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Top Triple Cubed in Alabama
...They have a UNICOR factory here, but I work mopping up in the dorm and make $12.00 a month. Because this is a Camp, they try to send as many of us as possible to work at the army base in Ft. McCollum which is Anniston, Alabama. Inmates on that detail have to get on an army bus at 7 a.m. and ride for one hour. They work doing landscape and stuff and then at 2 p.m. head back to the camp. That detail is the pits.
...There are some legal materials here but this facility has the worst law library out of the five or so places I have been. Only one typewriter works for 400 people that are here. We are triple cubed here. Meaning three men to and eight by ten foot cube with three lockers and a desk -- not much room. Six toilets in a dorm for 100-110 guys and the showers have no doors or curtains for privacy.
-- An Alabama Prisoner, 22 March 1998
Top Pigs attempt to isolate prisoner from the outside
...Every time I get shipped somewhere now, my property gets raped. This time, they got me for my main legal/research notebook. It also contained all my addresses and phone numbers, various data, business plans and ideas and more accounts of prison atrocities.
I guess their subliminal message was, "Forget about your family, dreams and trying to get out."
...They won't allow me to get legal documents copied to send to lawyers, officials or journalists. Only to the courts they say. This "policy" is contrary to ALL the laws in the land and even other Florida prisons.
They're trying to keep me in a pro se status. When I submitted legal mail to attorneys and legal organizations, they sent them back to me saying I needed to put stamps on them.
When I filed a complaint, citing rule/laws entitling indigents to free legal mailings, they then replied that I'd have to go through a "counselor". There own handbook says nothing of this, nor does state institution law or other prisons. Legal letters are supposed to be mailed promptly and unhindered. Since these "counselors" rarely come by my dungeon, I guess they want me to beg. I'm in Isolation (without a disciplinary report and no investigation), and it's hard to get them to bring a request from, so calling a counselor is a joke.
On a trip to medical, I managed to speak to some of my fellow felons. They say I'm being singled out for something, because they're not having this problem.
In addition, officers wouldn't verify that my stamped letters to the media were mailed. I'm not allowed to use the phone. I can't even call you. Where's freedom of speech?
Inmates say I must have done something to become a threat to the administration. I can't imagine what. All I'm trying to do is get their laws applied to my sentence so I can go home. It's hard enough trying to get out by the law. Yet, I have these myrmidons creating their own policy. I have little hope....
-- A Florida Prisoner, 22 March 1998
Top "Misbehavior" Surcharge
...In all the prisons [in New York], the prison administrators in Albany set up a system to rob prisoners of five dollars. It is the so-called surcharge on misbehavior reports. From every misbehavior report the prison guards write against a prisoner, it cost the prisoner five dollars. So the prison guards go out of their way to look for unnecessary fault or trouble.
Gathered together, 15 to 20 prison guards jump on one prisoner and then charge him for assault on them, and put him in punitive segregation for many years.
Now, with control of all inmate accounts, the people who administer over it rob us for at least two to three thousand dollars a day. And remember we are supposed to be the criminals.
With the commissary, every commissary purchase they rip off at least two thousand dollars from us. People, your sons and daughters are not safe in the hands of the people who are supposed to be protecting us....
-- A New York Prisoner 27 February 1998
Top Losing Weight Due to Inadequate Food
...Recently I was transferred to Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Carlisle, Indiana. I was given a bogus court report and sent to the SHU [Segregated Housing Unit]. I was given a year disciplinary segregation, a month commissary restriction and loss of credit time earned.
Since being on the SHU I have lost 10 pounds. This is because the correctional institution feeds us with outdated and expired food. Non-nutritional food it precooked three days in advance and then reheated and served to us. And the oppressive regime that runs this place condones and contributes to the systemic problems here. This "Good Old Boy" Network is out of control!!!
The struggle continues, -- An Indiana Prisoner, 9 February, 1998
Top Pigs Deny Food to Gay Prisoner
Dear Friends in the Struggle,
...I sit here in this dungeon of the TDCJ, better known by the oppressed and tortured as the Texas Department of Corruption's and Injustices. Yes, sitting here and having to put up with having my food denied to me. Because these pigs, swine, and so-called setters of "upright" ways have decided that just because I am a homosexual and because I practice my preferred sexual practices. They who are so "upright" in their own eyes will punish me, in violation of their own laws, by refusing me food -- not just one meal but all three meals.
