FBB is dead

From Behind Bars is over.

Hopefully the prison industrial complex will be finished next.

yours in struggle,

Abo & Mens Rea

Repression of the Repressed by Mumia Abu-Jamal

Here’s the latest by Mumia Abu-Jamal from Prison Radio.

Private Prisons Turn a Handsome Profit

By Erin Rosa

Global Research, July 25, 2009

While the nation’s economy flounders, business is booming for The GEO Group Inc., a private prison firm that is paid millions by the U.S. government to detain undocumented immigrants and other federal inmates. In the last year and a half, GEO announced plans to add a total of at least 3,925 new beds to immigration lockups in five locations. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and the U.S. Marshals Service, which hire the company, will fill the beds with inmates awaiting court and deportation proceedings. GEO reported impressive quarterly earnings of $20 million on February 12, 2009, along with an annual income of $61 million for 2008—up from $38 million the year before. But the company’s share value is not the only thing that’s growing. Behind the financial success and expansion of the for-profit prison firm, there are increasing charges of negligence, civil rights violations, abuse and even death.

Detaining immigrants has become a profitable business, and the niche industry is showing no signs of slowing down. The number of undocumented immigrants the U.S. federal government jails has grown by at least 65 percent in the last six years. In 2002, the average daily population of immigration detainees was 20,838 people, according to ICE records. By 2008, the average daily population had grown to 31,345.

Since 2003, more than a million people have been processed through federal immigration lockups, which are part of a network of at least 300 local, state and federal lockups, including seven contracted detention facilities. GEO operates four of those seven for-profit prisons.

Numerous investigations and reports have documented problems at GEOs immigration detention facilities.

At the company’s Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, federal prosecutors charged a GEO prison administrator in September 2008 with “knowingly and willfully making materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements to senior special agents” with ICE, according to court filings. A February 2008 audit found that over a period of more than two years ending in November 2005, GEO hired nearly 100 guards without performing the required criminal background checks. The GEO employee responsible, Sylvia Wong, pleaded guilty. In the plea agreement the federal government stated that Wong falsified documents “because of the pressure she felt” while working at the GEO lockup to get security personnel hired at the detention center “as quickly as possible.”

Two months before the fraud charges, a study by the Seattle University School of Law and the nonprofit group OneAmerica reported that conditions at the Tacoma facility violated both international and domestic laws that grant detained immigrants the right to food, due process and humane treatment.

Federal immigration officials have the authority to incarcerate undocumented immigrants, asylum-seekers, and even lawful permanent residents while they await hearings with immigration judges or appeal decisions. ICE reports the average length of stay is 30 days, but detentions can last years, according to a November 2008 ICE fact sheet.

Pramila Jayapal, executive director with OneAmerica, took part in interviewing a random sample of more than 40 immigrants detained at the Northwest Detention Center, which holds approximately 1,000 immigrants at any given time.

“It’s a very giant concrete box. It’s just like a jail,” said Jayapal. “You’re only supposed to meet in the client area, which is only a few rooms.”

One inmate from Mexico, Hector Pena-Ortiz, told interviewers that guards had interrogated and handcuffed him twice, demanding that he sign immediate deportation papers despite the fact that he had a pending appeal. Under federal law, immigrants cannot be deported from the United States if their immigration legal cases are still pending. During one of the incidents, guards admitted to having a file on the wrong inmate, Pena-Ortiz said.

In addition to violations of legal rights, inmates cited food as a major concern. The vast majority of the 40 prisoners interviewed at the facility said rations were inadequate and sometimes rotten. Inmates with financial resources depended on food bought from the lockup’s commissary. Others went hungry. A man identified in the study as “Ricardo” said he had lost 50 pounds of his original 190-pound weight since arriving at the detention center.

ICE officially denied the claims in the report, but in 2005, annual agency inspections at the Northwest Detention Center documented problems with the quality and quantity of food and found that some meals were so poor, guards had to collect and replace them.

Looking for opportunities

The Tacoma lockup, site of the most recent GEO controversy, is located on top of a former toxic waste dump that borders coastal wetlands near the Port of Tacoma, Washington. In August 2008, the firm announced plans to expand its 1,030-bed Northwest Detention Center to 1,575 beds, “to help meet the increased demand for detention bed space by federal, state, and local government agencies around the country.”

