dimanche 30 octobre 2011

Un exemple à suivre : la marche des familles des détenus décédés en prison 29 octobre 2011

United Families & Friends Annual demo 2011

Annual march against deaths in custody
United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC) Protest and Rally Against Custody Deaths and Abuse
 

Saturday 29th October • 12.30pm
Assemble Nelsons Column
Trafalgar Square
London WC2N 5DN
Silent Procession along Whitehall followed by Noisy Protest at Downing Street!  
» Download Flyer Here

ALL WELCOME – PLEASE WEAR BLACK • BRING YOUR CAMPAIGN’S/GROUP’S BANNER

UFFC is a coalition of families and friends of those that have died in the custody of the police and prison officers as well as those who are killed in secure psychiatric hospitals. It includes the families of Roger Sylvester, Leon Patterson, Rocky Bennett, Alton Manning, Christopher Alder, Brian Douglas, Joy Gardner, Aseta Simms, Ricky Bishop, Paul Jemmont, Harry Stanley, Glenn Howard, Mikey Powell, Jason McPherson, Lloyd Butler, Azelle Rodney, Sean Rigg, Habib Ullah, Olaseni Lewis, Smiley Culture, Kingsley Burrell, Demetre Fraser and Mark Duggan to name but a few.
Together we are building a network for collective action to end deaths in custody.
Further info contact United Families & Friends Campaign: contactuffc@gmail.com or info@uffc-campaigncentral.net


Who We Are

The United Families and Friends Campaign is a coalition of families and friends of those that have died in the custody of police and prison officers as well as those who are killed in secure psychiatric hospitals. It includes the families of Roger Sylvester, Leon Patterson, Rocky Bennett, Alton Manning, Christopher Alder, Brian Douglas, Joy Gardner, Aseta Simms, Ricky Bishop, Paul Jemmott, Harry Stanley, Glenn Howard,... Mikey Powell, Jason Mcpherson and Sean Rigg to name but a few. Together we are building a network for collective action to end deaths in custody.


What we believe
 
• That failure of State officials to ensure the basic right to life is made worse by the failure of the State to ever prosecute those responsible for custody deaths.

• That the failure to prosecute those responsible for deaths in custody sends the message that the State can act with impunity.


What We Demand
 
• Deaths in police custody must be investigated by a body that is genuinely independent of the police.

• Prison deaths must be subject to a system of properly funded investigation that is completely independent of the Prison Service.

• Officers involved in custody deaths be suspended until investigations are completed.

• Prosecutions should automatically follow 'unlawful killing' verdicts at inquests.

• Police forces are made accountable to the communities that they serve.

• Immediate Legal Aid and full disclosure of information be made to the relatives of the victims for investigations, inquests and subsequent prosecutions.

• Officers responsible for deaths should face criminal charges, even if retired.

• CCTV to be placed in the back of all police vehicles


March 2011 photos Harmit Athwal




 

 

mardi 25 octobre 2011

Lettre de Georges Abdallah, 28 ans en prison en France.

Cher«e»s Camarades, cher«e»s ami«e»s,
 
À l’aube de cette 28e année de captivité votre mobilisation solidaire me va droit au cœur ; elle m’apporte beaucoup de force et d’enthousiasme.
Ce ne sont pas que des mots ! Vous savez Camarades, quand on est dans ces sinistres lieux depuis tant d’années, c’est toujours avec une intense émotion que l’on perçoit les initiatives des ami«e»s et des camarades rassemblés tout près ou à quelques kilomètres seulement de nos lieux de détention… Et c’est toujours avec une vive émotion aussi que l’on peut leur signaler, et souvent maladroitement d’ailleurs, la chaleur et la force qu’ils nous apportent ici par leur simple présence solidaire…
Vous voyez Camarades, votre rassemblement aujourd’hui ne peut certainement pas mieux tomber… En effet, cette semaine a été vraiment très riche en événements ayant rapport à la captivité, la solidarité et la lutte derrière les abominables murs, tout particulièrement en Palestine. Cette Palestine, quoi que l’on dise, demeure un des principaux leviers de la révolution arabe ; un trait d’union entre le mouvement des masses dans les diverses entités arabes. Tout ce que s’y passe trouve un grand écho immédiat dans tout le monde arabe ; et à ce niveau, les impérialistes de tous bords ne s’y trompent pas. C’est pourquoi d’ailleurs les États-Unis ont vite exprimé leur désapprobation de l’accord concernant la libération des combattants Palestiniens ces derniers jours. 
Des milliers, des dizaines de milliers attendaient à Gaza et en Cisjordanie ce mardi 18 octobre ; tout un peuple attendait : des vieux, des jeunes, des enfants, tous attendaient de très bonne heure…Ils attendaient le père, la mère, le frère, la sœur, le fils, la femme, le mari ou tout bonnement le camarade ou le voisin… En fait ils les attendaient depuis toujours depuis une éternité… Pour certains d’entre eux depuis avril 1978, jour de leur enlèvement et de leur disparition derrière les abominables murs…
Finalement Camarades, la Résistance Palestinienne vient de les arracher aux griffes sionistes… Un peu plus de mille combattantes et combattants viennent d’être libérés…
C’est un grand jour dans l’histoire de la lutte palestinienne…
La Résistance a pu imposer la libération des camarades originaires du territoire occupé en 1948 et du plateau de Golan ainsi que d’Al Qods. C’est une première dans le parcours de la lutte antisioniste et c’est vraiment très important… L’unité de tout le peuple palestinien se trouve ainsi affirmée avec force et c’est d’une importance capitale dans la période actuelle.
Certes, la Résistance a dû accepter que certains des camarades originaires de Cisjordanie soient obligés de rester à Gaza loin de leur famille. Pire encore, elle a dû accepter aussi que 40 de ses plus valeureux combattants soient expulsés pour un temps en dehors de la Palestine vers des pays frères ou amis et bien entendu c’est contraire aux lois internationales. Cependant, ce qui est le plus douloureux Camarades, c’est que la Résistance n’a pas pu obtenir la libération de tous les camarades, surtout pas ceux dont les conditions de détention sont les pires, à savoir ceux qui se trouvent à l’isolement depuis, pour certains d’entre eux, une bonne dizaine d’années…
Camarades, il en est toujours ainsi des tourments du peuple palestinien : les moments d’allégresse et de grande joie ne sont que l’autre face de profondes blessures et d’énormes douleurs que les criminels sionistes font tout pour  démultiplier et pérenniser.
Quoi de plus douloureux camarades, qu’au moment de la libération après 33 longues années de captivité le militant s’en allant vers la liberté se voit obligé de laisser dans les sinistres lieux des camarades en pleine grève de la faim !
Certainement, il va falloir compter, entre autres, sur la mobilisation solidaire pour faire cesser les mauvais traitements dont nos camarades font l’objet dans les geôles sionistes et en premier lieu en finir avec le régime d’isolement qui leur est appliqué… En attendant que la Résistance fasse le nécessaire et les arrachent aux griffes des leurs geôliers, il faut tout faire Camarades, pour être à leurs côtés dans cette grève de la faim qu’ils observent depuis le 27 septembre…
Camarades, comme vous savez, la solidarité et particulièrement la solidarité internationale, est une arme indispensable pour ceux et celles qui résistent dans les geôles sionistes de triste mémoire.
Je sais très bien, camarades, et notre peuple le sait aussi. Quand il s’agit de solidarité prolétarienne internationale les communistes répondent toujours : présents. Leur place est aux premiers rangs de ceux et celles qui se mobilisent contre l’injustice et pour l’avènement d’un monde meilleur.
 
