California prison officials say

The Global Women’s Strike and Women Of Color/GWS support the California Prisoner Hunger Strikers

In Supporting the Hunger Strikers we are Supporting Ourselves

California prisoners are planning to resume hunger strikes and work strikes beginning July 8th unless Governor Jerry Brown and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation take decisive action to meet their demands. This hunger strike follows the 2010 Georgia prisoners’ work strike and two 2011 California Strikes – all organized across race, religion and prison. Women prisoners are expressing support.

As an international women’s network we are supporting the hunger strikers and their demands. From Palestine to Haiti to Honduras to California, it is mostly women -- mothers, partners, daughters, sisters, grandmothers – who do most of the justice work for their loved ones in prison. It’s mainly women who travel long distances to visit, who work to make sure that prisoners stay connected with their children and grandchildren, who fight for adequate health care and decent food inside, who are a support for prisoners struggling to keep health and sanity, and who consistently fight to get justice.

The entire lives of families and communities are framed by having loved ones locked away; and given that the US has the largest per capita prison population in the world, the whole of US society is shaped by prisons. Communities of color feel the greatest impact.

Whatever prisoners may be guilty of, their sentence is to be deprived of liberty not basic survival rights such as adequate food, sunlight, warmth and freedom from torture. Many are not guilty and/or have received ‘disproportionate’ sentences as a result of bad or no legal representation, racism and other discrimination. The prisoners who are most likely to end up in solitary are the most rebellious or those who refuse to snitch.

The primary demands of the hunger strikers are: (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.

Take action on Monday, July 8th, the first day of the hunger strike and work stoppage - Hold a banner, rally, educational event, etc. International/national support is essential including as a protection against harsh retribution against prisoners. Take a photo or video of your action, write a paragraph for the website and circulate on social media.

LA area actions in support of the Prisoners’ Hunger Strike

12noon-2:00pm, Solidarity action, Reagan State Building, Third and Spring Streets, downtown Los Angeles.

7pm, Vigil at Norwalk City Hall, 12700 Norwalk Blvd (corner Imperial), Norwalk, CA 90650. Light a candle against the darkness of solitary confinement.

Art by Rashid Johnson

Be part of the state-wide mobilization Saturday, July 13th outside Corcoran State Prison in Corcoran, CA, in solidarity with prisoner hunger strikers and their demands. A bus and caravan will leave at 8:30am from Chuco’s Justice Center, 1137 E. Redondo Blvd, Inglewood, CA 90302.

Sign the petition supporting the prisoners’ demands at
http://www.change.org/petitions/support-pelican-bay-shu-prisoners-five-core-demands-hunger-strike

Sign the Pledge of Resistance to Help Stop Torture to take one action a week (an email, a phone call, a letter, a vigil, and/or activating your network) in response to some specific emergency facing the hunger strikers, and in resistance to the torture. Email your signed pledge to solitaryistorture@gmail.com.

Share this info on email, facebook... with all who may want to support the prisoner hunger strikers.

To reach the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity@gmail.com 510.444.0484 http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com

Circulated by Women of Color/Global Women’s Strike & GWS/LA: 323-276-9833 la@allwomencount.net

California prison officials say 30,000 inmates refuse meals

California officials Monday said 30,000 inmates refused meals at the start of what could be the largest prison protest in state history.

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 corrections department will not acknowledge a hunger strike until inmates have missed nine consecutive meals. Even so, Thornton said, Monday's numbers are far larger than those California saw two years earlier during a series of hunger strikes that drew international attention.

Despite the widespread work stoppages and meal refusals, Thornton said state prisons operated as usual through the day. "Everything has been running smoothly," she said. "It was normal. There were no incidents."

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.

Though prison officials contend those gang ties are validated, the state last year began releasing inmates from segregation who had no evidence of gang-related behavior. Nearly half of those reviewed have been returned to the general population.

The protest involves the same issues and many of the same inmates who led a series of protests in California prisons two years ago. At the height of those 2011 hunger strikes, more than 11,600 inmates at one point refused meals. The correction department's official tally, which counts only those inmates on any given day who have skipped nine consecutive meals, never rose above 6,600.