Just four months after GEOs announcement, ICE notified government contractors that the agency was looking for a contractor-owned and -operated detention facility. According to federal procurement data, the new facility should be capable of providing 1,575 beds—the same number GEO was set to build—to be completed no later than September 2009—the same date GEO had set for the completion of its own construction project.

Lorie Dankers, ICE spokeswoman in Washington State, implied that the similarity in numbers and date was a coincidence. “I would never comment, nor have I in the past, on what GEO is doing and why they’re doing it. That’s a business decision that GEO made,” said Dankers. “To insinuate that there was some kind of connection, or that they has some inside information as to the request, that would be incorrect.”

Dankers added that ICEs request for more space is still in the “pre-solicitation” phase, meaning that there is no guarantee a contract will be offered, and the agency is simply requesting information from contractors to “gauge interest.”

“I don’t have any information one way or the other as to what would happen,” Dankers said. “I think often times, if I had to speculate, they see where there’s a need. I think they’re always looking for opportunities.”

Canceled contracts

And opportunities, like prisoners, abound. GEO owns more than 62,000 prison beds in the United States, with approximately 3,000 beds used for detained immigrants. The company also claims a global market share of 25 percent of the private corrections industry. Currently, the Northwest Detention Center incarcerates immigrants mainly from Oregon, Washington and Alaska, according to Dankers.

In the last five years, criminal immigration prosecutions have surged by 388 percent according to federal court data obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University in New York. The most recently available court information shows that there were 11,454 prosecutions in September 2008 alone. Adding to GEOs profitability and prospects are immigration laws introduced in the 1990s, the expanding use of immigration detention without bond, and a greater emphasis on prosecutions after 9/11.

The company’s relationship with government officials has also proven valuable in winning corrections contracts.

In 2006, while on the state payroll as director of prisons at the Colorado Department of Corrections, Nolin Renfrow helped GEO obtain a $14 million-per-year contract to detain 1,500 inmates in a proposed state prison project in the northern part of the state. Renfrow was moonlighting for GEO—with an expected compensation of $1 million—when a 2007 state audit and news reports uncovered the public servant’s business deal.

The audit found that Renfrow’s actions could “arguably present a conflict of interest and result in a breach of … the public trust,” because state law prohibited an “employee from assisting any person for a fee or other compensation in obtaining any contract.”

The county district attorney with jurisdiction over Renfrow declined to press criminal charges, but in the wake of the scandal, officials with the state’s corrections department rescinded the contract.

Prisons as money makers

Immigrant facilities are not the only GEO lockups that have sparked claims of negligence and abuse.

In 2007, the firm settled a lawsuit with the family of an inmate for $200,000. LeTisha Tapia, a 23-year-old woman incarcerated at the GE0-owned Val Verde Correction Facility in southern Texas, told her family in July 2004 that she had been raped and beaten after being locked in the same cell-block with male inmates. Shortly after, she had hung herself in her cell. The nonprofit Texas Civil Rights Project sued GEO on behalf of Tapia’s family.

“The jail drove this young woman to kill herself,” charged the family’s attorney, Scott Medlock, in a February 15, 2006 press release from the Texas Civil Rights Project. “GEO cuts corners by hiring poorly trained guards, providing inmates with cut rate medical care, and running their facility in a grossly unprofessional manner.” Citing confidentiality provisions in the settlement, Medlock refused further comment.

More recently, in 2008, civil liberties attorneys sued the company for failing to provide adequate medical attention to inmates outsourced from Washington, DC, to the Rivers Correctional Institute, located in North Carolina and overseen by GEO through a contract with the federal Bureau of Prisons. That same year, Idaho state authorities removed 125 inmates from a GEO prison after an investigation—spurred by the suicide of a detainee at the facility—revealed poor staff training and healthcare.

“Pretty immediately when people started going to Rivers we started to get letters about how bad the healthcare was, and just how people were really scared of dying there,” said Deborah Golden, an attorney with the DC Prisoners Project, a group that is representing inmates in the legal case against GEO. One inmate named in the report, Keith Mathis, claims he was denied medical treatment for a cavity until the tooth became infected and caused an open ulcer on his face that eventually “burst open,” requiring surgery and three days hospitalization.

