As movements for Abolition and Civil Rights worked to end the institutions of slavery, lynching and legalized segregation, new and more indirect mechanisms have emerged for perpetuating systemic racism and its economic underpinnings...The prison industrial complex is the current manifestation of the legal legacy of the racialized transformations of plantations into prisons, of Slave Codes into Black Codes, of lynching into state-sponsored executions.

Friday, February 26th - Faith leaders, formerly detained immigrants, and human rights activists from across Texas today participated in an action and letter-delivery as part of a launch of a “Dignity, Not Detention” campaign. Activists gathered to call on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to close two south Texas detention centers – the Willacy County “Tent City” detention center and the Port Isabel Detention Center (PIDC). Both facilities have been racked by allegations of human rights abuses, and PIDC has been the site of hunger strikes lead by detained immigrants over conditions of confinement and due process concerns.

[Tuesday] morning, over a dozen supporters from Minneapolis and the Quad Cities joined Scott DeMuth, indicted for conspiracy under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), in the Federal Courthouse in Davenport for his arraignment for the new indictment that was issued last week. There was also a hearing on numerous discovery-related motions for his upcoming trial. Scott’s attorney, Michael Deutsch, argued that the prosecution has failed to produce the discovery that the defense is entitled to under the rules. Judge Shields took the arguments under advisement and is expected to issue a ruling within the next few days.

Related: Feldman moved to Muscatine County ... | ... And then to Dubuque County, IA | Updates from the Scott/Carrie Support Committee | Events: Political Repression and State Violence with Dhoruba Bin Wahad | Star Tribune: Stuck Three Months in Iowa Jail For Refusing To Testify

Past Feature: As DeMuth's Trial Date Nears, Federal Prosecutor on Crusade Against Anarchist Ideology

Marvin Reeves (pictured on left) and Mark Clements (right) visited Champaign-Urbana on Wednesday night, Feb. 24, 2010. They spoke on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and on the topic of "Lynching Then/Lynching Now" as part of a national tour sponsored by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. An audience of some 60 people filled a room in Gregory Hall.

Freed from prison in October 2009 after 21 years, Marvin Reeves spoke about how he was framed for murder by the testimony of an inmate in jail for burglary. His co-defendant Ronnie Kitchen made a false confession after being tortured by Sgt. Jon Burge of the Chicago Police Department. Reeves has since been awarded approximately $200,000 as compensation.

Mark Clements was sentenced to life without parole as a juvenile and was released in August 2009 after serving 28 years in prison. He spoke about the need to end the harsh penalities handed out to juveniles. He was also tortured into making a false confession by Chicago police who later worked alongside Sgt. Burge.

Activists from the U.S. and worldwide organized a day-long teach-in in Philadelphia and online to demand: No death penalty; No life sentence and for a Civil Rights Investigation in support of the award-winning journalist and political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal.

RELATED: PA State Rep. David Richardson's 1995 speech on Mumia Abu-Jamal II SF Bay View interviews Pam Africa II New article by Linn Washington II Previous Linn Washington radio interview and article II Article by Dave Lindorff II Jeff Mackler article

SIGN PETITIONS TO: President Obama and Attorney General Holder

On Wednesday Afternoon, in the midst of a blizzard, about 30 Buffalonians came out to protest conditions at the Erie County Holding Center. Today's protest was exceptionally emotional as it comes the weekend after another inmate committed suicide, the 5th hanging suicide since 2007 and the 11th overall in the center since 2003. The inmate was a 26 year old heroin user in withdrawal named Dan Nye.

I met Safiya in the visiting room of the Federal Correctional Institution (for women) in Dublin, California, in 1997—but when we embraced, it felt as if I’d known her all my life. At the time, Safiya was traveling to various prisons, visiting political prisoners to talk with us about Jericho ’98, the national campaign, beginning with a march rally to the White House, that she was organizing (with Herman and Iyaluua Ferguson, political prisoner Jalil Muntaqim, and others). I was in Dublin, along with six other women political prisoners...

-Friday, Feb 19 @ 5pm
Reed College-3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard
Eliot 314
-Saturday, Feb 20th @6pm
Red and Black Cafe
400 Se 12th Ave

'One struggle, one fight' - it can be an elusive concept. Please join this panel of speakers as they talk about the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, the Green Scare, COINTELPRO and how they relate to each other. The aim of this panel is to explore how movements struggling for fundamental change can persevere over the long term in the face of state repression. This will be a benefit for the AETA 4, four activists in the Bay Area being prosecuted as "terrorists" for their beliefs. All money raised will go to their legal defense fund. In addition, this event will hopefully plant the seeds of solidarity and cross-pollination between movements.