À bas l’impérialisme et ses chiens de garde sionistes et autres réactionnaires arabes !
Toute la solidarité avec les camarades qui résistent dans les geôles sionistes !
Honneur aux martyrs et aux peuples en lutte !
La solidarité est une arme, faisons-en bon usage !
Ensemble, Camarades, nous vaincrons et certainement ce n’est qu’ensemble que nous vaincrons.
À vous tous, mes plus chaleureuses salutations révolutionnaires camarades et à travers vous à tous les camarades qu’on vient de libérer et à ceux et celles qui résistent dans les geôles sionistes.
 
Votre camarade Georges Abdallah.
22/10/2011

Plus de 160 enfants palestiniens restent derrière les barreaux (Electronic Intifada)

More than 160 Palestinian children remain behind Israeli bars

20 October 2011
GAZA CITY (IRIN) -
While there have been emotional scenes after the release of 477 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, concerns are being raised about the plight of 164 Palestinian children from the West Bank in Israeli custody.
They were either sentenced or are being detained, mainly for stone-throwing, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) which, along with other international organizations, is appealing to the Israeli government to release all Palestinian children in Israeli military detention.
It is unclear whether the children will be part of the second wave of 550 releases in the coming two months.
UNICEF calls on the Israeli government to release Palestinian child detainees so that they can be reunited with their families,” said Jean Gough, a UNICEF representative for the West Bank and Gaza. “As stated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the detention of children should be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time,” she said.
The Israeli justice ministry was unable to confirm the number of Palestinian children detained by Israel.

Mother can’t speak to son
Rami Abu Haneieh, aged 14 and from Hebron, was arrested by Israeli forces one month ago for throwing stones. “I have not been permitted to see or speak with him since his arrest,” said his mother, Khloud Abu Haneieh, a primary school teacher. His lawyer was allowed to visit Rami once, said Khloud, adding that her son may be released as part of the second wave of the prisoner swap.
The organization Defence for Children International-Palestine Section (DCI-Palestine) also issued an urgent appeal for the children to be freed.
According to the latest figures released by the Israeli Prison Service and DCI-Palestine, on 1 October there were 164 Palestinian children (aged 12-17) in Israeli detention facilities, including 35 aged 12-15. Seventy-six of these children have been sentenced, while 88 children are being held in pre-trial detention.
The number of Palestinian children detained in Israel fluctuates, said UNICEF spokesperson Catherine Weibel in Jerusalem. In 2010, on average 250 children were in detention each month, and in 2009 the monthly average reached 300, she said.
DCI estimates that each year about 700 Palestinian children aged 12-17 from the West Bank are prosecuted in Israeli military courts after being arrested, interrogated and detained by the Israeli military, police or security agents. According to UNICEF, more than 7,000 Palestinian children were arrested and detained by Israeli authorities over the past 10 years.
Sabri Awad, 16, from Beit Ommar, near Hebron, was arrested and detained by Israeli soldiers three weeks ago. “Our family and his lawyer have not been allowed to see or speak with him,” said his 18-year-old brother, Yousif Awad, unsure why Sabri was arrested.
In 2010 two children were being held in administrative detention (detention without charge or trial authorized by administrative order rather than judicial decree) in violation of international law, reports UNICEF, although there are none at present.
According to Weibel, Palestinian children from East Jerusalem are tried in civil courts administered by the Israeli police, just the same as Israeli children. Palestinian children from elsewhere in the West Bank are tried in military courts.
Palestinians arrested by the Israeli army in the West Bank fall under the jurisdiction of Israeli “military legislation.” This is a separate military court system that applies only to Palestinians, according to the Israeli military.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN special representative for children in armed conflict said: “Juvenile justice standards are clear; children should not be tried before military tribunals.”
Since Israel’s “disengagement” from the Gaza Strip in September 2005, Palestinians from Gaza detained by Israeli authorities are generally prosecuted in Israel under civilian security legislation, and not under military law.
It is a violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention to remove children under military occupation from occupied territory, said spokesperson Weibel, thereby prohibiting family visits.
The Israeli army admits that most Palestinian detainees are imprisoned inside Israel, but argues that removing Palestinians from the West Bank is approved by the Israeli high court and is consistent with Israeli law.

Torture persists
According to DCI, reports of torture and ill-treatment during the arrest, transfer and interrogation stages in the system when children may be pressured to sign confessions, have persisted for years.
“Ill-treatment starts at the moment of arrest, when many children report experiencing terrifying night-time raids on the family home, before being tied, often painfully so, and blindfolded,” reports DCI.
Also, children continue to be interrogated in the absence of a lawyer or a parent, and continue to be denied bail in around 90 percent of cases in violation of Article 37(b) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, according to DCI.
The Israeli Prisons Service was unavailable for comment.
In 2010, there were at least 90 cases documented of the ill-treatment of Palestinian children while detained by Israeli authorities, said Weibel, and in 2009 there were at least 101 cases documented.
Hamas deputy foreign minister Ghazi Hamad, who participated in talks with Israel to broker the prisoner swap deal, said: “Nearly 200 children and medical patients being held prisoner may be part of the second wave [of prisoner releases].”

This item comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the copyright page for conditions of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

samedi 22 octobre 2011

Pièce de théatre : Valentina Abu Oqsa’s Ana Hurra (“I am Free”)

Timely play grapples with abuse of a Palestinian prisoner

16 October 2011
A new play spotlights the oppressed/oppressor dynamic between Palestinians and Israelis.

The relationship between a prisoner and interrogator is as an old theme in Western art and literature. The prisoner/interrogator dialogue is a flexible one, which can allow the society of the interrogator to examine itself, or for the society of the oppressed to find strength and virtue in the image of resistance.
The dynamic between Palestinian and Israeli societies has rarely been honestly explored in the West, outside of absurd and bigoted scenes in American action films. The Western dialectic of pro-Palestinian/anti-Semitic creates a wave of antagonism towards Palestinian perspectives in art and literature that has real world implications. We can see a recent iteration of this in the blocking of Gazan children’s art from an Oakland museum last month.
The legacy of this blackout creates an environment where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can bemoan inhumanity to the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, while presiding over a population of more than 5,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israel. Western media follows suit, as it did after the recent announcement of an exchange of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Shalit. The absurdly lopsided deal and the way it has been discussed in mainstream circles in the US speak volumes about how Palestinian and Israeli life and freedom difference in value.
The Western view lacks a philosophical narrative of the Palestinian prisoner/Israeli interrogator dynamic. Moreover, the crucial context of the Palestinian-Israeli relationship is invisible. Interrogation and imprisonment are constant facts of life for most Palestinians, not an occasional aberration — some 650,000 Palestinians have been arrested and interrogated since the beginning of the occupation in 1967. To a certain extent, it can be said that to understand the Palestinian Israeli relationship, one can first look to the relationship of interrogator and prisoner. Sadly, it is a perspective that is seldom seen in the West.

An innovative approach to the Palestinian prisoner narrative
Certainly, Palestinian playwright Valentina Abu Oqsa’s Ana Hurra (“I am Free”) won’t change that dynamic on its own, but it does appropriate the prisoner/interrogator dialogue in an innovative way to explore the story of Palestinian prisoners, as well as the dynamic of oppressor and oppressed within the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Abu Oqsa’s one act play is sparsely set, with a simple table and chairs that effectively represent the focus of the relationship between the interrogator and the prisoner, where territory disappears to be replaced by a terrain of philosophy and ideology. There are only two characters: the physically imposing male Israeli interrogator and his prisoner, a Palestinian woman. Neither is given a name.
The play pointedly explores some sensitive issues of Palestinian culture. As a female prisoner, the protagonist is subjected to a series of challenges to her cultural and gender identity which are explored in detail. At several points within the dialogue the interrogator attempts to use her gender and cultural identity against her — at the most physical end of this spectrum is sexual violence, threat and psychological torture. But the interrogator also uses some of the shortcomings of a patriarchal Palestinian culture in an attempt to manipulate her. It’s a subtle critique, but it has a larger implication for those aware of the ease with which Israeli intelligence agencies debilitate Palestinian solidarity by using the society’s mores and taboos against it.

