Working

W
Working
ki to
t Extend
E t d Democracy
D
to
t All 
Volume
Volume
V
V l
2, N
2
Number
b 10
10

October

O
O t b 2013
October
2013

IT’S OVER!
Statement Suspending the
Third Hunger Strike
From: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity,
September 5, 2013
Greetings of Solidarity and Respect!
he PBSP-SHU, Short Corridor Collective Representatives hereby serve
notice upon all concerned parties of
interest that after nine weeks we have collectively decided to suspend our third hunger strike action on September 5, 2013.
To be clear, our Peaceful Protest of Resistance to our continuous subjection to
decades of systemic state sanctioned torture via the system’s solitary confinement
units is far from over. Our decision to sus-

T

CONTENTS
Statement Suspending Strike ..1
Bishops Oppose Isolation ........2
Lawmakers Promise Hearing ...2
Prisoncrats Toying With Lives ..3
Pay to Stay...............................4
60 Days and Counting .............5
Solitary in Schools ...................5
UN Calls Solitary Torture..........6
Solitary & U.S. Conscience ......7
Peace Prize for Reps ...............8
Editorial ....................................9

pend our third hunger strike in two years
does not come lightly. This decision is especially difficult considering that most of
our demands have not been met (despite
nearly universal agreement that they are
reasonable). The core group of prisoners
has been, and remains 100% committed to
seeing this protracted struggle for real reform through to a complete victory, even if
it requires us to make the ultimate sacrifice.
With that said, we clarify this point by stating prisoner deaths are not the objective,
we recognize such sacrifice is at times the
only means to an end of fascist oppression.
Our goal remains: force the powers that
be to end their torture policies and practices
in which serious physical and psychological
c harm is inflicted on tens of thousands
of
o prisoners as well as our loved ones outside.
We also call for ending the related
s
practices
of using prisoners to promote the
p
agenda
of the police state by seeking to
a
greatly
expand the numbers of the working
g
class
poor warehoused in prisons, and parc
ticularly
those of us held in solitary, based
t
on
o psychological/social manipulation, and
divisive
tactics keeping prisoners fighting
d
amongst
each other. Those in power proa
mote
mass warehousing to justify more
m
guards,
more tax dollars for “security”, and
g
spend
mere pennies for rehabilitation — all
s
of
o which demonstrates a failed penal system,
high recidivism, and ultimately comt
promising
public safety. The State of Calip
fornia’s
$9.1 billion annual CDCR budget
f
is
i the epitome of a failed and fraudulent
state
agency that diabolically and systemis
cally
deprives thousands of their human
c
rights
r
and dignity. Allowing this agency to
act
a with impunity has to stop! And it will.

With that said, and in response to much
sincere urging of loved ones, supporters,
our attorneys and current and former state
legislators, Tom Ammiano, Loni Hancock,
and Tom Hayden, for whom we have the
upmost respect, we decided to suspend our
hunger strike. We are especially grateful to
Senator Hancock and Assembly Member
Ammiano for their courageous decision to
challenge Governor Brown and the CDCR
for their policies of prolonged solitary confinement and inhumane conditions. We are
certain that they will continue their fight
for our cause, including holding legislative hearings and the drafting legislation
responsive to our demands on prison conditions and sentencing laws. We are also
proceeding with our class action civil suit
against the CDCR.

Our goal remains: force
the powers that be to end
their torture policies and
practices....
The fact is that Governor Brown and
CDCR Secretary Beard have responded
to our third peaceful action with typical
denials and falsehoods, claiming solitary
confinement does not exist and justifying
the continuation of their indefinite torture
regime by vilifying the peaceful protest
representatives. They also obtained the
support of the medical receiver (Kelso) and
Prison Law Office attorney (Spector—who
is supposed to represent prisoners interests,
and instead has become an agent for the
state) to perpetuate their lie to the public
and to the federal court — that prisoners
participating in the hunger strike have been

coerced — in order to obtain the August 19,
2013 force feeding order.
We have deemed it to be in the best interest of our cause to suspend our hunger
strike action until further notice.
We urge people to remember that we began our present resistance with our unprecedented collective and peaceful actions (in
tandem with the legislative process) back
in early 2010, when we created and distributed a “Formal Complaint” for the purpose
of educating the public and bringing widespread attention to our torturous conditions.

...we’ve gained a lot of
positive ground towards
achieving our goals. However, there’s still much to
be done. Our resistance
will continue to build and
grow until we have won
our human rights.
After much dialogue and consideration,
this led us to our first and second hunger
strike actions in 2011, during which a combined number of 6,500 and 12,000 prisoners participated. We succeeded in gaining
worldwide attention and support resulting
in some minor changes by the CDCR concerning SHU programming and privileges.
They also claimed to make major changes
to policies regarding gang validation and
indefinite SHU confinement by creating the
STG/SDP Pilot Program. They released a
few hundred prisoners from SHU/AD SEG
to general population in the prison. But in
truth, this is all part of a sham to claim the
pilot program works and was a weak attempt to have our class action dismissed.
It didn’t work.
In response we respectfully made clear
that CDCR’s STG-SDP was not responsive
to our demand for the end to long term isolation and solitary confinement and thus
unacceptable. (See: AGREEMENT TO
END HOSTILITIES)
Our supporting points fell on deaf ears,
leading to our January 2013 notice of intent
to resume our hunger strike on July 8, 2013
if our demands were not met. We also included Forty Supplemental Demands.
In early July, CDCR produced several
memos notifying prisoners of an increase
in privileges and property items, which
are notably responsive to a few of our demands, while the majority of our demands
were unresolved, leading to our third hunger strike, in which 30,000 prisoners participated and resulted in greater worldwide
2

exposure, support and condemnation of the
CDCR!
From our perspective, we’ve gained a lot
of positive ground towards achieving our
goals. However, there’s still much to be
done. Our resistance will continue to build
and grow until we have won our human
rights. ●
Respectfully, For the Prisoner Class
Human Rights Movement
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. D4107
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

CA BISHOPS
ISSUE STATEMENT
ON PRISON
HUNGER STRIKE
AND ISOLATION
POLICIES
Bishops offer to serve on any
oversight committee convened to investigate alleged
human rights violations and
propose corrective measures.
The following joint statement was issued
today on behalf California Conference of
Catholic Bishops concerning the current
prisoner hunger strike and state policies
on prisoner isolation. Please attribute to
the “California Conference of Catholic
Bishops.”

