<html>
<body>
<h2><font size=4><b>2 articles follow<br>
<a href="http://denverabc.wordpress.com/2010/12/25/hunger-strike-of-the-lucasville-uprising-prisoners-starting-monday-jan-3/">
Hunger strike of the Lucasville Uprising prisoners – starting Monday,
Jan. 3</a></b></font></h2><font size=3>Posted on December 25, 2010 by
denverabc<br><br>
Dear family members, friends and supporters of the Lucasville uprising
prisoners,<br><br>
Siddique Abdullah Hasan, Bomani Shakur (Keith LaMar), Jason Robb and
Namir Mateen (James Were) will start a hunger strike on Monday Jan. 3 to
protest their 23-hour a day lock down for nearly 18 years. These four
death-sentenced prisoners have been single-celled (in solitary) in
conditions of confinement significantly more severe than the conditions
experienced by the approximately 125 other death-sentenced prisoners at
the supermax prison, Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown. They are
completely isolated from any direct human contact, even during
“recreation”. They are restricted from certain kinds of good ordering
including gold weather items for the almost unbearably cold conditions in
the cells. They are denied access to computer databases they need in
order to prepare their appeals. It has been made clear to them that the
outcome of their annual “security level reviews” is predetermined, as one
reads, “…regardless of your behavior while confined at OSP.”<br>
Prisoners whose death sentences were for heinous crimes are able to win
privileges based on good behavior, but not the death-sentenced Lucasville
uprising prisoners.<br><br>
Meanwhile out in the world, the U.S. Supreme Court has granted additional
due process rights to some of the Gauantanamo prisoners, some
death-sentenced prisoners have been exonerated or had their sentences
commuted, an evidentiary hearing was ordered for Troy Anthony Davis, and
prisoners in Georgia are engaging in a non-violent strike for
improvements in a wide range of conditions. So the four death-sentenced
Lucasville uprising prisoners have decided that being punished by the
worst conditions allowable under the law has gone far enough, especially
since their convictions were based on perjured testimony. They are
innocent! They were wrongfully convicted! They are political prisoners.
This farce has gone on far too long and their executions loom in the not
too distant future. These brave men are ready to take another stand. We
ask that you get ready to support them.<br><br>
The hunger strike will proceed in an organized manner, with one prisoner,
probably Bomani Shakur starting on Jan.3. The hunger strike becomes
official after he has refused 9 meals. Therefore the plan is that 3 days
later, Siddiquie Abdullah Hasan will start his hunger strike and 3 days
later, Jason Robb will follow. Namir Mateen has a great willingness to
participate and plans to take part to the extent that his diabetes will
allow.<br><br>
On the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Saturday, Jan. 15, we
will be holding a press conference about the hunger strike and other
issues pertaining to Ohio State Penitentiary. Details of time and
location are being worked out. There will very likely be a brief rally
near the gates of OSP, as we have in previous years to honor Dr. King, to
protest the death penalty and to protest the farce of the Lucasville
uprising convictions. There will probably be one or more vans and/or a
car caravan to OSP for the event. Stay tuned for more
information.<br><br>
Please forward this email to other people you think would be interested,
here in Ohio, around the country and around the world.<br><br>
the Lucasville Uprising Freedom Network<br>
******************************************************<br>
</font><h1><b>Hunger Strike At Ohio State
Penitentiary</b></h1><font size=3>By
<a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/staughtonlynd">Staughton
Lynd</a><br><br>
Source: OhioCURE<br>
Friday, December 31, 2010<br>
<a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/hunger-strike-at-ohio-state-penitentiary-by-staughton-lynd" eudora="autourl">
http://www.zcommunications.org/hunger-strike-at-ohio-state-penitentiary-by-staughton-lynd<br>
<br>
</a>As this is written on Christmas Eve, a small group of death-sentenced
prisoners at the Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP) have declared their
intention to begin a "rolling hunger strike" on Monday, January
3.<br><br>
Who are they? What are their objectives? What is this all about?
