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CREATED:20111011T045700Z
DESCRIPTION:A Reading of Prisoners' Letters / A Visual Protest at UC Berkeley\nSupport 
 the Prisoner Hunger Strike - Demand an End to Torture\n\nSupport California 
 prisoners on day 16 of their historic hunger strike at an interactive 
 installation at UC Berkeley, featuring visuals, readings of prisoners' 
 letters, and family members. Students and professors, family members with 
 loved ones in prison, members of the legal, human and civil rights 
 community -- join us in reading prisoner letters, holding photos of prison 
 conditions, sharing your thoughts, discussing how to support the prisoners. 
  Please forward this call widely, announce in classes, email us messages of 
 support to be read.\n\nThink about everything that makes you human... that 
 keeps you physically and mentally alive... that connects you with the world 
 and other people... that gives you a reason to live, to love, to learn and 
 think....  All this is what the SHU tries to extinguish.  In the SHU you're 
 locked up in a small, windowless concrete cell 23 hours a day, with minimum 
 human contact and maximum sensory deprivation, for years and sometimes 
 decades.  \n\n"I'm ready to take this all the way," says J. Angel Martinez, 
 one of the strike leaders at Pelican Bay State Prison. "We are sick and 
 tired of living like this and willing to die if that's what it 
 takes."\n\nOver 6,500 prisoners across California went on hunger strike 
 from July 1 to July 20, demanding to be treated as human beings; and an end 
 to barbaric, inhumane conditions and long-term solitary confinement -- a 
 form of torture.  Prisoners resumed the hunger strike on September 26, with 
 nearly 12,000 joining, because the California Department of Corrections and 
 Rehabilitation (CDCR) reneged on its promise to meet their 5 demands. 
 (Prisoners' demands )\n\nThe CDCR, backed by Gov. Jerry Brown, is 
 retaliating against hunger strikers - threatening to put them in the SHU 
 for going on hunger strike.  "We're freezing," strike leader Ron Yandell 
 told an attorney, as quoted in the New York Times.  "The air-conditioner is 
 blowing. It's like arctic air coming through, blowing at top speed. It's 
 torture. They're trying to break us."  \n\nOn October 4, Amnesty 
 International called for "swift implementation of reforms to California 
 security housing units," and condemned "conditions in the SHUs at Pelican 
 Bay and other facilities, where several thousand prisoners are held in 
 isolation, confined to windowless cells for more than 22 hours a day, with 
 minimal human contact and no work, recreational or educational programs."  
 \n\nLetters from prisoners to Revolution (and other publications) testify 
 to their deep humanity and potential to become emancipators of humanity.  
 One prisoner wrote:  "our sacrifice now will mean a more humane world for 
 us in the future...many of the conditions for prisoners being held in 
 Guantanamo Bay are really better than SHU prisoners in Pelican Bay." 
 \n\nAll of us have a moral responsibility to stand up for the basic rights 
 and humanity of those held behind bars, and build a determined movement 
 outside prison walls demanding CDCR grant the prisoners' just demands and 
 immediately halt its retaliation against hunger strikers.  \n\nThis 
 reading/installation has been initiated by readers of Revolution newspaper 
 and other supporters of the prisoner hunger strike.    Contact: D'Andre: 
 Deandre44@gmail.com or 510-926-5207\n\nFor more information on the hunger 
 strike, see:  \n\nPrisoner Hunger Strike Now in 11th Day\n\n12,000 
 Prisoners Resume Hunger Strike in California\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/10/10/18693030.php
SUMMARY:Support the Prisoner Hunger Strike - Demand an End to Torture!
LOCATION:UC Berkeley - Gather at Sather Gate (enter at Telegraph and Bancroft)
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/10/10/18693030.php
DTSTART:20111012T173000Z
DTEND:20111012T203000Z
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