Washington prisoner wins censorship settlement

Dear Comrades,

I hope this finds you well. As you may recall, I filed suit in 
1997 challenging the WA DOC's ban on "MIM Notes." The pigs 
recently settled the suit. Effective Jan 5, 2000, they are 
supposed to stop censoring "MIM Notes." If they censor it we can 
seek enforcement of the settlement in state or federal court. I am 
having copies made of the settlement and I will send it to you as 
soon as I get them. The pigs paid our lawyers about $53,000 in 
attorney fees. One of my lawyers has already forwarded the 1997-98 
MIM Notes to me. The other one will send me the stuff he has 
shortly. In the event any copies of "MIM Notes" are censored in WA 
prisons after next week, let me know ASAP and we will get on the 
pigs over it. I will be writing an article n the lawsuit 
settlement in prison legal news so WA prisoners will be aware of 
it. -- a prisoner in WI

MIM responds:
We're thrilled to report this victory over the WA prison system 
which has been censoring MIM Notes, other literature we send and 
correspondence to prisoners for years. This prisoner waged a very 
important legal battle and this victory demonstrates that such 
protracted battles within the capitalist system are an important 
part of our work in the current stage of the struggle.
Prisoners in many states are at different stages of fighting 
similar legal battles. We ask that all comrades who have 
successfully filed grievances, won lawsuits or settlements please 
send summaries of your work. Through MIM Legal Notes and the 
Prisoners' Legal Clinic we distribute relevant legal information 
to other prisoners. Some prisoners involved in the anti-censorship 
campaign have little legal experience and greatly benefit from the 
MLN submissions outlining starting points.
If you are on the outside and do not have legal experience, you 
can still contribute to the Serve the People Prisoners' Legal 
Clinic. We need assistance for a variety of tasks: typing in legal 
information written by prisoners, publishing the information on 
the webpages, copying and distributing legal information, 
organizing benefit concerts to cover costs, soliciting help from 
lawyers, and doing basic legal research on case laws relevant to 
prisoners' cases.