“

Today marks Day 52 of the California
prisoner hunger strike. We, the California Conference of Catholic Bishops, once again extend our offer to Gov.

Brown and Dr. Jeffrey Beard, Secretary of
the Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation
(CDCR), to assist in the resolution of this
urgent life threatening situation. We offer
to serve Gov. Brown and Dr. Beard on any
outside oversight committee that may be
convened to investigate any alleged human
rights violations in the California’s prisons
in order to propose the necessary corrective
measures.
“As the U.S. Catholic Bishops wrote
in their pastoral letter, Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic
Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice
(dated November 15, 2000), ‘We oppose
the increasing use of isolation units, especially in the absence of due process and the
monitoring and professional assessment
of the effects of such confinement on the
mental health of inmates.’ No one affected
by crime is helped when a human being is
subjected to this inhumane form of punishment. The California Catholic Bishops
have voiced concerns and have been in dialogue with the CDCR for 12 years on the
very issues being surfaced now.
“We stand opposed to any form of unjust,
inhumane treatment. While it may be that
isolation mitigates gang activity, placing
humans in isolation in a Secure Housing
Unit (SHU) has no restorative or rehabilitative purpose. It is not a sustainable solution to legitimate security concerns. Some
of the men on this hunger strike have been
in isolation for up to 35 years with very
minimal human contact. International human rights standards consider more than 15
days in isolation to be torture.
“Our prayers and concern go out to the
men involved in this hunger strike and their
families. Our prayers and concern also go
out to all who are affected by the criminal
justice system: prison leadership, staff,
correctional officers and administrators; as
well as to crime victims and their families,
who have endured the pain and suffering of
criminal violence. We offer our assistance
to state officials to resolve this terrible situation.” ●
(Eds: The California Catholic Conference is the public advocacy office of the
Bishops of California. Representing the
Archbishops of Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the Bishops of Fresno, Monterey, Oakland, Orange, Sacramento, San
Bernardino, San Diego, San Jose, Santa
Rosa and Stockton, it is the official voice
of the 10 million Catholics and their many
parishes, schools, universities, social service agencies in California.)
Rock!

LAWMAKERS
PROMISE HEARING
By the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity
Coalition
s prisoners’ endure their 54th day
without food, California state senator Loni Hancock and Assemblymember Tom Ammiano issued a statement
today where they vowed to hold hearings in
response to the hunger strike.
“The issues raised by the hunger strike
are real – concerns about the use and conditions of solitary confinement in California’s prisons – are real and can no longer be
ignored,” Senator Hancock and Assemblymember Ammiano said in a joint statement.
Assemblymember Ammiano said further,
“The Courts have made clear that the hunger strikers have legitimate issues of policy
and practice that must be reviewed. The
Legislature has a critical role in considering and acting on their concerns. We cannot
sit by and watch our state pour money into
a system that the US. Supreme Court has
declared does not provide constitutionally
acceptable conditions of confinement and
that statistics show has failed to increase
public safety.”
“We appreciate Senator Hancock and
Assemblymember Ammiano’s promises
to take action. Ultimately it is up to the
hunger strikers’ themselves as to when and
how they will end their protest. But as their
advocates on the outside, we feel positive
about today’s developments,” said Dolores
Canales, who is a member of the strikers’
mediation team and whose son is in Pelican
Bay.
Hancock and Ammiano’s statement represents the strongest steps forward in addressing the prisoners’ peaceful protest,
and advocates and lawyers representing
the strikers say they are eager to communicate this development to the prisoners.
“The prisoners on strike have always been
clear that there is a viable pathway toward
resolving the crisis created by the CDCR,”
Said Anne Weills, a civil rights attorney
representing some of the hunger strikers
at Pelican Bay. “I look forward to talking
to hunger strike representatives at Pelican
Bay to get their thoughtful input around the
Senator Hancock and Assemblymember
Ammiano’s proposal.”
As advocates work to communicate with
prisoners on strike around this development, they are also encouraging a cautious
attitude. “The strike is not over yet and it
is still at a very dangerous moment given

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Volume 2, Number 10

that we are entering a long weekend where
people have gone 54 days without eating,”
said Marie Levin, whose brother is one of
the 4 remain strike representatives locked
in Administrative Segregation at Pelican
Bay. “We hope that the CDCR will not act
to disrupt this potentially positive development by spreading false information to
strikers or continuing to retaliate against
their peaceful protest.”
Lawyers visited New Folsom Prison
north of Sacramento yesterday where they
discovered nearly 80 Pelican Bay strikers had been relocated. They reported that
health conditions are poor but that many
are still on strike. Some prisoners that had
come off strike have resumed the protest
due to mistreatment at that facility. Lawyers also reported that other prisoners at
New Folsom also joined the protest when
they learned of the mistreatment of their
fellow prisoners from Pelican Bay.
Concern for the strikers and condemnation
of the CDCR is spreading internationally.
Earlier today Tessa Murphy, Campaigner
on the USA at Amnesty International
said,“it’s nothing short of appalling that
instead of dealing with the complaints,
California’s prison authorities have
chosen to threaten inmates with forcefeeding and disciplinary measures, and
have moved some to other facilities.”
Meanwhile the California Conference of
Catholic Bishops, said they would “again
extend our offer to Gov. Brown and Dr.
Jeffrey Beard, Secretary of the Dept. of
Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR),
to assist in the resolution of this urgent life
threatening situation. We offer to serve
Gov. Brown and Dr. Beard on any outside
oversight committee that may be convened
to investigate any alleged human rights
violations in the California’s prisons in
order to propose the necessary corrective
measures.” ●