Speakers: Lauren Regan (Civil Liberties Defense Center), Nadia Winsted (grand jury resistor), Claude Marks (Freedom Archives, former political prisoner), Jeffrey Luers (former political prisoner, environmental activist), and Walidah Imarisha (historian, hip-hop artist).

No one turned away for lack of funds.

 http://cldc.org
 http://AETA4.org
 http://freedomarchives.org

This afternoon, in the midst of a blizzard, about 30 Buffalonians came out to protest conditions at the Erie County Holding Center. Today's protest was exceptionally emotional as it comes the weekend after another inmate committed suicide, the 5th hanging suicide since 2007 and the 11th overall in the center since 2003. The inmate was a 26 year old heroin user in withdrawal named Dan Nye.

read more

Hank Skinner has been on death row for the last 15 years after being convicted of killing his life partner and her two adult disabled children. As the execution date quickly approaches, a number of questions still remain. Questions that could be easily cleared up with DNA testing that the state so far has refused to grant. Dr. Protess, a professor at Northwest University, shares more about the doubts and unanswered questions that linger and makes a direct plea to Governor Perry to save Skinner's life...

Texas continues to lead the nation in executions. But will the state earn the dubious distinction of executing five innocents in two decades? Hank Skinner’s fate lies in the hands of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Gov. Perry and the U.S. Supreme Court. Read More | Petition to Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles

From: Erie County Prisoner's Rights Coalition

Dear allies,
Please join us this Wednesday in rallying against the gross mismanagement of our County's prison systems, which has led to yet another tragic suicide in the Holding Center. If you haven't read about this unfortunate event yet, please visit the News article HERE. The Erie County Prisoners' Rights Coalition will be issuing a statement in response to the media, and we expect to see some major outlets there on Wednesday to cover the protest, which will take place at 5 PM in front of the Erie County Holding Center, Delaware and Church.

In addition to some of the higher-profile abuses that have been reported, such as beating inmates or denying vital medical care to inmates, the U.S. Justice Department has long warned the County that they take far too little care in identifying and responding to high suicide risk inmates. This warning translated into some of the most urgent recommendations the Justice Department made to the County in the past year - recommendations that would be completely cost-free to implement. And yet the County's continual and spiteful refusal to acknowledge the problem has cost our community two lives in recent weeks. In December, we lost Adam Muir by the same exact means - hanging from shoelaces while in drug withdrawal. That the County did not learn from this event just two months prior signifies their unforgivable indifference to the human life in their care.

We hope to see you out on Wednesday to send a message. read more

Tre Arrow to speak at Reed College
Thursday, February 11, 2010
7pm, Blue Heron Infoshop (Gray Campus Center Room 34)

Tre Arrow served 5 years in state custody after being accused by an FBI informant of masterminding a series of political arsons in Oregon in 2001. Tre fled to Canada, but was later arrested there, held, and ultimately extradited back to the US after being denied political asylum. Prior to his flight and ultimate arrest, Tre was a prominent organizer and activist working to protect Oregon's ancient forests, including Eagle Creek, a major drinking water supply source for the state's citizens. Tre gained widespread public recognition for his 11 day occupation of a 9 in. wide ledge on the Forest Service Building downtown.

Having recently completed his sentence, Tre will speak publicly for the first time about his activism, his case, his extradition, and his prison hunger strike.

"Despite the supposedly benign tour at Angola, both students and I were horrified. There is a cavalier attitude, a blasé’ acceptance of capital punishment, mass incarceration and of course little critique of the class and race dynamics of the inmate population—80% of whom are black and nearly all of whom were poor, under-educated and dependent on a public defender at trial. There is passive acceptance and even sometimes celebration of Louisiana’s harsh sentences—it has the highest incarceration rate in the US—and of the fact that 90% of the inmates will die there and 80% will receive no visitors after 5 years."

Read more of the interview with St. Catherine Professor Nancy Heitzeg by Angola 3 News HERE

a human tragedy and gross injustice

Safiya Bukhari died in 2003. She was just 53 years old. It saddens me to know this courageous woman no longer walks this Earth, and that I didn’t know of her or her work while she was physically here. I began reading her collection of essays The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison, and Fighting for Those Left Behind, published by The Feminist Press and edited by political activist, Laura Whitehorn, just after a 7.3 earthquake struck Haiti.