Freedom for Political Prisoners

A weekly roundup of news and action alerts about political prisoners, prison struggles, and organizing against the prison industrial complex (PIC), both nationally and internationally. If you’ve got something you’d like to see included, leave a comment or send me an email.

• From July 15 to 29, Israeli occupation forces arrested 95 Palestinians, including 25 children and two women, in the occupied West Bank.

• On August 7 and 8, organizations in Mexico will be holding the country’s first National Gathering for the Freedom of Political Prisoners, in the city of Puebla.

• A New York Times article featured a twenty-year-long study on the effects of solitary confinement at Pelican Bay State Penitentiary in California, finding that those isolated for such a long period undergo “social death.”

• On August 3, the Trans and/or Women’s Action Camp (TWAC) carried out a civil disobedience action in downtown Seattle. In particular, they were protesting the quota agreement that ICE has to keep 800 beds filled at the immigration jail (Northwest Detention Center) in Tacoma run by the GEO Group Corporation.

• Also on August 3, lawyers for U.S. political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal filed a lawsuit “to challenge prison medical staff’s denial of necessary medical treatment – denial that nearly killed Abu-Jamal earlier this year.”

• Palestinian prisoner and hunger striker Uday Isteiti suspended his hunger strike on July 29 after reaching an agreement with Israel to be released on October 20. Meanwhile, Muhammad Allan has been on hunger strike for 49 days against his detention without charge or trial by Israel. At least five other Palestinian prisoners are conducting hunger strikes at the moment.

• In some good news, on August 1, U.S. political prisoner Marius Mason was transferred out of solitary confinement, where he had been held for the past six weeks.

• The National Religious Campaign Against Torture launched an online action alert to support the Solitary Confinement Study and Reform Act, “a bipartisan bill to dramatically reform the practice of solitary confinement in the United States federal prison system.”