From Green Is The New Red
As the Occupy movement carries out massive May Day protests around the country, the FBI Joint Terrorism Task force is trumpeting the arrest of “self-proclaimed anarchists” and “terrorists” who allegedly conspired to destroy a bridge in Ohio. Integral to the development and advancement of this plot, however, were FBI agents themselves and an informant with a drug and robbery record.
Douglas L. Wright, 26; Brandon L. Baxter, 20; and Anthony Hayne, 35, Connor C. Stevens, 20, and Joshua S. Stafford, 23, were arrested by the FBI on April 30, just in time to make the announcement as the nation turns its attention to May Day protests.
The affidavit reveals a plot by the FBI that continues a pattern of behavior in “terrorism” investigations against political activists. Most importantly, undercover FBI agents helped shape the “plot,” offered advice on how and where to use explosives, and allegedly sold explosives to the activists. Read more…
From Denver Anarchist Black Cross
Monday April 30th. Today at least twenty five prisoners at Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP) began a hunger strike. They are demanding that the Warden meet and negotiate with them for improved conditions in Ohio’s super-max prison. These hunger strikers say they intend to continue to refuse food until their demands are met. Another, larger group of prisoners will show symbolic solidarity with the hunger strikers, and workers outside of prison by also refusing food on a one-day fast tomorrow, for May Day, the international day of worker solidarity and resistance.
Information about the hunger strike is limited at this time, because super-max prisoners have very constrained access to communication with the outside world. The hunger strikers are asking supporters of their cause to participate by calling Warden David Bobby (330 743-0700) and ODRC director Gary Mohr (614-752-1164). The hunger strikers are asking people to encourage Warden Bobby to meet with the prisoners and take their demands seriously. Read more…
The Texas Death Row Occupy Movement
Polunsky Unit/Death Row, Livingstion, TX
November 1993 was the beginning of what could be called “The Texas Death Row Occupy Movement.” A plan of action was planned for years by myself and other Texas Death Row inmates to protest an execution date if one was set for certain individuals, namely John “Jazz” Barefield Bey, Sam Miguel, Emerson “Young Lion” Rudd and Ponchai “Kamau” Wilkerson.
Schooled in the revolutionary teaching of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, all of us were committed to protesting an execution in the way deemed best for us as we saw it. Any action taken by us in protest would be justifiable self-defense. After all, the State of Texas would literally be trying to kill us! However, before any one of us received an execution date, another inmate would take the vanguard and protest his execution. He would be gassed. A team of guards would forcibly extract him from his cell. Beat him. Then take him to the death house in Huntsville, Texas. The name of the first was Desmond “Lil’ Dez” Jennings and he wouldn’t be the last. This happened in the mid-90s. Read more…
From Prison Radio
Manning charged with ‘aiding the enemy’; trial to begin September 21
Military judge Col. Denise Lind refused to dismiss the most serious charges against Army Private Bradley Manning, accused of leaking classified documents for transparency website Wikileaks. Thursday night Lind announced she was rejecting the motion made by the defense to throw out the charge of “aiding the enemy”. Manning will now face a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Manning’s attorney David Coombs maintains that there will be no proof that Manning intended to help al-Qaida when he allegedly leaked the classified material to Wikileaks.
“Everything we know about Bradley Manning is the complete opposite of this charge — nothing about aiding the enemy but everything about aiding the public’s understanding of an unpopular war,” stated Jeff Paterson, of the Bradley Manning Support Group. Read more…
The SAFE California Act: ‘No Thank You’
By Kevin Cooper
I have been asked what I think about “The SAFE California Act,” which is being pushed as a real alternative to this state’s death penalty. I have been asked by activists, death row inmates, and certain family members of death row inmates. I have also asked myself this same question. After all, it is our future which is being voted on by the people of California in November 2012.
