June 23rd Statewide Coordinated Actions To End Solitary Confinement- Locations & Details

June is Torture Awareness Month

Tuesday, June 23 ACTIONS by location (alphabetical order)

If you don’t see your locale listed here, click HERE to read more of this post.  If you still don’t see your locale, we haven’t received the details yet or YOU just might need to organize a simple action where you are!! One idea: do a showing of this excellent new 40 minute documentary, “Breaking Down the Box”

• Here are fliers and handbills to distribute.
• Check out our updated Universal Handbill for these actions!
• Email phssreachingout@gmail.com or click HERE to share your locale’s details and/or request materials be sent for your action.

Statewide Coordinated Actions To End Solitary Confinement (SCATESC) has a PHSS Facebook Event page.  SCATESC’s growing list of Co-sponsors and Endorsers is below.

June 23 Locations & Details (so far)

Arcata- Boston- Fresno- Oakland- Pasadena / Los Angeles – Philadelphia- Pittsburgh- San Diego- San Francisco- San Jose- Santa Cruz

ARCATA, CA:  Nighttime action!  Outdoor showing of the new, excellent documentary, “Breaking Down the Box”! We will also hand out literature for people to get educated and involved now to STOP THE TORTURE that is solitary confinement.  We will also be promoting the Agreement to End Hostilities in prisons (SHU, Ad-Seg, General Population) and in county jails.  Look for banners “End Long Term Solitary Confinement” and “Solitary Confinement = Torture.”
Arcata Action Details:
Time: 7:00pm – 9:30pm
Location: on corner of I St between 9th and 10th, across from T’s Cafe near Ace Hardware parking lot, Arcata CA
For more info, call  707-267-4249
Contact Name: Verbena
Contact Email: peoplesarc@gmail.com

 

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS:
The Coalition for Effective Public Safety – CEPS is engaging in public actions the 23rd of each month to bring attention to the 80,000+ people held in solitary confinement across the U.S. on any given day and to end solitary confinement. This date emphasizes the 23 or more hours every day that people are kept in solitary confinement. Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition (PHSS) has helped launch statewide Coordinated Actions to End Solitary Confinement in California following the Pelican Bay hunger strike initiated in 2013 by people incarcerated there in response to the deplorable conditions they were being held in. Monthly actions began in California in March 2015, and we are starting here in Massachusetts in June 2015.

Meet us at South Station at NOON.  We’ll have chalk, facts about solitary confinement in Massachusetts and nationwide, and handouts. Bring your energy!

We’ll be chalking solitary confinement facts to raise awareness about solitary confinement for an hour at South Station, through Dewey Square towards Downtown Crossing & Park T stops.

Working during the day? Meet us at 5:30pm at Coolidge Corner in front of Coolidge Corner Theatre. We’ll chalk facts about solitary confinement up and down Beacon and Harvard!

Massachusetts is one of only three states where prisoners who commit disciplinary infractions can be placed in solitary confinement for up to ten years, even though the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture has called for a ban on any solitary confinement that lasts longer than fifteen days.
Massachusetts Action Details
Time: 12noon – 5:30pm EST
Location: South Station (Boston)/Coolidge Corner                 (Brookline) 700 Atlantic Ave, Boston
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Coalition-for-Effective-Public-Safety-CEPS/353915588130873
Contact person: Rachel Corey
For info or to help plan future actions: director@cjpc.org

FRESNO, CA:
The California Prison Moratorium Project will do an action on the 23rd in front of the Fresno County Jail, as part of this powerful statewide coordinated effort to END SOLITARY CONFINEMENT.
Fresno Action Details
Time: 9:00am – 10:30am
Location: in front of Fresno County Jail, 1225 M St., Fresno, CA 93721
For more info, call 559-367-6020
Contact email:   pmpvalle@yahoo.com 

OAKLAND, CA:
Help hand out information during the busy lunch time downtown!  Wear or bring a sign about ending solitary confinement. (or just show up!) We will have handouts about Bay Area/NorCal California Families Against Solitary Confinfement (CFASC) so that more family members of people in prison can come together, support each other, and powerfully organize for imprisoned loved ones to be free from abuse.

