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For Prison Hunger Strikers: Sign Petition & Call or Fax Governor

by Anti-Fascist
The 2013 California Prisoner Hunger Strike has gone on for 10 days now, and the prisoners need your help to win their struggle to end solitary confinement , to receive decent and sufficient food and have serious rehabilitation programs. Call Gov Brown Phone: (916) 445-2841, (510) 289-0336, (510) 628-0202 or Fax: (916) 558-3160 and sign the petition at http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/51040/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11455
The 2013 California Prisoner Hunger Strike has gone on for 10 days now, and the prisoners need your help to win their struggle to end solitary confinement , to receive decent and sufficient food and have serious rehabilitation programs. Call Gov Brown Phone: (916) 445-2841, (510) 289-0336, (510) 628-0202 or Fax: (916) 558-3160 and sign the petition at http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/51040/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11455

For more information, see
http://curbprisonspending.org/
http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
http://solitarywatch.com/
http://californiaprisonwatch.blogspot.com/
http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/center-constitutional-rights-supports-pelican-bay-hunger-strikers
http://ccrjustice.org/pelican-bay-prison-hunger-strikers
http://sfbayview.com/category/enemylines/
http://www.prisons.org/
http://www.prisons.org/hungerstrike.htm
http://www.prisons.org/links.htm

The petition states:

To: Jerry Brown, Governor of California
Jeffrey Beard, Secretary of CDCR (California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation)

I support the prisoners & their reasonable demands. I am alarmed by the CDCR's refusal to recognize, address, and implement the changes outlined by prisoners being held in Security Housing Units (SHUs). I am further disturbed that, rather than addressing the crisis created by locking people for years and decades in extreme isolation, this peaceful hunger strike is being deemed a "mass prison disturbance" by the CDCR, putting prisoners in further danger.

I urge you to initiate accountable negotiations with these prisoners and/or their chosen representatives. I urge you to take action to implement the fair and reasonable demands immediately, and in good faith. I also want your guarantee that peaceful hunger strikers will not be retaliated against.
*****
The demands are:
The Pelican Bay Five Core Demands:
1. Eliminate group punishments and administrative abuse.
2. Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria.
3. Comply with the recommendations of the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons recommendations and end long-term solitary confinement.
4. Provide adequate and nutritious food.
5. Create and expand constructive programming.
********

Another petition stating the above is at:
http://www.change.org/petitions/support-pelican-bay-shu-prisoners-five-core-demands-hunger-strike

We have a supermajority Democrats in both houses of the state legislature and a Democratic governor, and this prison concentration camp system continues. Nazi Germany would be proud of California's prison concentration camp system for it is an extermination camp for everyone in solitary confinement, all of whom do not receive sufficient calories, and the food is often dirty. They also have no window in these tiny cubicles, nothing to do and no educational and job training programs. Suicide is common in California prisons, especially in solitary confinement. This is how the State of California spends our tax dollars, whether they are Democrats or Republicans. A serious program of rehabilitation is the following:
1. Abolish solitary confinement
2. Abolish the death penalty
3. Close all prisons where Valley Fever is a problem, bring home to their county of origin the 8500 California prisoners currently in prisons in Arizona, Oklahoma and Mississippi. CLOSE ALL PRISONS IN THE REMOTE UNDERPOPULATED AREAS OF CALIFORNIA.
See http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=702
4. Send all prisoners to their COUNTY OF ORIGIN so they can be integrated into their community and be with their families while receiving education, medical care and job training.
5. Legalize all drugs thereby removing them from the street market and ending the prison pipeline
6. Change all prison sentences so that they are not more than 5 years with mandatory education, medical care and job training programs for all prisoners under age 50.
7. Require that all prisoners under age 50, most of whom are functionally illiterate, obtain a high school diploma in prison and sign up for job training programs so that they are out of prison in 5 years or less.
8. All prisoners over age 50 should be given a lifelong pension of at least $3,000 per month, rising with the cost of living annually, free medical care and free housing. If they cannot live on their own, they should be housed in group housing.
§Call (916) 324-3397 to Support Prison Hunger Strikers
by Anti-fascist
Call (916) 324-3397, the prison death camp's new hotline to receive our phone calls in support of the prison hunger strikers, now in their 19th day of eating no food! You can also sign petitions below and call the governor.

Call (916) 324-3397, the prison death camp's new hotline to receive our phone calls in support of the prison hunger strikers, now in their 19th day of eating no food! You can also sign petitions below and call the governor.

