HUNGER STRIKE: 30,000 prisoners protest torture

[Luminous Animal]

in the U.S.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/political/la-me-pc-ff-california-prison-officials-acknowledge-hunger-strike-20130708,0,3234974.story

Inmates in two-thirds of the state's 33 prisons, and at all four out-of-state private prisons, refused both breakfast and lunch on Monday, said corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton. In addition, 2,300 prisoners failed to go to work or attend their prison classes, either refusing or in some cases saying they were sick.

...

The protest, announced for months, is organized by a small group of inmates held in segregation at Pelican Bay State Prison near the Oregon border. Their list of demands, reiterated Monday, center on state policies that allow inmates to be held in isolation indefinitely, in some cases for decades, for ties to prison gangs

.

[Luminous Animal]

1. Kick.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[Catherina]

3. Shameful. n/t

[Luminous Animal]

4. It is. And also shameful that so few care about torture in our own prison system.

[DreamGypsy]

5. Help us raze, raze the prisons to the ground...

What happens to people if you show you care about their lives? Look at the faces as Joan Baez sings 'Prison Trilogy':

[lonestarnot]

6. So depraved.

[limpyhobbler]

7. K&R

this deserves attention.

[Comrade Grumpy]

8. Kick in solidarity against this barbarism.

Human rights groups qualify extended solitary as a form of torture.

[HiPointDem]

9. wow. prisoners are better organized than the general population. 30K protest at multiple

facilities = impressive.

[Luminous Animal]

10. Hunger Strike Solidarity

http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/

Sign the petition
http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/51040/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11455

The Pelican Bay Five Core Demands:
1. Eliminate group punishments and administrative abuse.
2. Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria.
3. Comply with the recommendations of the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons recommendations and end long-term solitary confinement.
4. Provide adequate and nutritious food.
5. Create and expand constructive programming.

To: Jerry Brown, Governor of California
Jeffrey Beard, Secretary of CDCR (California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation)

I support the prisoners & their reasonable demands. I am alarmed by the CDCR's refusal to recognize, address, and implement the changes outlined by prisoners being held in Security Housing Units (SHUs). I am further disturbed that, rather than addressing the crisis created by locking people for years and decades in extreme isolation, this peaceful hunger strike is being deemed a "mass prison disturbance" by the CDCR, putting prisoners in further danger.

I urge you to initiate accountable negotiations with these prisoners and/or their chosen representatives. I urge you to take action to implement the fair and reasonable demands immediately, and in good faith. I also want your guarantee that peaceful hunger strikers will not be retaliated against.