Category Archives: Prison Industrial Complex

Global Day of Action: Troy Davis Events | Amnesty International USA

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Troy Davis

The state of Georgia has set Troy Davis’ execution date for September 21st. But on September 16th, International Day of Solidarity for Troy Davis, people from around the world will take to the streets in efforts to stop this execution. Events, both large and small, are being organized right now. Join us!

See our listing below to find events happening near you! Or if you can’t find any local events, then there is still time to organize an event in your hometown.
Spotlight: Support Troy Davis Events

Atlanta, GA: Global Day of Solidarity for Troy Davis: March and Prayer Service
Ann Arbor, MI: Demonstration to Save Troy Davis
Washington, DC: Rally to Save Troy Davis
San Francisco, CA: Support Troy Davis on Union Square
New York, NY: Emergency Rally to Stop the Execution of Troy Davis

More information on actions in your area.

Torture in the US Prison System: The Endless Punishment of Leonard Peltier | Truthout

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by: Preston Randolph and Dan Battaglia, Truthout | Op-Ed

In June 2006, the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons released “Confronting Confinement,” a 126-page report summarizing its 12-month inquiry into the prison systems. The commission follows up the analysis based on its findings with a list of recommendations. Topping the list of needed improvements is better enforcement of inmates’ right to proper health care and limitations on solitary confinement. Five years after the report’s release and despite its detailed and well-researched studies, inmate abuse continues. More recently, news reports from California’s Pelican Bay Prison amplified the need for change, but after the three-week inmate hunger strike ended, the torture of solitary confinement continues nationwide.

Former Bureau of Prisons (BOP) official Bruce Smith served nearly 20 years at Leavenworth State Penitentiary in Kansas. Smith experienced firsthand the wrongdoings and mistreatment toward Peltier during the decades Peltier spent at Leavenworth.

“It’s obvious they [the FBI and the BOP] have an agenda out against Leonard. What has happened to him is wrong. See, they have the tendency to know where they want to go in a case, and then build their evidence to that point, and that’s exactly what happened to Leonard,” said Smith.

Torture in the US Prison System: The Endless Punishment of Leonard Peltier | Truthout.

Geronimo Pratt Remembered in Los Angeles

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“Lives of great men all remind us; we can make our lives sublime,
and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time.”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Family, friends and comrades gathered today at the Agape International Spiritual Center to celebrate the life and legacy Black Panther leader Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt. Speakers included Pratt’s attorneys Stuart Hanlon, Shawn C. Holly and Kathleen Cleaver. Other scheduled speakers were U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, Mrs. Mollie Bell, nephew Patrick Pratt and former Panthers Wayne Pharr, Roland Freeman and Mubarakart. He was eulogized by Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith with music by Rickie Byars Beckwith and the Agape International Choir.

Many speakers reminded us we best honor him by honoring that part of ourselves that also seeks Freedom and knows that to that end, there is still much work to be done.

Pratt, the target of the notorious FBI COINTELPRO program, served 27 years behind bars for a murder he did not commit. His conviction was overturned in 1997. He won a $4.5 million judgment against the City of Los Angeles and the FBI after his release. He had been splitting his time between his childhood home in Morgan City, Louisiana and a community founded by former Panther Pete O’Neal outside Arusha, Tanzania in East Africa. He died there in June of malaria.