<br><br>
The four hunger strikers are Siddique Abdullah Hasan, formerly known as
Carlos Sanders; Keith LaMar; Jason Robb; and Namir Abdul Mateen, also
known as James Were. (A fifth member of the group, George Skatzes, was
transferred out of OSP in 2000.)<br><br>
All these men were sentenced to death in trials conducted in 1995-1996
for their alleged roles in the 11-day rebellion at the Southern Ohio
Correctional Facility (SOCF) in Lucasville, Ohio in April 1993. See my
book <i>Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising</i> (Temple
University Press: 2004), to be re-issued in 2011 by PM Press, Oakland,
CA, with a Foreword by Mumia Abu Jamal.<br><br>
Hasan and Robb were two of the three men who negotiated a peaceful
surrender. Tragically there were ten deaths during the disturbance (nine
prisoners and one hostage officer). But thanks to the way the
"Lucasville riot" ended, there were far fewer fatalities than
at Attica, New York in 1971, where more than forty persons died.<br><br>
At the request of Ohio authorities, Attorney Niki Schwartz of Cleveland
helped to negotiate the surrender. During a forum on the Lucasville
events held at Cleveland State University in November 2010, Attorney
Schwartz asked, in effect: If we seek the death penalty against men who
helped to bring a bloody riot to a peaceful end, what will happen the
next time?<br><br>
Persistent Discrimination Against Death-Sentenced Lucasville
Defendants<br><br>
Judge James Gwin of federal district court noted with amazement during
the trial of the prisoners’ class action, <i>Austin v. Wilkinson</i>,
that death-sentenced prisoners at the highest security level in the Ohio
State Penitentiary wanted to be returned to Death Row! <br><br>
The fundamental reason offered by the Lucasville defendants for a hunger
strike is that throughout their more than seventeen years of solitary
confinement, they have been subjected to harsher conditions of
confinement than the more than 150 other men sentenced to death in Ohio.
The conditions under which the death-sentenced Lucasville prisoners are
confined prevent them from ever being in the same space as another
prisoner.<br>
<br>
At the time of the 1993 uprising Ohio's Death Row, as well as its
execution chamber, was located at Lucasville. In the mid-1990s, the
execution chamber remained at SOCF but death-sentenced prisoners were
transferred to the Mansfield Correctional Institution (ManCI) north of
Columbus. One reason for the transfer, it seems, is that correctional
officers at SOCF came to recognize death-sentenced prisoners as human
beings and found it distressing to be part of execution teams.<br><br>
The Lucasville capital defendants consider that from the beginning their
conditions of confinement have been harsher than the circumstances of
confinement for other death-sentenced prisoners. They have launched
several previous hunger strikes. Skatzes wrote to the authorities about
one such strike at ManCI: "All we want is . . . being placed on our
proper 'security' level." LaMar drafted the group's demands during
another hunger strike. One of their group needed immediate medical
attention, LaMar wrote, and: "Surely he is entitled to the same
attention that is accorded to everyone else."<br><br>
The frustration expressed in the Mansfield hunger strikes came to a
climax on September 5, 1997. Prisoners in DR-4, the living area at ManCI
in which the Five along with a much larger number of other
death-sentenced prisoners were being held, occupied the "pod"
for approximately six hours. The correctional officers on duty were
overpowered and then released unharmed. There was some
prisoner-on-prisoner violence against Wilford Berry, who had given up his
appeals and volunteered for execution. When a SWAT team of officers
assembled from all over Ohio stormed DR-4 late in the evening, the
prisoners had returned to their cells. An investigating committee
consisting wholly of prison administrators found that the SWAT team had
used excessive violence. Jason Robb, apparently singled out because of
his alleged role in the riot four years earlier, was beaten especially
badly, had his skull fractured, and almost lost an eye. <br>
At OSP<br><br>
Unequal treatment continued when the death-sentenced Lucasville
defendants were transferred to OSP in Youngstown. Judge Gwin found that
OSP was constructed "in reaction to the April 1993 riot at the
Southern Ohio Correctional Facility at Lucasville." Consistently
with this conclusion, the five alleged leaders of the 1993 occupation
were transferred to OSP within two weeks of its opening in May 1998. At
OSP they are housed, not in the less restrictive conditions experienced
by other death-sentenced prisoners, but in the high maximum conditions
specific to the highest level of security in Ohio, so-called Level 5.
