The People's Record

An ongoing chronicle of communities of resistance around the world: anti-racism, anti-zionism, anti-imperialism, the Arab Spring, anti-austerity protests in Greece and across Europe, student movements all around the world, the Occupy Movement, anti-capitalist movements, anarchist movements, socialist movements, leftist communities and other relevant international news.

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Prison Labor Exposed: From Starbucks to Microsoft - A sampling of what US prisoners make & for whomMay 21, 2013 Tens of thousands of US inmates are paid from pennies to minimum wage—minus fines and victim compensation—for everything from grunt work to firefighting to specialized labor. The breaded chicken patty your child bites into at school may have been made by a worker earning twenty cents an hour, not in a faraway country, but by a member of an invisible American workforce: prisoners. At the UnionCorrectional Facility, a maximum security prison in Florida, inmates from a nearby lower-security prison manufacture tons of processed beef, chicken and pork for Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises (PRIDE), a privately held non-profit corporation that operates the state’s forty-one work programs. In addition to processed food, PRIDE’s website reveals an array of products for sale through contracts with private companies, from eyeglasses to office furniture, to be shipped from a distribution center in Florida to businesses across the US. PRIDE boasts that its work programs are “designed to provide vocational training, to improve prison security, to reduce the cost of state government, and to promote the rehabilitation of the state inmates.” And Each month, California inmates process more than 680,000 pounds of beef, 400,000 pounds of chicken products, 450,000 gallons of milk, 280,000 loaves of bread, and 2.9 million eggs (from 160,000 inmate-raised hens).Starbucks subcontractor Signature Packaging Solutions has hired Washington prisoners to package holiday coffees (as well as Nintendo Game Boys). Confronted by a reporter in 2001, a Starbucks rep called the setup “entirely consistent with our mission statement.” Texas inmates produce brooms and brushes, bedding and mattresses, toilets, sinks, showers, and bullwhips. In Texas, prisoners make officers’ duty belts, handcuff cases, and prison-cell accessories. California convicts make gun containers, creepers (to peek under vehicles), and human-silhouette targets. A stitch in time: California inmates sew their own garb. In the 1990s, subcontractor Third Generation hired 35 female South Carolina inmates to sew lingerie and leisure wear for Victoria’s Secret and JCPenney. In 1997, a California prison put two men in solitary for telling journalists they were ordered to replace “Made in Honduras” labels on garments with “Made in the usa.” Open wide: At California’s prison dental laboratory, inmates produce a complete prosthesis selection, including custom trays, try-ins, bite blocks, and dentures. Constructive criticism: Prisoners in for burglary, battery, drug and gun charges, and escape helped build a Wal-Mart distribution center in Wisconsin in 2005, until community uproar halted the program. (Company policy says, “Forced or prison labor will not be tolerated by Wal-Mart.”) On call: Its inmate call centers are the “best kept secret in outsourcing,” Unicor boasts. In 1994, a contractor for gop congressional hopeful Jack Metcalf hired Washington state prisoners to call and remind voters he was pro-death penalty. Metcalf, who prevailed, said he never knew. Federal Prison Industries, a.k.a. Unicor, says that in addition to soldiers’ uniforms, bedding, shoes, helmets, and flak vests, inmates have “produced missile cables (including those used on the Patriot missiles during the Gulf War)” and “wiring harnesses for jets and tanks.” In 1997, according to Prison Legal News, Boeing subcontractor MicroJet had prisoners cutting airplane components, paying $7 an hour for work that paid union wages of $30 on the outside. Full article

Prison Labor Exposed: From Starbucks to Microsoft - A sampling of what US prisoners make & for whom
May 21, 2013

Tens of thousands of US inmates are paid from pennies to minimum wage—minus fines and victim compensation—for everything from grunt work to firefighting to specialized labor.

