Tag: Mutope Duguma

Our struggle is one of resistance against that which has been forced upon us. The whole system conspired against New Afrikans, subjecting many of us to outright torture at the hands of those overseeing the prison industrial complex.

We were placed on Hell-Row for “concentrated torture.” Yes, we were placed in ice cold cells and given nothing. The cold blowers were deliberately turned on to intensify our suffering in Ad-Seg in order to try and get us to eat. Each and every one of us refused to eat.

We all were willing to die in a hunger strike to get attention and changes to a flawed validation policy, where prisoners are kept in solitary confinement indefinitely by fabricated tales by prison informants and officers. So we are truly committed to seeing this out and sacrificing ourselves.

The fact that men are willing to starve themselves to death ought to speak volumes to these primitive practices that require a man to be some sort of snitch in order to have any chance at all. This says a lot about the judgment society passes on the lives of those it imprisons.

We prisoners held in Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit seek support from all hip hop celebrities, fans and supporters to assist us in shutting down all solitary confinement units that hold New Afrikan prisoners and other races in solitary confinement indefinitely.

Today, prisoners at Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit (SHU) and Calipatria’s Administrative Segregation Unit (Ad-Seg or ASU) resume their hunger strike. Referring to the first round of the hunger strike, Mutope Duguma (s/n James Crawford), a strike representative in Pelican Bay’s SHU, writes, “This is far from over and once again, hopefully for the last time, we will be risking our lives via a peaceful hunger strike on Sept. 26, 2011, to force positive changes. We continue to struggle to be treated like decent human beings.”

We had our last and final meeting with Undersecretary Scott Kernan on Aug. 18, 2011. Sitawa and the rest of the negotiators were very disappointed with the outcome because the undersecretary’s horns came out for real!

In a letter to the Bay View, SHU prisoner Mutope Duguma (s/n James D. Crawford), who wrote “The Call,” published in the Bay View online and in print in June, sheds light on the background leading to the hunger strike at Pelican Bay State Penitentiary that is set to begin July 1.