“The more we looked into the situation the more we realized it was a systemic problem,” said Golden. “I suspect that it’s a pattern all over. When you try to run prisons as money makers what you do is cut back on the most expensive thing you can, which is medication and medical care.”

GEO has said it will not publicly comment on pending legal cases or abuse claims by third parties, including nonprofit groups. Company spokesman Pablo Paez says that on the subject of business plans, “we have no comment beyond what’s in our public disclosures.”

Despite a wide array of grievances and tragedies, GEO has accrued contracts worth more than $588 million in federal tax dollars since 1997, according to available federal procurement data. And as long as federal officials continue to remand a growing number of inmates and immigrants over to private businesses, without imposing strict oversight, GEO will likely remain profitable.

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Radio Broadcasts

Here’s a link to political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal’s radio program.

This segment is entitled. “Nada for Gaza: McKinney Israel Trip”

It was recorded on July 20th, 2009 and produced by Prison Radio.

200 inmates riot in Warkworth, Canada

Inmates at Warkworth penitentiary took over a portion of the prison and burned anything they could get their hands on. Rioters were heard shouting “burn, baby, burn,” according to Sun Media.

Story from Toronto Sun
Joe Warmington, Pete Fisher and Andrea Houston
22nd July, 2009

An inmate is dead from a suspected drug overdose after prisoners at Warkworth penitentiary took control of a portion of the prison, including its infirmary, in an uprising overnight.

The “disturbance” began at 9 p.m., said Ann Anderson, assistant warden of management services for Warkworth Institution.

No further information on the man, including name, age or the suspected drug taken, is being released until next of kin are notified, Anderson said.

The situation involved 211 inmates, about a third of the prison population, who refused to come in from the recreation yard and reached an internal fence, Anderson said. The remaining inmates were secured in their cells.

All inmates were back in their cells by about 4:10 p.m., Anderson said.

After Warkworth gained control of the facility, 13 inmates were sent to an outside hospital, nine with suspected drug overdoses and four with unrelated medical conditions, Anderson said.

Anderson said a “state of emergency” was called based on the various medications kept in the health centre.

The Riot Act Proclamation was read around 5:50 a.m., meaning the institution could use whatever force necessary to gain control of the situation, Anderson said.

Anderson would not say what, if any, force was used to gain control of the facility.

“The inmates were compliant and came back into their cells with the assistance of our emergency response team (ERT),” she said.

It was a tense scene overnight as corrections staff, armed in riot gear and firing tear gas, tried to regain control of the prison as firefighter and ambulance stood by.

Warkworth ERT as well as ERT teams from Millhaven, Joyceville and Kingston penitentiaries responded, Anderson said. The OPP were on the perimeter.

“(The inmates) got into the hospital area and took control,” said one emergency services worker standing outside the front gate.

Four inmates were transferred to hospital in nearby Campbellford as correctional workers battled to regain control of the prison.

The four were suffering from suspected narcotics overdoses, Anderson said. As of 1 p.m., staff had gained control of all but 50 inmates.

“The medical centre was breached and we now have correctional officers keeping inmates in the yard to prevent another breach,” she said. “There have been no demands from inmates. There will be an investigation as to why.”

“They are burning anything they can get their hands on,” a firefighter on scene said, adding he understands the inmates’ recreation centre may have been torched.

It was a tense scene overnight as corrections staff, armed in riot gear and firing tear gas, tried to regain control of the prison as firefighter and ambulance stood by.

Fires burned throughout the night inside the walls in a yard area from where you could hear inmates cheering and yelling “let it burn.”

The riot squad entered just after 6 a.m.

The institution will remain on lockdown until management is assured it’s safe to return to a normal routine, Anderson said.

The Correctional Service of Canada will be conducting an internal investigation to determine the cause of the incident, including the death in custody, Anderson said.

Warkworth is a medium-security institution that has 568 inmates and 340 staff. No staff were hurt in the takeover.

http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada…26216.html

Guantanamo’s stateless losing hope

Andrew Wander, a Reprieve Media Fellow

Al-Jazeera English

When Ayman al-Shurafa was taken to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, few outside Chicago had heard of Barack Obama.