The breaded chicken patty your child bites into at school may have been made by a worker earning twenty cents an hour, not in a faraway country, but by a member of an invisible American workforce: prisoners. At the UnionCorrectional Facility, a maximum security prison in Florida, inmates from a nearby lower-security prison manufacture tons of processed beef, chicken and pork for Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises (PRIDE), a privately held non-profit corporation that operates the state’s forty-one work programs. In addition to processed food, PRIDE’s website reveals an array of products for sale through contracts with private companies, from eyeglasses to office furniture, to be shipped from a distribution center in Florida to businesses across the US. PRIDE boasts that its work programs are “designed to provide vocational training, to improve prison security, to reduce the cost of state government, and to promote the rehabilitation of the state inmates.”

And Each month, California inmates process more than 680,000 pounds of beef, 400,000 pounds of chicken products, 450,000 gallons of milk, 280,000 loaves of bread, and 2.9 million eggs (from 160,000 inmate-raised hens).Starbucks subcontractor Signature Packaging Solutions has hired Washington prisoners to package holiday coffees (as well as Nintendo Game Boys). Confronted by a reporter in 2001, a Starbucks rep called the setup “entirely consistent with our mission statement.”

Texas inmates produce brooms and brushes, bedding and mattresses, toilets, sinks, showers, and bullwhips.

In Texas, prisoners make officers’ duty belts, handcuff cases, and prison-cell accessories. California convicts make gun containers, creepers (to peek under vehicles), and human-silhouette targets.

A stitch in time: California inmates sew their own garb. In the 1990s, subcontractor Third Generation hired 35 female South Carolina inmates to sew lingerie and leisure wear for Victoria’s Secret and JCPenney. In 1997, a California prison put two men in solitary for telling journalists they were ordered to replace “Made in Honduras” labels on garments with “Made in the usa.”

Open wide: At California’s prison dental laboratory, inmates produce a complete prosthesis selection, including custom trays, try-ins, bite blocks, and dentures.

Constructive criticism: Prisoners in for burglary, battery, drug and gun charges, and escape helped build a Wal-Mart distribution center in Wisconsin in 2005, until community uproar halted the program. (Company policy says, “Forced or prison labor will not be tolerated by Wal-Mart.”)

On call: Its inmate call centers are the “best kept secret in outsourcing,” Unicor boasts. In 1994, a contractor for gop congressional hopeful Jack Metcalf hired Washington state prisoners to call and remind voters he was pro-death penalty. Metcalf, who prevailed, said he never knew.

Federal Prison Industries, a.k.a. Unicor, says that in addition to soldiers’ uniforms, bedding, shoes, helmets, and flak vests, inmates have “produced missile cables (including those used on the Patriot missiles during the Gulf War)” and “wiring harnesses for jets and tanks.” In 1997, according to Prison Legal News, Boeing subcontractor MicroJet had prisoners cutting airplane components, paying $7 an hour for work that paid union wages of $30 on the outside.

