[Ppnews] Inmate Health Dwindles as Prison Hunger Strike Enters Fourth Week
Political Prisoner News
ppnews at freedomarchives.org
Wed Jul 20 15:01:25 EDT 2011
Inmate Health Dwindles as Prison Hunger Strike Enters Fourth Week
http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/07/thousands_of_california_prisoners_entering_fourth_week_of_hunger_strike.html
Jorge Rivas
7/18/2011
More than 400 inmates at four California prisons
are entering their fourth week of a hunger strike
to protest long stays in isolation cells that
they contend are cruel and inhumane.
Prison officials told the
<http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prison-20110719,0,3168524.story>LA
Times theyre closely monitoring 49 inmates who
have lost at least 10 pounds each, including
seven at Pelican Bay, the maximum-security prison
near the Oregon border where the hunger strike began July 1st.
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity (PHSS), a
coalition based in the Bay Area made up of
organizations supporting the inmates at Pelican
Bay, reports more than 6,600 prisoners throughout
the state of California are refusing food in solidarity.
PHSS also reports that dozens of striking
prisoners have lost 20-25 pounds are being taken
to prison infirmaries because of irregular heartbeats or fainting.
An inmate at the state prison in Tehachapi in
Central California has lost 29 pounds, a
spokeswoman for the court-appointed receiver in
charge of prison healthcare confirmed to the
<http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prison-20110719,0,3168524.story>LA
Times.
In an op-ed for the
<http://sfbayview.com/2011/a-matter-of-life-and-death/>San
Francisco Bayview newspaper, Dorsey Nunn, a
mediator with strikers and the California
Department of Corrections (CDC) reports the
Pelican Bay prison hospital is filled with
prisoners who are being hydrated intravenously
because some have started to refuse water.
According to Nunn, many inmates are also having
trouble keeping water down at this point. It is
truly a matter of luck and or untiring spirit
that nobody has died so far, he added.
Whats most troubling is that the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has
not offered anything substantial in response to
the prisoners demands, which include an end to
long term solitary confinement, said Carol
Strickman in a
<http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/hunger-strike-rally-at-cdcr-headquarters-with-strike-in-third-week-cdcr-continues-to-reject-prisoner-demands/>PHSS
press release Monday.
Some of these guys have been in the Security
Housing Unit for 20 years or more and are
suffering the severe affects of being locked in a
6 x 10 concrete cell for 23 ½ hours a day. What
they are asking for are basic human rights,
added Strickman, a lawyer with Legal Services for
Prisoners with Children and member of the
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity legal team.
The Pelican Bay prisoners demands are standard
in Supermax prisons in other states, organizers say. The demands include:
* End Group Punishment & Administrative
Abuse would end group punishment as a means to
address an individual inmates rule violations.
* Abolish the Debriefing Policy, and Modify
Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria The
practice of debriefing, or offering up
information about fellow prisoners particularly
regarding gang status, is often demanded in
return for better food or release from the SHU.
Prisoners demand the end to debriefing because it
puts the safety of prisoners and their families
at risk, because they are then viewed as snitches.
* Comply with the US Commission on Safety
and Abuse in Americas Prisons 2006
Recommendations Regarding an End to Long-Term
Solitary Confinement Prisoners demand a more
productive form of confinement in the areas of
allowing inmates in SHU and Ad-Seg
[Administrative Segregation] the opportunity to
engage in meaningful self-help treatment, work,
education, religious, and other productive
activities. This demand includes access to
adequate natural sunlight and health care treatment.
* Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food
Prisoners demands include the end to the
practice of denying adequate food as a means of
punishment, asking for wholesome nutritional meals
* Expand and Provide Constructive
Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU
Status Inmates demands include a weekly phone
call, permission to keep wall calendars
and craft items - art paper, colored pens, small
pieces of colored pencils, watercolors, chalk, etc.
Dunn, one of the mediators between the prisoners
on hunger strike and the California Department of
Corrections, (CDC)
<http://sfbayview.com/2011/a-matter-of-life-and-death/>reports
prison official have offered nothing. He says
prisoners are sticking through with their demands
because they dont have much to to lose:
They felt disrespected but are staying committed
to this course of action until CDC stops the
torture. Some of them have been in solitary
lockup for multiple decades with no possibly of
getting out of the hole. They would rather die or
continue to be tortured before theyd surrender their soul.
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
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