Nuanced portrayal of characters
The characters are portrayed in a nuanced fashion. It is left to the audience to decide whether the central character is innocent or guilty of the “crimes” she’s accused of, or what those “crimes” even are. Her age, her background and marital status, even her own political beliefs and opinions of the conflict are left unspoken. The play thus leaves political ideology and worldview for other venues.
Abu Oqsa’s protagonist remains a simple woman facing her imprisonment and the oppression of her people in a universal way. She holds on to meaning and identity by revisiting literature and culture, which play a central role throughout the play, indicating that what animates the idea of sumoud (steadfastness) is its cultural connection, not political slogans or hero-worship. Resistance to torture and imprisonment becomes a human response without discernible ideology — dignity in the face of tyranny is innately human, and accomplished through the strength of one’s people.
On the surface, the interrogator is a manipulator who uses his knowledge of Arabic culture to cajole his victim into compliance, before resorting to threats, bullying and physical violence. But there is also another way of reading the interrogator that speaks to the underlying nature of the Palestinian-Israeli relationship. The interrogator is a lover of Arabic culture, food and an autodidact on Arabic literature; he subsequently demonstrates this with an intimate knowledge of literature that seems unlikely if it were merely an interrogating tool. He claims to be a product of the kibbutzim, and thus ideologically opposed to violence. Interestingly, the interrogator reveals almost everything about himself in a few short minutes, almost as if he is looking for approval.
What follows is a complex scene, where the interrogating antagonist faces an equal, if less physically dangerous struggle to maintain his own identity. The interrogator must maintain his particular sense of humanity while defending the fragile construct of the ideology that sanctions the descent into the madness that is torture and oppression.
For Abu Oqsa’s torturer, it is even more urgent that he turn his prisoner, that they become friends in a sense, to maintain his connection to Arabic culture and to his ideas about his own state. The dynamic recapitulates the relationship between Israeli culture and the Arabic Palestinian one. Israel, stripped of its authentic ethnic diversity by nationalist dictates, looks longingly to that of its subjects — like a lonely bully reaching out violently to a victim.
If he cannot break his victim, it means that everything that he has been taught is a sham, and that there is no moral justification for his acts. At a certain point, “I am free” becomes the refrain of the interrogator, as he tries to convince himself that the deprivations he helps visit on Palestinians are appropriate and excusable.

Confronting the comfortable
In this way, the narrative also confronts the comfortable nature of the occupation for most Israelis. A feature of its normalization is represented by the interrogator’s disinterest in the prisoner’s guilt or innocence. For his own sanity’s sake, she must remain a file to him, nothing more — a part of his job, which he struggles to dehumanize and fit into a briefcase which can be opened and shut at his convenience. His goal is to close the file and put away nagging questions about justice and morality. His prisoner prevents this by reminding him that his so-called freedom is little more than a pause in his relationship to her as a monstrous abuser.
Abu Oqsa, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, spent a year meeting and interviewing Palestinian political prisoners in preparation for the script. The story is a gestalt, and declines to date the interaction, leaving it as a testament to the violence and dehumanization that have been part of the Israeli occupation through all of its iterations, including the present one. The tour has coincidentally overlapped with a hunger strike of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, and so, unfortunately, is as timely as it has been every month of every year for decades.
Editor’s note: the US tour of Ana Hurra closed earlier than the original closing date of 25 October. For more information, see the US Palestinian Community Network website.
Jaime Omar Yassin has been involved in alternative media for nearly 20 years. He has written for Extra!, Meatpaper, and other publications. He writes a blog for The Electronic Intifada and maintains his own blog at Hyphenated Republic.
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La libération des prisonniers : A day of joy in Gaza

A day of joy in Gaza

20 October 2011
 

Palestinian prisoners freed under a deal between Israel and Hamas arrived by bus in Gaza City’s al-Katiba Square where they were greeted by celebratory crowds
 
The sense of joy was palpable in the streets of Gaza on Tuesday. It was a remarkable day in the life of the territory’s 1.6 million Palestinians. During the last five years Israel has levied a heavy price from them for the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian resistance fighters. It has been extracted with Israel’s warplanes, tanks, bulldozers and relentless siege.
At last the people of Gaza could feel a sense of relief. From early morning, thousands lined both sides of Salah al-Din street, a main thoroughfare, as if they were receiving a VIP or a president. But it was prisoners freed under a deal between Israel and Hamas who were the honored guests. A few kilometers away from the main road, thousands more gathered in Gaza City’s al-Katiba Square, where a large stage had been erected and patriotic music played.
Just near the stage, hundreds of women of all ages stood anxiously, some cheering loudly as the song “Palestinians, Palestinians, Determined to Go On” played. Older women ululated joyfully, in a scene reminiscent of traditional Palestinian wedding parties before 1948, the year when many of these women and their families were displaced by Israeli occupation forces from towns and villages that are now over the border in Israel. On this day, Gaza resembled a big Palestinian wedding party for every single Palestinian man and woman.
Looking old and tired among dozens of women, Umm Hazem Hasanin from eastern Gaza City held a portrait of her son Hazem, who was taken prisoner by Israeli forces in 2004 near the Nahal Oz Junction, east of Gaza City.
Hasanin spoke cheerfully to The Electronic Intifada, despite having stood in the sun for several hours. “God willing, my son will be released soon, even tomorrow hopefully. I am here today despite the fact that my son is not listed in the exchange deal,” she said, “I am here to send a message that all Palestinians are looking for freedom and salvation from the Israeli occupation.”
Umm Hazem’s son, now 31, was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Proud of heroes”
Farhana al-Ashqar is another elder Palestinian woman, who waited several hours in Tuesday’s heat to welcome the freed prisoners. Her nephew Ibrahim has been imprisoned for one year and two months.
May Allah bestow victory on the Palestinian resistance in order to achieve further prisoner swap deals that will help those in Israeli jails to be freed. We are proud of these heroes. I left my house today to come here and welcome such heroes,” al-Ashqar said . Others in the area designated for women in al-Katiba Square had relatives of their own listed in the long-awaited prisoners exchange deal.
Fawziya Abu Karsh is the sister-in-law of the released prisoner, Talib Abu Karsh, who was sentenced to four life terms. He has spent 16 years in prison.
I have been here since 9 AM to welcome him and to see him after these long years of imprisonment. Let me greet the Palestinian resistance for helping release these Palestinian heroes,” Abu Karsh said, while carrying her baby near a portrait of Talib.
At another corner in al-Katiba Square, hundreds of youth gathered, raising Palestinian flags and banners of Hamas, Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Islamic Jihad, a mix of colors representing the various political factions, a scene very rarely seen since a national unity government led by Fatah and Hamas, the major parties, collapsed the year after Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was captured.

