Support Hunger Strikers in Corcoran State Prison – SOLIDARITY PROTESTS 2/16 & 2/17

Prisoners are hunger striking against indefinite lockdown and group punishment.

 Corcoran State Prison Protest outside
→ in solidarity with people inside who are peacefully protesting against torture ←

Sat & Sun/Feb 16 and 17
11:00am – 2:30pm (both days)
in front of Corcoran State Prison entrance
Corcoran, CA 93212

Families are mobilizing for this weekend’s protests.
Please participate if you can!!
Contact number:  562.537.7068.

On Jan. 9, 2019, an estimated 250 prisoners went on hunger strike within Corcoran State Prison’s 3C facility in response to an indefinite lockdown. They have asked that this info be made public and that their DEMANDS BE HEARD.

Corcoran State Prison (3C Yrd)
SIX CORE DEMANDS ARE AS FOLLOWS:

1. Lift Lock-Down.
2. Allow Visits.
3. Allow Us To Attend Educational, Vocational & Rehabilitation Programs That We’re Enrolled In.
4. Allow Us To Receive Commissary & Packages.
5. That We Be Given Our Weekly 10 Hrs Of Mandated Outdoor Exercise Yard.
6. That We Are Treated Fairly.

***WE’VE BEEN ON THIS PEACEFUL HUNGER STRIKE SINCE JANUARY 9TH, 2019 AND HAVE YET TO SEE CHANGE… WE WILL CONTINUE THIS HUNGER STRIKE UNTIL OUR VOICES ARE HEARD.

UPDATE: On January 9, 2019, an estimated 250 prisoners initiated a hunger strike within California State Prison – Corcoran’s 3C facility in response to an indefinite lockdown. On Jan 28, after three weeks of refusing food trays, the warden met with representatives, granted full canteen privileges and promised to work out a separate yard schedule. The strikers suspended their hunger strike and were ready to continue negotiations in good faith.

Over the last two weeks there has been NO PROGRESS on receiving full canteen or separate yard time. The warden has reneged on all pledges so the strikers of 3C refused breakfast trays on Monday, Feb 11 and held a day long noise demo banging on doors and windows. The initial demands remain and strikers insist that they be dealt with in good faith.

BACKGROUND: All units within Corcoran’s 3C facility have been on “modified program” for four months now. This essentially means a “lockdown” in all meaningful aspects – no visitation, no canteen, no packages, no educational, rehab or vocational programming, and little yard time.

The pretext for this indefinite lockdown by CDCr of hundreds of prisoners for months on end is an altercation on Sept. 28 which saw three prisoners from their unit attacked and put into the infirmary. Group punishments and indefinite isolation are standard practices by CDCr and must stop.

These practices only escalate trauma and conflict and ultimately only promote violence and destabilization within facilities. The effects are not an accident or “regrettable by-products.” This is how CDCr interprets its mission: control by brutalization and division.

The above info is from the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee.
See more articles and interviews about the strike below.

PLEASE MAKE PHONE CALLS!

The hunger strike representatives have requested phone calls be made to officials in Sacramento to amplify the demands.

Support Demands of PRISONERS UNITED on Hunger Strike, starting in Alameda County Jails

Please check for ongoing Updates HERE and at @svdebug and @CURYJ on Twitter and Facebook.

Families, loved ones and community members,

 

PRISONERS UNITED in Alameda and Santa Clara County Jails are being deprived of their human and constitutional rights of due process and inflicted with cruel and unusual punishment, inhumane living conditions, and the torturous practice of solitary confinement..

Today, October 15, 2017, PRISONERS UNITED in Glenn Dyer Detention Center courageously lead the way in a Hunger Strike that will span across 2 counties and 4 jails. Santa Rita Jail, Santa Clara County Main Jail and Elmwood D.O.C. will continue the strike in solidarity on October 22.

Families, loved ones and community members,
Please call the Alameda County Sheriff Administration and Alameda County Board of Supervisors until they meet the below Alameda County Jails 5 Core Demands:

 

Alameda County Sheriff Administration:  (510) 272-6878

 

Alameda County Board of Supervisors:  (510) 272-6347

1. End Indefinite Solitary Confinement/Administrative Segregation.
   
2. End Subjective Grievance Practices.
   
3. End Abuse of Discretion to Lockdown Unstructured Programming (Time Out of Cell).
   
4. End Insufficient and Unsanitary Clothing.
   
5. End Insufficient Food and Starvation for Indigent Prisoners.

Please spread the word!

Post these fliers on social media. 

Day 1 flier_vertical

Day 1 flier_horizontal

PLEJ for Liberation: Building Power with Students and Imprisoned Educators!

 

Seeking community educators for
PLEJ for Liberation program

Are you or do you know someone who would be interested in connecting your students with educators and organizers who are incarcerated?

 

Consider participating in the PLEJ for Liberation!

PLEJ for Liberation is a collaboration between imprisoned educators and educators “outside the walls” to share curriculum with students about ending the prison system & solitary confinement.

The PLEJ for Liberation goals:
PLEJ (Power, Love, Education and Justice) for Liberation is an innovative project that brings together social justice educators in the community with imprisoned educators in California’s solitary confinement cells. The goal of this project is to create a justice-oriented, people-centered curriculum about the prison system for teenaged youth and young adults.

Who will I work with?
The imprisoned educators are elders in political struggle and organizing inside prisons, including the historic 2011 & 2013 hunger strikes in California prisons and “The Agreement to End Hostilities”.