By the time Obama, a junior senator from Illinois, announced he was running for president in 2007, al-Shurafa, a Palestinian, had already spent five years in the jail and had been cleared for release by the administration of George Bush, the then-president.

When Obama became president almost two years later and said he would close the prison, 34-year-old al-Shurafa was still being held on the US naval base but should have been one of the first detainees to leave.

Although he had admitted to attending a training camp in Afghanistan, the Pentagon assessed that he posed no threat and should be released. But in the strange world of Guantanamo Bay, degrees of innocence and guilt are only part of the story.

Al-Shurafa’s case helps to explain why, six months after ordering the closure of Guantanamo Bay, Obama has made so little tangible progress to this end – only 11 of the 242 prisoners he inherited from the Bush administration have been released during his tenure.

Despite being born and raised in Saudi Arabia, al-Shurafa is Palestinian by nationality. His family and friends live in Jeddah, but the Saudi government has so far refused to allow his return from Guantanamo, saying he is not a Saudi national and has no residency rights in the country.

The Palestinians say he would be welcome in the Occupied Territories, but the Israelis will not allow him to enter.

Stateless

Ayman al-Shurafa is one of dozens of “stateless” inmates

Al-Shurafa has been rendered stateless by the stamp of Guantanamo, despite having never been convicted of a crime.

He desperately wants to return to his family in Saudi Arabia, but convincing the authorities of his suitability is no easy task while he is held incommunicado on the other side of the world.

Al-Shurafa’s predicament is not unusual. Around 60 of the remaining 229 prisoners cannot return to their countries of origin. While some are not welcome by their governments, others fear what will happen when they arrive.

In 2007, a Tunisian Guantanamo prisoner called Abdullah bin Omar al-Hajji was returned, against his will and over his lawyers’ objections, to Tunis.

He had not lived in the country for 20 years and despite having been cleared by the Bush administration, he was immediately arrested by state security forces and taken into custody.

His interrogators beat him and threatened to rape his wife and daughters if he did not confess to terrorist offences.

He is still in jail today, based on evidence gathered by means of torture. Tunisia continues to demand the return of its remaining nationals in Guantanamo.

Unsurprisingly, none of them want to go, and their only hope of safe release lies in finding another country to offer them asylum.

Diplomatic impasse

That is easier said than done. The Obama administration has been exerting diplomatic pressure on countries that might offer such prisoners a home.

But it has failed to secure an agreement even with countries which have proven links with the prisoners, let alone those with which they do not.

The result has been that smaller and more obscure countries are being considered. Even tiny Palau is a contender to take former detainees, allegedly in return for a multi-million dollar aid package.

Obama’s efforts to persuade countries to offer a home to Guantanamo asylum-seekers have partly been hobbled by the political climate in the US, where congressmen have balked at the suggestion of bringing prisoners to their shores.

For many countries, the idea of taking Guantanamo prisoners while the US refuses to do the same is unacceptable. In an article written earlier this month, Gilles de Kerchove, the EU’s counter-terrorism coordinator, summed up Europe’s position.

If European countries are to take prisoners, he wrote, “we in the EU expect the US to do likewise; if it is safe to release these people in Europe, it is safe to do so in the US”.

From the perspective of many potential host countries, the resettlement issue has become a case of “do as I say, not as I do”, with Washington asking other countries to do what it itself finds politically impossible.

Forced repatriation?

Domestic opposition in the US has meant detainees cannot be sent there [EPA]

Lawyers for the remaining prisoners warn that as time runs out, Obama may attempt to return them to countries where they will not be safe.

Cori Crider, an attorney from the UK-based legal charity Reprieve, which represents more than 30 detainees, says that the new administration’s intentions are far from clear.

“Closing Gitmo (sic) shouldn’t mean sending prisoners from the frying pan into the fire,” she said.

“But as the osmotic pressure increases on the US to move people out of Guantanamo, the risk of quick and dirty solutions in places like Algeria or Tunisia is greater than ever.”

And resettlement is not the only diplomatic barrier facing Obama. Hammering out conditions for what should be straightforward repatriations is also taking time.

Ninety-four of the remaining prisoners are Yemeni, and brokering a deal on their fate is essential.

