love – and those who love them – almost impossible,” said Dolores Canales, whose son is in Pelican Bay’s SHU.  “We organized this trip without expectations, and found so much motivation and interest among family members that we have to drive a full car along with the chartered bus, and there’s not space for some people at all.”

As a result of the difficulties involved in visiting family imprisoned in Pelican Bay, many of the family members on this shared bus ride are visiting their loved ones for the first time, some after 10 or more years of separation.  “CFASC is creating this amazing opportunity for me. My brother was taken away from us years ago, and since he’s been at Pelican Bay, I haven’t been able to afford to visit much. His isolation has totally devastated our family. This is an incredible experience that I’m hoping can be repeated in the future,” says Marie Levin, whose brother lives in Pelican Bay’s SHU and is one of the plaintiffs named in the lawsuit filed with the Center for Constitutional Rights which alleges that the use of solitary confinement in California violates due process and amounts to torture. He was also among the first prisoners to call for hunger strikes in July, 2011.

Prisoners in Pelican Bay began a hunger strike last year to protest the conditions of extreme isolation in the SHUs. One of the demands that they issued to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation included expanded visiting privileges. The prisoners housed in SHU’s across the state are only allowed to visit with their families for one to two hours behind glass each weekend if the family can afford the time and expense of the three day trip. Many of these prisoners have not felt another human’s touch in decades.

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Human Rights Pen Pal Program

A Project of the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition  (PHSS)

WHAT IS THE HUMAN RIGHTS PEN PAL PROGRAM?

“A wall is just a wall;
It can be broken down.”
Assata Shakur

            The Human Rights Pen Pal program is an anti-racist, grassroots organizer training program in solidarity with the human rights of prisoners in California’s solitary confinement cells.  The program will promote principled relationships between prisoners in solitary confinement and supporters outside the walls; and combine practice, political education, beginning community organizing skills, and evaluation.

The Human Rights Pen Pal program is specifically intended to support the ongoing work of the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition which works to end solitary confinement and address the human rights of prisoners confined in SHU’s (Security Housing Units) and Ad Segs (Administrative Segregation), California prisons’ names for solitary confinement.

The Human Rights Pen Pal program complements and supports other forms of pen pal programs, all of which are crucial for transcending the walls between activists outside and inside the prisons, and for winning some justice for all prisoners in California.

Video message from Mapuche nation

Every year on Thanksgiving, a sunrise ceremony at Alcatraz Island (famous as home to a US military prison and then federal prison until 1963) brings indigenous peoples from many parts of the globe as well as local supporters to celebrate the 1969 indigenous takeover of Alcatraz and ongoing indigenous resistance movements.

The Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition was thankful to have the opportunity to meet and speak with Ariel Traipi Huilipan, a representative from the Mapuche nation in Chile, who participated in the sunrise ceremony and spoke with us about the ongoing Mapuche prisoner hunger strike (that we mentioned last month).

As Huilipan explained, the striking Mapuche prisoners are being accused of terrorism – an allegation that he calls “unfounded” and said hasn’t been proven in any court, whether local or international. Rather, Huilipan said that Mapuches are being targeted in order for the Chilean government to get access to raw materials, which they are not willing to give up: “Respect the earth. We only have one.”

Detailed news about the Mapuche prisoner hunger strikes has been hard to come by. Below is part of a press release, dated November 23rd, 2012, and translated to English. Access the full press release HERE.

We communicate to the Mapuche Nation and general public opinion the following:

The CAM Mapuche Political Prisoners reaffirm their compromise with the hunger strike that began this past Wednesday, November 14^th, until the final consequences.

This new mobilization pretends to denounce the following:

-          Our pu peñi [Brothers] that have been persecuted and unjustly convicted through the application of the Antiterrorist Law, the use of “Secret Witnesses” and other devices in order to be sentenced to 8 and 15 years in prison respectively.

-          We were doubly convicted by two different Courts, one Civil and the other Military, violating the principle of “NON BIS IN IDEM.” Being convicted to 3 and 4 years by Civil Justice when we had already been acquitted on the same charges (with Prosecutor Elgueta) through the Military Court.