Waiting to hug my brother”
Khaled Hammad was in al-Katiba Square to receive his his freed brother.
I am waiting here for the arrival of my brother Majdy Hammad, who has spent twenty years of his six-times life sentence. I am waiting for the moment to embrace him, something that I have never experienced for the past twenty years. Whatever I say cannot express my feelings or emotions at this moment.
I and all the Palestinian people are very excited today for this is a joyful day for all the Palestinian people, a day of victory for the Palestinian people, a day that has made all of us united — as you see, banners of all Palestinian factions are fluttering in this place. We hope that this day will bring unity among the people and the factions alike,” Hammad added.
After the long day of waiting, vans carrying the freed prisoners showed up in the back streets and an excited and anxious crowd, largely comprised of young people, rushed quickly to get a look into the buses. Many of them whistled as others set off fireworks.
The Electronic Intifada managed to get through the large crowds and spoke to those who arrived in the square. About 266 freed prisoners, including 136 from the West Bank arrived in Gaza on Tuesday.
I cannot describe my feelings being among my brothers and sisters in Gaza. This is really a big reception that we did not expect,Arafat al-Natshi, a freed prisoner from the West Bank city of Hebron, said excitedly. Under the deal, Al-Natshi has been forced to live in Gaza instead of being returned home to Hebron.
Mohammad Abu Awad is another freed prisoner, from the West Bank city of Nablus. “I am extremely happy to be released, something that I had not imagined because I have been sentenced to life. Yet my happiness is marred by the fact that we have left behind many brothers in jail, with whom we have spent more time than we’ve spent with our families,” Awad said.

Resistance “the only path”
Also among those who welcomed the released Palestinian prisoners were factional and governmental leaders, including top figures from Hamas. Jameela al-Shanti, minister of women’s affairs in the Hamas-led government in Gaza, hailed the prisoners’ release by means of the swap deal as a step in the right direction.
The release of prisoners today is clear proof that the Palestinian resistance is the only path that will resolve the problems of the Palestinian people including Israeli settlement activities and the Israeli siege on Gaza,” al-Shanti told The Electronic Intifada as she stepped up onto the stage, “I would like to emphasize that we are taking this path until all our prisoners are released from Israeli jails and Palestine is liberated from the Israeli occupation.
On Tuesday, Israel and Hamas, through Egyptian officials and with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross, facilitated an agreed prisoners’ exchange. The agreement came after five years of talks, brokered by Egypt and Germany. Israel agreed to release more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including women and minors, in exchange for the Israeli soldier.
Right after the soldier’s capture, Israel carried out a massive attack on Gaza, killing and injuring hundreds of Palestinian men, women and children and causing a great deal of damage to infrastructure, including power and water networks. Since then, Gaza’s 1.6 million residents have suffered power cut-offs, almost on a daily basis.
While carrying her baby in one hand and a picture of her freed brother-in-law in the other, Fawziya Abu Karsh praised Palestinian resistance fighters. She said, “May God help them all to capture ten more Israeli soldiers, so that our beloved prisoners are released from the Israeli occupation’s jails.

Rami Almeghari is a journalist and university lecturer based in the Gaza Strip.

vendredi 21 octobre 2011

Gérard De Coninck, un ex-directeur de prison témoigne...


Le Soir Justice /  20 octobre 2011

Un ex-directeur de Lantin et Ittre sort un livre critique sur le système belge
« Des prisons trop peu humaines » :

« Des prisons trop peu humaines »

DORZEE,HUGUES
Page 8
Jeudi 20 octobre 2011

Justice Un ex-directeur de Lantin et Ittre sort un livre critique sur le système belge

C’est un réquisitoire sans appel contre le système carcéral belge. Celle d’un criminologue (ULg), chercheur, enseignant et ex-directeur de prison à la retraite qui a décidé de lever un coin du voile sur la politique pénitentiaire actuelle.
Dans un livre-vérité sobrement intitulé Etre directeur de prison (ed. L’Harmattan) et présenté sous la forme d’une conversation écrite avec Guy Lemire, un confrère canadien, Gérard De Coninck raconte minutieusement la vie derrière les barreaux. De Lantin à Ittre, aux côtés de détenus réputés dangereux (Nizar Trabelsi, Farid Bamouhammad, Michel Lelièvre…), plongé dans une réalité brutale, parfois sordide, entre solitude, souffrances partagées et violences diverses, l’auteur aborde la prison du XXIe siècle sous toutes ses facettes (le rôle du directeur, le métier d’agent de surveillance, la vie quotidienne des détenus, les faveurs et les sanctions…).
Un livre sans concession qui, comme le souligne Georges Kellens, professeur émérite à l’ULg, débouche sur des « constats graves, urgents, et des suggestions qui interpellent ».
En effet, l’ex-directeur s’interroge sur le sens actuel de la prison (« exclure pour réinsérer »), ses travers (la bureaucratie, le stress, les bavures, les « illégalisme »…) et ses manquements (drogues, santé, hygiène, réinsertion.).
Derrière « l’illusion d’ordre » accuse Gérard De Coninck, la prison, dans sa forme actuelle, a démontré ses limites et ses dangers. Elle cache un système de non-droits et d’inertie qui nécessiterait davantage de contrôle. Mieux encore, dit-il : « une refonte en profondeur ».
Derrière les propos d’un humaniste en révolte se nichent aussi des pistes et des alternatives (une prison « rééducative plutôt que coercitive » ; une meilleure formation du personnel ; une autre approche du détenu et de la peine…).
« Si on continue à enfermer comme on le fait pour le moment, alerte le criminologue, l’implosion n’est pas à exclure ».

« 90 % des détenus ne sont pas à leur place »

