We’d like to share a letter sent out by Dorsey Nunn, the Executive Director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children Thank you Dorsey for all you do!
—
On July 1, over 200 prisoners in Pelican Bay SHU (secured housing unit) began a hunger strike to protest the torture they experience and to win their human rights. At least 6,600 prisoners across California joined the hunger strike in support of their demands.

LSPC has received letters from prisoners in the Pelican Bay SHU for many years, recounting the horrors that go on there. Particularly terrible is long term sensory deprivation and isolation, lasting in many cases for decades. Behind this inhumane treatment is the prison’s policy of requiring prisoners to “debrief” (inform on other prisoners) in order to be released from the SHU. An unwritten policy is in place to stop any lifer in the SHU from ever being paroled. Men imprisoned in the SHU exist for decades in metal and concrete cages, under fluorescent light 24 hours a day, deprived of human touch except for a guard locking them in handcuffs and shackles.

Facing this slow death penalty, an exceptional show of racial has unity emerged. SHU prisoners issued five core demands:

- End Group Punishment & Administrative Abuse
- Abolish the Debriefing Policy, and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria
- Comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006
Recommendations Regarding an End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement
- Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food
- Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status
Inmates.

The SHU prisoners reached out to us and other prisoner rights organizations, seeking our support for their demands and hunger strike.

Legal Services for Prisoners with Children has wholeheartedly devoted itself to building support for the prisoners’ demands. I am a member of the mediation team that is working to negotiate the hunger strikers’ demands with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Today the prisoners resumed eating. They didn’t want people to die and they know implementation of their demands will take time. By ending the strike now, in this way, they believe they are better positioned to win their demands. The strike was successful because it shined a big light on CDCR’s torture and barbaric practices and mobilized many of us. The prisoners are grateful for our support, and know this is just the beginning. Continuing public pressure and possibly a class action lawsuit are needed to stop the torture.

I ask that you help us win the prisoners’ basic human rights. CDCR responded to the prisoners’ demands with a good faith promise to seriously consider substantive policy change. It is up to us to make CDCR deliver. We cannot stand silent while our state prison system tortures people. Please join us in these actions to win the prisoners’ demands:

- Sign up for regular action updates and sign the on-line petition at the Prisoner Hunger
Strike Solidarity website.
- Call Jerry Brown’s office daily: 916.445.2841. If you know the Governor or his associates,
urge Jerry Brown to grant the prisoners’ demands.
- Call CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate: 916.323.6001. Urge him to grant the prisoners’
demands.
- Call your elected officials. Urge them to support legislative hearings at Pelican Bay State
Prison, to hear the testimony of the men imprisoned in the SHU.
- Religious leaders are forming a religious delegation to talk directly to the Governor. Urge
any religious leaders you may know to support this delegation and call me to get
involved.
- If you know legal representation with the capacity to engage in a class action lawsuit,
please call me.

For more information about the hunger strike please access the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity website.

Please spread this message widely.

In pursuit of justice,
Dorsey E. Nunn
415.255.7036 x312

July 25th, 2011
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: tgijustice

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