Full article

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California prisons punish inmates by racial bloc, not offenseApril 13, 2013 Are California prisons determining inmates’ punishments based solely on their race? Though it’s not said to be official policy, a new report shows that at least five state prisons maintain a color code system to racially segregate their populations. According to a number of documents, including a state response, collected by the ProPublica investigation, some California prison facilities separate and label prisoner blocks by ethnicity in order to “provide visual cues that allow prison officials to prevent race-based victimization, reduce race-based violence, and prevent thefts and assaults.” Though few would argue that maintaining a prison population as large as California’s is an easy task, organizations like the ACLU and the Prison Law Office are fighting the practice, arguing that besides being an uncomfortable reminder of the days of racial segregation, it is an ultimately ineffective way to maintain order. One document collected by ProPublica describes color signs placed above cell doors at men’s prisons across the state: blue for black inmates; white for white; red, green or pink for Latino; and yellow for everyone else. “Rather than targeting actual gang members, they assume every person is a gang member based on the color of their skin,” said Rebekah Evenson, an attorney with the Prison Law Office. According to an analysis conducted by Evenson’s group, nearly half of the 1,445 security lockdowns enacted between January 2010 and November 2012 impacted specific racial or ethnic groups. The report showed that Hispanics were the most habitual target, while inmates categorized as “other” were least likely to be restricted. Though correctional officials with the state of California deny racial targeting, some inmates have come forward with complaints, and in 2011 filed a class action lawsuit claiming racial discrimination. Robert Mitchell, an inmate at High Desert State Prison, testified that he had been swept up into recurring lockdowns because he is black, and had suffered muscular atrophy and pain as he was prevented from exercising a leg injury. Hanif Abdullah, another black inmate suing the state, says he was placed on “modified programming” multiple times, and was kept from attending religious services as well as receiving adequate health care. Modified programming refers to security situations requiring that inmates be prohibited from seeing visitors, visiting the prison yard, or even from attending classes and drug rehabilitation meetings. Though the state’s total prison population recently dropped, with nearly 200,000 inmates the system is still at 150 per cent of its maximum capacity. In 2005, the US Supreme Court ruled that racial classifications must be limited to a narrowly defined and compelling “state interest.” In its opinion brief, which pertained to racially segregating prisoners prior to entering a new correctional facility, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote, “When government officials are permitted to use race as a proxy for gang membership and violence … society as a whole suffers.” Currently, California is the only state in the country known to employ race-based lockdowns, according to the ACLU National Prison Project. Source

California prisons punish inmates by racial bloc, not offense
April 13, 2013

Are California prisons determining inmates’ punishments based solely on their race? Though it’s not said to be official policy, a new report shows that at least five state prisons maintain a color code system to racially segregate their populations.

According to a number of documents, including a state response, collected by the ProPublica investigation, some California prison facilities separate and label prisoner blocks by ethnicity in order to “provide visual cues that allow prison officials to prevent race-based victimization, reduce race-based violence, and prevent thefts and assaults.”

Though few would argue that maintaining a prison population as large as California’s is an easy task, organizations like the ACLU and the Prison Law Office are fighting the practice, arguing that besides being an uncomfortable reminder of the days of racial segregation, it is an ultimately ineffective way to maintain order.

One document collected by ProPublica describes color signs placed above cell doors at men’s prisons across the state: blue for black inmates; white for white; red, green or pink for Latino; and yellow for everyone else.

“Rather than targeting actual gang members, they assume every person is a gang member based on the color of their skin,” said Rebekah Evenson, an attorney with the Prison Law Office.

According to an analysis conducted by Evenson’s group, nearly half of the 1,445 security lockdowns enacted between January 2010 and November 2012 impacted specific racial or ethnic groups. The report showed that Hispanics were the most habitual target, while inmates categorized as “other” were least likely to be restricted.

Though correctional officials with the state of California deny racial targeting, some inmates have come forward with complaints, and in 2011 filed a class action lawsuit claiming racial discrimination.

Robert Mitchell, an inmate at High Desert State Prison, testified that he had been swept up into recurring lockdowns because he is black, and had suffered muscular atrophy and pain as he was prevented from exercising a leg injury.

Hanif Abdullah, another black inmate suing the state, says he was placed on “modified programming” multiple times, and was kept from attending religious services as well as receiving adequate health care. Modified programming refers to security situations requiring that inmates be prohibited from seeing visitors, visiting the prison yard, or even from attending classes and drug rehabilitation meetings.

Though the state’s total prison population recently dropped, with nearly 200,000 inmates the system is still at 150 per cent of its maximum capacity.

In 2005, the US Supreme Court ruled that racial classifications must be limited to a narrowly defined and compelling “state interest.” In its opinion brief, which pertained to racially segregating prisoners prior to entering a new correctional facility, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote, “When government officials are permitted to use race as a proxy for gang membership and violence … society as a whole suffers.”

Currently, California is the only state in the country known to employ race-based lockdowns, according to the ACLU National Prison Project.