ENTRETIEN
La prison est un univers implacable et à certains égards inhumain », dénonce Gérard De Coninck, ex-directeur à Lantin et à Ittre. Pour ce criminologue et maître de conférences à l’Université de Liège, « il est urgent de mettre en œuvre une nouvelle politique pénitentiaire ».
Le système
carcéral belge
« Les prisons n’intéressent pas grand monde ! Pour la classe politique, les détenus ne sont pas intéressants, ils ne votent pas. Quant au grand public, il ne s’en préoccupe guère. Les prisons sont censées protéger la société, assurer la sanction du condamné, favoriser son amendement, permettre sa réinsertion. Dans les faits, il n’en est rien ! »
« C’est du pur “stockage”. Pour certains, la prison est “salutaire”. Mais beaucoup ressortent plus violents et plus démunis que lors de leur entrée. On dénonce – à raison ! – la surpopulation. Mais 90 % des détenus ne sont pas à leur place en prison ! Toxicomanes, malades mentaux, il faut des établissements adaptés, qui soignent réellement ces gens. »
« En Belgique, on est dans une politique avant tout réactive (par rapport aux évasions et incidents…) et très peu constructive ou prospective. Or, c’est tout le système pénitentiaire belge et, plus largement, tout notre système pénal qu’il faudrait repenser en profondeur. La prison devrait être la peine ultime ; une peine juste, qui a du sens. Il n’en est rien. Par ailleurs, toutes les peines alternatives (travaux d’intérêt général, médiation…) sont totalement sous-exploitées. »
« En Belgique, on colmate, on bouche les trous. D’un côté, on a des établissements exsangues, vétustes, où les conditions de vie sont catastrophiques. De l’autre, des établissements soi-disant “modernes” et technologiques, où règne le froid pénitentiaire, et où rien n’a été conçu pour permettre l’émancipation des détenus. Avec, entre les deux, quelques exceptions, des petites prisons plus humaines et “familiales”. Mais globalement, c’est indigne d’un Etat de droit. »
Le directeur
« Le mythe du “dieu dans sa prison”, c’est terminé. C’est un manager. Il doit suivre des plans stratégiques, appliquer une kyrielle de circulaires. Il est très peu dans le cellulaire. Il est à la fois juge et partie dans la prison. »
Les agents
« C’est un métier difficile, stressant, qui nécessite beaucoup de qualités professionnelles et humaines. Ils doivent être à la fois proches et à distance du détenu ; vivre dans le stress, les tensions, sans cesse sur leur garde. Il y a beaucoup d’absentéisme, de burn-out, d’alcoolisme… »
« C’est une profession très corporatiste. En prison, ils ont le vrai pouvoir. Avec les syndicats derrière eux, qui font la pluie et le beau temps et, parfois, quand ça les arrange, ne s’encombrent pas trop des conventions. »
« Parmi les agents, il y a de tout, comme dans la société : des gens très bien, qui ont une fibre sociale, mais aussi des racistes, des irascibles. J’ai entendu un agent dire “Je viens pour casser du détenu !” ou un autre, parlant d’un détenu noir : “Qu’il retourne dans son arbre !” J’en ai vu qui avaient une affiche Front national dans leur casier et d’autres qui faisaient un concours à celui qui parviendrait à coller le plus de rapports disciplinaires aux détenus. Je ne généralise pas. Mais je constate qu’il y a un énorme esprit de corps et parfois de grands déficits dans la formation. »
Les règles
« La prison est un véritable monde parallèle, avec ses codes et règles propres. Avec des caïds qu’il faut soigner ; les petites gratifications informelles ; les indics et les règlements de compte… C’est la loi du plus fort, chacun pour soi. Au bout du compte, c’est toujours le détenu qui trinque. »
La drogue
« Elle est omniprésente. Elle entre pendant les congés, les sorties, grâce aux familles. Il y a bien des fouilles, mais en vain. Tous les moyens sont bons. Ils utilisent leur “coffre-fort” (les parties intimes), usent de stratagèmes (un pacson échangé par la bouche lors d’un baiser)… »
« La drogue, c’est à la fois une camisole, mais aussi un excitant, des comportements imprévisibles du trafic, des dettes, du racket, des détenus qui n’osent plus quitter leur cellule par peur de représailles… La drogue est un fléau. »
Les familles
« Elles sont trop souvent perçues comme un danger, une menace (...) Il y a bien sûr les visites au parloir ou derrière la vitre. Et depuis peu, on a progressivement aménagé des chambres intimes, ces fameuses “visites hors surveillance”. Mais, faire en sorte qu’un détenu puisse entretenir des liens affectifs et sexuels, c’est autre chose que de “conduire sa femme au taureau”, comme me l’a dit un jour l’une d’entre elles ! Au Canada, il existe des unités de vie de famille où le détenu, au fil de sa détention, peut réapprendre à vivre avec les siens pendant 72 heures (cuisiner, échanger…). Aux Etats-Unis, ça existe depuis 1920 ! En Belgique, il y a une volonté inconsciente, indirecte ou cachée de punir la famille. Comme si elle était coresponsable des délits commis. »
La réinsertion
« J’ai vu bon nombre de détenus quitter la prison complètement démunis, sans perspectives, à qui on devait donner 5 euros pour prendre le bus ou un ticket de train… La réinsertion est un mythe ! La plupart sont sans travail, avec un casier judiciaire, une étiquette. Ils sont peu scolarisés, peu formés. On parle de 15 à 20 % de détenus illettrés.
Trouver un boulot depuis la prison ? Les obstacles sont énormes : pouvoir joindre par téléphone un employeur dans des heures de bureau, ; très peu de véritable suivi social… »
« S’amender ? Foutaises ! Le détenu est oisif, privé de liberté, plongé dans un univers impitoyable où règnent le bruit, la promiscuité, des conditions d’hygiène déplorables, la télé allumée 24 heures sur 24… Sans aide psychologique réelle et structurelle pour lui permettre de réfléchir en profondeur aux faits, à son avenir, à ses responsabilités… »

Gérard de Coninck

Gérard de Coninck
Gérard De Coninck, 68 ans, vit à Rocourt (Liège). Il est diplômé en sciences morales et religieuses de l’université de Louvain, docteur en criminologie et maître de conférence à l’ULg. Il connaît le secteur pénitentiaire depuis le début des années 1970. Il a été enseignant, chercheur, responsable du centre de formation initiale des surveillants. Il a également été directeur dans deux prisons (Lantin et Ittre).

TEXTO

TEXTO
« Tous les directeurs sont envoyés au front sans avoir une expérience suffisante de la vie et du travail en détention, mais surtout avec un manque de formation spécifique sérieuse. (…) Certains exercent ce métier en tentant de combler une frustration et de régler des problèmes personnels »
« Je crois que beaucoup d’acteurs du monde pénitentiaire utilisent de faux arguments pour justifier des comportements totalement illégaux et immoraux ou pour éliminer toute culpabilité.
Ils affirment : “les détenus ne comprennent que la manière forte“ ; “pour ce détenu-là il n’y a qu’une solution : une balle dans la tête !“ ; “ce ne sont pas des hommes mais des bêtes“ » (…)
« N’en déplaise à la vox populi, le temps des boulets et des coups de fouet est révolu (…) On a supprimé les portes ouvertes, les repas en commun les jours fériés, les préaux du soir en été (…) Pourtant, il y a toujours des agressions d’agents, des évasions (et de plus en plus violentes) et les trafics de produits stupéfiants sont toujours aussi florissants. On a déresponsabilisé et infantilisé les détenus. Au lieu de rajouter des barreaux et des barbelés, il me semble qu’il aurait été plus judicieux d’investir dans l’éducation et la formation (…) »
« Une fois jugé, le détenu a droit à une vie décente et au respect pour que l’exécution de sa peine puisse le préparer au retour en société (…) La prison doit donner un autre exemple de vie en société et refuser que la fin (l’ordre) justifie les moyens violents »
« Pour 75 % des détenus, toute la journée est centrée sur la recherche de moyens, indispensables pour se payer sa dose ou son joint »
« L’implosion n’est pas à exclure. Les mouvements de révolte de détenus ne se limitent plus aux périodes estivales (…) Il est possible que certaines personnes aient
envie que la situation des prisons s’envenime, pour exiger un tour de manivelle plus
répressif »




jeudi 20 octobre 2011

Mumia Abu Jamal 2011 : Trente ans en prison







Un prisonnier palestinien de 80 ans libéré, après 29 ans de prison !

Eighty year-old doyen of Palestinian prisoners to be freed

By Hilmi Mousa
Eighty year-old doyen of Palestinian prisoners to be freed  
Sheikh Sami Younis, aged 80,
who has spent 29 years in prison.

















