Workers Resistance

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  • 30,000 California prisoners begin hunger strike and work stoppage against long-term solitary confinement

    Los Angeles, CA – On July 8, 30,000 prisoners in California began a massive, system-wide hunger strike and work stoppage. This is likely the largest prison strike in U.S. history. The prisoners have five demands, centered on stopping long-term solitary confinement, group punishment and administrative abuse, as well as other issues of appalling prison conditions, many of which can be classified as torture. The strike is uniting prisoners across lines of race and nationality throughout the California prison system.

    The prisoners say they will not eat and will also not work unless the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) agrees to negotiate honestly about their demands. Their five demands are:

    — End Group Punishment & Administrative Abuse
    — Abolish the Debriefing Policy, and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria
    — Comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006 Recommendations Regarding an End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement
    — Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food
    — Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates.

    California prisoners engaged in two three-week hunger strikes in 2011 based on the five demands. There were 12,000 prisoners in at least a third of California’s 33 prisons who participated in the 2011 hunger strikes. In the face of the protests, the authorities had agreed to make some changes, but two years later those changes haven’t been implemented and some conditions have worsened.

    The prisoners’ action has its roots in the Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit (SHU) prison. The SHU is a supermax prison designed to isolate that prisoners who authorities feel they can’t control, including politically conscious prisoners. They are away from the general population in total isolation, in conditions widely acknowledged to be torture. Prisoners can get sent to the SHU indefinitely. Similar conditions exist in the Administrative Segregation units of California’s other prisons. The California prison system currently holds nearly 12,000 prisoners in solitary confinement units, with dozens having spent more than 20 years each in isolation.

    Those 12,000 imprisoned people spend 23 of 24 hours living in a concrete cell smaller than a large bathroom. The cells have no windows, no access to fresh air or sunlight. People in solitary confinement exercise an hour a day in a cage the size of a dog run. They are not allowed to make any phone calls to their loved ones. They cannot touch family members, who often travel days for a 90 minute visit; their conversation and their mail is monitored by prison guards. They are not allowed to talk to other imprisoned people. They are denied all educational programs and their reading materials are censored. UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, stated that any time over 15 days in solitary confinement constitutes torture. Yet many people in California state prisons have been caged in solitary for 10 to 40 years.

    The prisoners have called on people on the outside to support their struggle and amplify their voices. See a video about the hunger strike: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw4bgeZpgdU and follow the hunger strike solidarity website for developments: http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/

  • Delhi – Protest demonstration against killing of Ganti Prasadam, July 10

    We are going to organise a Joint Protest Demonstration on 10th July 2013 (1PM to 5PM) at Jantar Mantar, Delhi, against the brutal killing of Ganti Prasadam (Vice President of Revolutionary Democratic Front) in Andhra Pradesh. We will submit a Memorandum to the Home Minister of the Govt. of India, demanding to set up a […]

  • Delhi – Solidarity Program : Justice for Maruti Workers, Jul 13

    Date: Saturday, July 13 Time: 3pm to 6pm Venue: The Indian Society International Law Auditorium, 9 Bhagwan Das Road, New Delhi. “Never, in all these years of my life had it occurred to me that the courts too care only about the rich. I am now beginning to believe that God too is only a […]

  • North Carolina hunger striker Uriel Alberto fights against his deportation

    Charlotte, NC – On July 4, father and head of household Uriel Alberto sat in front of Immigration and Customs Enforcement office here to partake in a hunger strike against his scheduled deportation on July 17. The hunger strike was temporarily suspended for him to join his family and friends in Winston-Salem who demonstrated against his deportation, but will return to Charlotte on July 8 to continue his hunger strike.

    What started off as a simple demonstration against reactionary anti-immigration policies, turned into a year-long struggle against Uriel Alberto’s ICE-enforced deportation process. In Raleigh, on Feb. 29, 2012, immigrant rights group El Cambio crashed a House Committee meeting on immigration issues, resulting in Alberto standing up and ripping off his outer shirt, revealing an undershirt reading, “Undocumented and Unafraid!”

    Alberto was detained for his actions, sparking a ten-day hunger strike against his imprisonment. He was eventually released, but from then on ICE has been scheduling a year-long process in deporting him back to Mexico because of his unwillingness to do so voluntarily.

    Alberto has been in this country since he was seven. He’s the father of two children and provides for them financially. His deportation won’t just affect him as an individual with rights, it will affect his whole family, if the reactionary rightists get their way.

    Giovanna Vargas, member of Yadkinville chapter of El Cambio, has started a petition, calling for the U.S. House of Representatives to end the hunt against undocumented immigrants, and in particular Uriel Alberto. The petition can be accessed here: http://www.change.org/petitions/john-morton-luis-guti%C3%A9rrez-help-sto…

    Giovanna says in relation to the current situation, “Uriel’s case is one of many. Families are torn apart every day; perfectly good parents are taken from their children. Their children are then placed into institutions, when they actually have parents who love them and want to care for them. This immigration reform makes the system worse – it further criminalizes those families who want nothing more but a safe and better future.”