Source

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Bureau of prisons agrees to solitary confinement reviewFebruary 5, 2013 Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., announced Monday that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has agreed to a full review of the use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. An independent auditor will carry out the review on the recommendations of a congressional hearing held last year by a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee chaired by Durbin. “The United States holds more prisoners in solitary confinement than any other democratic nation in the world, and the dramatic expansion of solitary confinement is a human rights issue we can’t ignore,” noted Durbin. As Reuters noted, prisoners in isolation often are confined to small cells without windows for up to 23 hours a day. “[M]ore than half of all suicides committed in prisons occur in solitary confinement,” noted Reuters, adding that in Durbin’s state of Illinois, 56 percent of inmates have spent some time in segregated housing. Solitary Watch, an online project aiming to highlight the widespread use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons, noted that in 2010, a spokesperson for the BOP said that federal prisons held approximately 11,150 prisoners in some form of segregated “special housing.” “This figure includes the 400 men held in ultra-isolation at the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum (ADX) in Florence, Colo., which is currently the target of federal lawsuits claiming conditions there lead to mental illness and suicide, and violate the Constitution,” Solitary Watch noted Tuesday. Civil liberties and human rights groups welcomed the news of the review, hoping that it would lead to a significant curtailing of the isolating of prisoners. “We hope and expect that the review announced today will lead the Bureau to significantly curtail its use of this draconian, inhumane and expensive practice,” David Fathi, director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said in a statement. Source

Bureau of prisons agrees to solitary confinement review
February 5, 2013

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., announced Monday that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has agreed to a full review of the use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. An independent auditor will carry out the review on the recommendations of a congressional hearing held last year by a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee chaired by Durbin.

“The United States holds more prisoners in solitary confinement than any other democratic nation in the world, and the dramatic expansion of solitary confinement is a human rights issue we can’t ignore,” noted Durbin. As Reuters noted, prisoners in isolation often are confined to small cells without windows for up to 23 hours a day. “[M]ore than half of all suicides committed in prisons occur in solitary confinement,” noted Reuters, adding that in Durbin’s state of Illinois, 56 percent of inmates have spent some time in segregated housing.

Solitary Watch, an online project aiming to highlight the widespread use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons, noted that in 2010, a spokesperson for the BOP said that federal prisons held approximately 11,150 prisoners in some form of segregated “special housing.” “This figure includes the 400 men held in ultra-isolation at the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum (ADX) in Florence, Colo., which is currently the target of federal lawsuits claiming conditions there lead to mental illness and suicide, and violate the Constitution,” Solitary Watch noted Tuesday.

Civil liberties and human rights groups welcomed the news of the review, hoping that it would lead to a significant curtailing of the isolating of prisoners. “We hope and expect that the review announced today will lead the Bureau to significantly curtail its use of this draconian, inhumane and expensive practice,” David Fathi, director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said in a statement.

