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Speaking to UN Meeting on Palestine, Cynthia McKinney calls for public debate on pro-Israel lobby
April 29, 2013
Pro-Israel forces inside the U.S. are willing to use their money to buy political influence and protection for Israel across the political spectrum. I do believe that much of the suffering could be alleviated if we would put sufficient energy and resources behind putting out in public view how the pro-Israel lobby misdirects U.S. and European policies and prevents pro-peace and justice politicians from ever having the opportunity to put those values, along with our basic human dignity, permanently on the table for public debate. – Cynthia McKinney
Supreme Court rules cops can be filmed
December 18, 2012
The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to let stand a lesser ruling that allows citizens in the state of Illinois to record police officers performing their official duties. Up until just last year, anti-eavesdropping legislation on the books across Illinois meant any person within the state could be imprisoned for as long as 15 years for recording a police officer without expressed consent.
Will AB 2530 unshackle childbirth in California?
September 14, 2012
A bill opposing the shackling of pregnant prisoners, AB 2530, passed unanimously by the California State Legislature, is now on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk, with 30 days to either approve or veto it. Last year, a previous version of this bill was also passed unanimously by the legislature, but it was ultimately vetoed by Gov. Brown. AB 2530 supporters have created two webpages for the public to contact the governor.
A day in the life of an imprisoned revolutionary
May 8, 2012
“The purpose of the … control unit is to control revolutionary attitudes in the prison system and in the society at large,” said former Marion Supermax Prison Warden Ralph Aron. What is shocking to many is how can some not only resist such systematic psychological torture, but actually improve themselves under such conditions of extreme duress.
Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement presents counter-proposal opposing CDCR ‘Security Threat Group Strategy’
March 29, 2012
Top CDCR administrators admitted several times during our negotiations that the five core demands made by 12,000 hunger striking prisoners were reasonable and would all be addressed via meaningful, substantive changes. Our rejection of CDCR’s March 1 proposal is based upon its failure to act in good faith. CDCR is asking lawmakers and taxpayers to allow it to continue to violate thousands of prisoners’ human rights, torturing us with impunity. Our counter-proposal will bring this illegal torture to an end.
Supermax prisons: 21st century asylums
August 20, 2011
Everybody out Tuesday, Aug. 23, for the rally at 11:30 a.m. on the South Steps of the State Assembly Building, Sacramento, then for Assemblyman Tom Ammiano’s hearing on the Pelican Bay SHU at 1:30 p.m. Car pools leave from West Oakland BART at 9:30 a.m. Join the Day of Action to support the historic prisoner-led hunger strike protesting torture in California’s prisons. Support the families of hunger strikers testifying on conditions in the SHU and amplify the voices of thousands of prisoners across California. The hunger strike exposed for three weeks the carefully planned and executed barbarism of life in supermax America.
California SHU prisoners begin hunger strike July 1
June 30, 2011
Prisoners in the Security Housing Units, SHUs, at Pelican Bay and Corcoran state prisons in California are beginning an indefinite hunger strike on July 1, 2011, to protest the cruel and inhumane conditions of their imprisonment in what is being called “an unusual show of racial unity.” Breaking news: Prisoners at Centinela have joined the hunger strike. A prisoner there reports: “Only a few inmates are walking the yard. No Blacks or Hispanics have left their cells. No one has gone to work. He said all the races are united in this fight.”
Break the siege on Gaza NOW!
June 6, 2011
Freedom Flotilla II – Stay Human will be leaving from unspecified ports in the Mediterranean in late June to break the siege on Gaza carrying about a thousand journalists, teachers, students, attorneys, human rights activists, members of parliament and others from 22 countries.
Black, Muslim, activist prisoners in experimental communications management units
April 4, 2011
The United States puts more people behind bars than any other country in the world. Attend a panel discussion on the Center for Constitutional Rights’ lawsuit against two CMUs – prisons with extreme isolation – on Tuesday, April 5, 6:30 p.m., at the Women’s Building, Audre Lorde Room, 3543 18th St. #8, San Francisco.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget cuts devastate the disabled, poor, sick and elderly
April 3, 2011
Oakland voters who thought they would be spared catastrophic budget cuts by voting for the Democrats and Oakland’s Jerry Brown feel abandoned and double-crossed by the latest round of budget cuts supported by Democrats.
Power to the people: A welcome prison victory in Ohio
January 23, 2011
Although on a very small scale (which by no means diminishes the deed), we, the people, have wrought a revolution – “a sudden and momentous change in a situation” – and accomplished in 12 days what the powers that be have repeatedly told us would never happen.
The POCC’s ‘You Can Kill a Revolutionary … But You Can’t Kill the Revolution Tour’ update
August 29, 2009
On July 23 the Prisoners of Conscience Committee (POCC) kicked off the “You Can Kill a Revolutionary … But You Can’t Kill the Revolution Tour” in Oakland, California, the birthplace of the Black Panther Party.
Thousands of California elders losing long-term care
August 14, 2009
Renowned bassist Ortiz Walton was once the youngest person and first African American to play in the Boston Symphony. But at 75, not only can’t Walton play his bass, but he cannot bathe, dress, eat or move in his wheelchair without the help of his wife, Carol, and assistance from state-subsidized services designed to keep him in their Berkeley, Calif., home and out of a nursing institution.
Chained in childbirth: Gov. Paterson urged to sign bill that protects pregnant prisoners
July 29, 2009
Childbirth is a painful and difficult experience for most women, but Toya Murray says for her, it was torture. Like many other incarcerated women across New York state, she was shackled immediately before and after giving birth. “When it was due for me to have my baby, they shackled my hands and feet when I went into labor to go to the hospital,” Murray said.