[Ppnews] Canada - Samidoun statement on Prisoners’ Justice Day

[Political Prisoner News]

    Samidoun statement on Prisoners’ Justice Day
    <http://samidoun.ca/2012/08/samidoun-statement-on-prisoners-justice-day/>

by samidoun <http://samidoun.ca/?author=1>

http://samidoun.ca/2012/08/samidoun-statement-on-prisoners-justice-day/

August 10, Prisoners' Justice Day, was initiated by prisoners at 
Millhaven Maximum Security Penitentiary in 1976 as a day to remember all 
of the men, women and youth who have died inside Canadian prisons, and 
to draw attention to the conditions that contribute to prisoner deaths. 
Thousands of prisoners across Canada went on a one day hunger strike to 
protest the deaths of prisoners and, in particular, the use of solitary 
confinement, and supporters outside held vigils and fasts outside 
prisons across the country. In the ensuing years, prisoners in the US 
and Europe also joined in 24 hour fasts on August 10 for justice, 
dignity and against solitary confinement and repression.

36 years later, on Prison Justice Day 2012, Samidoun Palestinian 
Prisoner Solidarity Network stands in solidarity with prisoners in 
Canada and around the world struggling for justice on this day. We note 
in particular that the prison system disproportionately affects 
Indigenous people and communities, and has been a weapon of colonialism 
and destruction further uprooting Indigenous nations from their land. 
Prisons continue to reflect the horrors of the residential schools, as 
people, families and communities affected by residential schools 
continue to be frequently criminalized today.

Refugee claimants, migrants, asylum seekers, racialized and oppressed 
communities are subject to detention and imprisonment, and heavily 
criminalized physically in prisons and through government rhetoric in 
Canada. The creation of security certificate regimes and other forms of 
"anti-terror" imprisonment particularly target Arab, Muslim and South 
Asian communities, and highlight the ways in which political 
imprisonment, criminalization and racism go hand in hand for all 
prisoners. And while the government denies refugees access to health 
care, defunds programs and supports for migrants, refugees and 
communities, it pursues the building of ever more prisons across the 
country.

Palestinian prisoners in occupation prisons struggle daily against 
solitary confinement, racism, and a mass imprisonment system that 
targets Palestinians as a whole for criminalization and subjugation. Yet 
Palestinian prisoners have been a beacon of resistance and 
steadfastness, leaders of the Palestinian movement for liberation. 
Today, at least 4 Palestinian prisoners are on hunger strike - Samer 
al-Barq (81 days), Hassan Safadi (51 days), Ayman Sharawna (41 days), 
and Samer al-Issawi (10 days) - demanding freedom and an end to their 
unjust imprisonment without charge or trial.

Samidoun expresses its solidarity with all those in prisons struggling 
against solitary confinement, racism and oppression, and longs for a day 
of freedom, justice and liberation for all.

Resources:

Statement on Prisoners Justice Day: 
http://alexhundert.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/prisoners-statement-on-prisoners-justice-day/
Prison Justice: http://prisonjustice.ca
Prisoners Justice Day events across Canada: 
http://g20.torontomobilize.org/node/783/

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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