California’s Pelican Bay prisoners plan hunger strike
Published Jul 4, 2011 9:20 PM
Prisoners in California’s Pelican Bay State Prison Security
Housing Unit plan to go on hunger strike beginning July 1 to protest the cruel,
inhumane conditions there. The following excerpted call for support was written
by prisoner Mutope Duguma. For more information, visit
www.prisons.org.
This is a call for all prisoners in Security Housing Units (SHUs),
Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg), and General Populations (GP), as well as
the free oppressed and non-oppressed people to support the indefinite July 1
peaceful Hunger Strike in protest of the violation of our civil/human rights
here at Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit, short corridor D1
through D4 and its overflow, D5 through D10.
It should be clear to everyone that none of the hunger strike participants want
to die, but [the] state of California has sentenced all of us on Indeterminate
SHU programs to a “civil death” merely on the word of a prison
informer (snitch). The purpose of the Hunger Strike is to combat both the
Ad-Seg/SHU psychological and physical torture. Those subjected to indeterminate
SHU programs are neglected and deprived of the basic human necessities while
withering away in a very isolated and hostile environment.
Prison officials have utilized the assassination of prisoners’ character
to each other as well as the general public in order to justify their inhumane
treatment of prisoners. The “code of silence” used by guards allows
them the freedom to use everything at their disposal in order to break those
prisoners who prison officials and correctional officers (COs) believe cannot
be broken.
It is this mentality that set in motion the establishing of the short corridor,
D1 through D4 and its D5 though D10 overflow. This mentality has created the
current atmosphere, in which COs and prison officials agreed upon a plan to
break indeterminate SHU prisoners. This protracted attack on SHU prisoners cuts
across every aspect of the prison’s function: food, mail, visitations,
medical, yard, hot/cold temperatures, privileges (canteen, packages, property,
etc.), isolation, cell searches, family/friends, and socio-cultural, economic,
and political deprivation. This is nothing short of the psychological/physical
torture of SHU/Ad-Seg prisoners. It takes place day in and day out, without a
break or rest.
The prison’s gang intelligence unit was extremely angered at the fact
that prisoners who had been held in SHU under inhuman conditions for anywhere
from 10 to 40 years had not been broken. So the gang intelligence unit created
the “short corridor” and intensified their attacks on the prisoners
housed there. The object was to use blanket pressure to encourage these
particular isolated prisoners to debrief (i.e., snitch in order to be released
from SHU).
The COs and administrative officials are all in agreement and all do their part
in depriving short corridor prisoners and its overflow of their basic
civil/human rights. None of the deliberate attacks is a figment of
anyone’s imagination. They are deliberate and conscious acts against
essentially defenseless prisoners.
It is these ongoing attacks that have led the short corridor and overflow SHU
prisoners to organize themselves around an indefinite Hunger Strike in an
effort to combat the dehumanizing treatment we prisoners of all races are
subjected to on a daily basis. Therefore, on July 1, we ask that all prisoners
throughout the state of California who have been suffering injustices in
General Population, Administrative Segregation and solitary confinement, etc.,
to join in our peaceful strike to put a stop to the blatant violations of
prisoners’ civil/human rights. As you know, prison gang investigators
have used threats of validation and other means to get prisoners to engage in a
protracted war against each other in order to serve their narrow interests. If
you cannot participate in the Hunger Strike, then support it in principle by
not eating for the first 24 hours of the strike.
I say that those of you who carry yourselves as principled human beings, no
matter your housing status, must fight to right this and other egregious
wrongs. Although it is “us” today (united New Afrikans, Whites,
Northern and Southern Mexicans, and others) it will be you all tomorrow. It is
in your interests to peacefully support us in this protest today, and beware of
agitators, provocateurs and obstructionists, because they are the ones who put
90 percent of us back here because they could not remain principled even within
themselves.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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