These pigs are only trying to correct me, when they are themselves are acting in an incorrect and lawless way. In effect pigs are saying, "You will obey, not by our example, but by what we say you should do."
So what they are trying to say in words and actions is that they think they have the right (given to them by God) to make rules and have us abide by them while they do just as they wish.
In the struggle for Liberation, -- A Texas Prisoner, 7 April 1998
Top Inadequate Medical Care in Texas
The U.$. Supremacist Court in the past has ruled that when the government incarcerates a citizen in jail or prison, it is bound to the provision of adequate treatment of medical problems. As with all rulings favoring the rights of citizens, that one has been blatantly violated from the day it was first written. Across the nation, citizens spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year to pay and maintain the best medical equipment on the market for prison clinics, tons of medications, and wages exorbitantly high for people who call themselves doctors, nurses and physician assistants. Though some of the "nurses" and "doctors" actually have managed, with aid of prison pressure upon licensing agencies to obtain licenses, the sad fact is that the vast majority of prison "health care" staff are ignorant of actual medical problems and medical care. They do not know how to use the expensive equipment. They do not know how to use the medications. They could not hold a medical job in the free world more than a few weeks at a time. They steal the medications and sell them on the free-world black market. They purposely torture, and even kill the prisoners who seek medical help. And now, despite the Supremacist Court's prior rulings to the contrary, they have passed laws and made rules such that in the future every time a prisoner asks for medical help he/she will be required to pay for asking. Note carefully: We must pay for asking for medical help, not for getting it! We still do not get any medical treatment, pay or no pay.
...Prison labor in Texas is compulsory and any and all hints of resistance are immediately and severely punished. After all, this is not a system of criminal justice, but a high profit money making corporation, even if it is costing the taxpayers billions.
I don't know who told you that some Texas prisoners make 24 cents an hour, but I highly recommend that you not let that person in on any of your business. S/he is a flat out liar and probably on the TDC's payroll. NO prisoner in the Texas slave plantations is paid even a single cent - EVER - for the slave labor we are forced to perform!! Anyone who tells you differently is lying, just like the TDC industries lie on their annual budgets about the thousands of dollars each is paid by the taxpayers "for inmate labor." No inmate ever sees any of that money, and it is never returned to the treasury. You'll just have to guess where it goes. Yes, we have to pay for our own toiletries, but not for medications- which are virtually non-existent. I am not currently assigned to a prison industry job, but I have been. Prisoners are required to work form 5 to 7 days a week, from 8 to 12 hours a day- rarely more than 12 depending on job and circumstances. Working conditions are: You do what you are told, when you are told, and how you are told, no matter how unsafe or dangerous, no matter how stupid, no matter how unproductive, no matter how illegal- and you do not question orders, or else!
There are profit industries on every Texas prison unit.... The guards treat us, for the most part, as if they have been carefully taught to believe that we are their personal property, to be treated however they please. One of the primary requirements a person must meet before being hired to work in a prison is to prove he/she is a sado-masochist whose greatest pleasures in life are hurting and degrading people. They are then told when hired that in prison they can exercise all their fantasies without fear of reprisal.
It is virtually impossible to start any real study group because if the guards see three or more men talking together at a time, they quickly act to break it up.
-- A Texas Prisoner, 12 January 1998
Top STATEMENT FROM JAAN LAAMAN, OHIO-7 POLITICAL PRISONER
Comrades, friends, fellow anti-imperialists,
Let me send a very warm, sincere and Red salute out to each and every one of you here today at this RAIL teach-in in the aftermath of the JERICHO rally. I am one of the listed political prisoners that JERICHO was organized around. I am part of a group of women and men who came to be known as the Ohio-7. We were captured in 1984 and convicted of being members of the United Freedom Front (UFF), which was a clandestine anti-imperialist organization active in the 70's and 80's. The UFF took responsibility for assaulting racist and repressive institutions like apartheid era South African government offices, U.S. military installations, and war profiteer corporations like IBM, GE, and Union Carbide, that support and benefit from U.S. imperialism.