Return to Yemen is one option. But the country has been identified by US security agencies as a potential new theatre of operations for al-Qaeda, and Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president, is facing a gathering secessionist movement in the south.

The US want any men returned from Guantanamo to be monitored by Yemeni authorities, but Saleh has not yet demonstrated the will to do so.

Many of the Yemenis in Guantanamo have shared Saudi heritage and reaching a deal on their fate with Riyadh could be key to the prison’s timely closure. So far none has been forthcoming. They, too, are waiting in limbo before they can go home.

Hopes fading

In the midst of the political and diplomatic wrangling over Guantanamo’s closure, it is easy to forget that at the centre of this story are 229 human beings. Crider says many of the prisoners are losing faith in Obama’s promises.

“Many of them thought the new administration might finally be the light at the end of their tunnel, but most of them have started to lose hope again,” she says.

Just last month one of the Yemeni prisoners, Mohammad al-Hanashi, could take no more and committed suicide.

It was a stark reminder that every day Guantanamo Bay remains open increases the human cost of a system built on an inherent contradiction – that even if you are found innocent, you are still treated as if you were guilty.

This contradiction lies at the heart of the lack of progress being made on closing the prison. It must be resolved if Obama’s January deadline is to be met.

Andrew Wander is a Reprieve Media Fellow working on Al Jazeera’s Public Liberties and Human Rights Desk.

Reprieve is a legal charity based in London that represents more than 30 prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and investigates US secret prisons worldwide.

Cash-strapped jails begin charging inmates for snacks – even room and board

Shades of Charles Dickens, critics say the controversial measures create debtors prisons

By Richard Luscombe | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

Fort Lauderdale, Fla. – A basic tenet of criminal justice holds that an offender should pay for his crimes.

So in these recessionary times, inmates are finding their pocketbooks lighter than ever as a growing number of jails and sheriffs departments exploit that principle to counter rising costs and budget cutbacks.

In Florida, for example, which has the nation’s third-largest prison system, authorities have found a new way to make sure an inmate pays his debt to society – increasing the price of chocolate buns, among a host of other items from its jail canteens, by 244 per cent.

All profits made from the snack shops – about $30 million in 2008 – are ploughed straight into the general fund of a state grappling with a $6 billion budget deficit.

“We have sympathy but it’s tough on everyone,” says Gretl Plessinger, spokesperson for the Florida Department of Corrections. “Prices are going up everywhere.”

Elsewhere, charging inmates for their bed and board seems to be the way to go.

Missouri’s Taney County has just spent $27 million on a new state-of-the-art jail with facilities that might rival anything found locally through an online hotel search.

The nightly tariff is a competitive $45, full board, and although the room service might lack a few of the luxuries of the outside world, county leaders are determined that their ‘guests’ pay their own way.

“It doesn’t make sense that our citizens should have to pay for the irresponsible behavior of others in these tough economic times,” says Jeffrey Merrell, the prosecuting attorney for Taney County, which began billing inmates seven weeks ago.

“It just makes good common sense to require those serving time in the jail to pay for the time and services spent,” he says. “Although we may not be able to recoup every dollar spent to house all of our inmates, every dollar that can be collected provides some bit of relief for the taxpayers.”

Not surprisingly, inmates and their families are not happy at having to dig deeper in their pockets to bail out states and counties that no longer have the funds to maintain jail services at pre-recession levels.

The Florida Department of Corrections has received more than a hundred letters and emails from inmates’ families complaining about the price hikes.

“It’s like we’re a private ATM for the corrections department and they know there’s nothing we can do about it,” says the wife of one inmate serving a life sentence at Florida’s Martin County Correctional Institute.

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous because she feared repercussions for her husband, said she can’t afford to send him more than $40 a week. But that, she claims, is quickly swallowed up by the new higher rates on essential items such as sunscreen for when he works outside tending the prison grounds.

“It’s crazy. It doesn’t leave them enough money to be able to afford to eat properly,” she says. “What they’ve done is sly. They reduced portion size at mealtimes to save money, leaving the men hungry, then made it sound like they were doing them a favor by increasing the amount they could spend in the canteen from $50 to $75 a week. Then they turn around and jack up all the prices. They make them pay 99 cents for a packet of Ramen noodles. You can get 10 of those for that price in the supermarket.”

