Hunger strikers denied right to read: Pelican Bay officials just don’t get it

July 28, 2013

by Mutope Duguma, Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement

Published on SF Bay View

In retaliation for our peaceful protest, the security housing unit sergeant, B. Davis, drafted up a memorandum on July 8, 2013, saying that Pelican Bay State Prison will be following “regulations per DOM 54030.20.5 which allows book/ publications limit of five (5) books maximum.” This is what PBSP calls rehabilitation.

PBSP Sgt. B. Davis is demonstrating the type of mentality that we’ve been dealing with for the last 23 years in these torture chambers. We are allowed to have 10 books over the allowed five magazines, this Sgt. Davis knows, but he is attacking what we prisoners in SHU value more than anything outside our families: BOOKS.

We say: “End solitary confinement – torture – now! Stop the deliberate attacks on prisoners’ mental development by enforcing a book limit that is instituted to deprive prisoners of reading material.”

Why would an institution of prisoners attack that which aids in the rehabilitation process? Sgt. Davis does not get it, because one of our core demands deals with providing prisoners educational programs that are beneficial to our growth and development. One would think that if prisoners wanted to read, that the PBSP officials would have done all in their power to provide prisoners an avenue to endless books. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

The memorandum is diametrically opposed to our fifth demand. This retaliation is against prisoners for protesting the inhumane treatment in solitary confinement units. We say: “End solitary confinement – torture – now! Stop the deliberate attacks on prisoners’ mental development by enforcing a book limit that is instituted to deprive prisoners of reading material.” If it fits in your allowed 6 cubic foot locker, then you should be able to have as many books as possible.

Why have a policy that restricts prisoners education? Especially for prisoners. The CDCr needs to be called on the many policies that go against the educational needs of the prisoners. We feel this memo was written on July 8, 2013, in order to retaliate against SHU prisoners for our peaceful protest. They, CDCr and PBSP, can take all of our material possessions and it would not interfere with our right to fight for our human and civil rights.

The memorandum is diametrically opposed to our fifth demand. This retaliation is against prisoners for protesting the inhumane treatment in solitary confinement units.

We can only hope that the CDCr and PBSP warden can see the value of reading and allowing prisoners to read leisurely at their expense without restrictions.

One Love, One Struggle!

http://sfbayview.com/2013/hunger-strikers-denied-right-to-read-pelican-bay-officials-just-dont-get-it/

Animals: CDCR human exploitation in the 21st century

July 10, 2013

By Mutope Duguma

In: SF Bay View

Holding animals in solitary confinement breeds savagery. You are placed in a concrete slab of a cage for 22 ½ hours a day and let out for 90 minutes to another concrete slab of a cage only to be returned to your animal cage like an animal in a zoo, where correctional officials walk by your cell as if they’re watching exotic animals: tall ones, short ones, little ones, big ones, dark ones, light ones etc. etc.

They section off the cages as if to say these are our wild animals. We hold them in the short corridor, the long corridor. We got a variety of animals that are just as dangerous, just like the zoo. The animals do not have a voice; therefore, us overseers control the narrative, explaining to the world why we have to hold these animals in cages, because if we let them out, they will go wild or wouldn’t know how to survive in the free world on their own. So we hold them in these animal cages in order to tame them, just like at the zoo.

We do charge a fee to hold our animals. It’s Big Business in Amerikkka. For minding “our” animal cages, we get $70,000 annually in tax dollars for our animals held in solitary confinement. But in our tame animal cages on General Population, we get $53,000 annually, and this is for each animal we have in a cage.

This is why we must continue to build more prisons-zoos, especially solitary confinement cages in the 21st century, to build on our profits. But we have to maintain a surplus of animals for our Prison Industrial Slave Complex Zoos, by manifesting as well as manufacturing 21st century slaves throughout the United States.

Imprisoning “animals” will produce an output of animals, who will perpetuate the practice of savagery … toward serving our interest.

Mutope Duguma is a 21st century prison slave, as sanctioned by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

http://sfbayview.com/2013/animals-cdcr-human-exploitation-in-the-21st-century/