Federal Government on Trial: COVER UP INJUSTICE WITH A COVERUP
Momii Palapaz
Poverty Scholar, reporter, radio programmer PoorNewsNetwork
“You are not to talk about the Hunger Strike,” said Oakland Federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to defense lawyers. "And if you bring it up again, I will put you in contempt.”
On Monday, June 24, 2024, the first day of trial against James Perez, David Cervantes, George Franco and Guillermo Solorio, Judge Rogers attempted to squash and discredit the 2011 prisoner led movement against solitary confinement. In 2015, the four men were charged with gang conspiracy, gang enhancement, and gang racketeering. Federal prosecutors hoped to make a slam dunk with a wealth of federal witnesses and thousands of pages of “evidence” against the hunger strikers. All the defendants lived in solitary confinement of the Security Housing Unit at Pelican Bay for decades.
It’s a cover up of injustice with a coverup of claiming gang related crimes. Suppressing the truth about the protest wasn’t the case yesterday, July 29, 2024. Into the second month of the trial, no objection was made to questions for the FBI witness regarding the “hunger strike." It was a surprise to myself and the few spectators, including Lydia, sister of one of the defendants. “Yeah, I thought that it was not allowed to be brought up in court,” she said. But we agreed that it was a good thing.
Ceremony for brothers of Pelican Bay State Prison presented by POOR MAGAZINE HOMEFULNESS at the Oakland Federal Building
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IGNITES SOLIDARITY AGAINST TORTURE
In 2011, between July 1 and September 26th, James Perez, David Cervantes, George Franco and Guillermo Solorio were part of a hunger strike protesting solitary confinement. Organized by The Short Corridor Collective, the residents sent messages that spread Statewide and throughout prisons and jails on turtle island. Languishing for years, without daily sunshine, forced into a loner life, fellow prison residents and guards are the only physical contacts. Those living in the SHU, receive only non-touch visits, denied the right to free movement beyond a cage, denied the right to quality nutrition and the right to touch earth.
Prison hunger strikes, for decades, in such places as San Quentin, California, and Red Onion State Prison in Virginia have repeatedly protested years of cruelty and inhumanity. For example, it is known that “the only way to get out of solitary confinement was to tell on another,” called debriefing. Temptations to lie to free yourself of the torture was testing all the men.
In 2012, The Short Order Collective at Pelican Bay constructed “An Agreement to End Hostilities” in the continued ongoing struggle for unity amongst the imprisoned. Both the hunger strike and the “amendment” simultaneously targeted the federal government and the US industrial prison complex. Much to the prison authorities' surprise, they immediately tried to suppress and cover up the uprising. When I say cover up, I mean the feds have pulled every stupid idea out of their supremacist head to claim the reason for the hunger strike was to get in gen pop and sell dope. This is the thinking of the Bureau of Prisons. The practitioners of this corrupt system cannot believe there is intelligence, even genius amongst the thousands of men behind bars. Now the hunger strikers are on trial.
POVERTY TO PRISON PIPELINE
It’s the 13th anniversary of the Hunger strike by residents of the Pelican Bay State Prison in California. This is so significant that the US government with its gang of FBI is now attempting to railroad 4 men in Federal court.
Supporters gather at the Federal Building in Oakland before the trial denouncing the inhumanity of solitary confinement
Short Corridor Collective co-organizer of the hunger strike and Amendment to End Hostilities, Todd Ashker, said “Alleged gang-affiliation was sufficient cause for the CDCR to consign prisoners to SHU for the remainder of their lives, unless they were willing to snitch on other prisoners (the “debriefing” process), reach the end of their prison sentence (parole), or die. Prisoners described their choices as ‘snitch, parole or die.’ The Ashker settlement supposedly ended the practice of sending prisoners to SHU for alleged gang-affiliation alone.” Mr. Ashker is in his 27th year of solitary confinement.
Another member of the Short Corridor Collective, Paul Redd, was incarcerated for 44 years,
30 of them in the Special Housing Unit of Pelican Bay. He was the go-to lawyer for residents inside. From Critical Resistance, "he was one of the most skilled and well known jailhouse lawyers in the US prison system. A leader amongst not only blacks but all colors seeking his advice. He was instrumental in building a unified force against the system of SHU and confronted divided and conquer tactics amongst inmates." Said warden, “The only way Redd will leave Pelican Bay is in a pine box." In May, 2020, with the support of legal advocates and then SF DA Chesa Boudin, Mr. Redd was released standing and walking, not in a pine box. He left Pelican Bay with Terminal Stage 4 lung cancer. He passed 2 years later on June 19, 2022.
PRISON TO REVOLUTIONARY PIPELINE
In US prisons, Over 80,000 men are doubly imprisoned, BEING separated from the general population and THEN in solitary confinement.
The revolutionary power of incarcerated men and women, child and elder, is their strengthened mind, feared by corrupt power.
“Pelican Bay Art” “SHU Syndrome” Michael D Russell
In 2015, a landmark decision “intended to end indefinite solitary confinement throughout California prisons” was not implemented. No surprise. Over 1000 residents of California prisons participated in a 60 day no eating protest. It continued in stages first on July 1, to September 26, 2011 and then on July 8, 2013. It grew to over 6,000 men and women in the State. On August 12, coinciding with the hunger strike was a written statement called “An Agreement To End Hostilities." This was organized by those held at Pelican Bay. The message spread in California and rippled through other penal institutions across the US.
The following are demands created by the residents and issued throughout the system.
Eliminate group punishments for individual rules violations;
Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria;
Comply with the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Safety and Abuse in Prisons (2006) regarding an end to long-term solitary confinement;
Provide adequate food;
Expand and provide constructive programs and privileges for those indefinitely sentenced to the SHU.
All prisons in the US must be abolished. Millions of boys and young men, like Husband, entered the penalistic system when they were teens or in their early twenties. So now you see that many men still incarcerated are in their 70’s, and 80’s. The C # will indicate the year, which is about the 1970's. The US prison machine is the machine of fascism. Many of it’s projects, plans and policies have escalated over centuries and instituted and streamlined into outside institutions. The police, military and imperialist wars are in our everyday life. The inside is trying to tell us on the outside. We are all connected.
THANKS TO SPIRIT OF MANDELA, PRISON RADIO, Critical Resistance, Center for Constitutional Rights, Solitary Watch, Todd Ashker website and mainstream press for information, stories, opinions and art from inside by Michael D Russell.
Article by Dorsey from all of us or none
“Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will die or live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done, discover your humanity and your love in revolution. Pass on the torch. Join us, give up your life for the people.” George Jackson
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