    She continues, “North Carolina legislators have a huge fight on their hands, because organizers like myself, and more people from our communities are watching, we are resisting and we will keep fighting against the powers that be.”

    So show your solidarity to Uriel Alberto by signing the petition, sharing it amongst friends and family, and join with Alberto in Charlotte, in front of the ICE office, in hunger strike against his deportation.

    No more deportations! Legalization for all!
    ¡No a las deportaciones! ¡Legalización para todos!

  • Venezuela offers asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden

    The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela offered asylum, on humanitarian grounds, to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, July 5.

    The U.S. government has been placing intense pressure on governments around the world to deliver Snowden into U.S. custody. Earlier this week, the U.S. government sparked outrage when it prevailed on European countries to force down the plane of Bolivian President Evo Morales, on the grounds that he might be transporting Snowden from Moscow.

    Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro announced the asylum offer, saying that the most powerful empire on earth was trying to persecute a young man who has done nothing but tell the truth.

    Maduro then went on to say, Who is the terrorist? Governments like ours who offer humanitarian asylum to a young man like Snowden, or the U.S. government who shelters terrorists like airline bomber Luis Posada Carriles or sends bombs to the terrorist opposition is Syria?

    Snowden has the support of progressive people across the globe for revealing massive NSA spying operations.

  • The Egyptian people are waging a great struggle in the face of great dangers

    Over the past week the people of Egypt have been in the streets and waging a struggle that has assumed truly extraordinary dimensions. They have met austerity and repression with a mass heroism that people everywhere can learn from. The crowds that filled Cairo’s Tahrir Square and staged huge demonstrations across the country created the conditions for the end of the Morsi regime and pushed forward the national democratic process.

    The movement that has filled the streets and squares of Egypt this past week is a continuation of the movement that broke out Jan. 25, 2011 and toppled the hated U.S.-backed dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak.

    Despite these accomplishments, the movement of the Egyptian people now faces real challenges. It is a fact: President Morsi was removed from power by the Egyptian military. Was it in the context of a powerful mass movement demanding change? Sure, no doubt about that. It is also the case, at least for the short term, that the removal of Morsi via a coup, the suspension of the constitution, the ending of parliament and other measures taken against the Muslim Brotherhood, will strengthen the hand of the military – the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces – in the struggle between different factions of Egypt’s elite.

    The strengthened role for military presents a real set of problems for the Egyptian people. The most important being that Egypt’s military is closely linked with the U.S. and it could care less about the national or class interests of the Egyptian people in particular or the Arab peoples in general. The military was the author of the shameful treaty with Israel that strengthened the Zionist occupation of Palestine. Its collaboration with Israel continues right up to today. Many of its ranking officers have been trained in the U.S. Second to Israel, Egypt received $1.3 billion in military assistance last year from the U.S.

    While the White House has ordered a review of the aid to Egypt – because U.S. law forbids assistance to governments that come to power via coups – it is worth noting that the administration is being careful not to say the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces carried out a coup.

    Progressives in the U.S. should extend their solidarity to the people of Egypt. Across the Middle East, from Syria, to Palestine, to Yemen, Lebanon and Bahrain, people are resisting imperialism, Zionism and reaction of all kinds. They deserve our support. We demand an end to all U.S. aid to reactionary regimes in the Middle East, including Israel, and support the right of the Arab peoples to determine their own destiny.

    Victory to the struggle of the Egyptian people!

  • July 5: Bolivian president’s treatment stirs up fury in Latin America

    http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/03/bolivian-president-morales-latin-america?CMP=twt_gu Forced to land in Vienna, left waiting on the tarmac for and only allowed to leave after half a day – the treatment of Evo Morales has stirred up fury in Latin America, a region that has long bristled at the bullying of the US and double standards of its former colonial masters in […]

  • Jul 4 :Egypt, Brazil, Turkey: Without Politics, Protest Is At The Mercy Of The Elites

    http://www.zcommunications.org/egypt-brazil-turkey-without-politics-protest-is-at-the-mercy-of-the-elites-by-seumas-milne Egypt, Brazil, Turkey: Without Politics, Protest Is At The Mercy Of The Elites By Seumas Milne Two years after the Arab uprisings fuelled a wave of protests and occupations across the world, mass demonstrations have returned to their crucible in Egypt. Just as millions braved brutal repression in 2011 to topple the western-backed dictator […]

  • Jammu and Kashmir : CDRO Statement on Kupwara court’s order for reinvestigation of mass rape case of 1991

    Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisation (CDRO) welcomes the decision of the Judicial Magistrate, Kupwara (J&K) on 18th June 2013, asking for “further investigation to unravel the identity of those who happen to be perpetrators” of mass rape which took place in the two villages of Kunan and Poshpora in the North Kashmir district of Kupwara, […]

  • Poverty, Undernutrition and Food Security in Contemporary India

    by Deepankar Basu One of the easiest ways to understand the perverse nature of the growth regime underlying “India Shining” is to trace out the divergence between expenditure-based measures of poverty (POV) and the calorie-based measures of the prevalence of undernutrition (POU). To highlight this alarming divergence, Figure 1 and 2 plots measures of POV […]