I must add this. At no time was I, or to my knowledge, any man or woman who resides on death row within this state asked our opinion about the SAFE California Act by the sponsors of this initiative, the people who bank rolled it, or the people who collected signatures in support of it. I wonder why that is? I am personally against this initiative, and I do not support it for a couple different reasons. First and foremost, this ‘Act’ is just another version of the death penalty. We who will be affected by it will still be living in inhumane conditions. We who are on death row will also lose our legal habeas and habeas appeal process that we have and are currently entitled to under the law. So we are in fact taking a step backwards in our ability to challenge our convictions. We are also having to take our fight for our collective human rights to another level. What I mean by this is, Level IV prisons within the State of California are some of the worst prisons in the world! They are worse than death row in the violence that takes place, in the lack of programs, including educational programs, they stay on lockdown, and many families cannot get to these isolated prisons to visit their loved ones. I also look at this through the historical eyes of how people of African descent have been continually locked up within this country. For example, those of us who know the truth about this country’s history, and acknowledge this truth have to admit the following . . . Read more…
Political Prisoner Birthday Poster For May Is Now Available
Hello Friends and Comrades,
Here is the political prisoner birthday poster for May. As always, please post this poster publicly and/or use it to start a card writing night of your own.
This year, for Alvaro Hernandez’s birthday, he is requesting that people write letters to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and urge them to look into his case. You can find the information on how to do that here.
Jeremy Hammond is accused of the Lulz Sec hack of stratfor as well as hacks of well-known neo-nazi websites. The website FREEHAMMOND.com is legit, and he can be written to at:
Jeremy Hammond 18729-424
Metropolitan Correctional Center
150 Park Row
New York, New York 10007 Read more…
Lack of Oversight Enables Prison Abuses
The following was written by a prisoner at Albemarle CI in Spruce Pine, NC. Though we may feel prisons are by definition “abusive,” rather than this abuse simply being the result of a lack of oversight, the broad matrix of institutions and individuals that oversee this abuse is worth considering. Read more…
← Older posts On Race and Justice: An Apology, An Indictment
by Abby Zimet from Common Dreams
While many people view “Stand Your Ground” laws as today’s symbol for what’s wrong with our criminal justice system, a suggestion we look deeper and further – to the country’s long history of racial bias in jury selection, especially in death penalty cases. Last week, a North Carolina judge vacated the death sentence of Marcus Robinson under the state’s Racial Justice Act citing a “wealth of evidence showing the persistent, pervasive, and distorting role of race in jury selection” – the first time racial bias has been rejected as unacceptable since the 25-year-old Supreme Court ruling in McCleskey v. Kemp that such bias is an “inevitable part of our criminal justice system,” and so be it. Meanwhile, the executions – technically legal, but relatively rare – go on, with Texas accounting for over a third of the total. The Economist maps out each one since 1976.
Occupy The Justice Department Challenges Obama Administration Integrity on Prosecutor Misconduct Issue
by Linn Washington Jr.One of the issues driving protesters participating in the April 24, 2012 Occupy The Justice Department demonstration is an issue that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder knows well: prosecutorial misconduct.
Holder knows this misconduct issue well because he has criticized it during congressional testimony, in fact as recently as March 2012 when he was commenting on a special prosecutor’s report castigating the wrongdoing of federal prosecutors.
That wrongdoing, Holder acknowledged, unlawfully tainted the corruption investigation and 2008 trial of the late U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, who was convicted of corruption in his home state of Alaska.
Protesters, including fiery Philadelphia activist Pam Africa, want Holder to take action against the prosecutorial misconduct evident in scores of unjust convictions that have led to the wrongful imprisonment of political prisoners across America, most of them jailed for two or more decades. Read more…
A Statewide Conference: Our Responsibility to Oppose The Abuse of State Power “Moving Together Towards a More Humane Society”
Saturday, April 28th from 10:00 AM- 4:00 PM
Dynacon Event Center
2100 E. Wendover Ave. Greensboro NC
Several North Carolina-based grassroots organizations are organizing a day-long summit about the abuse of state power in the United States and our responsibility as people living in communities across our state to organize. Our objective is to help build a powerful movement to create a more humane, just society. All are welcome to come and participate in a broad-ranging discussion of issues including: racially-targeted mass incarcerations; increasing attacks and repression against Latinos and Muslims; torture and extraordinary rendition; police brutality, misconduct and corruption; solitary prison confinement as torture; repression of dissent, abuse of the RICO statute, and other related issues. Read more…