CA PRISON BOSS
TOYING WITH THE
LIVES OF CONS ON
HUNGER STRIKE

T

he refusal by California’s prison
authorities to explore options to
resolve the hunger strike crisis in
the state’s high security units is a dangerous move that could lead to the deaths of
inmates in their custody, Amnesty Interna-

tional said.
More than 30,000 prisoners joined a hunger strike last July over inhumane detention
conditions in California’s security housing
units (SHUs). More than 70 are still refusing food.
“It’s nothing short of appalling that instead of dealing with the complaints, California’s prison authorities have chosen to
threaten inmates with force-feeding and
disciplinary measures, and have moved
some to other facilities,” said Tessa Murphy, Campaigner on the USA at Amnesty
International.
“No one should be punished for exercising the right to peaceful protest. California
prison authorities must stop toying with
people’s lives and meet with the mediation
team to begin a meaningful process of negotiation.”
Amnesty International has also received
reports that some of those on hunger strike
have been denied medical care.
This week, the California Department
of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)
published a press release saying that it had
addressed some of the inmates’ demands.
“Recent proposals by California’s prison
authorities do not go far enough to address
the inhumanity that permeates many aspects of the security housing units, including lengthy periods during which inmates
are held in isolation and excessively harsh
conditions of confinement including lack
of social contact and programming,” said
Tessa Murphy.
“The rehabilitation of prisoners is absolutely essential for their positive reintegration into society at the end of their sentence.”
Amnesty International is calling on
CDCR to reduce the length of the step
down program and to make meaningful
changes to the isolation units, particularly
in Pelican Bay prison, with an emphasis on
increased social contact and rehabilitation.
On 19 August, a federal court issued a
decision that would allow the state to forcefeed hunger strikers “at risk of near-death
or great bodily injury.” The court also ruled
that the state may ignore “do not resuscitate” directives if they were signed for the
purpose of the hunger strike, or if the state
believes they were achieved through coercion.
The force feeding of mentally competent
hungers strikers is contrary to medical ethics and breaches their right to freedom of
expression. ●
Amnesty International
3

FREMONT’S PAYTO-STAY JAIL
OFFERS A MORE
PLEASANT PRISON
EXPERIENCE
By Bruce Watson
San Francisco-area city is now offering the opposite service: For a
price, scofflaws can get a deluxe
jail cell that, while not quite hotel-grade,
is still miles better than the standard prison
accommodations -- much less New York’s
Sun Bright hotel!
In 2002, Fremont built a $10.6 million,
58-bed detention center. While the facility
don’t quite qualify as five-star, is still a lot
nicer than the local prisons, where gang
affiliations and overcrowding can make a
stay harrowing, to say the least.
The Fremont detention center is rarely
filled to capacity -- a factor that led town
officials to offer the space as a pay-to-stay
prison. Under the new program, healthy,
nonviolent offenders who don’t have a gang
affiliation and have not been convicted of
a sex crime can stay in one of Fremont’s
cells for $155 per night, with a onetime $45
fee. For the jail’s new occupants, many of
whom will likely come from rich enclaves
in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, the
benefits are obvious: The program enables
them to avoid the general population in one
of the area’s overcrowded prisons. For Fremont, it’s also a great deal: It costs the city
only $8.35 per night to take care of its prisoners, which means that it realizes almost
$147 a night of profit for every bed it fills.
Fremont is hardly the first California city
to open a pay-to-stay prison: There are approximately 15 such programs in Southern
California, with rates ranging from $85 to
$255 per day. This is, however, the first in
the Bay Area -- a region whose extremely
wealthy citizenry would seem to make it
especially fertile ground for such a program.
Other states have experimented with
pay-to-stay prisons, but most don’t offer
California’s two-tiered system. In Michigan and Ohio, pay-to-stay jails attempt
to charge every inmate, often on a sliding
scale that takes into account their earnings,
dependents, and other financial data. In addition to creating a lot of paperwork, the
programs aren’t nearly as lucrative as one
might expect: Ohio’s Fairfield county, for

A

4

example, was only able to recover about
12 percent of the charges that it levied on
inmates.
It remains to be seen how profitable Fremont’s plan will be, but -- given California’s statewide prison problems and budget
woes -- it looks like the small city just may
have found a way to make crime pay. ●
http://www.dailyfinance.
com/2013/08/06/freemont-calif-offers-payto-stay-nicer-jail-cells

Still Standing Strong
In this deplorable world of confusion
And of endless confinement
Where we are faced with constant
degradation and intrusion And battered down for trying to seek personal refinement In a world so dark,
so ugly, so cold Feeling so isolated, alienated and all alone A world
where I no longer belong All I can do
is keep standing strong
This is a world where weakness
gets no slack Where my mind has
been enraged, my heart has gone
black Psychological warfare; they’re
on the attack Consciousness has
died in this graveyard But I’ve been
fighting so damn hard To try to bring
it back!
So many things have gone terribly
wrong
Yet through it all, I still stand strong

