India: Political Prisoner Advocates Declare Unity with Palestinian Prisoners, Hunger Strikers

CRPP Statement on the struggle of Palestinian prisoners lodged in Israeli prisons

COMMITTEE FOR THE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS

185/3 FOURTH FLOOR, ZAKIR NAGAR, NEW DELHI—110025
12 June 2014

A large number of Palestinians now incarcerated in the Israeli prisons have begun an indefinite hunger strike since 24 April 2014 against the Zionist policy of “administrative detention” of Palestinians fighting for justice, dignity and a separate independent state for the Palestinian people. A group of 120 Palestinian political prisoners started a hunger strike and were later joined by more inmates and the strike has entered its 46th day today. This policy of administrative detention is but imprisonment without trial or charge that allows Israel to imprison Palestinians for up to six months initially and then extend it for indefinite periods of time which can go to years together.

The conditions inside prisons are abysmal. According to WAFA Palestinian News & Information Agency, in the face of this hunger strike, Israeli Prison Service, in a mad rage for vengeance, has ordered prison guards to treat the inmates brutally. They have been holding prisoners on hunger-strike in solitary confinement and have also confiscated their belongings, except for their clothes, as a means of exerting pressure over them to end their strike.

According to the Press TV, the health conditions of many of the striking prisoners held in solitary confinement are critical. More than 100 prisoners have been sent to hospital for medical care. “The weight of striking prisoners has gone down by an average of 16 kgs”, said Jawad Bolus, a Palestinian lawyer who visited eight of the hospitalized inmates, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Solidarity Network: “ALL OUT FOR CALIFORNIA PRISONER HUNGER STRIKE 2013”

California prisoners started a hunger strike and work actions today for basic human rights.
Support their demands – join us for a demonstration at Corcoran Saturday – July 13th!
Check out this new video!

Edited by Lucas Guilkey & Nicole Deane
Music: Fatgums ‘Kill the Vultures” & The Coup ‘My Favorite Mutiny’
 Published on Jul 8, 2013

JULY 13TH RALLY AT CORCORAN

SIGN THE PLEDGE OF RESISTANCE and become part of the EMERGENCY RESPONSE NETWORK

SIGN THE PETITION TO GOVERNOR BROWN

MORE INFORMATION: http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com

In 2011, over 12,000 prisoners and their family and community members participated in statewide hunger strikes protesting the inhumane conditions in California’s Security Housing Units (SHU or solitary confinement). California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation promised meaningful reform as a result of those protests, but nothing meaningful has reached the people living in these cages. Prisoners have announced another hunger strike will begin July 8th because of CDCR’s failure to fulfill that promise.

Hunger Strike: The Irish Experience

by DENIS O’HEARN

When people ask me, “what is the most important thing you learned about Bobby Sands?” I tell them one simple thing. The most important thing about Bobby Sands is not how he died on hunger strike, it is how he lived.

New York – Bıa news agency, 5 November 2012

The hunger strikes of 1980/1981, in which ten men including Bobby Sands died, are the most famous use of that political weapon. Yet hunger striking has a long history in Irish political culture. It is said that the ancient Celts practiced a form of hunger strike called Troscadh or Cealachan, where someone who had been wronged by a man of wealth fasted on his doorstep. Some historians claim that this was a death fast, which usually achieved justice because of the shame one would incur from allowing someone to die on their doorstep. Others say it was a token act that was never carried out to the death – it was simply meant to publicly shame the offender. In any case, both forms of protest have been used quite regularly as a political weapon in modern Ireland.

The history of Irish resistance to British colonialism is full of heroes who died on hunger strike. Some of the best-known include Thomas Ashe, a veteran of the 1916 “Easter Rising”, who died after he was force-fed by the British in Dublin’s Mountjoy Jail. In 1920, three men including the mayor of Cork City Terence MacSwiney died on hunger strike in England’s Brixton Prison. In October 1923 two men died when up to 8,000 IRA prisoners went on hunger strike to protest their imprisonment by the new “Irish Free State” (formed after the partition of Ireland in 1921). Three men died on hunger strike against the Irish government in the 1940s. After the IRA was reformed in the 1970s, hunger strikes became common once again. IRA man Michael Gaughan died after being force-fed in a British prison in 1974. And Frank Stagg died in a British jail after a 62-day hunger strike in 1976.

