Tag Archives: #Together

June 23: TOGETHER TO END SOLITARY Actions

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Ithaca, NY  — Oakland, CA —  Queens, NY  —
San Diego, CA  — San Jose, CA —  Santa Cruz, CA

June is Torture Awareness Month. Click on the large titles below to see action details for June 23rd.

Statewide Coordinated Actions To End Solitary Confinement began in March 2014 on the 23rd of every month -in recognition of the 23 or more hours a day that people in solitary spend in their cells. Monthly action coordination soon began nationwide, Together to End Solitary.  Please participate in a public action or event  planned in your area, or get one going yourself- however big or small.  Endorsing organizations here.

Email togethertoendsolitary@gmail.com or phssreachingout@gmail.com for more info and to share upcoming actions to end solitary or reportbacks.

Ithaca, NY: Vigil- Together to End Solitary

5:00pm – 6:30pm
Please join our VIGIL to end solitary confinement. Organized by CAIC, Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement, in partnership with Amnesty International. …Read More…

 

Oakland, CA: Statewide Coordinated Actions To End Solitary Confinement

11:00am – 2:00pm
Please participate in an informational demonstration on Thursday, in conjunction with actions all over California and throughout the U.S. Connect with family members, formerly incarcerated people, activists, and attorneys who struggle for prisoner human rights. Unity inside, unity outside! … Read More…

 

NYC End Solitary Confinement Demonstration and Speakout

6:00pm – 7:30pm
This month we will be in Queens at Athens Square in Astoria at 30th Ave. & 30th Street (near the 30th Ave stop of the N/Q). The two legislators in this area, Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas and State Senator Michael Gianaris have been invited to attend. The former has signed on as a co-sponsor of the HALT (Humane Alternatives) to Solitary Confinement A4401/S2659. Come and join us.

 

San Diego, CA: Statewide Coordinated Actions To End Solitary Confinement

4:00pm – 5:30pm
Join California Families Against Solitary Confinement and the Chicano Mexicano Prison Project in our monthly action. We will be out talking with people and providing information to END SOLITARY CONFINEMENT and PROMOTE THE AGREEMENT TO END HOSTILITIES. We ask you also to help us stop the current SLEEP DEPRIVATION TORTURE in solitary units. Please come stand (or sit) with us for an hour or two after the work day. …Read More…

 

San Jose, CA: Statewide Coordinated Actions To End Solitary Confinement

5:00pm – 6:00pm

San Jose – 23rd of Each Month! (no more keeping people in isolation 23+ hours a day)  We will distribute leaflets and wear signs on our shirts demanding the end of the Sleep Deprivation and the end of Solitary Confinement. …Read More…

 

Santa Cruz, CA: Statewide Coordinated Actions To End Solitary Confinement

12:00pm – 2:00pm
RALLY, SPEAK-OUT, READER’S THEATER Facebook event: www.facebook.com/events/988617214527474/

STOP SLEEP DEPRIVATION  The CA prisoners’ 2012 Agreement to End Hostilities between racial/ethnic and geographic groups made possible the Prisoner Hunger Strike of 2013 by over 30,000 CA prisoners and 100’s more nationwide. Prisoners’ human rights organizing has built an amazing movement and led to the historic 2015 settlement ending indefinite solitary confinement in CA.  Now people are being awakened by guards every 30 minutes day and night in CA solitary confinement units: * in Central CA Women’s Facility Administrative Segregation death row since May 18, 2014 and * in Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit (SHU) since August 2, 2015 …Read More…

May 20th-23rd: Together to End Solitary Events/Actions

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Bronx, NY — Ithaca, NY  — Manhasset, NY— Oakland, CA Richmond, CA — San Diego, CA  — San Jose, CA —San Francisco, CA —  Santa Cruz, CA —  Staten Island, NY

Statewide Coordinated Actions To End Solitary Confinement began in March 2014 on the 23rd of every month -in recognition of the 23 hours or more per day that people in solitary spend in their cells. Monthly action coordination soon began nationwide, Together to End Solitary.  Please participate in these public actions and events planned in your area, or get one going yourself- however big or small. Here is a great brochure you can print and distribute!
Together to End Solitary Brochure – Download, print two-sided, and fold

Click HERE for more literature to hand out at California actions.

Click on the action/event titles for details.  The below listing includes events on May 20, 21, 22, and 23rd.  Please email togethertoendsolitary@gmail.com or phssreachingout@gmail.com for more info and to share your action details!