This phone number is listed at the California Prison Focus site at
http://www.prisons.org/

Here are the prisoners' demands and an explanation:
http://www.prisons.org/documents/PB-Reps-letter-to-Brown-and-Beard.pdf

The 5 core demands are:
The Pelican Bay Five Core Demands:
1. Eliminate group punishments and administrative abuse.
2. Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria.
3. Comply with the recommendations of the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons recommendations and end long-term solitary confinement.
4. Provide adequate and nutritious food.
5. Create and expand constructive programming.
and a further explanation at
https://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/the-prisoners-demands-2/

Here are the demands of Curb Prison Spending:
http://curbprisonspending.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/50waysCurb.pdf

Here are more demands:
All prisons are a waste of our tax dollars and make the crime problem worse because they remove tax dollars from the education and social service sectors which are the only sectors that can prevent street crime. Solitary confinement of ANY KIND is by definition torture, not rehabilitation. THE ONLY GANG THAT EXISTS in California is the DEMOCRAT-REPUBLICAN PARTY that promotes this torture. A serious program of rehabilitation is the following:
1. Abolish solitary confinement
2. Abolish the death penalty
3. Close all prisons where Valley Fever is a problem, bring home to their county of origin the 8500 California prisoners currently in prisons in Arizona, Oklahoma and Mississippi. CLOSE ALL PRISONS IN THE REMOTE UNDERPOPULATED AREAS OF CALIFORNIA.
See http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=702
4. Send all prisoners to their COUNTY OF ORIGIN so they can be integrated into their community and be with their families while receiving education, medical care and job training.
5. Legalize all drugs thereby removing them from the street market and ending the prison pipeline
6. Change all prison sentences so that they are not more than 5 years with mandatory education, medical care and job training programs for all prisoners under age 50.
7. Require that all prisoners under age 50, most of whom are functionally illiterate, obtain a high school diploma in prison and sign up for job training programs so that they are out of prison in 5 years or less.
8. All prisoners over age 50 should be given a lifelong pension of at least $3,000 per month, rising with the cost of living annually, free medical care and free housing. If they cannot live on their own, they should be housed in group housing.

Here are the phone and fax numbers for the governor from
http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/monday-july-15-call-the-governor/
Phone: (916) 445-2841, (510) 289-0336, (510) 628-0202
Fax: (916) 558-3160

From: http://www.prisons.org/
The hunger strike succeeded so far in:
•moving CDCR to begin an immediate review of their gang validaiton and use of solitary confinement in the Security Housing Units (SHUs).
•bringing the issue of torturous SHUs (supermax/control units) to public attention and to mainstream media.
• mobilizing broad support throughout California, nationally, and internationally for their reasonable demands.

Sign the online petition at:
http://www.change.org/petitions/support-pelican-bay-shu-prisoners-five-core-demands-hunger-strike

Sign the other online petition at:
http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/51040/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11455

Here is the news from Solitary Watch as of July 24, 2013 at http://solitarywatch.com/
Nearly one thousand California prisoners have been on hunger strike for two weeks. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) released updated hunger strike figures on Monday, July 24th, reporting 986 strikers at 11 prisons across the state. In addition, 42 others at an unnamed facility are continuing to engage in a work stoppage. All hunger strikers at this point, according to California Correctional Health Care Services (CCHCS) policy, are to have received “written information about advance directives and a Physician Order for Life Sustaining Treatment,” and a document informing them ““You may die, even after you start to eat again,” and that “Now is the time for you to think about what medical care you want when you are no longer able to talk to health care staff.”

Meanwhile, media outlets are reporting that CDCR has denied media access to the hunger strikers, a policy it followed during the hunger strikes of 2011. On Tuesday, according to the LA Times, CDCR officials met with outside advocates of the hunger strikers, though the meeting was “purely informational” and was not a negotiation, leaving advocates frustrated.

Solitary Watch has received a confirmation of a previous report that sandbags are being placed at the doors of hunger strikers at California Correctional Institution, Tehachapi. “They have placed sandbags and milk crates with sandbags in front of cell doors,” writes a family member of a hunger striker, “those participating in hunger strike were placed on canteen restriction for next month.” The Public Information Officer at California State Prison, Corcoran, also confirmed this practice at his institution. Pelican Bay State Prison’s PIO has repeatedly refused to answer questions, telling Solitary Watch to “refer to Terry Thornton.” Folsom State Prison’s PIO responds to emails from Solitary Watch with the terse “Please contact OPEC at (916) 445-4950.”

Spokespeople from the CCHCS in contrast have been more responsive to information requests. One spokesperson told Solitary Watch that, “We have had two cases where inmates were seen by a medical facility off prison grounds for medical reasons—both of those individuals were treated, discharged, and returned to their prison.”

Another told Solitary Watch that forced feeding has not yet occurred. He outlined the reasons that forced feeding may occur:


Health care staff shall grant participants autonomy in health care decisions related to nutrition and shall not force feed the participant unless one of the following criteria is met:
•If the participant refuses to clearly and consistently indicate their wishes regarding medical management of their hunger strike including questions of refeeding and resuscitation if required, then all necessary interventions to protect life and limb will be carried out.
•The participant is deemed unable to give informed consent as defined in CCR, Title 15, Section 3353.1 and the institution obtains a court order to treat the participant.

Forced feeding (enteral or parenteral nutrition support) shall not take place except in a licensed health care facility by licensed clinical staff.
******
You can read the personal stories of prisoners at the same link:
http://solitarywatch.com/
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