Unlike in Turkey, the Irish make no distinction between a “hunger strike” and a “death fast,” although many hunger strikes have started without the intention of anyone dying. In 1972, IRA prisoners successfully won status as political prisoners after a hunger strike in which no one died. They were then moved to Long Kesh prison camp, where they lived in dormitory-style huts and self-organized their education (including guerrilla training), work (including cooperative handicrafts production), recreation, and attempts to escape and rejoin the conflict. The prisoners used their relative freedom to raise their collective and individual consciousness about their struggle against British occupation of Ireland. They read international revolutionaries like Che Guevara and Irish socialists such as James Connolly. This was, in turn, a foundation for rebuilding the IRA on a basis that included a less hierarchical and more participative structure, with a higher emphasis on community politics as a part of armed struggle.

As the IRA rebuilt their organization in prison the British government also changed strategy. The main pillar of the new strategy was a “conveyor belt” of security operations that included widespread arrests of young Catholic males, heavy interrogation including torture, and juryless courts in which a single judge pronounced guilt often on the sole basis of verbal or written statements under interrogation.

Oppression, Resistance, Unity, Power: A Statement in Support of the Virginia Hunger Strike

June 21, 2012

self-portrait by Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson

by Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson

In protest against the ongoing foul and inhumane conditions at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison – one of Amerika’s most notoriously abusive and racist prisons – dozens of men at the prison went on a hunger strike. The strike began on May 22, 2012 and lasted several weeks.
I had spent over a decade imprisoned at Red Onion. Much of that time was spent in political growth, and my writing and circulating reports and articles to publicly expose abuses there, and trying to help build us a support structure on the outside.

I also struggled to to my peers the truism that while oppression does breed resistance, resistance without unity and public support is futile. Which is why our captors promote division and individualism among prisoners – a “mind your own business” and “don’t concern yourself with others” mentality – and manipulate us to misdirect our frustrations and ‘resistance’ against and between ourselves. It is also why they maneuver at every turn to alienate the general public against us with fear and hatred. The old Willie Lynch game.

To repress my efforts, officials kept me in solitary, often isolated from other prisoners. They routinely censored, destroyed and ‘lost’ my correspondences; imposed increased repression and abuses on me; and finally, on February 11, 2012, transferred me cross-country without notice or explanation to the Oregon prison system.

But I’d like to believe that despite their attempts to undermine and frustrate this work, my efforts, in collaboration with others of like mind, took root and bore fruit.
Many of the hunger strikers are men whom I had the honor of serving as both student and teacher. Many are members of street tribes (so-called gangs) whose traditional rivalries kept them divided against and at odds with each other – divisions and conflicts which Red Onion officials acted at every turn to fuel and perpetuate. However, as one of the representatives of the hunger strike stated:

“We’re tired of being treated like animals. There are only two classes in this prison: the oppressor and the oppressed. We, the oppressed, despite divisions of sexual preference, gang affiliation, race and religion, are coming together. We are rival gang members, but now are united as revolutionaries.”

BBC silent on the hunger strike of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners

BBC challenged for ignoring plight of Palestinian prisoners

Amena Saleem,The Electronic Intifada

Glasgow, 25 April 2012

Palestinian political prisoners are on mass hunger strike but you’d never know it from watching the BBC.

(Mohammed Asad / APA images)

“I had no idea. How could I not have known?”

I heard those words on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day (17 April) from a teacher, shocked at discovering how Israel abducts, abuses and imprisons Palestinian children — some as young as 12 — in the West Bank because they may or may not have thrown stones at Israel’s wall.

She had tagged along with a friend to a talk given in London by Gerard Horton of Defence for Children International–Palestine Section, and until that moment had been unaware of the brutalities of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Horton’s lecture focused on a new DCI-Palestine report which documents the various traumas Palestinian children regularly face during Israeli military detention (“Bound, Blindfolded and Convicted: Children held in military detention,” 14 April 2012).