We, the 200 or so political prisoners whose release this JERICHO rally demanded, come from numerous movements and organizations. The central issue that unites all of us, and that makes it so appropriate for me to be sending you these words, is that we all see U.S. imperialism as our common and deadly enemy. The majority of political prisoners come from the struggles of oppressed nations fighting for self-determination and freedom. BLA members in captivity for the struggle to liberate the oppressed African Nation within the U.S. Independentistas of the FALN fighting to end colonialism in Puerto Rico, AIM and other Indian organizations members continuing the battle against genocide and for sovereignty of Native Peoples and Nations. Additionally organizations like Red Guerrilla Resistance and the UFF explicitly and concretely supported these national liberation efforts, as well as other freedom struggles like the war against apartheid, support for the Palestinians, and for the Nicaraguan and El Salvadoran people in their battles against U.S. imperialism.
This anti-imperialist worldview, which includes resisting the injustices and exploitation of all poor and oppressed people within the USA, continues to unite us political prisoners behind these walls. This is also why I am especially pleased to be here, even if only in spirit and yea, I definitely would rather be here in person, with you righteous anti-imperialists of the RAIL. Speaking as a captured guerrilla and political prisoner, I want to stress that unity along a core analysis of anti-imperialism, with other similarly oriented organizations, either strategically when possible or at least tactically on specific issues, is the way we should further build our Freedom Struggle. The fight for human rights and freedom for political prisoners is closely tied to the overall struggle against the U.S. prison system. With over 1.7 million people in prisons and another 4 plus million on bail, parole or probation, prisons and the entire so called justice system in America is becoming an ever more important and ugly part of the repressive machine that keeps this system rolling.
Political prisoners are often subjected to the most horrendous types of imprisonment: kept for years in control and isolation units, exiled far from families, brutalized, and of course given huge sentences. But even if all of the 200 JERICHO named people were to be released immediately, we would still need to wage a serious battle against the U.S. prison system. Because America is a racist, oppressive, and unjust system, based on economic, social and political inequality, the prisons are packed full of Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans, in huge disproportion to their numbers in society. That's not to say that there are not hundreds of thousands of poor whites in prison also -- there are, but the colonial nature of the U.S. is clear in every prison in America. And the prisons of course, are but the last car in a long railroad that begins with laws, police, prosecutors, courts and judges, that all are geared to single out, trap and confine people from oppressed nations. And of course this entire justice system is but one facet of the overall injustice and inequality of U.S. imperialist society.
So in closing, let me extend my solidarity and the solidarity of all Political prisoners. We have a lot of struggle ahead and I look forward to continuing to work with you all. Let us recognize that JERICHO 98 is an historic event, the first national rally to demand the release of all political prisoners by a broad coalition of the left in the U.S. Let's build on this as we develop further revolutionary unity in the battles against the prison system and U.S. imperialism overall.
Top FREEDOM IS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE
Jaan Karl Laaman - Ohio-7 political prisoner, Leavenworth federal prison, February 1998.
Jericho is for the People A statement from Political Prisoner Khalfani X. Khaldun
The 1998 Jericho march that is scheduled to descend upon the lawns (?) in march with be much better and more centered than the million man march. Both marches are turning points toward change for oppressed nations of people all across amerikka. Being in prison myself now since I was a youth of 17 years of age, I realize the need and current necessity for a international Revolutionary movement representative of our oppressed realities. Amerika is consumed by this overt need to build more and more prisons. The theories/practices inside these prisons through Amerika are focusing more on counter-insurgency and political repression hoping to surmount the rising revolutionary movements on the inside.
After becoming politicized and taking a stand on the inside and expressing my opinions on the outside of prison I know that my life would no longer be the same because to realize the essence of who I am and have become today is a declaration. This declaration expresses that I am no longer a criminal, a thief, reactionary. That I am the new man - the revolutionary man who has transformed and now does not act/function as an individual. But as one being a part o a revolutionary collective. This life I have chosen to live and struggle for has and will always place me in the line of fire. The possibility that the oppressors may make an attempt to kill me is also something that comes with that. Our family and friends are threatened and some are even killed. This is what happens when you take a firm stance against racism, injustice, police brutality, setup, imperialism, kapitalism, and the United Snakes Government. We automatically be come and are targets today.