What becoming a PLEJ community educator includes:
– maintaining a pen pal relationship with an imprisoned educator
– collaboratively creating a ‘curriculum’ with the imprisoned educator that would be relevant and inspiring for your students
– supervising all correspondence between students and imprisoned educator
– maintaining a high level of structure, to ensure continuity and prevent prison officials’ retaliation against your pen pal

Successful Motion in Court Strengthens CA Prisoners’ Case Against Solitary

For Immediate Release – March 10, 2015
Press Contact: Mohamed Shehk, Critical Resistance – 408.910.2618 – mohamed@criticalresistance.org

Oakland, CA – Pelican Bay prisoners named as plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against the use of solitary confinement in California gained an important victory yesterday as U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled in favor of a motion filed by the plaintiffs’ counsel. The motion allows prisoners who have been in solitary confinement for more than 10 years, but have been transferred out of Pelican Bay State Prison since the lawsuit was first filed, to be eligible as class members in the case.

“Our success with this motion should be a strong message to the prison administration that its attempts to evade court review of its unconstitutional practices,” says Carol Strickman, co-counsel for the plaintiffs and Staff Attorney at Legal Services for Prisoners with Children. “Our goal in this case is to support the demand of prisoners to end the inhumane use of indefinite solitary, and no amount of legal shell games is going to stop us from achieving that goal.”

In June 2014, the court granted class action status to the case for prisoners held in Pelican Bay’s notorious Security Housing Units (SHU) for more than 10 years. Since then, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has attempted to weaken the case and repress political organizing by transferring prisoners out of Pelican Bay, thereby claiming that they are no longer eligible class members in the lawsuit.

Important Alert: Fight the return of the new prison censorship rules

We called for your help in June,  and we’re calling for it again.  Last month, California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitations (CDCR) issued revisions to its proposed “obscene materials,” i.e. censorship regulations published earlier this year.This was in response to hundreds of public comments submitted to CDCR by CURB members and members of the public. CDCR promised to go back to the drawing board, saying the public had misunderstood its intent.This shows our collective people power! Yet, the revisions recently made by the Department are superficial and fail to address the serious concerns so many of us raised in our public comments. If the proposed regulations are approved, CDCR will be able to permanently ban any publications it considers contraband, including political publications and correspondence that should be protected by First Amendment constitutional rights.

The proposed regulations are designed to:

1. Censor writings that educate the public about what is actually occurring inside the prisons,
2. Stifle the intellectual, personal and political education and development of those incarcerated,
3. Stifle efforts by prisoners to nonviolently organize, and
4. Expand the CDCR’s ability to arbitrarily cut off its wards from direly needed contact and support coming from outside, thus further isolating them.

Please weigh in and speak out against these regulations. The public comment period is open until 5pm on November 10. Resources to help craft a letter are provided at the action page.

Spread the word on Facebook and ask your friends, family, neighbors, pastor, school class, place of worship, and organizations to write also. Then take action on Monday by joining fellow CURB organizations Flying Over Walls and The Transgender, Gender Variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) and PHSS make mass phone calls to CDC voicing our criticisms!

Thank you for everything you do and for your initial round of public comments in June.

Fact Sheet – CDCR Censorship Regulations – Nov 2014 PDF

Celebrating California’s Historic Hunger Strike, One Year Later – Oakland

A year ago on July 8th, over 30,000 people on the inside began a hunger strike to bring an end to California’s use of indefinite solitary confinement.

This was the largest hunger strike in U.S. history, and dozens of incarcerated people carried on the fast for 60 days.  Join us as we honor these courageous people and push forward to bring an end to the torture of long-term solitary confinement.

Please Join/Invite/Share FACEBOOK EVENT:  Celebrating California’s Historic Hunger Strike

FUNDS NEEDED for Documentary on California Prisoner Hunger Strikes

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dying-for-sunlight-documentary-film-on-the-california-prisoner-hunger-strikes
On June 12, 2014, Lucas Guilkey, organizer and award-winning documentary film maker, launched an Indiegogo fundraising campaign for the film “Dying for Sunlight: The Story of the California Prisoner Hunger Strikes.”  Please support the making of this documentary about the prisoner-led human rights movement against indefinite solitary confinement

 

Lucas has been creating powerful short videos about the CA Prisoner Hunger Strike Human Rights Movement over the past year, and now plans to tell the story in a more full and comprehensive manner, focusing on those who know it best: family members of the hunger strikers and those who’ve spent time in the SHU.

 

Any and all help spreading the word about this fundraising campaign will be deeply appreciated.

 igg.me/at/hungerstrikefilm

NY Times Article on Pelican Bay Class Action Lawsuit, June 3, 2014

Judge’s Decision to Hear Inmates’ Case Threatens Practice of Solitary Confinement

…. Legal experts say that the ruling, which allows inmates at Pelican Bay who have been held in solitary confinement for more than a decade to sue as a class, paves the way for a court case that could shape national policy on the use of long-term solitary confinement. …

The use of solitary confinement at Pelican Bay, the lawsuit contends, is so extreme that it “renders California an outlier in this country and in the civilized world.”

Read the entire NYT article by Erica Goode  HERE

Update from Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition, 4-28-2014

Greetings,

This post is chock full of resources and various updates, downloads of recent newsletters, new media articles and PBS specials about solitary confinement, exciting upcoming events with Lynne Stewart, and information on our weekly meetings.

Thanks to all the outcry about the recent cell raids in Corcoran SHU, we believe they have stopped, according to a letter from the person who alerted us originally.

We still encourage you to send criticisms regarding the Security Threat Group/Step Down Program regulations, even though the official deadline is over.  Send to rpmb@cdcr.ca.gov and cc to peoplesarc@gmail.com.

Upcoming events throughout California, in New York, and in Wisconsin can be found in the calendar at  https://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/take-action-2/

Read the entire update HERE.