The answer to her question is fairly simple: this woman — a member of the educated, professional middle-classes — did not know because she relies on the mainstream media, led by the BBC, for her news. And that media’s silence on the realities of Israel’s occupation is deafening.

Last week, 1,200 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails began an open-ended hunger strike in protest at the illegalities and injustices of their incarceration. Another 2,300 refused food for the duration of Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. Their action came just weeks after Khader Adnan ended his 66-day hunger strike and Hana al-Shalabi was released (though banished to Gaza) after refusing food for 43 days, both protesting at Israel’s use of administrative detention against them.

Prisoners from Corcoran State Prison-SHU respond to prison official’s lies

[A careful and detailed rebuttal of the state prison officials justifications for the tortuous conditions prisoners in the Security Housing Units are subjected to — and severe repression of California prison hunger strikers.  This article is well-worth reading, and passing along. — Frontlines ed.]

———————–

A Brief Discussion on the Reality and Impact of SHU Torture Units in the Wake of the August 23rd Legislative Hearings, From the N.C.T.T. – COR-SHU

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere…We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”  — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, 4/16/63

These sage words by Dr. King are both appropriate to the discussion we’d like to have with you on indefinite SHU confinement, and cautionary as to who we are as a society in these troubled times. This 2nd point is very relevant to this discussion and we hope you’ll stick with us as we explore subject matter that is both broad and disturbing which requires us to share some inconvenient truths.

Security Housing Units, SHUs, like those in Pelican Bay, Tehachapi, and this one here in Corcoran are torture units. They are used to indefinitely house human beings in solitary confinement, under constant illumination, based on an administrative determination that they are “gang” members or associates, with an impetus towards breaking their minds in hopes of eliciting information, coercing them into becoming informants or active agents of the state. The torture units are the living tombs of not only alleged “gang” members or associates, but political and politicized prisoners, human rights activists, critics of the prison industry, jailhouse lawyers and most anyone who in the sole determination of Institutional Gang Investigators (I.G.I.) and administrators, are not content to accept and submit passively to their role as commodities in the prison industrial complex. The United States, and many of it’s media outlets such as the ‘New York Times’ and ‘San Diego Union Tribune’, prior to the U.S. “War on Terror” routinely criticized China, Turkey, Burma, Syria, and other nations for holding prisoners in indefinite solitary confinement, under conditions of constant illumination and/or sensory deprivation, etc. for expressing contrary political views. They universally condemned the practice as torture, citing the United Nations Human Rights Commission Treaty. Their hypocrisy was of course revealed soon after the policy of U.S. sponsored torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and numerous secret C.I.A. blacksite prisons was exposed. Yet America’s dirty little secret is, state sponsored torture in the U.S. is neither new or exclusive to it’s “War on Terror”. Years before Abu Ghraib and ‘Gitmo’ they were murdering prisoners in San Quentin’s Adjustment Center, boiling men alive at Pelican Bay-SHU, and holding murderous bloodsport style bouts in Corcoran-SHU all along holding alleged “gang” members and left wing political ideologues for decades in sensory deprivation torture units at Pelican Bay, Corcoran, and Tehachapi SHUs. Yes, indefinite solitary confinement and constant illumination is being used right now in California SHU units, in conjunction with a program of systematic isolation and experimental behavior modification to torture prisoners everyday … with no end in sight.

California Prison Officials offer hunger strikers retaliation and repression

Loved ones and human rights defenders rallied in Sacramento this week in solidarity with tortured California inmates

Deborah Dupre, Human Rights Examiner

October 7, 2011

Historical peaceful protest by 12000 California prisoners prompts officials to begin freezing them in small concrete cells

On Day 12 of the resumed historical peaceful Pelican Bay Prison Hunger strike, it has become apparent to human rights advocates with the major group supporting the inmates interviewed by CNN that numbers of strikers began dropping this week, from 12,000 refusing food, after the CDCR intensified retaliation against them, such as air conditioning the small concrete cells at 50 degrees. The hunger strike representatives at Pelican Bay who had been kept in D Corridor of the Security Housing Unit were moved to Administrative Segregation at Pelican Bay while at least one inmate on strike who was denied medications has suffered a heart attack.