The Israel-Hamas prisoner exchange deal has forced the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to cross a number of red lines, of which one of great importance is the freeing of Palestinian prisoners who are citizens of the Zionist state. Successive Israeli governments have sought to include Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem holding blue Israeli identity cards within the category identified as “citizens of the state” and whose future has been off the agenda, prisoners included. That has now changed as among those that Israel is now forced to release is the doyen of the Palestinian prisoners, Sheikh Sami Younis, aged 80, who has spent 29 years in prison.
The prisoner exchange deal has provoked mixed reactions in Israel, with the media discussing the price that the government of Israel has agreed to pay for the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit, although a survey conducted by Israeli television’s Channel Ten indicates that two-thirds of Israelis support the prisoner exchange. Haaretz summarised this price in the following way: “After [we] published the list of the prisoners who Israel would release as part of the exchange deal it has become clear… from the preliminary viewing that the courts convicted 477 in the first phase with 883 years of life accumulative sentences, and 4,940 years in prison.” The newspaper pointed out that 275 of those to be released were in the middle range of terms, with an average of 3.2 life sentences, and that the remaining 198 were serving an average of 24.9 years per person.
Israel has always sought to exclude its Palestinian citizens from any exchange deal in order to emphasise their separation from the Palestinian people in the occupied territories and diaspora, thus creating a sense of isolation. The agreement with the Popular Front/General Command in 1985 (known as the Jenin Operation) was the first to force Israel to release freedom fighters from amongst its own citizens. Now it has been announced that among those to be released in the latest exchange deal will be eight “Arab-Israelis”, including three women, in addition to 14 prisoners from occupied East Jerusalem and one detainee from the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. There are still 132 political prisoners in Israel who are Palestinian citizens of the Zionist state.
Sheikh Sami Younis is from ‘Ar’ara village in Wadi Ara. An Israeli court sentenced him in absentia to life imprisonment for the murder of an Israeli soldier in 1980; he was captured in 1983 at the age of 51 years and has now spent 29 years in prison. Two other members of his family were also convicted along with Sheikh Sami and also received life sentences.
Sami Younis was working as a taxi driver at the time of his arrest. Given his old age and the length of time that he has spent in prison it is hard for his wife and family to believe that he will soon be among them again. Halima, his wife, is also 80 years old and told Israel’s Maariv newspaper that she will answer journalists’ questions “but I still can’t believe that my husband will be released”. They have been saying that he will be released for years, she added, but he always stayed in prison.
This was echoed by Sami’s grandson, Abdur Rahman , who is 23 years old and was born whilst his grandfather was in prison: “Ever since I was young I have heard that he would be released, but in the end he remained a prisoner; this makes it hard to believe that it will happen this time.” Abdur Rahman heard the news of the deal through the media, “but it never crossed my mind that my grandfather would be among those to be freed”.
Speaking about her husband, Halima said, “He entered prison as a father to all, and he helped the detainees to accept their situation. Everyone loved him. Indeed the relatives whose sons were imprisoned knew him from their visits and they love him; they say that he is a good person and he helped their sons in prison.”
Among those from Israel to be released in the first phase of the deal is Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine member Muhklis Barghal and his comrade Muhammad Zayadah, both from the City of Lod. An Israeli court convicted them for throwing a bomb which didn’t explode in Tel Aviv in 1986; they were sentenced to life. The list of prisoners from the “1948 territories” also includes Ali Umaraiyah from the village of Ibti; he was convicted in 1988 after throwing a bomb in Haifa and was also sentenced to life.
Israel and Hamas are finalising the preparations for what has been described as an unprecedented exchange of prisoners. The two sides released simultaneously the list of Palestinian prisoners to be freed, among whom are 27 women. Israel will also release a further 550 Palestinian prisoners in two months’ time according to the deal agreed last Tuesday following Egyptian mediation.
One of the women prisoners, Naila Barghuthi, has been in jail since 1978. The first woman in the military wing of Hamas, Ahlam al-Tamimi, who was sentenced to 16 life sentences for her role in a bombing in occupied Jerusalem, will also be freed.
Israeli negotiator David Midan followed the preparations in Cairo and informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his return to Israel on Monday. Netanyahu was bullish and said in a statement, “The mission will be complete when Gilad Shalit returns alive and in good health to his family.” According to Amos Gilad, a senior official in the Ministry of Defence, “The agreement is final and there will be no amendment.” This was a reference to eight female Palestinian prisoners whose names are not on the list for release. Everything is expected to go to plan, added the Director of the National Defence Council, Yakoc Amidror, “unless the High Court intervenes or some party in Gaza carries out provocative acts”.
The release of the names of the prisoners to be released cleared the way for individuals and organisations to appeal to the Israeli High Court; they were given 48 hours to do so. Several objections have been raised since Friday. However, the court has never been called upon to review appeals against the exchanges agreed by the government in the past. The Majur Association, which is against the deal, said that the release of the prisoners will lead to more violence and kidnap attempts; the court will look into the association’s appeal.
Once the release takes place, only 131 of the ex-prisoners will be allowed to return to their homes in the occupied West Bank. There will other restrictions on movement for the rest; 203 will be expelled from the West Bank, with 145 going to the Gaza Strip and 40 being sent to countries not yet named. Eighteen will be obliged to remain in Gaza for at least three years.
Israel’s Army Radio announced that preparations for the release have begun, with the male prisoners being gathered together in Kitsion Prison; the women have been taken to Hasharon Prison north of Tel Aviv. Medical and identity checks will be made.
The radio report said that Shalit, 25, who has dual Israeli-French nationality and has been in captivity since June 2006, will be taken from Gaza to Egypt before his return to Israel by helicopter. He will be taken to an airbase in Tel Nov in southern Israel to meet his parents, Netanyahu, the Minister of Defence Ehud Barak and the head of the armed forces, General Benny Gantz. Hamas has prepared a ceremony to receive almost 300 of its heroes in Gaza; the streets have already been decorated with Palestinian flags.
The author is a Palestinian writer. This article was translated from the Arabic which appeared in the Lebanese newspaper As Safir, 17 October 2011

Psychologist Testifies that Solitary Confinement is Torture

As Pelican Bay Hunger Strikers Risk Death, Psychologist Testifies that Solitary Confinement is Torture

By Andy Worthington

On Day 17 of the renewed hunger strike by prisoners in Pelican Bay State Prison, and other prisons in California, prisoners, their relatives and their supporters fear that there will soon be deaths amongst the hunger strikers, because, as SF Bay View reported yesterday, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) “has been treating the current strike, which began on Sept. 26, as a mass disturbance and has refused negotiations.”
As the article explained, prisoners have begun to report “grave medical issues.” A relative of a striker at Calipatria State Prison said, “Men are collapsing in their cells because they haven’t eaten in two weeks,” adding, “I have been told that guards refuse to respond when called. This is clearly a medical emergency.”
As I explained yesterday, in my article, Pelican Bay and American Torture: Prisoners in Long-Term Isolation Continue Hunger Strike Despite Authorities’ Brutal Response, in an attempt to stop the strike, the CDCR has been isolating prisoners regarded as leaders in Pelican Bay, moving them from the Security Housing Unit (SHU), where they have been in almost total isolation — some for years, some for decades — to Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg).
To give some sense of the horrors of the system, the hunger strikers have stated that “513 of the 1,111 prisoners held at Pelican Bay have been in solitary confinement for 10 or more years, and 78 have been held for more than 20 years without access to light or open space for prolonged periods of time.” Moreover, there are three other SHUs in California, and nationally at least 75,000 prisoners are currently held in solitary confinement, even though it is self-evidently a form of torture when used for more than a short period of time.
Reports received by the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition indicate that, since the hunger strike resumed in California, prison officials have been attempting to freeze the prisoners out, “using the air conditioning system in conjunction with cold weather conditions where the prison is located.” SF Bay View also noted that, last week, a hunger striker in Pelican Bay suffered a heart attack, and was taken to a hospital in Oregon, and that other prisoners have been “denied medications, including prescriptions for high blood pressure.”
With the authorities refusing to negotiate, to improve the horrendous conditions in California’s prisons, and especially in the Security Housing Units, Dorsey Nunn, the executive director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and a member of the mediation team working on behalf of the prisoners, explained how many of the prisoners were not prepared to back down under any circumstances.

“The prisoners are saying that they are willing to take this to death if necessary to win their demands,” he said, adding, “Any deaths that result from the men starving themselves will be on the hands of the CDCR. We are at a point where we are calling on the media to make inquiries on prison protocol if and when prisoners begin to die. If they want to avoid that kind of scenario, the CDCR can start negotiating.”

Illustrating these points, prisoners at Corcoran State Prison have made the gravest statement to date. “Due to what they have done here to us,” they have said, “some men have stopped drinking water completely, so we may well be close to death in a few days.”

The fear, amongst everyone concerned with the welfare of the prisoners, is that the CDCR is not essentially concerned, and wishes only to break the strike at any cost. As SF Bay View noted, prisoners and their supporters have long expressed “serious concerns about the state of medical care in Corcoran, Calipatria, Pelican Bay and Salinas Valley,” where the hunger strike is ongoing. IN 2009, Dr. Michael Sayre, the chief medical officer at Pelican Bay, was successfully sued by a prisoner for “knowingly disregarding his severe medical needs,” and, as Terry Kupers, M.D., a member of the mediation team and an expert on prison health issues, has said, “The California prison system is in federal receivership in part due to the substandard medical care provided inside. It is my professional opinion that the hunger strikers are not receiving the care that they need and that their conditions could be exacerbated by the CDCR, especially if force-feeding comes into play.”