BOX BANNED IN
SEATTLE

T

he Jobs Assistance Legislation
passed unanimously in Seattle City
Council -- after an amendment that
would have weakened its enforcement was
withdrawn! Twice, a half dozen or more No
New Jim Crow Seattle people stepped up
to the microphone to offer public testimony
or stood by holding signs—Steve, Carol,
Lorraine, Carl, Hakeem, Lynn, Jack, and
the Raging Grannies, with whom we are
proudly affiliated!
Among many other individuals and
groups testifying for this small but significant piece of legislation are: Michael
Woo of Got Green, Gerald Hankerson of
NAACP, Seattle Human Rights Commission, Real Change vendors, the unstoppable and beautiful Merf Ehman and Martina
Kartman of Columbia Legal Services, and
many, many others whose names I look forward to learning in the weeks and months
ahead. We will all continue to work together to see these and other reformations and
transformations bear fruit. For the Jobs Assistance Legislation, for instance, a stakeholders commission will be established in
Seattle to work with the Seattle Office of
Civil Rights to implement this legislation.
Thank you to everyone in the No New
Jim Crow Seattle Campaign who has
worked directly or indirectly for this very
local effort. ●
No New Jim Crow, Seattle
[Ed’s Note: Some members of Seattle’s
Free Us All were also involved in this Ban
the Box campaign.]

Standing strong and on my feet
While surrounded by broken prisoners
Who have become so accepting of
defeat
The strong, the resilient, the wise
and the brave Have been pitted
against the deranged and the depraved By us, the oppressor’s path
has been so easily paved While they
lead us straight to our graves For
some, it won’t be long But for me, I’m
still standing strong
Coyote
Ely State Prison, Nevada
August 5th, 2013
By D. Nanez

Rock!

DAY 60 AND
COUNTING
By Mark Cook, Rock Co-Editor
oday, September 5, 2013, hunger
striking California prisoners have
chosen to suspend their 60 day hunger strike.
My task is to facilitate the voices of those
prisoners who struggle for justice. I am not
a prisoner but am a convict for life. I have
served 40 years behind lock and key, at
time I have been considered the worst of
the worst. Today I live under the conditions
and laws binding a “free” convict. Your
struggle is my struggle.
This is politics pure and simple. Politics
is the “struggle for power.” Your immediate struggle is over the abusive conditions
the CDCR has applied to California prisoners. You do not have the right to vote but
you do have the right to peacefully protest.
I must jump through various hoops to get
that right to vote outside of prison. We are
in the same boat and need to rock together.
But this does not mean that we convicts out
here have the right to make suggestions and
choices for those imprisoned convicts.
In “Editorial 2-9” of the September edition we said, “There is some talk of going
with what I call the nuclear option. Under this option individual prisoners would
starve themselves to death, one after the
other, with larger scale outside support behind each volunteer…” suggesting such an
end would be a failure.
We have not received one prisoner letter
to ROCK staff in response the suggestion,
telling us we were way out of line. We are
not the gurus of struggle! When we write
crappy editorials, you guys have to speak
up. You are living under the abusive conditions of CDCR and know what manner you
should or can employ to change those conditions. You are the final editors of Rock.
You pay for the paper, printing and mailing. We do the processing.
We, the Rock staff have great admiration for not only the peaceful manner you
chose to engage with the CDCR but also
with the general compliance of California
prisoners to cease all hostilities to get the
job done. We can take criticism. Do your
fucking job!!
Everyone who reads Rock and Prison
Focus and writes letters to both is part of
a study group. Listen to what your brothers
and sisters are saying, weed out the bad and
absorb the good. Discuss and fuss.

T

Volume 2, Number 10

PUBLIC SCHOOL
SOLITARY
CONFINEMENT
By Carol Isaac, Free Us All, Seattle
n some Northwest schools, if a child
has an “outburst”, they may be put
forcibly in a device called an “isolation
booth” or “isolation room” where they are
left for some portion of the school day. In
Longview, Washington it is a free standing
4’ x 4’ padded, pink-walled, empty room
with ceiling ventilation, an observation
window, an outside lock, and, presumably,
a monitor. A student from first grade on
may be judged as problematic, removed
forcibly in front of other students, and
locked inside “the naughty room.”
In Oregon, after a shocked parent complained this past year, the state legislature
in February unanimously passed House
Bill 2576 with follow-up passage of the
Senate version. This requires that there be
no purchasing, building or use of a freestanding isolation booth in public schools.
A Portland elementary school, within
months, went around the bill creating a
“room” instead of a “booth” by using an
already standing wall of the school. It is
available for use.
In Washington, where the practice was
brought to the attention by the news media,
the “isolation booth” was reputed by the
school to be used for only special education
students whose parents had given permission. A parent shocked to learn about her
own student’s detention in this cell while
they together watched a news program that
showed the unit, came forth with the assertion that she never had, and never would
have given such permission. It appears no
audit has yet been done by the states.
Therapeutic isolation is supposedly a
technique abandoned by the psychiatric
field decades ago, and one psychiatrist testified against it in the Oregon Legislature
leaving the schools, you would think, with
the task of proving their value.
Some schools contend they served disabled students especially in the “autism
spectrum”, but there has not surfaced the
scientific data needed to show the efficacy
of such a protocol. One student reported
observing a fellow student go in relatively
calm, and later turn violent while locked
inside. Certainly this is dangerously traumatizing to the student body witnessing these procedures for some years now.
Some of the cells have even been within