Jericho 1998
Jericho will help expose the many overt realities political prisoners/prisoners of war alike are faced with to the world. This is why it is important that we spotlight and support all events and struggles that have/will emerge out of this march in march 98. A lot of support, ideological debates, focus, direction, energy and international solidarity as well as unity will emerge from this march. It will help a lot of prisoners gain attention to their cases and speak a lot of emotional motivation to make a lot of s affirm our commitments to our families, struggle, work and many other projects we are involved in.
Inside and outside networking
We must structurize a solid and more lasting principled system in our networking. Prisoners who are currently struggling/educating prisoners are being isolated, harassed, beaten, must begin to document and make available to those designated and sanctioned by the movement to coordinate and provide a release to the movements the needs to activate a Red Alert Action Call. But in order for this to be effective a personal connection must have already been established between the prisoner and the supporter. This is primary.
Personal visits means everything
Personal visits has a way of making a prisoners and a supporter feeling as if its more real than just a letter. Doing this is paramount for all the right reasons.
(1) a lot of our mail is stolen, destroyed or photocopied. So where do we start being more security conscious and not allowing the oppressors to know our plans/strategy for struggle before it is done.
(2) Seeing a prisoner in person says a lot about your commitment and gives the prisoner a sense of security and a feeling his back is covered. And it gives the supporter of this prisoner a chance to see and feel if the prisoner is sincere.
(3) Some of our political prisoners always are sent from prisons to prisons arbitrarily by prison staff due to their political attitudes in these kamps. Some are sent thousands of miles from family and friends they need to see someone. Plus we need to let the enemy know that he or she is not alone.
(4) Many prisoners have no one to visit because some of them has lost loved ones while incarcerated, I recently lost 2 brothers to this infestation of krack-kokein that's so prevalent in the ghetto-colonies of amerika. Benjamin was murdered June 17, 1997 and John was murdered Sept. 1, 1997. Then my dear and sweet mother passed Sept. 31, 1997 my life was altered at these tragedies. The pain and hurt is deep. But like many others my struggle continues. But I do need your help.
Keeping politics in command
Sending letters encouraging prisoners are excellent also. It's a breaking of the ice where you can get an inside look at the insecurities, worry, fear, experiences, struggles, conditions these men or women have had to endure with have (?) access to expose it all. This is a way to start informational packers on the activity and growth/developments of said prisoners. Thus giving (???) ones established lies to progressive movements/struggles.
The need for collective struggle
We can make more positive advancement and guided qualitative leaps working together to shut this industrial complex down. All oppressed nations North Amerikans, Mexicans, Afrikans, Asians, Latinos, we can make Amerikan and all her dept. of corrections in every state in this country working together.
(1) ones must set aside all their petty differences and learn to deal and work under the banner of national/international liberation. This is crucial and paramount comrades.
Support for my liberation
In currently battling for my life on a trumped up charge of murder that hasn't been to trial for nearly four years are you wanting to commit to support work or any other contribution should contact David at claustrophobe (?) P.O. Box 1721 Baltimore, MD 21203 or email clastro@cherm.net (?) Express to him what your desires are to aid me. He's my coordinator and campaign strategist. Also files can be sent from Mark Thiel P.O. Box 8306 Southbend, Indiana 46660-8306 We are currently trying to rebuild a defense committee to free Khalfani at the loss of my mother a lot fell apart. Anyone who has the resources that can help let David of claustrophobia know something.
Comrades, supporters, young students I do need the collective aid/assistance of this cause. Because you're capable of forcing the hands of my captors to liberate your comrade.
I hope I was able to be of some kind of help/assistance. Because it's truly nation building time. Power to the people who don't fear freedom.
Brother Khalfani X. Khaldun
Amerika is burning! Fight the powers that oppress Never let up Never forget about US