Source

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Trans prisoners fight abuse & unfair treatment behind barsNovember 12, 2012 “Imagine being told, ‘You have no right to be who you are,’ ” says Faith Phillips, remarking on her first days in prison. The transition was even harder for Phillips than it is for most prisoners: Phillips, a transgender (trans) woman, was held in a men’s prison. According to recent studies, 16-33 percent of trans people have spent time behind bars, compared with less than 4 percent of the general U.S. population. Another statistic provides a clue as to why: 26 percent of transgender people report being fired because of their gender identity. Forced into the underground economy, some enter prison for “survival crimes” such as sex work. Once inside, people who don’t conform to the gender regulations—both written and unwritten—face a form of punishment far harsher than their original sentences. Growing up in California’s San Bernardino County, Phillips was abused by her transphobic father and was one of the few people of color in her community. When she landed in central California’s Avenal State Prison at 21, she witnessed the same ill treatment of trans people she’d experienced as a child. So, in March 2008, when a queer prisoner was threatened with a transfer to a ward where he knew he’d be unsafe, she staged a protest, refusing to leave the prison yard when the correctional officers (COs) announced that it was time. “Might as well take me to the hole, because I’m not moving,” she remembers telling the COs. “Then the whole queer community said, ‘We’re going to the hole, too.’ ” Night fell. The temperature dropped. Prisoners who were inside managed to push blankets out to the protestors underneath a doorway. Eventually, the transfer of the at-risk prisoner was cancelled. Phillips and her fellow prison-yard occupiers also came up with a list of demands that included HIV and sex education, the return of appropriately gendered clothes that had been taken from them, an end to harassment by staff, and a lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex support group. The prison’s warden agreed to their demands (apart from the clothing) after a sympathetic captain pled their case. In retribution for her activism, Phillips says, she was put through a series of prison transfers, drugged and sent to solitary confinement. She claims prison administrators threatened, “If you ever think about doing this again, we’ll bury you.” But Phillips soon became an information collector for the San Francisco-based Transgender, Gender Variant, Intersex Justice Project(TGIJP), one of a handful of trans prisoner support organizations that documents abuses inside prisons. While marriage and military enlistment have monopolized the mainstream gay rights agenda, a trans/queer prisoner justice movement has been quietly gaining momentum. But the movement’s critique of the prison system often brings it into conflict with LGBT rights groups that advocate for hate-crime legislation or other strategies that rely on police to secure justice for queer people. Currently, only 12 states include gender identity or expression in their hate crime laws. When New York State was considering legislation that would have extended hate crimes statutes to transgender people, groups representing queer people of color, such as theAudre Lorde Project, opposed the bill on the grounds that it gave “a deeply flawed, transphobic, and racist criminal legal system” the discretion to impose longer sentences.” Wesley Ware, director of the New Orleans-based project BreakOUT!, which organizes queer youth around prison issues, says that his group is focused on changing the conversation from hate-crime legislation to how “the police are terrorizing black transgender women on the street, every single day.” This July, BreakOUT! helped to secure a landmark legal decree from the Department of Justice mandating trans-sensitive practices at the notoriously discriminatory New Orleans Police Department. If a federal judge approves the decree, the NOPD could not legally stop people based on sexual orientation or gender, would have to conduct same-gender searches according to the subject’s gender identity and would have to refer to trans people by their preferred names and gender pronouns. Queer-rights groups also successfully lobbied for California’s Gender Non-Discrimination Act (AB 887), which went into effect in January and includes provisions that may translate into more livable conditions for trans prisoners. Among other things, the act’s clause regarding “public accommodations” has meant that more trans people are now held at more transfriendly prisons. But problems remain. Two trans women went on a hunger strike in September to protest their unfair treatment in a San Diego prison. Though legislative reforms like AB 887 may bring material improvements, TGIJP remains focused on uniting queer prisoners and allies to support each other and challenge the prisonindustrial complex as a whole. Now out of prison, Phillips is pursuing a law degree and continues to organize with TGIJP in Los Angeles. She and other authors have put out the guidebook Surviving Prison in California: Advice by and for Transgender Women. Along with pointers on how to get HIV treatment, the authors stress that community power is one of the best ways to stay safe. “If [the police] can divide us into different groups … then we are unable, as a united community, to fight the real enemy… the corrupt system that defiles and oppresses us as human beings.” Source

Trans prisoners fight abuse & unfair treatment behind bars
November 12, 2012

“Imagine being told, ‘You have no right to be who you are,’ ” says Faith Phillips, remarking on her first days in prison. The transition was even harder for Phillips than it is for most prisoners: Phillips, a transgender (trans) woman, was held in a men’s prison.

According to recent studies, 16-33 percent of trans people have spent time behind bars, compared with less than 4 percent of the general U.S. population. Another statistic provides a clue as to why: 26 percent of transgender people report being fired because of their gender identity. Forced into the underground economy, some enter prison for “survival crimes” such as sex work. Once inside, people who don’t conform to the gender regulations—both written and unwritten—face a form of punishment far harsher than their original sentences.

Growing up in California’s San Bernardino County, Phillips was abused by her transphobic father and was one of the few people of color in her community. When she landed in central California’s Avenal State Prison at 21, she witnessed the same ill treatment of trans people she’d experienced as a child. So, in March 2008, when a queer prisoner was threatened with a transfer to a ward where he knew he’d be unsafe, she staged a protest, refusing to leave the prison yard when the correctional officers (COs) announced that it was time.

