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SF SHU vigil draws thousands

by Maoist Internationalist Movement (mim [at] mim.org)
Vigil against Security Housing Units prison units.
San Francisco Prison protest exposes SHU brutality

October 31 through November 5 tens of thousands of people in downtown San Francisco came face to face with the stark reality of life inside the Security Housing Units (SHU) in California prisons. On the busy corner of Market and Powell streets activists erected a mock SHU in a five day vigil to expose the brutality of these torture units. The activists collected signatures on a petition calling for the closure of the SHUs. At final count the protest gathered 1328 signatures. The fight has not ended and people interested in participating can download a petition at http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/prisons and continue collecting signatures.

Organized by the All People's Coalition Against the U.S. Occupation and Terror, the SHU protest included a hunger strike inside the SHU with a
different persyn every 24 hours, and activists on the outside talking to passers by. MIM was an active participant in this event, sending an activist
to take up a post outside of the SHU for several hours each day of the protest, along with a flyer designed by MIM detailing the brutality in the California SHU and the history of these control units across the country. (A
copy of the flyer can be downloaded at
http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/prisons).

The SHU is a prison within a prison. It consists of 6x9 foot cells with prisoners locked up at least 22 hours a day, in conditions of sensory deprivation: no daylight, no human contact, no training or educational
activities, and no phone access. Guards subject prisoners to strip searches
and shackles every time they leave their cells. The only regular release from the cell is to an exercise cell that is just a larger version of the SHU
cell. As a former SHU prisoner commented, "I wouldn't wish that on my worse enemy."

A federal court found conditions at the Pelican Bay SHU facility to be unconstitutional in 1995. The court ruled that prisoners suffered gratuitous
and racist beatings and that medical facilities were inadequate. Prisoners report that little has changed since that ruling. Corcoran prison is infamous
for its "gladiator fights," staged between 1988 and 1996. MIM met one man who had been in the Corcoran SHU in 1995 "in the thick of the mess." He explained how guards sent him to the SHU on the pretext that he had attacked them with
a ballpoint pen--while he was on the ground handcuffed behind his back. He
said that false charges such as this were common grounds for lockup in the SHU.

A poster on the side of the protest SHU in San Francisco quoted a Pelican Bay
SHU prisoner:

"...the most ridiculous information is used to support our validation and SHU placement, i.e. assisting each other in legal work, signing a card for a
dying prisoner and just about any speech or association that has anything to
do with gang activity or a violation of law or prison code.

"...CDC refuses to define 'gang activity' and so in the eyes of CDC, everything and anything is gang activity. And, should a prisoner have no gang activity, there is an exception clause that allows them to keep us in the SHU anyway.

"...the means for obtaining release from the SHU [are] paroling, debriefing, dying, and the loss of sanity."

SHU prisoners at Pelican Bay started another hunger strike October 19th to expose the conditions there. This action in San Francisco was timed to
publicize their struggle. Although the protest received no direct mainstream media attention, the Pelican Bay hunger strike received sudden interest by
the media after several days of this vigil on the outside. But even if no mainstream media attention had been gained this action was an overwhelming
success. It was a demonstration of the numbers of people that a few dedicated activists can reach and educate, and the magnitude of impact we can have.

A number of former prisoners stopped to sign the petition. Those who had not been in the SHU stressed how bad the conditions are in the prisons even outside of the SHU. Guard brutality, medical neglect, lack of education and
inadequate food are commonplace throughout the California prison system. A former guard in the California Department of Corrections who spoke out
against guards' abuses signed the petition. Speaking out cost him his job.

The vigil took place in an area containing a cross-section of San Francisco's population, including business people and homeless. Activists came face to face with the reality that Amerika has the highest imprisonment rate in the world. All who volunteered outside the SHU were struck by the large numbers
of people walking by who had been to prison. Many of the homeless had been to prison.

A large number of tourists also stopped at the exhibit. Tourists from other countries were uniformly shocked that the SHU form of solitary confinement is
legal in the United $tates.

The U.$. Government now holds about a half million more prisoners than China; even though China is four times the U.$. population. In this so-called "free
country" freedom is imprisonment. The U.$ imprisons more Black people than did apartheid South Africa before Mandela was president.

As in the rest of the country, people from oppressed nations are imprisoned in California at a disproportionate rate. In 1998 the CDC reported that 34% of the population in all CDC institutions was Latino, and 31% was Black. The population of the Security Housing Units (SHUs) is even more
disproportionate. 82% of those in SHUs were non-white, and 52% of those in
SHUs were Latino. This compares to a California population that was 32% Latino, and 7% Black in 1998.


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Sun, Nov 17, 2002 9:42AM
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