-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 10, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------TEXAS PRISON HUNGER STRIKE
Heroic action puts world spotlight on inhumane conditions
By Gloria Rubac
Houston"Two, four, six, eight, support the prisoners, not the state!"
"Isolation is a violation! Stop the torture now!"
Every work day for three weeks these chants by supporters of striking prisoners have bounced off the downtown Houston building that houses offices of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
From Jan. 1 to Jan. 21, some 1,000 Texas prisoners on death row and administrative segregation participated in a hunger strike. The action called attention around the world to the cruel and inhumane conditions some Texas prisoners are forced to live under.
Over 100 of the 450 men on death row in Texas have been transferred to a new super-maximum prison. The rest are scheduled to be moved this spring. They live in total isolation in six-foot-by-10-foot cells that don't have bars in the front--just a solid steel door.
The prisoners are never allowed human contact. They eat alone, shower alone and go to recreation alone. They are no longer allowed to participate in the work program, to have group recreation, to make arts and crafts in their cells, to attend religious services or to watch TV.
Unless they have visitors, there is no contact with the outside world except through letters.
As recently as last March, the federal courts ruled that Texas' administrative segregation is cruel and unusual punishment. Yet this cruelty continues. According to lawyers and psychiatrists, Texas prisoners in administrative segregation live in conditions worse than those in the infamous Pelican Bay prison in California.
The strike, initiated by Lionel Rodriguez and other men on death row, spread to seven other prison units.
Outside the walls, support for the hunger strikers was visible from day one. Daily demonstrations took place in Houston.
On Jan. 15, the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement held a protest in front of the prison administration building in downtown Huntsville. Members held up banners and leafleted passersby in support of the prisoners.
Prison officials originally denied the hunger strike was taking place. But as the prisoners' hunger strike progressed, the heroic action was covered by newspapers from the Dallas Times to the Los Angeles Times. The Houston Press, an alternative news weekly with a wide circulation, gave the hunger strike a full page of coverage. Even the Huntsville Item--published in the city where the state's executions are carried out--covered it.
After such widespread media coverage, offficials admitted the strike was happening.
Support for the prisoners spread to other countries, as well. In several cities in Italy, activists went on a hunger strike in solidarity and sent letters to Texas prison officials.
An action took place in London in front of the United States Embassy. Solidarity messages came from far and wide--San Francisco to Detroit, Australia to Germany.
The men on death row are now planning new strategies to focus attention on their life under sensory deprivation. They plan to continue to advance the struggle and build up the pressure in order to win changes in their living conditions.
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