“Might as well take me to the hole, because I’m not moving,” she remembers telling the COs. “Then the whole queer community said, ‘We’re going to the hole, too.’ ” Night fell. The temperature dropped. Prisoners who were inside managed to push blankets out to the protestors underneath a doorway. Eventually, the transfer of the at-risk prisoner was cancelled.

Phillips and her fellow prison-yard occupiers also came up with a list of demands that included HIV and sex education, the return of appropriately gendered clothes that had been taken from them, an end to harassment by staff, and a lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex support group. The prison’s warden agreed to their demands (apart from the clothing) after a sympathetic captain pled their case.

In retribution for her activism, Phillips says, she was put through a series of prison transfers, drugged and sent to solitary confinement. She claims prison administrators threatened, “If you ever think about doing this again, we’ll bury you.” But Phillips soon became an information collector for the San Francisco-based Transgender, Gender Variant, Intersex Justice Project(TGIJP), one of a handful of trans prisoner support organizations that documents abuses inside prisons.

While marriage and military enlistment have monopolized the mainstream gay rights agenda, a trans/queer prisoner justice movement has been quietly gaining momentum. But the movement’s critique of the prison system often brings it into conflict with LGBT rights groups that advocate for hate-crime legislation or other strategies that rely on police to secure justice for queer people. Currently, only 12 states include gender identity or expression in their hate crime laws. When New York State was considering legislation that would have extended hate crimes statutes to transgender people, groups representing queer people of color, such as theAudre Lorde Project, opposed the bill on the grounds that it gave “a deeply flawed, transphobic, and racist criminal legal system” the discretion to impose longer sentences.”

Wesley Ware, director of the New Orleans-based project BreakOUT!, which organizes queer youth around prison issues, says that his group is focused on changing the conversation from hate-crime legislation to how “the police are terrorizing black transgender women on the street, every single day.” This July, BreakOUT! helped to secure a landmark legal decree from the Department of Justice mandating trans-sensitive practices at the notoriously discriminatory New Orleans Police Department. If a federal judge approves the decree, the NOPD could not legally stop people based on sexual orientation or gender, would have to conduct same-gender searches according to the subject’s gender identity and would have to refer to trans people by their preferred names and gender pronouns.

Queer-rights groups also successfully lobbied for California’s Gender Non-Discrimination Act (AB 887), which went into effect in January and includes provisions that may translate into more livable conditions for trans prisoners. Among other things, the act’s clause regarding “public accommodations” has meant that more trans people are now held at more transfriendly prisons. But problems remain. Two trans women went on a hunger strike in September to protest their unfair treatment in a San Diego prison.

Though legislative reforms like AB 887 may bring material improvements, TGIJP remains focused on uniting queer prisoners and allies to support each other and challenge the prisonindustrial complex as a whole. Now out of prison, Phillips is pursuing a law degree and continues to organize with TGIJP in Los Angeles. She and other authors have put out the guidebook Surviving Prison in California: Advice by and for Transgender Women. Along with pointers on how to get HIV treatment, the authors stress that community power is one of the best ways to stay safe. “If [the police] can divide us into different groups … then we are unable, as a united community, to fight the real enemy… the corrupt system that defiles and oppresses us as human beings.”

