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Photo Source: lawandisorder.org
Message from Lynne – CALL FOR COMPASSIONATE RELEASE THURSDAY MAY 30TH
Tell them to grant Lynne Stewart FMS CARSWELL-53504-054
compassionate release so she can pursue cancer treatment at Sloan Kettering.
CALL THURSDAY MAY 30th:
Attorney General Eric Holder - 1 202 514 2001
White House President Obama – 1 202 456 1414
B.O.P. – Director Charles Samuels – 1 202.307.3250
“Forty years ago to the day, Assata Shakur (birth name JoAnne Deborah Chesimard) was involved in a shootout at the New Jersey Turnpike, which left a st
ate trooper dead. Shakur, then a Black Liberation Army and Black Panther Party member, was convicted of his murder in 1973. In 1979, with the help of allies in the black radical movement, Shakur escaped from prison, eventually emerging in Cuba, where she has lived since 1984.Asof Thursday – the reward on her capture and return doubled to $2 million — the 66-year-old fugitive was named the first woman on the FBI’s most wanted list.” (Read the rest at Salon.com)
Source: Alien Summer
Read her book if you haven’t . . .
Assata: An Autobiography [Paperback] Assata Shakur (Author), Angela Davis (Foreword)
If we look at what’s been said we seem to be making promising progress with several campaigns but it is change that is needed and vigilance is key.
On the eve of the #30Days2FreeMaroon campaign for Russell Maroon Shoatz, Maroon was transferred to SCI Mahanoy, presumably to facilitate a transfer out of the horrible thirty years of solitary confinement and into general population. Prisons often isolate prisoners upon arrival so it’s possible that they are getting around to it. However, the other thing that prisons often do when people protest on a prisoner’s behalf is transfer them, forget the demands, and make it some other warden’s problem. Hold the captors to their word! Have you been calling? Have you written your letter yet?
Obama seemed to have conveniently forgotten all about his campaign promises to close the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention center but the ongoing hunger strike jogged his memory and he has renewed his talk. That said he is waffling in political quagmires but time is ticking as many of his indefinite prisoners are still refusing food. Sign the petition!
President Obama: Close Detention Facility at Guantanamo Bay
Similarly, “Lynne Stewart said in a statement released by her husband this week that Texas prison medical authorities recommended she be released from her 10-year sentence, an application that would need approval by the courts and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.” Good, promising words from the warden but Lynne has stage four cancer and desperately needs to be released as soon as possible.
CPRMetro.org‘s recording of 2-minute audio statement by Ralph Poynter on Lynne’s new situation as of April 26:
30 Days to Free Russell Maroon Shoatz from solitary confinement
Former Black Panther Russell Maroon Shoatz (AF-3855) has been held in torturous conditions of solitary confinement in Pennsylvania prisons for the past thirty years. He has not had a serious rule violation for more than two decades. Maroon’s role as an educator, human rights defender, writer, and critical intellectual of liberation movements is widely renowned.
Russell Maroon Shoatz. SOURCE: youtube
April 8—May 9: Flood the office of PA Department of Corrections (DOC) Secretary John Wetzel with phone calls, letters, and faxes.
PA DOC Secretary John Wetzel 1920 Technology Parkway Mechanicsburg, PA, 17050
Phone number: 717-728-4109 Fax number: 717-728-4109
Maroon the Implacable: The Collected Writings of Russell Maroon Shoatz
For more information visit:
#30Days2FreeMaroon
#FreeMaroon
#EndSolitary
My letter to Wetzel:
Secretary Wetzel
1920 Technology Parkway
Mechanicsburg, PA 17050
Dear Mr. Wetzel:
I am writing out of concern for Mr. Russell Shoatz, inmate #AF-3855 recently transferred to SCI Mahanoy. I’ve been reading about the controversial nature of solitary confinement in the news and it came to my attention that this older man has been in solitary confinement here in the United States for thirty years!
My reaction is that surely this is a violation of Mr. Shoatz’ human rights that must be remedied immediately. I would certainly hope that this has not persisted because of his political affiliations, as that would make this even worse. I do understand that he has an escape in his past— but surely that can’t justify sensory deprivation into his old age.
I will be hoping every day for news that Russell Shoatz has been transferred into general population. Thank you for the action you will take. Please be in touch as time permits.
Sincerely,
UPDATE: This saga continues to unfold, with more chapters than this blog can handle. To keep up with this and other news, follow @support_daniel and/or me (@throughwallsny) on twitter.
I don’t how anyone can trip over how allegedly rowdy a protest was when a 16-year-old boy has been murdered by police.
Kimani Gray (source: globalgrind.com)
Then I remember the values of this horrible system.
#BrooklynProtest #BrooklynRiot #KimaniGray #FTP
NOTE- Post edited from yesterday to use change.org petition, rather than what was posted yesterday
SIGN THE PETITION TO FREE LYNNE STEWART: SAVE HER LIFE – Call for COMPASSIONATE RELEASE Now!
Politically imprisoned human rights attorney (http://lynnestewart.org/)
Appeal from Lynne Stewart’s spouse Ralph Poynter and family:
Lynne Stewart has devoted her life to the oppressed – a constant advocate for the countless many deprived in the United States of their freedom and their rights.
Unjustly charged and convicted for the “crime” of providing her client with a fearless defense, the prosecution of Lynne Stewart is an assault upon the basic freedoms of us all.
After many years of post-conviction freedom, her bail was revoked arbitrarily and her imprisonment ordered, precluding surgery she had scheduled in a major New York hospital.