I

some classrooms. Young people must come
away with the inevitable belief that they
may do something that will put them in one
of these horrific lock-ups. The element of
fear increases the daily stress involved in
learning subjects a student may find naturally difficult or there may be stress added
when managing racially charged situations
traditionally not in their favor. The fact that
there are students who have not discussed
this with their parents up until now is especially concerning. What other practices are
hidden from parents?
There are no actual complete figures on
how many schools use this procedure, but
so far enough schools have been forthcoming to show that with eight Oregon School
districts reporting, children have been put
in a seclusion room 791 times in the past
school year.
Certainly there are children with special
needs whose control of themselves is not
going to be adequate for the average classroom. These are children for whom there
needs to be a much different situation, but
it must be proven at the very least that their
isolation in this severe manner away from
home and the guidance of their health care
professionals is harmless. All parents need
to know their child may have been traumatized simply by witnessing the procedure
and the schools need to address that harm
as well as the possible harm done to the
subjects of isolation.
This jump to a punitive, not a harmonious, means to control the student body
is in alignment with the growing list of
other trends in the nation’s school system:
metal detectors at entrances, uniformed
police,‘resource officers’ who wear guns,
tasers and cuffs in the halls, dogs for ‘sniffing’ and patrolling, warrantless searches,
and school suspension rules with sentences
expanded to so many days that catching up
is impossible, failure insurance. Truancy
courts themselves are an along-the-way
invention replacing the school principal’s
role as the arbiter of situations that used to
be called a “ruckus”.
Perhaps the surveillance cameras that
students are under in school should be used
to live-stream the classrooms to public
television channels so parents may watch
the conditions under which their children
are being educated.
Unfortunately, all these practices brought
over from law enforcement and the judicial
and prison systems groom the young for a
dominated existence instead of deepening
an understanding of democracy. ●
5

AUGUST 23, 2013

LONG TERM
SOLITARY
CONFINEMENT IS
TORTURE
The United Nations Special
Rapporteur on torture, Juan
E. Méndez, today urged the
United States Government to
abolish the use of indefinite
solitary confinement.
There are approximately 80,000 prisoners in the United States of America who are
subjected to solitary confinement, nearly
12,000 are in isolation in California.
“Even if solitary confinement is applied
for short periods of time, it often causes
mental and physical suffering or humiliation, amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and if
the resulting pain or sufferings are severe,
solitary confinement even amounts to torture,” Mr. Méndez stressed as nearly 200
inmates in Californian detention centres
approach their fifth consecutive week on
hunger strike against cruel, inhuman and
degrading prison conditions.

“

Since 8 July 2013, thousands of prisoners detained in nine separate prisons across
the state of California have gone on hunger strike to peacefully protest the cruel,
inhuman and degrading prison conditions.
The inmates are demanding a change in
the state’s excessive use of solitary confinement as a disciplinary measure, and
the subjugation of prisoners to solitary
confinement for prolonged periods of time
by prison authorities under the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
In California’s maximum security prison
in Pelican Bay more than 400 prisoners
have been held in solitary confinement for
over a decade, and the average time a prisoner spends in solitary confinement is 7.5
years. “I am extremely worried about those
numbers and in particular about the approximately 4,000 prisoners in California
who are held in Security Housing Units for
indefinite periods or periods of many years,
often decades,” Mr. Méndez said.
In many cases inmates are isolated in
8-foot-by-12 foot (2.5 x 3.5 m. Approx.)
cells and lack minimum ventilation and
natural light. The prisoners are forced to
remain in their cells for 22 to 23 hours per
day, and they are allowed only one hour of
exercise alone in a cement lot where they
do not necessarily have any contact with
other inmates.
In the context of reported reprisals

I urge the US Government to adopt
concrete measures to eliminate the
use of prolonged or indefinite
solitary confinement under all circumstances,” he said, “including an
absolute ban of solitary confinement
of any duration for juveniles, persons with psychosocial disabilities
or other disabilities or health conditions, pregnant women—women
with infants and breast feeding
mothers as well as those serving a
life sentence and prisoners on death By Carlos Lucero
row.”
The independent investigator on
torture and other cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment
urged the US authorities to ensure
that “solitary confinement is only
imposed, if at all, in very exceptional circumstances, as a last resort, for
as short a time as possible and with
established safeguards in place.” In
Mr. Méndez’s view, “its application must be subject to independent
review, and inmates must undergo
strict medical supervision.”
6

against inmates on hunger strike and a
District Judge’s approval of Californian
authorities’ request to engage to force-feed
prisoners under certain circumstances, the
UN Special Rapporteur also reminded the
authorities that “it is not acceptable to use
threats of forced feeding or other types of
physical or psychological coercion against
individuals who have opted for the extreme
recourse of a hunger strike.”
Mr. Méndez addressed the issue of
solitary confinement in the US, including
prison regimes in California, in his 2011
report* to the UN General Assembly and in
numerous communications to the Government. He has also repeatedly requested an
invitation to carry out a visit to the country,
including State prisons in California, but so
far has not received a positive answer.
“My request coincides with some prominent voices in the United States, including
the first-ever congressional hearing chaired
by Senator Durbin on 19 June 2012; the decision to close Tamms Maximum Security
Correctional Center by the State of Illinois
on 4 January 2013 and numerous editorials
by prominent columnists in major papers
addressing the excessive use of solitary
confinement across the country,” Mr. Méndez said. “It is about time to provide the
opportunity for an in situ assessment of
the conditions in US prisons and detention
facilities,” the UN Special Rapporteur underscored.
[Juan E. Méndez (Argentina) was
appointed by the UN Human Rights
Council as the Special Rapporteur on
torture and other cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment
on Nov 1, 2010. He is independent
from any govt. and serves in his individual capacity. Mr. Méndez has
dedicated his legal career to the defense of human rights & has a long
& distinguished record of advocacy
throughout the Americas. He is currently a Professor of Law at the American Univ. – Washington College of
Law & Co-Chair of the Human Rights
Institute of the International Bar Association. Mr. Méndez has previously
served as the President of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) until 2009 & was the UN
Secretary-General Special Advisor
on the Prevention of Genocide from
2004 to 2007 and an advisor on crime
prevention to the Prosecutor, International Criminal Court, between 2009
and 2010.]
Rock!

