Chicago Forum on Torture in US Prisons, CA hunger strike

[don...@allmail.net]

All are invited to Thursday's Chicago Forum on Torture in US Prisons, California hunger strike

 

From people I've talked with, many still don't even know about the massive hunger strike that went on through the month of July in California prisons and the continuing struggle. I just think it's so important to break that isolation. To endorse this event, contact World Can't Wait. Also endorsed by Chicago Chapter of National Lawyers Guild

 

See coverage on hunger strike at revcom.us: English, Español and elsewhere on the web.

 

-Don B

 

Thursday, August 4 · 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Grace Place 637 S Dearborn Street Chicago, IL

 

Beginning on July 1, 2011, hundreds of prisoners in California’s Pelican

Bay SHU (“Security Housing Unit”) began a historic hunger strike to

demand an end to long-term solitary confinement, which constitutes

torture under international law, and other demands to end the cruel and

inhumane treatment they suffer under. The hunger strike rapidly spread

to over 6,500 prisoners in over one-third of California’s prisons,

making their heroic stand the most significant prisoner-led resistance

in the U.S. in decades. After going without food for 20 days, the

prisoners at Pelican Bay ended their hunger strike, with a call to

people on the outside to continue the struggle against torture in U.S.

prisons and to ensure their demands are met and that they are not

retaliated against for their peaceful political protest. As of Friday,

July 22, California prison administrators reported hundreds of prisoners

at California’s Corcoran SHU remained on hunger strike, and families

reported as of July 26 that prisoners at Corcoran continued to refuse

food. See http://prisonerhungerstrik​esolidarity.wordpress.com/ for the

prisoner’s demands and more details.

 

The use of long-term isolation pervades the U.S. prison system, with

tens of thousands of prisoners held in conditions that violate

international standards against torture. Join us for a discussion of the

courageous stand taken by thousands of prisoners across California and

the widespread, systematic use of long-term solitary confinement in U.S.

prisons - including in Illinois, the effects of torture on its survivors

and what people of conscience can do.

 

The courageous actions of the prisoners in California risking their

lives on hunger strike have dragged the hidden humanitarian crisis that

is the pervasive use of long-term isolation in U.S. prisons into the

light - anyone concerned about human rights must be part of this

discussion.

 

Panelists include:

 

Dr. Antonio Martinez, a psychologist with the Institute for

Survivors of Human Rights Abuses and co-founder of the Marjorie

Kovler Center for the Treatment of Survivors of Torture. Dr.

Martinez has lectured about the trauma and consequences of torture

and abuse throughout the world.

 

Alan Mills, Legal Director of the Uptown People's Law Center.

The People’s Law Center has has been engaged in litigation to

change conditions at Tamms, Illinois supermax prison, since the

day it opened.

 

Stephen F. Eisenman is Professor of Art History at Northwestern

University. He is the author of (among other books) Gauguin's Skirt

(1997) and The Abu Ghraib Effect (2007). He is also a prison reform

activist with Tamms Year Ten, and regularly publishes his criticisms

of the "penal state" in The Chicago Sun Times and Monthly Review.

Prof. Eisenman is currently completing a book entitled Meat Modernism

concerned with the image of animals in Western Art from the mid 18th

Century until today.

 

Moderated by Gregory Koger, social justice activist who as a youth spent

over six years straight in solitary confinement in prison in Illinois.

 

*Endorsers list in formation includes:

World Can't Wait Chicago

Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund

National Lawyers Guild, Chicago Chapter