California: Prisoners Supporters Rally at CDCR Headquarters As Hunger Strike Enters 10th Day

October 5, 2011

Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity

Sacramento – Family members and supporters of prisoners on strike throughout California will rally outside California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) headquarters as the strike enters its 10th day. Over 1,200 prisoners continue to refuse food in an effort to force the CDCR to address their five core demands, in particular those related to long term solitary confinement, gang validation, debriefing and group punishment. Over the course of the last week, nearly 12,000 prisoners participated in the strike from thirteen California prisons, as well as California prisoners housed out of state in Mississippi, Arizona and Oklahoma, making it one of the largest prisoner hunger strikes in US history. “From the very northern most tip to the very southern most tip of California, prisoners in Security Housing Units (SHUs), Administrative Segregation Units (Ad-Seg) and general population are starving themselves because their human rights are being violated,” says Dorsey Nunn, executive director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, “We are not going to stand by while the CDCR tortures our loved ones.”

Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike continues – now is the time for international solidarity!

The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat
www.freeahmadsaadat.org + info@freeahmadsaadat.org
Twitter: http://twitter.com/freeahmadsaadat

As Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike enters its second week, international solidarity is needed now, more than ever. Prisoners are being sent to isolation in increasing numbers, family visits are being denied, families threatened and identity cards conficated, lawyer visits denied, and belongings and clothing confiscated.

International solidarity to support Palestinian hunger strikers is also growing:

• éirígí, an Irish republican socialist political party, has called for a vigil at the Israeli embassy in Dublin on October 5 to support hunger strikers; the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat encourages all to attend!
• The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network has issued a strong call for solidarity with the Palestinian hunger strikers, and the striking prisoners in California, including a highlight of the case of Ahmad Sa’adat. We encourage all to sign on.
• A number of international organizations, including the Platform in Solidarity with Palestine, the Irish Republican Socialist Committees, and others, have issued statements and calls in solidarity with the prisoners.
• The website mobilizing solidarity with the California prison hunger strike – where prisoners have also been denied legal visits, lawyers threatened, and retaliation used against prisoners – has also provided information in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners. We urge people to follow the California strike and provide support and solidarity!
• There is a new Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat flyer for download and distribution – download the flyer here and distribute it in your community, at a protest at the Israeli embassy and at local events.
• In Canada, Voice of Palestine Radio will feature an interview with a prisoner support activist live from Ramallah. The show will air at 8-9 PM Pacific Standard Time and can be heard on  Vancouver Cooperative Radio (CFRO) 102.7 FM live at that time for people in Vancouver, Canada. People outside of Vancouver can listen to the show live on the Internet http://www.coopradio.org/content/listen.

Greece: Another 20 hunger striking migrants in hospital after 35th day of protest

One of the 20 hunger striking immigrants who were taken to hospital on Sunday is covered by paramedics in a thermal blanket. Another 20 immigrants from the group of 237 that have been on hunger strike in Athens since last month were taken to the hospital over the weekend after showing signs of extreme exhaustion. Supporters of the hunger strike, which entered its 35th day yesterday, said that some of the protesters had even stopped accepting fluids to drink. Four members of the group were taken to the hospital last week. “They won’t even drink water and the doctors that are watching them fear that there will be more members of the group in a state that will require hospital treatment,” said Petros Yiotis, a member of the Solidarity Initiative, which has backed the protest since it began at Athens University’s Law School and then moved to a listed building in the city center. The migrants had only been drinking water and sugar for the last 35 days in an effort to put pressure on the government to renew their residence permits. Most of the protesters had been working in Greece legally but were unable to renew their permits because of a shortage of social security credits as a result of work drying up.

Chile: Communique from the last Mapuche hunger strikers

On October 2, most of the Mapuche political prisoners on hungerstrike in the prisons of the Chilean state announced an end to their action while the hungerstrikers at Angol prison declared they would continue. On October 7, they released another communique explaining their struggle. The following day, after nearly 90 days without eating, they ended their hungerstrike, although without signing onto any agreement with the Chilean state.