CA HUNGER
STRIKERS
AND THE
MALNOURISHED
AMERICAN
CONSCIENCE
Rebecca McCray, Aug 20 2013
“We are not in search of death; we are
looking for real life.”
Tiananmen Square Hunger
Strike Declaration, 1989

I

n an eight by ten foot cell in California, Todd Ashker is starving. He hasn’t
eaten in nearly six weeks, and his body
has begun to lose muscle mass. Exhaustion has set in, and his organ functions
have slowed. In the windowless cells on
either side of his, more men steadily starve.
These men are isolated in the Secure Housing Unit (SHU) of California’s Pelican Bay
Prison, a tidy euphemism for long-term
solitary confinement. Pelican Bay is the
state’s most notorious supermax prison,
reserved for what officials identify as “the
worst of the worst” criminal offenders.
In this space, California’s “worst” are
engaging in one of the most radically nonviolent acts of resistance a protestor can
employ. They have elected to starve themselves until the state agrees to meet their
five core demands – chief among which is a
call to end the well-worn practice of indefinite solitary confinement. To achieve a life
behind bars that resembles one worth living, they are risking death. After repeated
attempts to negotiate with the California
Department of Corrections to improve the
conditions of their confinement (as well as
two previous hunger strikes), these men
have turned to the only tool they have left,
offering their bodies in a dramatic act of
corporal dissent.
In spite of their extreme isolation, the
stark SHU cells at Pelican Bay are the unlikely birthplace of the CA prisoners’ hunger strike, which spread to two-thirds of the
facilities across the state, engaging 30,000
prisoners at its peak. Prisoners held here are
the most dramatically exiled segment of an
already banished population; the most aggressively marginalized people confined in
the state’s massive and dysfunctional correctional system. More than 500 prisoners
at Pelican Bay have survived in solitary
Volume 2, Number 10

confinement for more than a decade.
Historically, politically motivated hunger strikes have been employed by the free
and the imprisoned alike; from Irish prisoners to Chinese students, to imprisoned
activists and tomato harvesters, to suffragettes and journalists. While for obvious
reasons self-starvation is generally considered a desperate last resort, the strategy
has been most notably utilized en masse by
prisoners, who lack the mobility and power
to engage in other modes of protest.
.Bobby Sands, an Irish nationalist who
lead the 1981 Irish prisoners’ hunger strike,
sought to reclassify thousands of people
as political rather than criminal prisoners,
thereby demanding reforms to their conditions of confinement. He was so successful
as a leader and gained so much media attention during the strike that he was elected
a member of Parliament. Though the hunger strike ultimately lead to his death, his
election galvanized public support for the
prisoners’ cause, leading to the election of
numerous nationalist party members. In
today’s world of mass incarceration as the
accepted American standard, it is a challenge to imagine a parallel political success
story for prisoners in California.
While advocates throughout the state
and across the country have demonstrated
in solidarity with the hunger strikers, CA
prisons chief Jeffrey Beard only begrudgingly agreed to meet advocates on behalf of
the prisoners after weeks of protest in early
August, while his office made clear that
this meeting should not be misinterpreted
as “a mediation or negotiation.” Shortly
after, he wrote an inflammatory editorial
for the LA Times, dismissing the hunger
strike as “gang power play,” and needlessly
highlighting the violent backgrounds of the
incarcerated strikers. According to Beard’s
disjointed logic, an individual’s violent
past is enough to warrant the inhumane
conditions that the United Nations has likened to torture.
With more than 300 remaining hunger
strikers closing out their sixth week of refusing food, a question uncomfortably lingers: is anyone really listening? A recent
LA Times editorial cartoon bluntly and accurately notes that a hunger strike can only
succeed if the society whose attention it
seeks to engage has a conscience. A fleeting mention in an article or a social media
share is a start, but these passive actions
alone have clearly not inspired enough
support behind the prisoners in California
to motivate large-scale change on the part

of the CADC. As their situation grows
more perilous by the hour, the question
of American conscience, or lack thereof,
rings louder than ever.
Stay updated at: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com 707.442.7465

Quote Box
“Iniquity, committed in this world,
produces not fruit immediately, but, like
the earth, in due season, and advancing
by little and little, it eradicates the man
who committed it. ... justice, being destroyed, will destroy; being preserved,
will preserve; it must never therefore be
violated.”
Manu 1200
“Each man must for himself alone
decide what is right and what is wrong,
which course is patriotic and which isn’t.
You cannot shirk this and be a man. To
decide against your conviction is to be
an unqualified and excusable traitor,
both to yourself and to your country, let
men label you as they may”
Mark Twain
“They (corporations) cannot commit
treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicated, for they have no souls”
Lord Edward Coke
“This is the tendency of all human
governments. A departure from principle
in one instance becomes a precedent for
a second, that second for a third, and so
on ‘til the bulk of the society is reduced
to be mere automatons of misery, to have
no sensibilities left but for sinning and
suffering... And the forehorse of this
frightful team is public debt. Taxation
follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.”
Thomas Jefferson
“The lesson of that history is that you
must not despair, that if you are right,
and you persist, things will change. The
government will try to deceive the people, and the newspapers and television
may do the same, but the truth has a way
of coming out. The truth has a power
greater than a hundred lies. My hope is
that you will not obey the rules, when
the rules are unjust; that you will act out
the courage that I know is in you.”
Howard Zinn,
Adress to Spelman College, 2005
7