Media Roundup: Hunger strikes and focus on solitary confinement

Current Strikes

According to the latest report, with information coming from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), the hunger strikes at Corcoran and Tehachapi State Prisons have ended. As of Wednesday, October 17, 69 prisoners had continued to refuse meals at Corcoran, while prisoners at California’s Tehachapi State Prison “started refusing food on October 10. The number fluctuated, reaching 208 before declining to 135 yesterday [Tuesday] and zero today [Wednesday],” said Terry Thornton, a CDCR spokesperson, quoted by KQED.

According to the LA Times, “Corrections officials said the inmates are protesting new gang control policies the state intends to put into place, defining when and how inmates suspected of gang membership are to be assigned to long-term segregation units away from the main population.”

The Wall Street Journal chimed in, essentially repeating the CDCR lines from Terry Thornton.

Media Roundup: End to Hostilities and New Hunger Strikes

Five hundred prisoners across California refused meals last Wednesday, October 10th, starting a hunger strike that continued through the weekend, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). The strike came at the same week as prisoners in Pelican Bay’s Short Corridor Collective called for the start of an Agreement to End Hostilities. The geographically widespread actions show that prisoners across our state are anxious to support stronger communities, reduce opportunities for retributive punishment and to demand accountability of the state’s caging apparatus.

Human Rights Watch & ACLU condemn solitary confinement for youth

The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch have published a report called “Growing Up Locked Down: Youth in Solitary Confinement in Jails and Prisons Across the United States“, condemning the use of solitary confinement in any case against young people.

According to the ACLU, “The isolation of solitary confinement causes anguish, provokes serious mental and physical health problems, and works against rehabilitation for teenagers.”

Ian Kysel, a fellow with the ACLU and HRW and author of the report said that the use of solitary confinement for young people is utterly ineffective: “No one believes that locking a teenager in a closet is an effective way to improve either their behavior or their character, much less to protect them long term.”

Along with the written report, the ACLU and HRW released a video about young people’s experience in solitary confinement (above).

Coverage: LA rallies to end jailhouse hostilities

Inland News Today filed a radio report on the Youth Justice Coalition’s rally that was organized to both support the  End to Hostilities Agreement in California prisons and a “parallel cease fire in the streets”.

Listen to the  the short radio report by clicking here: Inland Empire coverage of the YJC rally in Los Angeles.

Agreement to End Hostilities Starts TODAY!!

Last month, prisoners in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at the notorious Pelican Bay State Prison announced a signed agreement to end hostilities between racial groups in CA state prisons & jails starting today, October 10th, 2012. The statement was drafted by the Short Corridor Collective, comprised of SHU prisoners who participated in last year’s hunger strikes.

People across the state have taken up the call for solidarity with the agreement. Today in Los Angeles, community organizations (including Youth Justice Coalition, California Families to Abolish Solitary Confinement, Californians United for a Responsible Budget, Coalition to End Sheriff Violence in L.A. Jails, Homies Unidos, and All of Us or None), family members and others rally outside the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail to publicize the historic agreement while drawing connections between efforts inside of prisons and efforts in communities to cease hostilities and end destructive cycles of violence. Rally organizers hope the calls for prisoners to cease hostilities will inspire similar action in Los Angeles communities and to take to heart the Short Corridor Collective’s hopefulness: “collectively, we are an empowered, mighty force, that can positively change this entire corrupt system into a system that actually benefits prisoners, and thereby, the public as a whole…”

Support this historic agreement (below & available here) by spreading word inside & outside of prison! Download the Agreement flyer & Cover letter (from Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity).