We consider this communique to be of great importance because it clearly explains how the modifications to the antiterrorist law are simply cosmetic and do not at all guarantee the completion of the demands brought forward by this mobilization. Furthermore, and most importantly, the hungerstrikers of Angol prison want to make it plain that this action did not occur as a partial claim within the juridical realm, but as a projection of the Mapuche struggle.

This is where we see that an action such as this is not a simple pressure brought to bear against the party in power, rather it reveals the substance of what is and must be the struggle by the Mapuche against the State/Capital. A struggle that, through this kind of mobilization, continuously strengthens itself and avoids a fossilization that would prevent it from taking on a larger framework, such as a struggle for self-determination.

Mapuches End Hunger Strike after Agreement with Chile Government

Caracas,
October 3,2010

SANTIAGO – Thirty jailed Mapuche Indians ended a long hunger strike – in most cases dating back to July 12 – after reaching an agreement with the government, the archbishop who mediated the talks said.

The news, also confirmed by the spokeswoman for some of the jailed protesters, Natividad Llanquileo, was announced Friday after two extensive meetings between representatives of the Indians and the government – one in Concepcion with the participation of that southern city’s archbishop, Ricardo Ezzati, and another in Temuco with the presence of Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter.

“As is public knowledge, the government has sponsored legal reforms aimed at modifying the so-called ‘anti-terrorist law’ and the act (that allows) trials of civilians by military tribunals,” Ezzati told reporters.

Second Wave of Global Protest in Support of Mapuche Prisoners on Hunger Strike in Chile

August 19, 2010

Mapuche International Link

A second wave of global protest was initiated by the families of Mapuche political prisoners and hunger strikers on Weds 18th of August. The worldwide protest took place in the following countries, Chile, Argentina, England, France and Norway amongst numerous others.

In London a demonstration of solidarity with Mapuche hunger strikers took place in front of the Chilean embassy and was a well attended and peaceful event. Amongst its supporters were UK based NGO, Mapuche International Link, the Association of Chilean ex- political prisoners in the UK, Colombian Solidarity Campaign, Latin American Coordination, Memoria Historica, and many independent pro-Mapuche sympathisers.

In Temuco, Chile, peaceful demonstrations were again disrupted by unsolicited violent police repression against the Mapuche supporters. The protest was marked by 56 arrests, including that of Catalina Catrileo sister of Matias Catrileo a Mapuche youth previously murdered by Chilean police during a peaceful land rights demonstration.

Chile: Campaign in Support of Mapuche Political Prisoners Gains Momentum

August 12, 2010

A campaign declaring solidarity with 31 detained Mapuche hunger strikers has attracted substantial local and international attention to the Mapuche struggle.

Below is a press release issued by Mapuche International Link:

In a declaration of solidarity with 31 detained Mapuche hunger strikers whose current medical status is of grave concern, Mapuche International Link’s (MIL) General Secretary, Reynaldo Mariqueo, will lead members of a delegation including Ms Jimena Castro and Mr. Roberto Navarrante – both of whom are members of the Association of Ex Chilean Political Prisoners -to formally declare their opposition to the Chilean government’s continued application of Pinochet-era anti-terrorism legislation against Mapuche democratic protest. The event, which will involve the presentation of a letter to the Chilean Minister Counsellor at the Chilean embassy tomorrow and is timed to commemorate the ‘International Day of Solidarity with the Mapuche Political Prisoners on Hunger Strike’ on 12 August 2010.

The meeting, which begins at 15:00pm today, 12 August 2010, will discuss the deteriorating health of the political prisoners, some of whom have been on hunger strike since July 12th, 2010. Originally, the protest broke out in response to the refusal of the Chilean authorities to recognise both the human rights of the detainees and the essentially political nature of their indictment and detention. Although news coverage of the action has been severely curtailed by a government ‘blackout’, the hunger strike has already inspired Mapuche communities in cities across Chile to take to the streets to declare their support.