As SF Bay View noted, “Force-feeding is a common practice used against prisoners who refuse to eat and can involve forcing a tube into the person’s stomach via the nose,” something that I am familiar with from my research and writing about Guantánamo, where the force-feeding of hunger strikers has been in place for many years, even though, as SF Bay View also noted, “The practice has been widely condemned as torture by hundreds of doctors worldwide.”

In the hope of providing further insight into the rotten and unacceptable conditions of confinement practised not only in California, but across the United States, I’m also cross-posting below the testimony of Dr. Craig Haney, Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, regarding the issue of California’s Security Housing Units, as delivered to the California Assembly’s Committee on Public Safety on August 23 this year. The testimony was originally published on Solitary Watch, where it was noted that Dr. Haney “provides a historical overview of the use of solitary confinement, litigation and research on solitary confinement, and comments on the current state of the California prison system.”

That is a rather mild introduction to what is an extremely hard-hitting statement by Dr. Haney, demonstrating, in no uncertain terms, that solitary confinement has the power “to drive prisoners mad,” that the CDCR has known this all along, and that California prison officials have deliberately ignored the evidence provided to them to demonstrate that they are destroying prisoners’ minds on a colossal scale, even though their policy is not even effective as “a technique to control prison gangs.”
In some of the most powerful passages, Dr. Haney stated:
It is critically important in this hearing that we not lose sight of the fact that all of the men confined at the Pelican Bay SHU and in other housing units like it in CDCR continue to be treated very badly, routinely worse than prisoners in any civilized nation anywhere else in the world are treated, under conditions that many nations and international human organizations regard as torture. They live their entire lives within the confines of an 80 square foot windowless cell, which they leave for an hour a day when are allowed to enter a concrete encased but otherwise barren outdoor exercise pen. Save the small glimpse of overhead sky they have when they look directly up inside this pen, they have no contact with the natural world, not even to touch or see a blade of grass.
They have no contact with the normal social world either. Indeed, the only regular physical contact they have with another human being is the incidental brushing up against the guards who must first place them in handcuffs and chains before they escort them out of their cells and housing units. They visit loved ones through thick glass and over phones, and are thus denied the opportunity to ever touch another human being with affection. This has gone on unabated, for years and years, for some of these men for several decades now.

Statement of Professor Craig Haney at Hearing of California Assembly Public Safety Committee, August 23, 2011

My name is Craig Haney. I am a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. I have been studying the psychological effects of prison confinement, including the effects of solitary confinement, for well over 30 years. That research has included in-depth analyses of the conditions of confinement in many if not most of the facilities in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), including the Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit. I have testified as an expert witness in most of the major prison conditions lawsuits that have occurred in California over the last several decades, including ones directly pertinent to today’s hearing — Toussaint v. McCarthy [i], Coleman v. Gomez [ii], Madrid v. Gomez [iii], and the most recent case of Brown v. Plata [iv]. In the 10 short minutes I have available to me I want to make several brief points that hopefully will put today’s important issues in a somewhat larger context.

The first is some historical context. It is that CDCR officials certainly knew — or should have known — at the time they created the Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit in the late 1980s, that it would expose prisoners to psychologically dangerous conditions of confinement. Indeed, as a society we have known since at least the mid-19th century that the practice of solitary confinement was psychologically harmful and could significantly damage those persons who were subjected to it on a long-term basis. Indeed, a hundred or more years before Pelican Bay was designed and built, public figures like Charles Dickens and Alexis De Tocqueville wrote eloquently about the evils of prison solitary confinement and its power to drive prisoners mad.

Our own United States Supreme Court acknowledged as much in an 1890 case known as In re Medley, when Justice Miller wrote that this form of imprisonment had been universally abandoned because, in his words: “A considerable number of the prisoners fell, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane; others still, committed suicide; while those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and in most cases did not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community.” [v]
If CDCR officials were unaware of these vivid historical precedents, they certainly were aware of many more immediate ones. Indeed, for the 10 years preceding the construction of Pelican Bay, the Department was engaged in continuous and contentious litigation — from the late 1970s through the 1980s — that focused on exactly these issues: the harmful effects of solitary or isolated confinement and the wrongheadedness of attempting to use it as a technique to control prison gangs. Both issues were at the very heart of a federal court case in which federal judge Stanley Weigel repeatedly chastised the Department of Corrections for the inhumane conditions that were being operated in the so-called lockup units in San Quentin, Folsom, Soledad, and DVI. I know this personally because I provided much of the testimony that helped to establish many of those facts.

Instead of taking that expert information and those judicial admonitions to heart, CDCR officials simply and cynically ignored them, and moved on to create yet another lockup unit, this one on a vast, unprecedented scale that was explicitly designed to impose hitherto unimagined levels of isolation in the “supermax” prison at Pelican Bay. There can be no doubt that they knew the risks they were taking with the psyches of the prisoners who were confined there; as I say, I and many other experts, and at least one federal judge, had clearly and repeatedly told them so throughout the Toussaint litigation. In fact, in the entire 10-plus year period of that litigation, the Department never presented one single expert witness to dispute the facts that we presented about this potential to do great harm. They just deliberately and indifferently ignored them.

Indeed, notwithstanding the clear and undeniable evidence that long-term solitary confinement exposed prisoners to extreme psychological dangers, and despite the unprecedented and uncharted levels of nearly complete isolation to which they knew Pelican Bay would expose prisoners, there is no evidence that CDCR officials ever bothered to consult with any other psychological or mental health experts about the design of the facility to obtain advice about what the effects of the kind of isolation they were planning to impose might have on the prisoners in order to determine how those effects might be ameliorated by one or another design feature or approach. As one sign of how little they appeared to care, CDCR officials chose to open Pelican Bay prison and operate it for well over a year with only one single master’s level psychologist on staff to administer to the needs of the entire population of approximately 4000 prisoners at the entire prison, including the 1500 who were housed under truly dangerous levels of isolation in the SHU.

When those isolated and deprived conditions and their psychological effects were finally scrutinized in federal district court a few years later, Judge Thelton Henderson acknowledged that, in his words, the Pelican Bay SHU “may press against the outer limits of what humans can psychologically tolerate.” [vi] As you no doubt know, Judge Henderson ordered some significant changes in certain practices that took place at the prison, most notably in its use-of-force policies and the screening and removal of the most seriously mentally ill prisoners. He did not shut the prison down, although perhaps in retrospect wonders if he should have.

What is important to keep in mind, however, is that although he did not shut the Pelican Bay SHU down, the facility had only been in operation for a few years at the time of the hearing in Madrid, and had been operating for a mere 6 years at the time of he issued his strongly worded Madrid opinion. Back then, in 1995, as Judge Henderson himself noted, “[we could] not begin to speculate on the impact that Pelican Bay SHU conditions [might] have on inmates confined in the SHU for periods of 10 or 20 years or more.” [vii] Of course, it is now more than 20 years since the facility was opened. Unfortunately, we no longer need to speculate. Indeed, some of the men who were on that first busload of prisoners brought to this stark, barren, and desolate place in the late 1980s are still there, never having left.