Oakland, CA: CARE NOT CAGES, with film “Breaking Down the Box”

Friday, May 20th    7:00pm – 9:00pm
685 14th St, Oakland, CA 94612, USA

 

Richmond, CA: SOLITARY MAN – My Visit to Pelican Bay State Prison

Saturday, May 21st    4:00pm – 6:30pm
551 23rd St, Richmond, CA 94804, USA

 

Staten Island Performance: Mariposa & the Saint

Saturday, May 21st     7:00pm – 9:30pm
1 Campus Rd, Staten Island, NY 10301, USA

 

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THURSDAY, MARCH 24 Call-In Action to End Sleep Deprivation

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THURSDAY, MARCH 24

Call-In Action to End Sleep Deprivation Torture of Prisoners in CA Solitary Units

CA prison guards are still doing malicious, jarringly noisy so-called “security/welfare checks” in solitary confinement units, causing ongoing sleep deprivation.

Please take urgent action on March 24th (and ongoing) until the painful and potentially lethal sleep deprivation torture of California prisoners in solitary confinement has ended. FLIERS HERE

The ‘checks’ are particularly loud and distressing for people in Central CA Women’s Facility (CCWF) Administrative Segregation death row, due to guard aggressiveness, and in Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit (PB SHU) where the cramped, concrete architecture also amplifies the noise.

CALL to demand a STOP to the
sleep deprivation in CA solitary cells

  • CA Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Secretary
    Scott Kernan: 916-323-6001
  • CDCR Director of Adult Divisions: 916-445-7688
  • Senator Loni Hancock, Senate Public Safety Committee Chair:
    916-651-4009
  • Assembly Member Reginald Jones-Sawyer, Assembly Public SafetyCommittee Chair: 916-319-2059
  • Governor Jerry Brown: 916-445-2841
  • Coleman Special Master Matthew Lopes: 866-353-3310 (Toll Free)

Suggested script for calls:
Your name, city, and state. “Please stop the so-called ‘security/welfare checks’ in the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison and in women’s death row. The ‘checks’ are causing sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is torture.”

Other ways to help:

  • EMAIL: Click this link to tell state officials to STOP the “security/welfare checks!” http://tinyurl.com/ztjcos3
  • SEND A STATEMENT (as an individual or from your organization) for PHSS to forward to state officials, condemning the sleep deprivation torture. Sample statement, more info here: http://wp.me/P1BB1k-2r9

Please stand with the prisoners & their families
to demand the sleep deprivation end immediately!

“… they’re killing us with these Guard One/Welfare Checks. … I don’t know what to do? We really are suffering right now and I can assure you that this is worse than the hunger strikes.” – PB SHU prisoner Oct 2015

40-48 times a day, these “checks” are subjecting people in small solitary cells to the reverberating “boom” of steel unit doors opening and slamming shut, and guards stomping through pods, up and downstairs, rattling keys and chains, beeping and banging Guard One metal pipes on metal buttons and cells, and shining flashlights into people’s eyes.

“The negative health consequences of inadequate sleep ha[ve] been extensively documented and nowhere in the literature is there a report on as severe a disruption in sleep as is occurring in the Pelican Bay SHU.”

– Dr. Jamie Zeitzer, internationally recognized sleep expert, 10/25/15

Sleep-deprived, the prisoners are suffering severe stress and irritation, depression, weight loss, dizziness, nausea, headaches, migraines, eye problems, intestinal problems, faintness, high blood pressure, accelerated heart rates, blacking out, stomach acidity and pain, and vomiting. They cannot concentrate, exercise, read, write, or do legal work- the things that help them survive.

“This is torture. We are being emotionally, mentally and physically battered by the security checks throughout the nights.” – 20 death row prisoners in Central CA Women’s Facility

picture_grayrotatedCDCR claims these ‘checks’ will prevent suicides. Instead,
they are causing serious psychological and physical harm.
These “checks” serve no welfare or security purpose. They only harm the prisoners, mentally and physically.

The CA prisoners’ 2012 Agreement to End Hostilities between
ethnic groups made possible the CA Prisoner Hunger Strike
of 2013 by over 30,000 CA prisoners and 100’s more
nationwide. Prisoners’ human rights organizing has built an
amazing movement and led to the historic 2015 settlement ending indefinite solitary confinement in CA. It appears CDCR is attempting to prevent future effective human rights work by prisoners in solitary by instituting a debilitating and internationally-condemned torture technique: sleep deprivation.

