ktlight
23rd July 2011, 07:14
... and the Insulting Response of Prison Officials
FYI:
n Thursday July 21, as the widespread hunger strike in California’s prisons — primarily aimed at highlighting the abusive conditions in which prisoners are held in long-term solitary confinement in Security Housing Units (SHUs) — reached the three-week mark, Matthew Cate, the Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), issued a deeply cynical press release announcing that inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison, where the strike began on July 1, had ended their hunger strike.
Claiming that the strike "was ordered by prison gang leaders, individuals responsible for terrible crimes against Californians," and adding that hunger strikes "are a dangerous and ineffective way for prisoners to attempt to negotiate," Cate claimed that inmates at Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit "stopped the strike on July 20 after they better understood CDCR’s plans, developed since January, to review and change some policies regarding SHU housing and gang management," which "include providing cold-weather caps, wall calendars and some educational opportunities for SHU inmates."
Reducing a widespread hunger strike against torture to a misunderstanding, remedied by granting prisoners a few trinkets, was deeply insulting, and the Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition immediately responded, stating that the CDCR had "prematurely announced that the hunger strike is over," and pointing out that "the prisoner-approved mediation team (which the hunger strike leaders have insisted participate in any negotiations) was not involved in this so-called resolution around the strike, and the CDCR has not fully announced what was agreed upon." The Coalition added, pointedly, "Clearly the CDCR is more interested in improving their Public Relations image than addressing real issues of torture."
The Coalition added:
Support for the hunger strike is at a crucial tipping point. One thing is absolutely clear: the five core demands have not been met. Long-term solitary confinement is still being used as torture. Supporters everywhere must amplify the prisoners voices even more fiercely than before. The goal of supporting the hunger strike was not to make sure prisoners continue to starve, rather to support the prisoners in winning their demands to change conditions of imprisonment. This struggle is not over.
As the Los Angeles Times explained, the CDCR’s statement was certainly misleading, as, just hours after Cate’s announcement, "California corrections officials acknowledged more than 500 inmates continue to refuse meals at three other state prisons." Prison spokeswoman Terry Thornton explained, "More than 400 inmates remain on hunger strike at the California State Prison in Corcoran, more than 100 at the California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi and about 29 at Calipatria State Prison."
Thornton explained that about 110 inmates had "continuously refused state issued food" from July 1 to 21, and that, earlier this week, 17 inmates who "had begun to show early symptoms of starvation" were moved from Pelican Bay to Corcoran, ostensibly because there were adequate medical resources to treat them there — although, to my mind, moving them might also have been an effective way to break their strike.
source to read more
http://uruknet.info/?p=m79825&hd=&size=1&l=e
FYI:
n Thursday July 21, as the widespread hunger strike in California’s prisons — primarily aimed at highlighting the abusive conditions in which prisoners are held in long-term solitary confinement in Security Housing Units (SHUs) — reached the three-week mark, Matthew Cate, the Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), issued a deeply cynical press release announcing that inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison, where the strike began on July 1, had ended their hunger strike.
Claiming that the strike "was ordered by prison gang leaders, individuals responsible for terrible crimes against Californians," and adding that hunger strikes "are a dangerous and ineffective way for prisoners to attempt to negotiate," Cate claimed that inmates at Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit "stopped the strike on July 20 after they better understood CDCR’s plans, developed since January, to review and change some policies regarding SHU housing and gang management," which "include providing cold-weather caps, wall calendars and some educational opportunities for SHU inmates."
Reducing a widespread hunger strike against torture to a misunderstanding, remedied by granting prisoners a few trinkets, was deeply insulting, and the Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition immediately responded, stating that the CDCR had "prematurely announced that the hunger strike is over," and pointing out that "the prisoner-approved mediation team (which the hunger strike leaders have insisted participate in any negotiations) was not involved in this so-called resolution around the strike, and the CDCR has not fully announced what was agreed upon." The Coalition added, pointedly, "Clearly the CDCR is more interested in improving their Public Relations image than addressing real issues of torture."
The Coalition added:
Support for the hunger strike is at a crucial tipping point. One thing is absolutely clear: the five core demands have not been met. Long-term solitary confinement is still being used as torture. Supporters everywhere must amplify the prisoners voices even more fiercely than before. The goal of supporting the hunger strike was not to make sure prisoners continue to starve, rather to support the prisoners in winning their demands to change conditions of imprisonment. This struggle is not over.
As the Los Angeles Times explained, the CDCR’s statement was certainly misleading, as, just hours after Cate’s announcement, "California corrections officials acknowledged more than 500 inmates continue to refuse meals at three other state prisons." Prison spokeswoman Terry Thornton explained, "More than 400 inmates remain on hunger strike at the California State Prison in Corcoran, more than 100 at the California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi and about 29 at Calipatria State Prison."
Thornton explained that about 110 inmates had "continuously refused state issued food" from July 1 to 21, and that, earlier this week, 17 inmates who "had begun to show early symptoms of starvation" were moved from Pelican Bay to Corcoran, ostensibly because there were adequate medical resources to treat them there — although, to my mind, moving them might also have been an effective way to break their strike.
source to read more
http://uruknet.info/?p=m79825&hd=&size=1&l=e