Agreement to End Hostilities

August 12, 2012

To whom it may concern and all California Prisoners:

Greetings from the entire PBSP-SHU Short Corridor Hunger Strike Representatives. We are hereby presenting this mutual agreement on behalf of all racial groups here in the PBSP-SHU Corridor. Wherein, we have arrived at a mutual agreement concerning the following points:

1. If we really want to bring about substantive meaningful changes to the CDCR system in a manner beneficial to all solid individuals, who have never been broken by CDCR’s torture tactics intended to coerce one to become a state informant via debriefing, that now is the time for us to collectively seize this moment in time, and put an end to more that 20-30 years of hostilities between our racial groups.
2. Therefore, beginning on October 10, 2012, all hostilities between our racial groups… in SHU, Ad-Seg, General Population, and County Jails, will officially cease. This means that from this date on, all racial group hostilities need to be at an end… and if personal issues arise between individuals, people need to do all they can to exhaust all diplomatic means to settle such disputes; do not allow personal, individual issues to escalate into racial group issues!!
3. We also want to warn those in the General Population that IGI will continue to plant undercover Sensitive Needs Yard (SNY) debriefer  “inmates” amongst the solid GP prisoners with orders from IGI to be informers, snitches, rats, and obstructionists, in order to attempt to disrupt and undermine our collective groups’ mutual understanding on issues intended for our mutual causes [i.e., forcing CDCR to open up all GP main lines, and return to a rehabilitative-type system of meaningful programs/privileges, including lifer conjugal visits, etc. via peaceful protest activity/noncooperation e.g., hunger strike, no labor, etc. etc.].  People need to be aware and vigilant to such tactics, and refuse to allow such IGI inmate snitches to create chaos and reignite hostilities amongst our racial groups. We can no longer play into IGI, ISU, OCS, and SSU’s old manipulative divide and conquer tactics!!!

In conclusion, we must all hold strong to our mutual agreement from this point on and focus our time, attention, and energy on mutual causes beneficial to all of us [i.e., prisoners], and our best interests. We can no longer allow CDCR to use us against each other for their benefit!! Because the reality is that collectively, we are an empowered, mighty force, that can positively change this entire corrupt system into a system that actually benefits prisoners, and thereby, the public as a whole… and  we simply cannot allow CDCR/CCPOA – Prison Guard’s Union, IGI, ISU, OCS, and SSU, to continue to get away with their constant form of progressive oppression and warehousing of tens of thousands of prisoners, including the 14,000 (+) plus prisoners held in solitary confinement torture chambers [i.e. SHU/Ad-Seg Units], for decades!!!

We send our love and respects to all those of like mind and heart… onward in struggle and solidarity…

Presented by the PBSP-SHU Short Corridor Collective:

Todd Ashker, C58191, D1-119

Arturo Castellanos, C17275, D1-121

Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa (Dewberry), C35671, D1-117

Antonio Guillen, P81948, D2-106

And the Representatives Body:

Danny Troxell, B76578, D1-120

George Franco, D46556, D4-217

Ronnie Yandell, V27927, D4-215

Paul Redd, B72683, D2-117

James Baridi Williamson, D-34288. D4-107

Alfred Sandoval, D61000, D4-214

Louis  Powell, B59864, D1-104

Alex Yrigollen, H32421, D2-204

Gabriel Huerta, C80766, D3-222

Frank Clement, D07919, D3-116

Raymond Chavo Perez, K12922, D1-219

James Mario Perez, B48186, D3-124

LA youth join call for end to hostilities

Los Angeles’ Youth Justice Coalition (YJC) is calling for a “parallel cease fire in the streets” to correspond to the End to Hostilities that has been called for by the Short Corridor Collective – a group of Pelican Bay hunger strike representatives who are living in that prison’s Security Housing Unit (SHU, or isolation unit).

The YJC will kick off its call for an end to hostilities on the streets with an event on Wednesday, October 10th at 10am outside the LA County Men’s Jail (450 Bauchet Street, Los Angeles, 90012).

Here’s more information from the YJC’s Facebook event:

CA Gov. Jerry Brown signs bills last minute; opposes media access to prisoners

California Governor Jerry Brown waited until the last minute to get to a pile of dozens of legislative bills on Sunday that he had been avoiding. Among them were the prison media access bill, AB1270, which was proposed by State Assemblyperson Tom Ammiano. The bill, if passed, would have given reporters access to prisoners unless granting the interview would pose “an immediate and direct threat”, as decided by the prison warden. Brown shut the bill down on Sunday, saying that it went “too far” and that “this standard is too high”. He went on:

“Furthermore, giving criminals celebrity status through repeated appearances on television will glorify their crimes and hurt victims and their families… I agree that too little media access may be harmful, but too much can be as well. This bill gives too much.”