<br><br>
Professor Denis O'Hearn, director of graduate studies in sociology at the
State University of New York (Binghamton), regularly visits LaMar and
Robb. As described by Professor O'Hearn:<br><br>
-- They are "in 23-hour lockup in a hermetically sealed
environment where they have almost no contact with other living beings --
human, animal, or plant." When released from their cells for short
periods of "recreation" they continue to be isolated from other
prisoners.<br><br>
During occasional visits, "a wall of bullet-proof glass separates
the prisoner from the visitor. A few booths away, a condemned man from
death row sits in a cubicle where a small hole is cut from the security
glass between him and his visitors. He can hold his mother's hand. With a
little effort, despite the shackles he must wear on a visit, he can kiss
a niece or a grandchild. He does not have to shout to hold a
conversation."<br><br>
Hasan, LaMar, Robb, and Were experience "security reviews"
annually but the outcome of these reviews is predetermined. The
Lucasville defendants have been told by the authorities, in
writing:<br><br>
"You were admitted to OSP in May of 1998. We are of the opinion that
your placement offense is so severe that you should remain at the OSP
permanently or for many years <b>regardless of your behavior while
confined at the OSP</b>" (emphasis added).<br><br>
The emphasized words violate the explicit instruction of the Supreme
Court of the United States. In its opinion specifically concerning
conditions of confinement at OSP, the high court held that due process
required that a prisoner might be placed at OSP only on the basis of
"a short statement of reasons," and that in subsequent
classification review that statement "serves as a guide for future
behavior."<br><br>
But Hasan, LaMar, Robb, and Were have been told that they will remain in
the conditions of confinement decreed by State administrators regardless
of their "future behavior," that is, their behavior while at
OSP.<br><br>
Other prisoners sentenced to death for alleged crimes comparable to those
for which Hasan, LaMar, Robb, and Were were found guilty have been moved
off Level 5: to Death Row at OSP, to Level 4 at OSP, and out of OSP
entirely to ManCI. One of the four Lucasville defendants asks, Must I
have a mental breakdown in order to get off Level 5? <br><br>
For Whom The Van Leaves<br><br>
Another apparent reason that these men are desperately opting for the
life-threatening practice of a hunger strike is the State of Ohio's
present practice of seeking to execute one man every month.<br><br>
The 17th century British poet John Donne commented on the practice of
ringing church bells when a person died. No one should ask for whom the
bell tolls, the poet observed, because "it tolls for
thee."<br><br>
In the Youngstown diocese, Catholic churches continue the practice of
ringing their bells when an execution occurs. At OSP, prisoners know when
the van is about to leave OSP to take a man to Lucasville to be killed. A
person whom they have known as a friend, alive and well, is suddenly gone
and dead. This works a psychological hardship on survivors. The remaining
death-sentenced prisoners, some with a specific "date," know
that sooner or later the van will come for themselves.<br><br>
Incredibly, Ohio was the only one of the fifty states to execute more
prisoners in 2010 than in 2009. In 2010 Ohio executed more prisoners than
any other state except Texas. Of the 46 executions in the entire country,
Texas executed seventeen and Ohio eight, or 17 percent of the total
number of executions nationwide.<br><br>
And Besides, We're Not Guilty<br><br>
There is strong evidence that the Lucasville capital defendants have been
singled out because of their supposed leadership roles in the 1993
rebellion, not because they killed anyone.<br><br>
Two prisoners very badly injured by other prisoners during the riot were
visited in the SOCF infirmary by officers of the Ohio State Highway
Patrol. Johnny Fryman had almost been killed by other prisoners at the
beginning of the rebellion. He states under oath that in May 1993 he was
taken to the SOCF infirmary and interviewed by two members of the Ohio
State Highway Patrol:<br><br>
"They made it clear that they wanted the leaders. They wanted to
prosecute Hasan, George Skatzes, Lavelle, Jason Robb, and another Muslim
whose name I don't remember. They had not yet begun their investigation
but they knew they wanted those leaders. I joked with them and said, 'You
basically don't care what I say as long as it's against these guys.' They
said, 'Yeah, that's it.'"<br><br>
The State of Ohio still does not know who actually killed hostage officer
Robert Vallandingham. In various court pleadings, the Special Prosecutor
has offered different lists of the hands-on killers. None of the men
sentenced to death appear on any of these lists.<br><br>
Conclusion<br><br>
Professor O'Hearn ends his comment by saying: "If deprivation of
human contact is what led these men into lives where they committed
horrific deeds, why do we punish them by continuing and even intensifying
that deprivation? Why not give them the one thing that could have brought
them from the brink in the first place: a little bit of loving, human
contact? A clasp of a loving hand from time to time. The chance to show
that they can be better men than they were. None of us can be hurt by
this small mercy."<br><br>
Staughton Lynd<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.Freedomarchives.org</a></font><font size=3> </font></body>
</html>