NYS DOCS Targetting New Afrikan Maoists for censorship and SHU time
initated in January 2007
In New York, prisoners have been charged with violating Prison Rule 105.12 for possessing materials from the New Afrikan Maoist Party (NAMP) and MIM. Rule 105.12 does not apply to outside organizations, and denial of the right to communicate and affiliate between prisoners and those on the outside is a blatant violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment. Prisoners in New York can help build a class action suit being led by NAMP by submittng an affirmation in relation to this case. Write us for the details on how to get involved.
Meanwhile, CO Mahuda and others at Clinton Correctional Facility have taken it upon themselves to ensure that no mail from NAMP reaches comrades there. So far, attempts to obtain an investigation has been met by denials that censorship occurred. We will keep documenting the censorship as it occurs here at www.prisoncensorship.info.
letter to Media Review Chairperson requesting explanation
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Sharon Benson-Perry, Media Review Chairperson
Clinton Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Dannemora, NY 12929-2000
January 7, 2007
Dear Sharon Benson-Perry:
In August I had sent you a response to your most recent letter to Us with a copy of the third issue of Our publication the Party Bulletin for your review. You had requested a copy so that it could be reviewed and (hopefully) approved to avoid the long standing policy of the Clinton mailroom of returning, and now apparently discarding, any mail from Our organization. I never received a response from you about the Party Bulletin that was sent.
Just recently it was brought to my attention that Issue 5 of the Party Bulletin was then censored at Clinton Correctional Facility in September of last year. We were never notified of this censorship, the materials were not even returned to Us. Is it now the policy of Clinton to destroy any mail from NAMP that is sent to prisoners at the facility?
I am requesting a response to this inquiry explaining the justification for censorship of Our publication at Clinton. We have also begun mailing Our literature delivery confirmation in hopes that staff will be encouraged to follow the standard administrative procedures in handling mail and media review procedures.
We are aware of certain individuals at Clinton who have taken it upon themselves to spearhead the campaign against prisoners who receive literature from Our organization. We hope it is within your ability to rein in these individuals so that they adhere to NYS DOCS policy as well as the United States Constitution.
Please respond at your earliest convenience so that we may resolve this issue.
lttr to Media Rev Chair reiterating violations of policy
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Sharon Benson-Perry, Media Review Chairperson
Clinton Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Dannemora, NY 12929-2000
February 3, 2008
Dear Sharon Benson-Perry:
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my previous letter and explaining why media is not always returned to the sender. However, a brief look at the handling of literature from NAMP at Clinton will make it clear where my confusion may have come from.
As you’ll recall, the first time I wrote you was in response a stack of copies of one of our newsletters that were all stamped “Contents Prohibited” and sent right back to us. When I wrote to inquire about the reasoning for this you claimed that there was no record of the newsletters arriving or being censored.
In the most recent incident I wrote you about neither our office nor Mr XXXXXX XXXXXX, who we had sent our newsletter to, had received any notification of censorship, yet the newsletter was not received. Hence, my inquiry into whether it is now Clinton Correctional Facility’s policy to discard any mail from NAMP to avoid having to deal with justifying the censorship of our mail. Since it clearly is not, I would hope that this practice ends immediately.
In your January 22 letter you write, “If a portion of reviewed material is disapproved, each individual inmate is notified and given an opportunity to have the material sent home, or redacted (if under 8 pages) and sent to him… Nothing is destroyed unless it is done so at the inmate’s request.” And “media is sent to individual inmates and would not ordinarily be returned to sender unless the inmate so requests.” Our experience has shown none of these statements to be true in practice. So you can see why we had expressed the hope in our last letter that you can get Clinton CF staff to adhere to NYS DOCS policies. Seems that would make both of our lives a bit easier.
As you are aware, there is a lawsuit pending regarding the handling of our mail and prisoners in possession of our literature in the NYS DOCS, specifically Clinton Correctional Facility. We continue to document the unsubstantiated incidents of censorship that are occurring at Clinton as part of this case and hope that we can convince staff to adhere to department policies in the near future.
Media Review Committee
Southport Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Pine City, NY 14871-2000
April 2, 2008
Dear Sir/Madam,
Our office has been notified by Mr. XXXXXX XXXXXX (XXXXXX) that he has been denied a copy of Party Bulletin Issue 6 published and distributed by the New Afrikan Maoist Party (NAMP) for the reason: “inciting disobedience.” We have not received notification of this censorship ourselves, but it is our understanding that it is required that your committee notify the party that is being censored that their mail was not delivered and why. We are requesting such notification so that we can deal with this matter effectively.
Though we were not notified of this censorship, I hope that this letter can serve as a request for an appeal of the decision. Mr. XXXXXX reported that pages 1-15 (the whole publication) were rejected for the given reason. Pages 4-7 contain nothing but definitions of words. Pages 8-14 contain a fictional story on the theme of economics. It seems hard to believe that you could honestly propose that such content is “inciting disobedience.”
The one portion of the newsletter that encourages prisoners to act is the call to New York prisoners, on page 15, to participate in an ongoing lawsuit that we are currently involved in against the NYS DOCS. It seems to me that it is a conflict of interest, and illegal for DOCS staff to be hindering our efforts to gather statements from our supporters regarding the repression that they are facing for receiving and possessing literature from NAMP. If your committee decides to uphold the decision to censor this material we do plan to add this incident as evidence of the department’s violation of its own rules in regards to its treatment of NAMP and particularly of prisoners who are supporters of NAMP.
We hope that upon reconsideration you will find that there is no legitimate reason to censor Party Bulletin Issue 6 and other literature that we send to prisoners at Southport.
Linda Hollman, Director of Education
Building 2
1220 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12226-2050
16 August, 2009
Dear Madam,
I thank you for responding to my last letter to the Committee regarding the history of censorship of mail from MIM Distributors at Cayuga Correctional Facility. Yet, after numerous letters to the Central Office and to the Cayuga Media Review office over the last year, mail is still being returned stamped “Not on approved correspondence list,” including mail sent to Mr. XXXXXX XXXXXX in late July.
Both you and Martin Raftis from Cayuga assured me that MIM Distributors is not a disapproved correspondent and that mail from MIM Distributors will be reviewed for approval on a case-by-case basis. Would it be possible for mailroom staff at Cayuga to be informed of the rules and the policies that you are telling me are in place? Or should I just assume that after a year of writing that the Department has no intention of following the rules?
I sincerely hope to resolve this issue, but will not continue to waste my time.
Justice for prisoner brutalized in July 2008 lockdown
initated in January 2009
In the summer of 2008 a lockdown occurred at Clinton Correctional Facility during which Correctional Officers carried out days of brutal attacks on New Afrikan prisoners. One of the prisoners who was brutalized is looking for legal assistance in filing a suit against those who knocked out his tooth, broke his rib and cut and bruised him all over. Anyone who can offer assistance should contact MIM(Prisons).