Source

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Kurdish protesters clash with police in TurkeyOctober 31, 2012 Turkish police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse thousands of Kurdish protesters, who organized a rally in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, demanding increased rights. Demonstrators threw firebombs and stones at the police which caused many local residents to barricade themselves in their homes, preventing their children from going to school. The rally began when thousands of angry Kurds marched to a prison in Diyarbakir in order to show their support for prisoners who went on hunger strike six weeks ago. They’re demanding the right to use the Kurdish language in Turkey’s education and legal systems, and an end to the solitary confinement of Abdullah Ocalan – the imprisoned leader of the Kurdish armed movement, the PKK. Ocalan was sentenced to death in 1999, though that was later commuted to life imprisonment following the abolition of the death penalty in Turkey in 2002. Most of the prisoners on strike are serving time for alleged links to the PKK, who are deemed terrorists by Turkey and its Western allies. Turkey’s government has tried to reconcile with members of the Kurdish minority, which makes up nearly 30 percent of the country’s population. However, activists who seek autonomy in the mostly Kurdish southeast say state concessions have not gone far enough. The PKK has waged an armed campaign in southeast Turkey for more than 25 years, fighting to create an ethnic homeland for the Kurdish people. Source

Kurdish protesters clash with police in Turkey
October 31, 2012

Turkish police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse thousands of Kurdish protesters, who organized a rally in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, demanding increased rights.

Demonstrators threw firebombs and stones at the police which caused many local residents to barricade themselves in their homes, preventing their children from going to school.

The rally began when thousands of angry Kurds marched to a prison in Diyarbakir in order to show their support for prisoners who went on hunger strike six weeks ago. They’re demanding the right to use the Kurdish language in Turkey’s education and legal systems, and an end to the solitary confinement of Abdullah Ocalan – the imprisoned leader of the Kurdish armed movement, the PKK.

Ocalan was sentenced to death in 1999, though that was later commuted to life imprisonment following the abolition of the death penalty in Turkey in 2002. Most of the prisoners on strike are serving time for alleged links to the PKK, who are deemed terrorists by Turkey and its Western allies.

Turkey’s government has tried to reconcile with members of the Kurdish minority, which makes up nearly 30 percent of the country’s population. However, activists who seek autonomy in the mostly Kurdish southeast say state concessions have not gone far enough.

The PKK has waged an armed campaign in southeast Turkey for more than 25 years, fighting to create an ethnic homeland for the Kurdish people.

Source

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Pentagon prisons revealed: Wikileaks publishes terror detainee manualsOctober 25, 2012 Whistleblowing website WikiLeaks is releasing over 100 classified documents detailing US Department of Defense procedures for running Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca and other infamous prisons where terror suspects are detained. The directives and manuals, which for more than a decade directed the US military’s policy for treatment of its detainees, will be released chronologically over the next month, WikiLeaks said in a statement. The first batch of the documents released is the 2002 Camp Delta – Guantanamo Bay prison – Standing Operating Procedure manuals. “This document is of significant historical importance. Guantanamo Bay has become the symbol for systematized human rights abuse in the West with good reason,” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said. Several of the documents slated for publishing “can only be described as ’policies of unaccountability,’” WikiLeaks said in its press release. One document such document that has been previewed but not yet published is the ’Policy on Assigning Detainee Internment Serial Numbers’. Wikileaks claims it is a manual on how to “disappear” sensitive prisoners “by systematically holding off from assigning a prisoner record numbers”. Another apparently contains the notorious instructions to “purge” interrogations tapes, which became notorious following the Abu Ghraib torture scandals in the mid 2000s. WikiLeaks called on NGOs, activists and the general public to thoroughly read the documents to gain a better understanding of the evolution of the Pentagon’s post-9/11 attitude towards prisoners. Source The importance of these files is monumental. They illustrate how the United States is the terrorist, unlawfully detaining prisoners, violating human rights & committing acts of torture. This is why Wikileaks is so important. Despite any outside conflicts the organization may currently have, it needs our support because no one else is providing this kind of in-depth information about policies the US government fights to keep secret. We’ll continue to post about Wikileaks’ Detainee Policies as they are released. 

Pentagon prisons revealed: Wikileaks publishes terror detainee manuals
October 25, 2012

Whistleblowing website WikiLeaks is releasing over 100 classified documents detailing US Department of Defense procedures for running Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca and other infamous prisons where terror suspects are detained.

The directives and manuals, which for more than a decade directed the US military’s policy for treatment of its detainees, will be released chronologically over the next month, WikiLeaks said in a statement.

