Solidarity Messages to the Lucasville Hunger Strikers for the Martin Luther King Brithday rally, January 15, 2011
James Osborne, Belfast, Northern Ireland :
All i can say is to tell them to keep up the tremendous work that they are doing and that there is support from across the world.
Annabelle Parker, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Ohio Prison Watch:
I want to express my solidarity with the people on hunger strike for receiving the same rights as other people on death row in Ohio State Prison. I understand that they already have a punishment (a death sentence) and therefore it is in my opinion inappropriate to submit them to further isolation making an exception for these five men.
It is well known that long term isolation is inhumane and cruel, and it comes down to torture. I wish the people on hunger strike much strength, determination and I hope that those who keep them under these circumstances that they listen and are not afraid to act in a humane way by ending the extreme measures these men are being submitted to. Solidarity, strength, hope and light.
Pádraic Mac Coitir, Belfast, Northern Ireland:
Comrades, as an Irish republican who spent 15 years in gaol I can fully understand the stance you are taking. I have spoken to many of my comrades who were in prison with me and they too send solidarity greetings.
I have been told that you're all familiar with the sacrifice Bobby Sands and his brave comrades made during those turbulent months 30 years ago. We are hopeful that your demands will be met and you will get the justice you deserve.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, death row, PA:
They rose above their status as prisoners, and became, for a few days in April 1993, what rebels in Attica had demanded a generation before them: men. As such, they did not betray each other; they did not dishonor each other; they reached beyond their prison 'tribes' to reach commonality.
Denis O’Hearn, Binghamton, NY: Friends,
I am sorry that I cannot be with you today but I want to thank the organizers for letting me send a few words. I am delighted that you have come to support our friends in solitary confinement in that building over there. I visit Bomani and Jason regularly there and I visited them right after they began this protest. Their spirit was remarkable. They expect to win their rights through this protest and I for one am moved by their optimism. The most important thing we can do is to continue what you are doing right now. Let our voices be heard and our faces be seen in support of these men.
I’ve been through a hunger strike before, thirty years ago in Ireland when ten men including Bobby Sands gave their lives for their fellow prisoners. To me it is like yesterday and the current atmosphere brings it all back. I knew many men on that hunger strike, including my co-author Laurence McKeown who actually died after 66 days but his mother had the authorities bring him back from beyond. I know from my friends that this action is something men undertake seriously only when they feel they have no other option, when the authorities have shown that they will not listen to reason. Yesterday it was British Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher and today it is the authorities of the state of Ohio.
At a time when an Ohioan cries as he reads the Constitution in one of the highest legislative institutions of the land, I cannot help but wonder why his friends back home in this state so cavalierly violate right after right supposedly guaranteed by that same document.
Perhaps it is because the authorities do not consider these men to be human beings, and therefore not worthy of human rights. Bomani told me the following story when visited him last week. He said the Deputy Warden had come in to taunt him about his hunger strike.
“You know, LaMar, the human body can only go so long without food,” he said. To which Bomani replied, “I know, but according to the state of Ohio I’m not a human being so I don’t have to worry about that.”
Well, believe me, Bomani Shakur, IS human. As are Jason, Hasan, and Namir. And I can tell you today that the attempts by the state of Ohio to take away their humanity by ensuring that they can never touch other humans has only made them more human. I hope that what is happening today will not only help end their own oppression, but that we will go forward to defeat this dreadful thing called supermax, the most egregious violation of human rights in this country today. Fortunately, other states are beginning to turn their backs on this practice. Let’s see to it that Ohio joins them.
I just want to say one more thing and then I am done.
Bomani, Jason, Hasan, Namir…I love you. Thank you for everything you have given me.
As Bomani tells me, again and again, “It ain’t over.”
Michigan Emergency Coalition Against War and Injustice, Detroit:
To: Bomani, Hasan, Jason, Namir
Dear Brothers,
On this day—the 82nd birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and 12 days from the start of your courageous hunger strike—Michigan Emergency Coalition Against War and Injustice stands in full solidarity with your defiant action. We celebrate the fact that, through struggle, some of your issues have been resolved, and we join with people all over the world in calling for the immediate granting of all of your most basic demands. This cruel and unusual punishment—for what else can it be called, if you four are denied even the most minimal comforts afforded to all others convicted of capital crimes in Ohio—that you have been subjected to for 12 years must cease. Your legal rights to defend yourselves in court against your wrongful convictions must not be denied. We say to Warden Bobby: Stop the torture now!
Monday, here in Detroit, we will march in the spirit of Martin Luther King. We will march for many things. Jobs, not war—bring the troops home now. A moratorium on foreclosures, evictions and utility shutoffs. No to racist discrimination and police brutality. Immigrant rights now. But we will also march for freedom for all political prisoners.
After the march, when we rally, our program book will have an insert on political prisoners. Everyone present will be educated about the need for solidarity with the Lucasville uprising defendants.
In Ohio and Michigan, while we march and rally in the freezing cold, your spirit will warm and strengthen us.
Tear down the walls!
Until victory,
Michigan Emergency Coalition Against War and Injustice
Michael McCann, Belfast, Northern Ireland:
We may not be there in body but we are there in spirit. We in Belfast Ireland support you all.
Njeri Shakur andGloria Rubac,Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, Houston, TX:
January 15, 2011
To the Lucasville Uprising Prisoners:
The members of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement send our warmest solidarity to you brothers participating in the hunger strike in Ohio. We know that your oppressive conditions of isolation are inhumane, unconstitutional, degrading, mentally damaging and just plain wrong. We applaud your strength in carrying out this hunger strike and bringing this important issue to the people of the world.