PEACE PRIZE FOR THE TRUCE MAKERS AND STRIKERS
Campaign to Obtain a World-recognized
Peace Prize for the Truce Makers and
Strikers of the 2013 California Prison Hunger and Work Strikes.
Mision:
We propose a world-wide, popularlysupported campaign to nominate the prison
truce makers for the highest honors the
planet’s human community recognizes: a
Nobel Peace Prize and the Right Livelihood Award.
Objectives: What possible changes
will it make?
1. The primary effect is that it will mobilize world opinion to pressure California
to stop the practice of torture by prolonged
solitary confinement. Traditionally following such a nomination there are many additional actions, like boycotts that bring
economic pressures further threatening the
state’s illegitimate control.
2. This is an opportunity to force the corporate media to reveal that the U.S. prison
system is committing torture in the American people’s name inside the U.S.
3. The truce and strike action will present the public with a picture of a struggle that succeeded in spite of facing a most
dangerous range of odds coming from the
most powerful, wealthy and unconscionable penal complex in the history of the
earth, and, holding to its cessation of hostilities agreement in spite of its truce and
strike members’ own legendary, deeplyheld personal enmities among each other. And yet there is another factor: All this
must happen while under torture in solitary
confinement during a self-imposed slow,
painful journey through body-crippling,
mind-abusing starvation. Unlike some previous prize winners, Kissinger and Barak
Obama, the prisoners are not seeking to
obtain territory or profits, but rather to secure a righteous condition in what should
be an honorable society: the recognition
of the right not to be the subject of state
torture. The human race itself is, in these
times, craving peace. This models a reach
for peace under overwhelming odds.
Each human right won benefits all.
4. A humane change in the U.S. system
as a result of the success of the truce and
strike force’s actions will help to inspire the
international society to remove the punitive
8

system that has been steadily exported from
the U.S. to European and other countries,
especially since 2001, where the trend has
been to replace former semi-compassionate
and rehabilitative systems with punitive paternalism.
5. Most hopefully this effort could help
to lead people to a deep, unrelenting questioning of the value of imprisonment itself.
The world leaders are not leading us, and
never will lead us, to a favorable future. If
movements can develop a form to bring the
eventual sea change that allows for nature
to stabilize and humans to create a path other than consumerism and profit, all in time
to keep war and climate chaos at bay, then
there truly and virtually is ‘all the reason
in the world’ to pursue this one mission as
though it is a rare gift that demands taking
high risks like the truce makers and strikers
have taken.
Aims: What actions are to be taken?
Research the requirements for a Nobel
Nominations for both the Nobel Peace
Prize given at Oslo, Norway and also for
the Right Livelihood Award also called the
Alternative Nobel Peace Prize.
• Study the project, Roots Action, headed
by Norman Solomon by which Chelsea
(Bradley) Manning was nominated for a
Nobel Peace Prize.
• Interview those who have won the international Right Livelihood Award.
• Recruit those involved with the above
for ongoing consultations in this project.
Develop an organization to manage the
campaign and fund-raise to initiate and
maintain it.
Plan a campaign that results in a serious,
world-recognized nomination of the prison
truce and strike makers for a Nobel Peace
Prize and the Right Livelihood Award.
Create a website for information to the
world public, an online petition, an online
sign-up for volunteers of a variety of categories, and online fund raising, all to begin
the first phase of the campaign.
Actions within the campaign:
• Emphasize participation by ordinary
people in the U.S. The Manning campaign collected 100,000 signatures on
its petition. Few in the U.S. knew Manning personally or have been personally
touched by our recent wars while a larger segment of society knows someone

victimized by prison excesses; therefore,
a larger number of people may be more
sensitive to injustice here than to war in
a foreign lands or to a soldier.
• Emphasize internationally the fact that
the replacement of punitive rather than
rehabilitative incarceration methods
have been actively exported by the U.S.
throughout Europe and other parts of the
world. Ask Professor Loic Wacquant, at
U.C. Berkeley for consultation and endorsement on the project as an expert in
this aspect of the field.
• Ask the many national petition campaign
organizations that have created mass internet campaigns sent to Governor Jerry
Brown against solitary confinement and
ancillary petition campaigns: to provide
their results to the peace prize committees, to inform their petition participants
of the Nobel campaigns, and to provide
a new campaign from their organizations
with a statement directed toward nomination for a Nobel.
• Identify and solicit the endorsement of
organizations of a variety of sizes and
issue concerns to add their names to an
organization petition.
Conclusion
It is for us to bring people to recognize
these truce makers and strikers, in spite of
their extreme capacity to submit to no one,
have nevertheless negotiated among themselves a unanimous decision that has held
in the form of a signed truce for more than
a year. They are not suddenly following a
saint or a prophet. They are each following the understanding within themselves
the clear truth of the state of their lives
in relation to the state. This is not submission to anyone, but a firm adherence
to each one’s own belief in the rightness
of their cause. They have made themselves
into one voice, completely unified by a
common cause, the demand to be humanely treated by a society whose own honor is
now made visible and, thereby, on trial for
its rampant, decades-long use of solitary
confinement. The invisible is being made
visible by the self-imposed life-endangering suffering of the prisoners, the victims
who would be the victors. ●
Free Us All
P.O. Box 47439
Seattle, WA 98146
Rock!

