Tag Archives: midwest

Indiana: Two Rebellions in One Week in County Jails

From Where the River Frowns

Inmates in Indiana’s jails have been tearing it up this month, with two rebellions in a week.

The first riot occurred on August 1st in Vanderburgh County Jail in Evansville where, according to the mainstream media, inmates refused to be handcuffed, flooded their jail cell, put soap on the floor to trip the guards when they entered and used bed bunks and mattresses as barricades and shields.

The second occurred in Henry County Jail on August 3rd and 4th where inmates set fire to mattresses and jail uniforms on two subsequent nights. The first fire was set by male inmates and the second, the next night, by female inmates. According to their captors, prisoners were attempting to deactivate the locks on their jail cell.

As usual, the mainstream media made no effort whatsoever to interview the inmates involved in the disturbances or to capture the potential reasons behind their rebellion. For now, we are unfortunately left wondering what may have caused these individuals to choose to fight back against their captors instead of keeping their heads down.
Continue reading →

Spreading the Strike: Solidarity Actions Across North America for September 9th

From It’s Going Down

Add Your Event: info[at]itsgoingdown[dot]org

People are organizing across the United States and the world in order to stand in the streets in solidarity with those locked behind bars who will strike on September 9th against prison slavery. Already, a wide range of actions have taken place in the run up to the strike. This includes large scale flyering and street propaganda campaigns, banner drops, noise demonstrations outside of jails and detention facilities, and informational events. All of this activity helps to build the capacity of the strike to bring in more people who can take an active role, as well as spread information about the struggle being waged by prisoners on the inside. These actions also bring many organizations, crews, and individuals together that before have previously never worked side by side and helps expose white supremacy as both a system of social control and racial apartheid and an apparatus of management that facilitates the creation of billions of dollars of profits.

In order to better prepare for the strike, here we are going to create a regularly updated page that includes a diary of actions and a list of events and mobilizations leading up to and around the 9th. We know that many events are still in the works, so when you are ready, either submit an event here or email us at: info[at]itsgoingdown[dot]org. In this way, we hope to build a large, multi-faceted, and extremely diverse resistance movement that can support and expand the strike against prison slavery that will continue to take shape on September 9th and beyond. Continue reading →

Prison Boycott in Illinois Targets Costs of Incarceration

From truthout, by Brian Dolinar

During the month of April, at least 100 of those incarcerated at Stateville Correctional Center, about an hour outside of Chicago, Illinois, participated in a boycott of the overpriced phone calls, commissary goods and vending machines. “Mass incarceration is a luxury business,” stated Patrick Pursley, one of the men who joined in the boycott.

The boycott comes at a time of growing demonstrations led by those inside US prisons. The most successful in recent memory was a series of hunger strikes at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison, organized by those protesting solitary confinement in the security housing unit (SHU), beginning with one in 2011, and another in 2013 that spread across the state involving 30,000 people inside 24 different prisons, including women in the Central California Women’s Facility. The largest hunger strike in the history of the US, it lasted for two months and was only suspended when a judge agreed to force-feed those who remained on strike.

Since then, there appears to be an uptick in actions on the other side of the walls. In early June, at least seven people in Waupun Correctional Institution, located in central Wisconsin, organized a hunger strike to protest the conditions of solitary confinement and lack of resources for those with mental health issues.

In Alabama, a series of work stoppages were recently coordinated to protest overcrowding, poor conditions and unpaid prison labor, what those involved say amounts to slavery. The Free Alabama Movement held a 10-day strike beginning May 1, 2016. A national work stoppage has been called for September 9, and a statement released proclaims, “We will not only demand the end to prison slavery, we will end it ourselves by ceasing to be slaves.” Continue reading →

Block Report Radio with Greg Curry

From BlockReportRadio.com

Lucasville Rebellion Survivor Greg Curry speaks on the September 9th National Prison Strike, his comrade Saddique Hasan being placed in the hole by the prison to disrupt his part in organizing the national prison strike, and the personal plight of Greg Curry. Tune in for more at BlockReportRadio.com. Free’Em All!

https://soundcloud.com/blockreportradio/ohio-prisoner-greg-curry-speaks-on-september-9th-natl-prison-strike

Update on Siddique Abdullah Hasan

[To see the initial post on Hasan’s punitive treatment, see here.]

Around noon eastern time, Hasan got word out through lawyers that he was doing fine and that if anyone wanted to correspond with him they should include a stamp for the reply since he could not go to the [jpay] kiosk.

Hasan has access to postal mail, so you can send him letters, and it sounds like also to JPay, but not the kiosk machine, so if you write him an email (and visit JPay.com to find out how if you don’t already) be sure to click the “include a stamp for reply” box before sending.

Please also continue to call the prison 330-743-0700. They are routing all the calls to a specific person, so lets keep her busy. Ask when he’s going to be let out of the hole and demand that this bogus investigation end immediately.

Also, write to Hasan, the more mail he gets the more support we’re demonstrating. You can include a total of 5 sheets of paper and 3 embossed (postage pre-printed) envelopes, so if you have any handy, slip them in to make sure he’s got supplies to write people back.

His address is

Siddique Abdullah Hasan

R130-559

OSP

878 Coitsville-Hubbard Rd

Youngstown OH 44505

Wisconsin Prison ‘Dying to Live’ Hunger Strikers Continue Quest to End Prolonged Solitary Confinement – LaRon McKinley Bey

From Arawak City Anarchist Black Cross, by Laron McKinley Bey, #42642

In a nation that would not tolerate shutting in zoo animals 23-24 hours per day the State of Wisconsin has no compunction confining prisoners to indefinite isolative Administrative Confinement (AC) alone in a parking-space size cell for 164 of the 168 hour week.  Such prolongued social, environmental, and occupational isolation and lack of stimulation is well known to pose a substantial risk of harm to mental and physical health.

Norman Uhuru Green and I, 2 of the longest standing Wisconsin prisoners held in this type of endless isolation at 18 years, and nearly 28 years respectively, together with Cesar DeLeon, form the 3 remaining original ‘Dying to Live’ movement hunger strikers who continue to refuse to eat or drink in hopes of forcing an end to the state’s practice of indeterminate seclusion.

On June 7, 2016, a group of 10 Wisconsin prisoners in solitary confinement at the Waupun and Columbia correctional institutions began refusing nourishment to expose the inhumane conditions of their confinement, and to facilitate dignified treatment of all humans.  Within a few weeks the Department of Corrections had obtained court orders to force-feed Uhuru, DeLeon, and I 3 times daily which entails being placed in full restraints, and then strapped into a ‘restraint chair’ and having a nasal-gastro tube inserted in one nostril to the stomach where a liquid mixture of nutrition is funneled.  Besides violating the sanctity of our bodies, this procedure is an invalid state response to a dignified struggle and it can cause significant internal injury.

Continue reading →

ALERT! Call in to defend Hasan now!

hasan deskSiddique Abdullah Hasan, of the Free Ohio Movement has been transferred to the hole and denied access to communication and property.

Please call OSP immediately and daily 330-743-0700 until they release him.

Ask to speak to the warden and demand that Hasan be allowed back into his regular cell and regain access to his property. The person they connect you to may pretend they only know Hasan by the name Carlos Sanders, even though his name was legally changed to Siddique Abdullah Hasan decades ago. His prison number is R130-559.

Hasan is one of the few public spokespeople for the national protest that will start on September 9 of this year. Last week he was visited by law enforcement who inaccurately described Sep 9 as a plot to harm people and blow up buildings.

It is important that we stand up to repression and terror-baiting as soon as it rears it’s head. Please call the prison and share this alert as widely as possible.

Thank you.