Other price hikes in Florida’s 137 detention facilities, which came into effect in late March and which Ms. Plessinger blames on a change of supplier, include a 150 per cent rise in the cost of Hersheys chocolate and Snickers bars to 89c, a jump from 61 cents to $1.49 for a Mrs Freshley’s chocolate iced Honeybun and a 275 per cent increase in a small bag of Doritos chips to $1.29.

Florida calculates it can improve its bottom line without resorting to directly billing inmates. But that concept, while not new, is quickly gaining popularity around the country as the recession continues to bite.

This week, legislators in New Jersey joined their counterparts in Pennsylvania in proposing the introduction of daily fees of about $10 to $15 to offset the estimated annual $38,700 cost of an individual’s incarceration.

Georgia lawmakers have discussed a $40-a-day fee for inmates deemed able to afford it, and one of the nation’s highest prisoner tariffs, $60-a-night, was recently approved in Springfield, Oregon.

Others are taking a piecemeal approach to raising money from detainees, rather than a pay-per-stay. Some examples: in Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s prisoners pay $1.25 a day for their meals; weekend-only inmates pay a fee in Virginia’s Hanover and Caroline Counties, contributing $29,000 a year to the running costs of Pamunkey jail; and in Ware County, Georgia, fees are deducted from inmates’ accounts for medical and dental expenses, as long as they have at least $10 to their name.

Major Roger Paxton, head of corrections in Ohio’s Richland County, asked commissioners to consider a $30 booking fee and medical and other charges to help Sheriff Steve Sheldon close a $500,000 budget gap.

“We had to lay off 14 employees,” he says. “We have to look at all potential sources of revenue to offset the costs we pay and to be able to do the job we’re supposed to do.”

Not every cash-strapped county sees prisoners as cash cows, however. Deputy Tom Erickson, the sheriff’s spokesman in Johnson County, Kansas, says authorities there rejected the idea.

“We looked at a pay-to-stay charge but there were a couple of issues,” he says.

“Firstly, the return on the investment is very low, we figured it would come close to 20 per cent. You’d have to hire a full-time person to administer it, and pay their salary and benefits, and come out losing money or just breaking even.

“Then if somebody doesn’t pay, what do you do? Do you issue a warrant for them, have them arrested again, put them back in jail? You’ve created a debtors’ prison, and that’s neither wanted nor needed. For us, it wasn’t the right thing to do.”

Civil liberties groups have begun raising questions about the legality of charging inmates for room and board.

In 2006, a Georgia county had to repay money to some inmates who had been made to pay for the time they had been incarcerated before their conviction.

Critics say the idea of expecting prisoners to pay is absurd.

“They’re typically poor people anyway from poor families, and when you take $45 a day from them that’s money that doesn’t go for groceries or rent,” says Sean O’Brien, formerly Chief Public Defender in Kansas City, Missouri, and now an associate professor of law at University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School.

“In abstract, it sounds good, user fees for prisons, but it’s a ridiculous notion. Really it’s a poor person’s tax. Some counties are lukewarm to it and others have rejected it because they know they’re never going to get it. You can’t get blood from a turnip.”

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Eric McDavid Update: Lockdowns, Move and New Address

infoshop

Last month marked the 3rd year that Eric has spent behind bars. His arrest and imprisonment were a direct result of government infiltration and entrapment – Eric has spent the last three years of his life in a cage for what amounts to thought crime. Those years have been full of challenges and struggle, but Eric has met all of them with the utmost courage and integrity.

Most recently, Eric has been enduring lockdowns at the prison, the loss of phone and internet access, and a move. On December 23, a “riot” broke out at Victorville, sending 6 inmates to the hospital and forcing 17 to be treated at the prison for injuries ranging from stab wounds to blunt trauma. We waited for two weeks to hear from Eric – not knowing whether or not he was ok. On January 5 he was finally able to call and let us know he was ok. Victorville remains on lockdown, but they were easing up on restrictions and he was able to receive visitors two weeks ago (although that has changed yet again…).

During the lockdown it became difficult for Eric to get vegan food. Normally this is not a problem for him – chowhall has plenty of vegan options, and he can supplement this with items from the commissary to round out his diet. But during the lockdown, prisoners only had access to the food brought to them in their cells. This greatly limited Eric’s diet. Fortunately, after trying various avenues for redress, the food situation improved and Eric is now (last we heard) receiving enough food.