We have fought for a decade against the isolation that the 300+ men on death row in Texas are forced to live under. We know that you, also, are enduring nothing short of torture and the Ohio prison system must end this torture NOW!!
Stay strong and know that all abolitionists in Texas are standing strong with you in this battle for human rights. Your courage is an example to all of us.
On to victory!
Abolish the Racist and Anti-Poor Death Penalty!
Panthers United for Revolutionary Education (P.U.R.E.), death row, Texas
To Our Brothers Bomani, Jason, Siddique and Namir:
Comrades, we salute you in your righteous endeavor to end the isolation you have been forced to live under. We feel your pain, understand your plight and are behind you 100 per cent. For ten years we have lived under similar conditions. We have also had hunger strikes and protests against our isolation because we know that none of us were sentenced to torture.
We send to your our deep solidarity with your actions. We raise our fists in militant determination to say “Basta!” “Enough!” We demand that your call for decent treatment be granted. We know that all prisoners are entitled to humane treatment and we know that the oppressors will never “give” us our rights—we must fight to achieve them. As Frederick Douglass taught us, “ Without struggle, there can be no progress.” We send our P.U.R.E. Love from Texas Death Row.
Payday Men’s Network, London, England:
To: Bomani Shakur, Siddique Abdullah Hasan, Jason Robb & Namir Abdul Mateen, and, the rally to protest inhumane treatment in Ohio’s supermax prison, OSP:
We send solidarity and greetings to the Lucasville hunger strikers and all those who rally to support them on Dr Martin Luther King’s birthday.
We are honoured to be in touch with prisoners on the inside whose struggle is too often ignored and even hidden, and whose only resource is each other. You are showing us on the outside how to organize effectively.
We are an international network of men working with soldiers, and their supporters – most often mothers, daughters, sisters, wives – who refuse the military and its illegal orders, who refuse to be killers, rapists, torturers and occupiers. We know well that most people in prison should not be there, and that many are being punished for organizing against state-sponsored racism and murder.
Prisoners are telling the world that exploitation, brutality and torture are commonplace and extensive in the “land of the free”. The real criminals, who have impoverished, poisoned and bombed, destroying communities all over the world, including in their own country, sit in judgment on the rest of us.
We stand with you and all those who oppose the inhuman conditions that you are protesting against.
From: Payday men’s network working with the Global Women’s Strike
Minister Malik Al-Arkam, muhammadspeaksonline, www.afrodescendant.com:
We demand Human Rights and Reparations for all 250 million slave descendants in the western hemisphere.
Peace Be Unto The Righteous.
Monica Moorehead, International Action Center :
Sisters and brothers,
Prisons inside the United States are not about rehabilitation; they are concentration camps for the poor and working people especially people of color. There are almost 3 million imprisoned workers who have been isolated, brutalized and super-exploited for their labor. Unfortunately, there are more people outside of the U.S. aware of this fact than inside the U.S. due to a blockade of information by the big business media.
Actions like the heroic 12-day-old hunger strike by brothers Bomani, Hasan, and Jason – along with thousands of prisoners who participated in the historic statewide Georgia prison strike last month – will help to bring a new awareness and inspiration with the movement's support in the ongoing struggle for political and economic struggle.
These class-conscious prisoners are the modern-day Attica brothers who 40 years ago this September made similar demands we support today by the Lucasville prison uprising leaders and the Georgia prisoners. The Attica rebellion was drowned in a bloody massacre by the New York National Guard and state police. These prisoners were more than willing to risk their lives because they made a pledge to die standing up for their rights rather than on their knees. They even stated before they died that their rebellion was the “sound before the fury”. The prisoners in Ohio and Georgia have made that same pledge.
The progressive movement must continue to support the prisoners like in the Ohio State Penitentiary, Georgia, Mumia Abu-Jamal in Pennsylvania and many others who are trying to create the fury needed to liberate humankind from a system that puts profits before the needs of the people. If the great civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, I strongly believe he would be supporting prisoners’ rights and demands because he stood with and sacrificed his life for all oppressed people.
An Injury to One is an injury to All!!! Tear Down the Walls!
Khalid A. Samad, Peace in the Hood:
Our organization, Peace in the Hood, Inc., has worked with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals for over 20 years. We are very familiar with the dynamics of the prison system, both from an administrative perspective and from the prison population perspective.
Warden Bobby, we voice our concerns that the conditions at your institution have driven four men to a hunger strike to demand to be on death row rather than in your prison. Any Supermax prison, by its very existence, violates every rule of basic human decency and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
We are aware the men were at Lucasville prison during the riots. We are also aware that they acted as negotiators and in doing so, probably saved countless lives. Their reward was a kangaroo court and to be scapegoated as the villains of the Lucasville Riots. We are monitoring the situation and are demanding an impartial and complete investigation of the conditions at this institution that prompted such action on the part of Namir Abdul Mateen (James Were), Siddique Abdullah Hasan (Carlos Sanders), Bomani Hondo Shakur (Keith LaMar) and Jason Robb. We are calling on all organizations and individuals with a moral conscience to stand up and demand that these men, and others in the prison, be treated like human beings.
Mr. Bobby, they may be inside the prison and isolated from humanity for 23 hours a day – we are not. As citizens with a moral conscience, we must speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. We must confront injustice when we see it and this is injustice. We and others like us will not rest until we receive a full accounting of their condition and the conditions in the prison. We stand with them and call for an end to cruel and unusual punishment in the prison system. A copy of this letter is being forwarded to State Senator Shirley Smith and Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections Director Mr. Gary Mohr. We will not rest until this is addressed.