The first batch of the documents released is the 2002 Camp Delta – Guantanamo Bay prison – Standing Operating Procedure manuals.

“This document is of significant historical importance. Guantanamo Bay has become the symbol for systematized human rights abuse in the West with good reason,” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said.

Several of the documents slated for publishing “can only be described as ’policies of unaccountability,’” WikiLeaks said in its press release.

One document such document that has been previewed but not yet published is the ’Policy on Assigning Detainee Internment Serial Numbers’. Wikileaks claims it is a manual on how to “disappear” sensitive prisoners “by systematically holding off from assigning a prisoner record numbers”.

Another apparently contains the notorious instructions to “purge” interrogations tapes, which became notorious following the Abu Ghraib torture scandals in the mid 2000s. WikiLeaks called on NGOs, activists and the general public to thoroughly read the documents to gain a better understanding of the evolution of the Pentagon’s post-9/11 attitude towards prisoners.

Source

The importance of these files is monumental. They illustrate how the United States is the terrorist, unlawfully detaining prisoners, violating human rights & committing acts of torture. This is why Wikileaks is so important. Despite any outside conflicts the organization may currently have, it needs our support because no one else is providing this kind of in-depth information about policies the US government fights to keep secret.

We’ll continue to post about Wikileaks’ Detainee Policies as they are released. 

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A Palestinian soccer player who staged a hunger strike over the course of four months has been released after three years in an Israeli prison without charge or trial. Mahmoud al-Sarsak was greeted by thousands of supporters on Tuesday as he returned home to the Gaza Strip. Last month, he agreed to end his hunger strike in return for hospital care and an early release. Sarsak was one of more than 1,600 Palestinian prisoners to take part in a coordinated hunger strike to protest Israel’s policy of administrative detention.

A Palestinian soccer player who staged a hunger strike over the course of four months has been released after three years in an Israeli prison without charge or trial. Mahmoud al-Sarsak was greeted by thousands of supporters on Tuesday as he returned home to the Gaza Strip. Last month, he agreed to end his hunger strike in return for hospital care and an early release. Sarsak was one of more than 1,600 Palestinian prisoners to take part in a coordinated hunger strike to protest Israel’s policy of administrative detention.

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Palestinian Prisoners End Hunger Strike With Deal Hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails ended a hunger strike on Monday that had lasted weeks, signing an agreement with the Israeli authorities that promises improved conditions, according to officials. The end of the strike averted fears of widespread unrest in the event of a prisoner’s death. The Israeli authorities said that among other provisions, the agreement calls for prisoners now in solitary confinement to be returned to ordinary sections of prisons and for family visits to resume for prisoners from Gaza, which is under the control of Hamas, the more radical of the major Palestinian factions. Full article

Palestinian Prisoners End Hunger Strike With Deal

Hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails ended a hunger strike on Monday that had lasted weeks, signing an agreement with the Israeli authorities that promises improved conditions, according to officials. The end of the strike averted fears of widespread unrest in the event of a prisoner’s death.

The Israeli authorities said that among other provisions, the agreement calls for prisoners now in solitary confinement to be returned to ordinary sections of prisons and for family visits to resume for prisoners from Gaza, which is under the control of Hamas, the more radical of the major Palestinian factions.

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A Palestinian protester jumps as he throws back a tear gas canister fired by Israeli soldiers during clashes at a demonstration held in solidarity with prisoners on hunger strike, outside Ofer prison near the West Bank city of Ramallah May 11, 2012. Hundreds of Palestinians on hunger strike in Israeli jails said on Friday they would shun vitamin supplements and prison clinics in an escalation of their mass protest against detention conditions. 

A Palestinian protester jumps as he throws back a tear gas canister fired by Israeli soldiers during clashes at a demonstration held in solidarity with prisoners on hunger strike, outside Ofer prison near the West Bank city of Ramallah May 11, 2012. Hundreds of Palestinians on hunger strike in Israeli jails said on Friday they would shun vitamin supplements and prison clinics in an escalation of their mass protest against detention conditions. 

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