Posted by JAMAL NEWS SERVICE on April 30, 1998 at 23:18:52:
In Reply to: YOUR PROTEST LETTERS AT WORK: SCI Greene Boss Out posted by JAMAL NEWS SERVICE on April 23, 1998 at 11:21:50:
Subject: Fwd: !*CALL TO ACTION: PHONE BLITZ Re: SCI Greene!!!
Please do what you can. The new superintendent of SCI Greene is Phillip Johnson.
Ona MOVE
Subject: !*CALL TO ACTION: PHONE BLITZ Re: SCI Greene!!!
FORWARDED MESSAGES - Although the word is that the hunger strike is over, it is critical that we all remain vocal on these issues - please let your voice be heard!!
From: shiriki unganisha shiriki@gvi.net
Subject: CALL TO ACTION: PHONE BLITZ!!!
Hotep Comrades:
Greetins', many of you may have received the "Phone Tree" proposal. Since we do not have contact persons in every region, we will schedule a phone/fax/letter blitz for this Wednesday(4-29-98)beginning at 9:00am(est). Those who participate, please forward me a brief statement of what you did(ie sent sample letter,phone or fax). Also,is the sample letter.
struggle, sista shiriki
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge 225 Main Capitol Bldg. Harrisburg, PA 17120
717-783-4429 Fax
717-787-2500 Tel
Martin F. Horn, Secretary Commissioner Pennsylvania Department of Corrections 2520 Lisburn Road P.O. Box 598 Camp Hill, PA 17001-0598
717-975-4859 Tel
717-977-0132 Fax
Acting Superintendent SCI Greene 1030 East Roy Furman Highway Waynesburg, PA 15370-8020
412-852-2902 Tel
412-852-2909 Fax
Re: Death Row Hunger Strikers
Gentlemen:
I am writing you again to express my solidarity with the hunger strikers on Pennsylvania's death row. Your state's policies are denying the most basic of human rights to the inmates on death row. The Constitution of the United States grants the right to one's personal papers and effects. Of all the people in the country, those on death row need all of their legal papers more than anyone else as they are trying to save their lives from the state's henchmen. I am appalled and outraged at the repressive policies that the Department of Corrections has implemented.
I join with hundreds of thousands of others in demanding that you reinstate all of the policies that were in effect before the disastrous March 5, 1998 change in policy: Return all of the prisoners papers and effects, return all of their clothing, permit the full time allotted for family visits and phone calls and all other provisions that the Pennsylvania DOC has taken away.
I am now and have been all of my adult life an activist for social justice. Let it be known that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections will remain the focus of my ire and I will maintain solidarity with the prisoners and support their hunger strike until the state rescinds these inhumane measures.
Towards justice
=============
Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 12:49:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tom Burghardt tburghardt@igc.org
*****
DEATH BY DESIGN: SILENCING THE VOICE OF INNOCENCE IN AMERICA
By J. Emmanuel
- Thursday, 9 April 1998 -
*
On March 5, 1998, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections launched a direct attack against death row prisoners at SCI Greene in Pennsylvania, initiating new directives which severely restrict the access of death row inmates to the legal books, law libraries and references which the men had formerly been permitted to keep in their cells. The new allocation space now permitted for storage of personal papers and documents consists of no more than two record storage boxes, approximately 12"x12"x14-inches in size. Any personal property that did not fit into the record boxes was to be shipped out (at the inmate's expense) or destroyed.
The reason stated by the DOC for this regulation change was to institute consistency in conditions for all capital cases throughout Pennsylvania. However, it is more apparent that the real purpose for the crackdown was a direct retaliatory measure, designed specifically to punish death row prisoners for having exercised their constitutional rights, and suing in court and winning. Furthermore, the forced removal, disposal and restriction of access to their law books and legal resources, has now effectively diminished the ability of the men on death row at SCI Greene, to exercise any constitutional rights they may have had, in order to fight in court for justice and a fair trial.
Essentially, in one fell sweep the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections has finally succeeded in single-handedly suppressing and silencing the voices of the men on SCI Greene's death row. Now any potentially innocent men who have been falsely accused of capital crimes, incarcerated and trapped on SCI Greene's infamous death row, no longer have unrestricted access to legal books, nor the means to exercise constitutional rights, their only recourse for justice now fully controlled and as dictated by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.
The lives of these men, and, indeed, their deaths, now lay almost exclusively in the hands of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, hostages without ransom in a corrupt and brutal system that relentlessly and ruthlessly seeks to deny them their rights and extinguish their lives.
As the systematic incarceration and execution of innocent American citizens trapped America's prisons continues, the institutionalized brutalization, persecution and routine extermination of men and women goes on virtually unchallenged in American society. And yet we ask why, when the children of America arm themselves with lethal force, and, with impunity, take the lives of yet more innocent American citizens in the schools and on the streets of America.
It is said children learn by example and by the values that a society instills around them. And as the perpetual wheels of state-sanctioned death and brutality continues to silence the voices of the innocent, and of martyrs, prisoners, and of justice, freedom and truth, America's children are learning indeed...
SVAPP is dedicated to trying to help stop the violence
against political prisoners in whatever way we are able, and
JFTA covers other areas of human rights work, anti-fascism,
media relations and information dissemination, exposing
corruption, brutality and racism.
*
AFIB EDITOR'S NOTE: Please continue to write, fax and e-mail
Commissioner Martin Horne and Gov. Ridge demanding a return
of the legal papers of these prisoners and the restoration
of their rights!