“We will be with the prisoners…in the courts,
in the legislature, and out in the community.
We will use every venue available to us,
UNTIL THE TORTURE IS ENDED.”–Marie Levin of Oakland, active with CFASC and Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition, sister of Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa- Prisoner Human Rights Movement, co-author of Agreement To End Hostilities,
been in SHU  31 years.

HERE‘s the Oakland Flier!
Oakland Action Details:
Time: 12Noon – 2:00pm (set up at 11:30am)
Location: across from Oscar Grant Plaza, 14th and
Broadway,  on the corner by Walgreens
Contact email: phssreachingout@gmail.com

PASADENA / LOS ANGELES CA:
June is recognized around the world as Torture Awareness Month. The Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) was adopted on June 26, 1987, and the day was declared the “International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.”

At this event, we will present If the SHU Fits-Voices from Solitary Confinement.
We will then:
* Share Stories
* Discuss Strategies to make meaningful change and  * Take Action!

Discussion moderated by Sharon Kyle (LA Progressive) with
Paul Spector RN, former CA Dept of Corrections nurse
Geri Silva, CA Families Against Solitary Confinement
Ernest Shepard, Fair Chance Project

“If the SHU Fits” is produced by Dramastage Qumran, LA Laborfest, & Public Works Improvisational Theatre, and supported by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), and the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition (PHSS).

The event is a part of the Statewide Coordinated Actions to End Solitary Confinement, a call by prisoners in solitary to their supporters outside to STOP THE TORTURE with events on the 23rd of each month, signifying the number of hours prisoners are kept in solitary.

HERE‘s the Pasadena Flier!
Pasadena Action Details
Time: 7:00pm – 9:30pm
Location: Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church
301 N Orange Grove Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91103
Contact person: Andy Griggs
For info, call 310-704-3217 or email lalaborfest@gmail.com
Facebook event: http://bit.ly/EndSHUTorture

Report and Photos from 1st Monthly Statewide Coordinated Actions to End Solitary Confinement, March 23

[This article was first published March 28, 2015 in the San Francisco Bay View ]

Statewide Coordinated Actions to End Solitary Confinement (SCATESC) began March 23, 2015. Actions were held in California from San Diego to Arcata (Arcata-Eureka, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, San Jose, Santa Cruz) and Philadelphia, Penn. Activists in more locations will be joining in on April 23 and the 23rd of each month. Below is a report from just one locality, Santa Cruz, which took a creative approach.

by Willow Katz

About 45 people attended the first day of Statewide Coordinated Actions to End Solitary Confinement (SCATESC), on March 23, 2015, at the Lighthouse on West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz. We went there to see the ocean for so many SHU and solitary prisoners who talk about their dream to see the ocean again, including Luis Esquivel.

Oakland’s action was in Oscar Grant Plaza, 14th and Broadway, the scene of many, many struggles for justice in recent years. Readers are urged to come out in droves on April 23 and the 23rd of every month. We may not be able to rid the world of all evils, but we CAN end solitary confinement!

The actions are being held in response to a call by California prisoners. Proposals for action from Pelican Bay State Prison hunger strikers in November 2013 included “designating a certain date each month as Prisoner Rights Day. … Our supporters would gather in locations throughout California to expose [California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] CDCR’s actions and rally support efforts to secure our rights. We can see this action growing from month to month as more people inside and out become aware of it and join our struggle.”

Actions were held March 23 in California – at Arcata, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, San Jose and Santa Cruz– and Philadelphia. Monterey is planning future actions, and we expect more actions statewide, nationally and internationally.

Activists Annie Kane and Jerry Elster check out the window slits atop Oakland City Hall. A city worker told them that behind the slits are SHU-like cells that are no longer used. – Photo: Kim Rohrbach