EDITORIAL 2-10
eed Stamps: For the first time in
a very long time I’ve had to use
donated cash to buy stamps in order to complete the mailing of this issue.
Such money is usually reserved for cases
of paper and toner for my laser printer. Accordingly, if you have not yet financially
contributed to this publication, then now
would be a very good time to do so. You
can send stamps or money. Those of you
who have given in the past, and still have
more you can spare, the newsletter can use
your continuing support.
We have over 500 readers, almost all
prisoners. Of that number 247, about half,
have not contributed anything (a part of
this is the little over 100 Oregon and Washington prisoners who are not yet expected
to donate). One California prisoner paid
only one stamp (back in June), 14 prisoners have donated only two stamps, six
prisoners have donated 3 stamps each,
twenty prisoners have donated 4 stamps,
and seven prisoners have donated 5 stamps
each. You can see the progression here.
Since starting this publication in January of
2012, I’ve received a total of 5,318 stamps,
which means that a small number of prisoners are carrying the weight of supporting this newsletter. I understand that many
are broke. But dude, if you are too lame to
hustle a few stamps you got no business
reading this rag.
Legitimate or Not: And so it comes to
pass, some prisoners are not allowed to receive the PHSS News or the Rock newsletter because prison officials don’t think we
are “legitimate” publications. You see what
the problem is here, if you speak for the
poor and oppressed you are not legitimate.
Although if you are rich and powerful, no
matter what kinds of lies you spew out into
the world, you are very legitimate.
As an example, take the war we are trying to launch against Syria (or will have
been launched by the time you read this).
The bourgeois press accepts as fact that the
Syria’s president ordered the use of chemical weapons against his own citizens.1 Although being killed by a bomb or a chemical probably makes little difference to the
dead.

N

The first thing the government and its
lapdog media will do is ignore the evidence
that does not fit the lie they want you to
believe. So we will ignore the Syrian rebels and local residents in Ghouta, where
the attack took place, who claim that Saudi
intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan
was the one who provided chemical weapons to an al-Qaida linked rebel group. Then
we doctor up faulty intelligence to make it
sound like a…. well… “slam dunk.” Now
we have U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
saying that Assad’s guilt was “a judgment
… already clear to the world.” Kerry goes
on to say, “We intercepted communications
involving a senior official intimately familiar with the offensive who confirmed that
chemical weapons were used by the regime
on August 21....”
Gee that sounds bad. It looks like U.S.
intelligence intercepted such communications. But according to Truthout:
….former British Ambassador Craig
Murray has pointed out that the Mount
Troodos listening post in Cyprus is
used by British and U.S. intelligence
to monitor “all radio, satellite and microwave traffic across the Middle East
… ” and that “almost all landline telephone communications in this region
is routed through microwave links at
some stage [and] picked up on Troodos.”
All intelligence picked by the Troodos listening post is shared between the
U.S. and British intelligence, Murray
wrote, but no communications such as
the ones described in the U.S. intelli-

gence summary were shared with the
British Joint Intelligence Organization. Murray said a personal contact
in U.S. intelligence had told him the
reason was that the purported intercept came from the Israelis. The Israeli
origin of the intelligence was reported
in the U.S. press as well, because an
Israeli source apparently leaked it to a
German magazine.
The clumsy attempt to pass off intelligence claimed dubiously by the
Israelis as a U.S. intercept raises a
major question about the integrity of
the entire document. The Israelis have
an interest in promoting a U.S. attack
on Syria, and the authenticity of the
alleged intercept cannot be assumed.
Murray believes that it is fraudulent.
You news junkies will remember the laptop “lost” by an Iranian scientist that contained plans for the trigger mechanism of a
nuclear bomb—thus proof that the Iranians
were planning to build atomic weapons.
Well, come to find out, and finally reported
by the NY Times, the laptop was never in
the hands of an Iranian—it was an Israeli
plant!
Regardless of whether the readers accepts the putrid dish of lies served up by the
bourgeois press, there is one fact you cannot ignore. An attack on a sovereign nation
is an act of war. President Obama tell us
the CIA-trained rebel unit is about to join
fighting against the Assad government. The
U.S., as in Libya, will be providing air support for their minions on the ground. The
bourgeois press screams that the Russians

1. Note that the U.S. remained totally silent
as Sadam Husain of Iraq used such weapons on his own people back when the U.S.
was supporting him in his war against Iran.
Also note that the U.S. used what fits the
definition of chemical weapons on the people of Fallujah during the Iraq war.

Volume 2, Number 10

9

are supporting Assad regime, Putin says
no, we are defending international law.
International Law? Oh yeah. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon the other day
said that the use of force is only legal when
it is in self-defense or with U.N. Security
Council authorization. So much for the legality of U.S. plans to strike Syria.
I’ll leave you here with a couple of
quotes from former Chief Supreme Court
Justice Robert H. Jackson, who was the
lead U.S. prosecutor during the Nuremberg
trials of Nazi war criminals. He said, “We
must make clear to the Germans that the
wrong for which their fallen leaders are on
trial is not that they lost the war, but that
they started it.” As “To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international
crime differing only from other war crimes
in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
How many wars of aggression has the
U.S. started since World War II? See if you
can count them. Here are hints from recent
wars: There’s the totally fabricated Gulf of
Tonkin Gulf incident that justified the Vietnam war, the phony incubator baby massacre in Kuwait and the first Gulf war, the

Racak massacre and the Kosovo war, the
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the
second Gulf war, the threat of massacre in
Benghazi and the Libyan war. You can take
it from there.
Trust me, dear reader, if I were beating
the pro war drums, praising their god, and
calling for longer prison sentences and
wider use of the death penalty, your captors
would never question the legitimacy of this
publication. It is the truth that they fear and
oppose. And the truth is they are perpetuating slavery and torture and war. ●
Ed Mead

Prisoner
Artists!
Prison
ArtArt
is ais
nonprofit
Prison
a nonwebsite.
It chargesthat
a 10
profit website
percent
feeaiften
yourperart
charges
or
craftservice
sells. Send
SASE
cent
fee
if
for a free brochure. No
your art or craft
SASE, no brochure. This
sells.
Send
a SASE
offer
void
where
profor
free
brochure.
hibited by prison rules.

Sell Your Art
On the Web
Sell prisonercreated art or
crafts (except
writings). Send
only copies, no
originals!
Prison Art Project
P.O. Box 47439
Seattle, WA 98146
www.prisonart.org
sales@prisonart.org
206-271-5003

Ed Mead, Publisher
Rock Newsletter
P.O. Box 47439
Seattle, WA 98146

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