However, as part of the attempt to get vegan food, an “illegal” (according to the prison) phone call was made. As punishment for trying to get himself food, Eric’s phone and email access was turned off for 60 days. Other than letters and face to face visits, which are difficult and costly for friends and family (and as a result, they don’t happen very often), phones and email are Eric’s main lifeline outside the prison.

Unfortunately, this is not the only thing… Over the weekend, an incident at one of the facilities at Victorville (it is unclear which facility) caused both the Medium I and the Medium II facilities to go on lockdown, which means visitation has been canceled until further notice. After discovering this, we checked to make sure that Eric was still at the Medium II facility and found that he has, in fact, been moved to the Medium I at Victorville. This is difficult news for a variety of reasons.

We are left wondering why Eric was moved in the first place, but also it means that Eric’s life has been uprooted and scrambled once again. It is doubtful that he got to take much – if anything – from his previous cell with him. It’s possible he lost letters, addresses, pictures, etc. Eric now has to start all over in a new environment, which can be extremely complicated and stressful when that environment is a federal prison.

We will keep you updated on this situation as we find out more.

The appeals process has been delayed multiple times. Eric’s opening brief is now due March 5. He has multiple strong arguments on appeal, and we look forward to getting the process moving. If all goes well, everything could be filed for review by the appeals court sometime this summer.

Thank you all for your continued support. Eric has been receiving your letters and they have definitely helped him through these winter months – especially during these lockdowns when he has not been able to have contact with his loved ones.

Please remember that Eric has been moved – which means he has a new address:

Eric McDavid 16209-097
FCI Victorville Medium I
Federal Correctional Institution
PO Box 5300
Adelanto, CA 92301

We’ll keep you updated as things moved forward with the appeals.

Yours,
SPS

American activists take up case of Iraq war resister Robin Long

By Travis Lupick

straight.com

Two American antiwar groups have taken up the case of Robin Long, a conscientious objector to the war in Iraq who deserted from the U.S. army and fled to British Columbia in 2005.

On Tuesday (January 13), two dozen members of Military Families Speak and Veterans for Peace gathered outside Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and protested Long’s imprisonment, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Straight previously reported that Long was deported from Nelson, B.C., on July 15, 2008, and subsequently sentenced to 15 months in prison on August 23.

The LA Times story notes that the Canadian House of Commons passed a nonbinding motion calling on the government of Canada to allow conscientious objectors to remain in Canada. It goes on to state that Canada’s Conservative government has ignored that motion.

The activists fighting for Long in the U.S. argue that the former army private’s imprisonment is cruel and unusual punishment, the LA Times reports, because it is preventing Long from returning to his sick girlfriend and their two-year-old son, who remain in B.C.

2009 Political Prisoners Calendar

Order the 2009 Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar
online at www.certaindays.org

During the holiday season, many of us are looking for gifts that will
delight our loved ones, and also demonstrate our continued commitment
to social justice work.

The 2009 Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar is
exactly that – with 42 gorgeous full-colour pages of art and writings,
it will provide enjoyment throughout the year. And your purchase is an
important contribution to your community.

Get inspired by the work of grassroots organizers across Canada and
the United States! The calendar features DRUM (Desis Rising Up and
Moving), Philly’s Pissed, Incite!, Sumoud, Alvaro Luna Hernandez,
Inside Books Project, Laura Whitehorn, Robert Seth Hayes, David
Gilbert, Herman Bell, Peter Collins, The Cuban Five, Victory Gardens,
Common Ground, Native Youth Movement and more!

This year, we have reduced our price to make the calendar even easier
for you to give to your friends and family. For only $12, you can make
this meaningful and lasting gift. You can also purchase copies of 10
or more for $8 – a great fundraiser for groups.

PLEASE NOTE: The calendar collective is a small group, and mail takes
longer than usual during the holiday season. Be sure to order by
November 30 to avoid disappointment!

We may also be able to send rush orders of any size via expedited mail
for an additional fee – email info@certaindays.org.

–
Certain Days – Freedom for Political Prisoners & Prisoners of War Calendar
www.certaindays.org