The sinister meaning of the relentless persecution of Lynne Stewart is unmistakably clear. Given her age and precarious health, the ten- year sentence she is now serving is a virtual death sentence.
Read the rest and sign the change.org petition here:
My letter:
To Whom It May Concern,
I am writing you out of concern for Ms. Lynne Stewart, an inmate at Carswell Federal Medical Center, #53504-054.
Unfortunately Ms. Stewart suffers from breast cancer, which has spread to her lymph nodes, shoulders, bones, and lungs. It has reached “stage four.” At seventy-four years and suffering from cancer, it is extremely unlikely that Stewart poses any danger to society.
I urge you to review Lynne Stewart’s situation and consider her as a candidate for Compassionate Release. I am aware that she is a controversial figure but political associations cannot be a basis for discrimination, as I’m sure you agree. I trust that you will take her case seriously and hold true to your highest ideals of fairness, as I’m sure you do in all of your cases.
Sincerely,
Statement to All who wrote the court:
Thank you very much all of you wonderful people. It is sad and heart breaking, I have not seen my 13 year old son since 2001. And in a prison visit at USP FLorence Colorado. Not at home like normal life. I ask how much longer can we as humanity “allow” the system to destroy family, lives and children?
The court Oct 24, gave visiting privileges to my mother. Nothing for my self because I am in prison.
Love + Power
Spirit and Fire
OSO BLANCO
On Oso Blanco’s son, the court granted visiting privileges to the young man’s paternal grandmother– but not to Oso Blanco, because of his imprisonment. Oso Blanco’s statement will be up momentarily in a separate post.
Gender Anarky members Cat and Amazon are no longer refusing food as of October 25th. The prison responded to the hunger strike and phone call blitz etc with transfers. Amazon was recently transferred to Salinas Valley State prison. See http://genderanarky.wordpress.com/ for the info.
Strangely, Leah-Lynn Plante was released from jail very early but Matt and KteeO are still in jail as grand jury resisters and still need support. Mathew “Maddy” Pfeiffer is a new name on the list of grand jury resisters. For the latest, stay tuned to http://nopoliticalrepression.wordpress.com/
Thousands of walmart workers stand ready to strike on Black Friday. A few are jumping ahead like wildcats, already striking.
I tweeted about the prisoners held in Rikers who were once again not evacuated despite huge risk of flooding during Hurricane Sandy. Solitary Watch quoted NYC DOC as saying that there was no flooding or power outages. Click the image below for details.
Does this happen to you? Like a lot of things, I put this blog down for a minute a while ago and it’s been hard coming back around to pick it up again. A lot of the info on throughthewalls.org right now is out of date. I have my own health issues I”m wrestling with but I’m not sure if that’s the problem. It’s hard to keep anything in perspective.
While it didn’t destroy my immediate surroundings or jeopardize my life, Hurricane Sandy rattled me, as it rattled a lot of people in the NYC/NJ area. My priorities and outlook have shifted. I’ve done some relief work and some donating but not much– not nearly enough. I have lots to say about it and now that I’m finally in the blogger machine again, I don’t know where to start.
source: wpix.com
The whole business of the elections distracting from real-life politics has never been so stark to me as it was just now– with pockets of NYC and NJ surviving ongoing inequality compounded by ongoing disaster and everybody chattering about the elections. Some people are still chattering about the elections, bursting with pride and celebration over the man who signed the NDAA into law and may keep more people in cages than anyone on the planet.
It’s crazy how parts of NYC are almost totally fine, almost totally back to normal, while other neighborhoods are living in the cold and the dark without water, sometimes with health needs and trapped in apartments or displaced by desolation. The establishment and the rich seem to be counting on the fact that if enough time goes by, people with privilege will lose interest in the disaster and let it go out of sight and out of mind. This is the way oppression, disaster, and inequality persist in the first place. This is how things really are all the time. Crisis and disaster and everyone walking around and many not immediately threatened pretending everything is fine.
This is how it often feels to read about Gaza and that’s particularly true now.
“A family rests on the rubble of their home in Jebaliya.”
source: time.com
And yet everyday life has to be lived. Jobs have to be worked, sometimes, for now, health has to be tended to, when possible, and the causes I normally work for still exist and still matter.
Most people don’t follow me for news. If you’re up on things, there are better sources. Mostly I connect dots or maybe provide a perspective in a bigger conversation. But on a few specific things, I occasionally bring you news. And I gotta update it. So stay tuned while I catch up. May take a sec.
About Through the Walls
Because We Must
Behind the Walls
Black and Pink Family
Resistance Behind Bars
Donate to the Warchest Program
Cece McDonald
Daniel McGowan
Jerry Resists
Justice for Lynne Stewart
Oso Blanco
Russell Maroon Shoatz
Sekou Odinga
Sundiata Acoli
ANTI-OPPRESSIVE BABY ANIMALS
Class War Kitteh
Break the Chains
Irish Republican News
Parole News
Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity
SIPAZ Blog
Definition of "Political Prisoner" and "Prisoner of War"![Guide to Political Prisoners & Prisoners of War Support for download from ABCF [Note that addresses for ABCF chapters are out of date]](http://www.abcf.net/abc/images/abcf.jpg "for download from ABCF [Note that addresses for ABCF chapters are out of date]")
Guide to Political Prisoners & Prisoners of War Support
How to Write Your First Letter to Someone in Prison
Illustrated Guide to Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War
International Prisoners, Mexico, Central & South America
LGBTQ Prisoner Pen-Pal List
presxs politicxs
Prison Activist Resource Center
Prisoners DABC supports
Project Salam
Recruiting
THE TYRANNY of STRUCTURELESSNESS
Workshop