It is critically important in this hearing that we not lose sight of the fact that all of the men confined at the Pelican Bay SHU and in other housing units like it in CDCR continue to be treated very badly, routinely worse than prisoners in any civilized nation anywhere else in the world are treated, under conditions that many nations and international human organizations regard as torture. They live their entire lives within the confines of an 80 square foot windowless cell, which they leave for an hour a day when are allowed to enter a concrete encased but otherwise barren outdoor exercise pen. Save the small glimpse of overhead sky they have when they look directly up inside this pen, they have no contact with the natural world, not even to touch or see a blade of grass.
They have no contact with the normal social world either. Indeed, the only regular physical contact they have with another human being is the incidental brushing up against the guards who must first place them in handcuffs and chains before they escort them out of their cells and housing units. They visit loved ones through thick glass and over phones, and are thus denied the opportunity to ever touch another human being with affection. This has gone on unabated, for years and years, for some of these men for several decades now.
Not surprisingly, this mistreatment has had terrible consequences for many of them. In our studies of prisoners at Pelican Bay, we have documented the multiple ways in which they are suffering. The list of symptoms is far too long for me to recite in the short time available to me (but it is contained in the written material I have provided to your staff). [viii] In short, prisoners in these units complain of chronic and overwhelming feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and depression. Rates of suicide in the California lockup units are by far the highest in any prison housing units anywhere in the country. Many SHU inmates become deeply and unshakably paranoid, and are profoundly anxious around and afraid of people (on those rare occasions when they are allowed contact with them). Some begin to lose their grasp on their sanity and badly decompensate. Others are certain that they will never be able to live normally among people again and are consumed by this fear. Many deteriorate mentally and emotionally, and their capacity to function as remotely effective, feeling, social beings atrophies.

These prisoners are paying a terrible price as pawns in this failed experiment, a price in terms of the pain they feel during the time they are housed in isolation, and a perhaps an even greater price when they are released and find they are unable to cope with the demands of a normal social life outside prison. To my mind, there is now clear and convincing evidence that this misguided attempt at managing California prison gangs simply does not work: when Pelican Bay came on line in the late 1980s California had a serious prison gang problem; it now has the worst one in the entire nation. Indeed, I do not believe the CDCR can present one single shred of reliable evidence that its gang-control-through-isolation policy is effective. In fact, I believe that a compelling argument can be made that the SHU units actually have made the state prison system’s gang problem much worse rather than better. Thus, the suffering of the SHU prisoners is not only in vain, it is counterproductive.

The specter of gangs is being used as a justification to continue to impose these draconian conditions, but it must not be allowed to. People join gangs in prison for the same reason that they join them on the streets — because they believe their own safety and self defense depends on it, and because they have no other way to gain access to things they need (like a sense of belongingness and purpose in a world that seems to deprive them of it) and things they feel they want (sometimes illicit things, ones that are made more attractive by the deprived circumstances under which they live). But this also means that gangs can be effectively controlled in prison in much they same way that they are effectively controlled on the streets. To be sure, steps have to be taken to make the “neighborhoods” in which prisoners live as safe as possible, by limiting access to the worst aspects of gang life — weapons and drugs. (In prison, frankly, this also means doing a better job of policing correctional officers as well as prisoners.)

More importantly, however, gangs are effectively controlled on the streets by providing members and potential members with meaningful and hopeful alternatives, pathways to genuinely better futures that they can choose instead of gang life, and which their gang involvement would sacrifice. In prison, just as on the streets, gangs flourish where these kinds of alternatives are limited or non-existent. The overcrowded wasteland that the California prison system has become over the last 30 years, one almost completely lacking in meaningful rehabilitation programs, vocational or educational programming goes a long way in explaining the proliferation of the gangs.
In 2002, for example, only a little more than half of all prisoners in California were employed in prison jobs of any kind. [ix] By 2006, the situation had gotten worse rather than better: more than 50% of California prisoners were released from prison that year without having participated in a single rehabilitation or job training program nor having had a single work assignment throughout their period entire prison sentence. [x]

The gangs have stepped in to fill this void. Because the CDCR offers most prisoners little or nothing in the way of programming or pathways to a better future, many feel they have little or nothing to lose. In the same way that gang abatement programs on the street that focus entirely on punishment and suppression are doomed to fail, the CDCR’s SHU-based isolation-and-deterrence-only model will never work in the absence of genuine, meaningful pathways for prisoners to do productive time.

Finally, I am aware that the CDCR intends to make some due process modifications in the procedures and practices that are in use in the Pelican Bay SHU (and presumably the other SHU units in the state), and that we are going to hear about them momentarily from Department of Corrections officials who will testify next. As best I understand them, these changes represent first steps along the path of creating a system that is fairer and more humane. For this, the Department is to be applauded. These new procedures suggest that the CDCR has come a very long way since those early days when it insisted on stubbornly ignoring the warnings that many of them give them about the path they had embarked on. It has taken a long time — far too long, in my opinion — but at least the process has begun.

However, as a veteran of the process of trying to create improved prison conditions and practices in California, I have to remind you that announcing intentions are not the same thing as solving problems or actually making changes. Moreover, these first steps are not final solutions and they do not begin to effectively address the core injustice and inhumanity of the Pelican Bay—the profound isolation it imposes and the sheer lengths of time to which so many men are subjected to it.

I have no reason to believe that Department officials are insincere, and I am willing to take them at their word that they are trying to improve this notorious facility. But Pelican Bay’s legacy — its history of mistreatment, misery, and willful neglect — is long-standing. It will take a great deal of effort, and oversight to overcome the atmosphere of distrust and abuse that has surrounded this place. I am hopeful that this Committee will remain vigilant in this regard, and help the Department follow through on its new commitment, a commitment to at least begin the process of meaningful change.

Footnotes
[i] Toussaint v. McCarthy, 553 F. Supp. 1365 (1983); 722 F. 2d 1490 (9th Cir. 1984) 711 F. Supp. 536 (1989).
[ii] Coleman v. Gomez, 912 F. Supp. 1282 (1995).
[iii] Madrid v. Gomez, 889 F. Supp. 1146 (N.D. Cal. 1995).
[iv] Brown v. Plata, 131 S.Ct. 1910 (2011).
[v] In re Medley, 134 U.S. 160, 168 (1890).
[vi] Madrid at 1268.
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] In my own study of a representative sample of prisoners in the Pelican Bay SHU, for example, every symptom of psychological distress that I measured but one (fainting spells) was suffered by more than half of the prisoners. Many of the symptoms were reported by two-thirds or more of the prisoners in this isolated housing unit, and some were suffered by nearly everyone. Well over half of the Pelican Bay SHU prisoners reported a constellation of symptoms — headaches, trembling, sweaty palms, and heart palpitations — that is commonly associated with hypertension. I also found that almost all of the prisoners evaluated reported ruminations or intrusive thoughts, an oversensitivity to external stimuli, irrational anger and irritability, difficulties with attention and often with memory, and a tendency to socially withdraw. Almost as many prisoners reported a constellation of symptoms indicative of mood or emotional disorders — concerns over emotional flatness or losing the ability to feel, swings in emotional responding, and feelings of depression or sadness that did not go away. Finally, sizable minorities of the prisoners reported symptoms that are typically only associated with more extreme forms of psychopathology — hallucinations, perceptual distortions, and thoughts of suicide. See Craig Haney, Mental Health Issues in Long-Term Solitary and “Supermax” Confinement, Crime & Delinquency 49, 124-156 (2003). [Previously provided to Committee staff.]
[ix] Specifically, only 53.6% of the more than 150,000 California prisoners were employed in any type of work assignment at the end of the year 2002. California Department of Corrections, CDC Facts, January 2003.
[x] California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Expert Panel on Adult Offender Reentry and Recidivism Reduction Programs, Report to the California State Legislature: A Roadmap for Effective Offender Programming in California (2007), at p. 7.

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.