More info: phssreachingout@gmail.com    510.426.5322
Facebook Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity

December 23rd Statewide Coordinated Actions To End Solitary Confinement

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LAST MINUTE POST

Wednesday, Dec 23 ACTIONS by Location  (alphabetical order)

Beacon, NY –  Eureka, CA – Harlem, NY – Ithaca, NY – Long Island, NY –  Oakland, CA – Poughkeepsie, NY – San Diego (Vista) CA –San Jose, CA – Santa Cruz, CA –

Please see the TOGETHER TO END SOLITARY site for action details.

 

If you don’t see your locale, we haven’t received the details or YOU might need to set up a simple action where you are!!  Here are two resources with ideas to mark the day:
→http://www.cjpc.org/2015/CEPS-Action-Packet-final.pdf
→http://www.nrcat.org/torture-in-us-prisons/together-campaign

Co-sponsors

Endorsers

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PHSS bannerMedia Advisory – Thursday, October 22, 2015

Communities to rally across the country,
incl. Pelican Bay & Oakland
against solitary confinement

Advocates are rallying against sleep deprivation of prisoners; national effort, “Together to End Solitary,” to launch website

Press Contact:
Mohamed Shehk – 408.910.2618 – mohamed@criticalresistance.org
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition

What:   Rallies against solitary confinement and
“welfare  checks”

Following the historic gains made against solitary confinement in August, prisoners in Pelican Bay State Prison’s SHU report the use of “welfare” or “suicide” checks occurring every thirty minutes, 48 times a day. The checks are being conducted in an aggressive way and prevent people from sleeping for over thirty minutes at a time. Loud stomping, the slamming of doors, the striking of electronic wands against buttons installed by cell doors, and the shining of lights into prisoners’ faces are routine. Deprivation of sleep is widely seen as a form of torture. Additionally, a national effort “Together to End Solitary,” will be launching its website tomorrow in coordination with the monthly actions on the 23rd, www.togethertoendsolitary.org.

 

Who:    Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition
(PHSS)

PHSS is a statewide coalition that includes California Families Against Solitary Confinement, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, Critical Resistance, California Prison Focus, American Friends Service Committee, and many other organizations and individuals who work against imprisonment and solitary confinement.

Where +
When:   Fri, Oct 23 at locations throughout California and
across the country, including:

1:00pm
Across from Pelican Bay State Prison
5905 Lake Earl Dr, Crescent City, CA 95532

                  For a full list of the actions, please visit
https://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/

###

—

Mohamed Shehk
Media and Communications Director
Critical Resistance
1904 Franklin St, Suite 504
Oakland, CA 94612
510.444.0484

Pressure Builds To Stop Sleep Deprivation in Pelican Bay SHU

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Following the historic gains made against solitary confinement last month, people in Pelican Bay State Prison’s SHU report the use of “welfare” or “suicide” checks occurring every thirty minutes, 48 times a day. The checks are being conducted in an aggressive way and prevent people from sleeping for over thirty minutes at a time. Loud stomping, the slamming of doors, the striking of electronic wands against buttons installed by cell doors, and the shining of lights into prisoners’ faces are routine. Deprivation of sleep is widely seen as a form of torture.

 

• Alleged sleep deprivation at Pelican Bay State Prison | KIEM TV      Sept.23, 2015  [VIDEO]

http://kiem-tv.com/video/alleged-sleep-deprivation-pelican-bay-state-prison
CRESCENT CITY – Civil rights issues regarding solitary confinement in state prisons are an ongoing concern. Wednesday a new issue was protested at Pelican Bay State Prison. ….

 

• California prison advocates say suicide checks are inhumane treatment | US news | The Guardian       Sept. 25, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/25/california-prison-suicide-checks-inhumane-treatment
Since August, inmates at Pelican Bay state prison say they have been awoken every half hour by guards in a practice that amounts to sleep deprivation

 

• Statewide protests against solitary confinement | Crescent City California News | The Triplicate       Sept. 25, 2015

Front page article: Statewide Protests Over New SHU Policy
http://www.triplicate.com/News/Local-News/Statewide-protests-against-solitary-confinement
Pelican Bay State Prison was among several sites across the country to see coordinated demonstrations Wednesday protesting solitary confinement. Lawyers, activists, and family members gathered outside Crescent City’s state supermax prison to protest a recently implemented Inmate Welfare Check System ….

⇒⇒ Demand that the noisy, aggressive checks stop.
Contact Warden Clark E. Ducart, Pelican Bay State Prison,
P.O. Box 7000, Crescent City, CA 95531-7000
CDucart@cdcr.ca.gov      (707) 465–1000 ext. 9040
Please bcc your message to phssreachingout@gmail.com or email us stating, “I called Ducart.”

If you are on Facebook, “like” the page, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity and check out the event page, Statewide Coordinated Actions To End Solitary Confinement