(Editor’s note: information in this article was originally posted by the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity website. Liberation News has combined several different pages of information and lightly edited for style, readability and coherence.)
On July 8, more than 30,000 California prisoners went on indefinite hunger strike.California holds nearly 12,000 people in extreme isolation—over 3,000 with life sentences—at a cost of over $60 million per year. The cells have no windows, and no access to fresh air or sunlight. The United Nations condemns the use of solitary confinement for more than 15 days as torture, yet many people in California state prisons have been held in solitary for decades.
In 2011, over 12,000 prisoners and their family and community members participated in statewide hunger strikes protesting the inhumane conditions in the Security Housing Units. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation promised meaningful reform in order to end the strike. The July 8 hunger strike was launched because of CDCR’s failure to fulfill that promise.
Strike spreads to other prisons
When prisoners at Pelican Bay State Prison’s SHU declared their Peaceful Protest would resume July 8, if their demands weren’t met by the CDCR and Governor of California, they also encouraged their fellow prisoners to take up peaceful actions wherever they were, and to include demands of their own. They said to the CDCR and the Governor:
“Expect your offices to also soon be receiving separate demands from all other CDCR male and female prisoner representatives from all security levels [1 through 4] on GPs, Ad-Segs, Death Row and from all other CA SHU prisons who will also join us on the July 08, 2013 HS/WS, if their demands are not met by that deadline. Which will be tailored to their own particular institutional needs…–which we fully support.”
Prisoners throughout the system have responded by making demands of their own which can be read here.
July 9 message from the Pelican Bay Short Corridor representatives Greetings to our supporters and all people of conscience:
The Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition held a press conference on the morning the hunger strike began, Monday, July 8, in front of the State Building in Oakland.
We are grateful for your support of our peaceful protest against the state-sanctioned torture that happens not only here at Pelican Bay but in prisons everywhere. We have taken up this hunger strike and work stoppage, which has included 30,000 prisoners in California so far, not only to improve our own conditions but also as an act of solidarity with all prisoners and oppressed people around the world.
We encourage everyone to take action to support the strike wherever they live. Sign the petition demanding the California governor stop the torture, plan rolling solidarity fasts if you are able, use every means to spread the word and participate in non-violent direct action to put pressure on decision-makers.
If it was not for your support, we would have died in 2011. Thank you everyone. We are confident we will prevail.
In Solidarity,
<The PBSP-SHU Short Corridor Representatives:
Todd Ashker, C-58191, PBSP-SHU, D4-121, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532
Arturo Castellanos, C-17275, PBSP-SHU, D1-121, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532
Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa (Dewberry), C-35671, PBSP-SHU,D1-117, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532
Antonio Guillen, P-81948, PBSP-SHU, D2-106, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532
For more information and updates on the hunger strike, visit Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity
