The Angola 3 Coalition suffered a tragic loss this Christmas.Althea Francois, one of Angola 3’s earliest supporters and a life-long activist for peace and social justice, crossed over to the ancestors on December 25th at the far too early age of 60.
Althea spent her life actively engaged in the struggle for justice, starting with her involvement in the Black Panther Party, where she began her efforts to help political, economic and racial prisoners.She embodied the finest and most basic ideals of empathy and generosity and inspired all of us that had the privilege of coming in contact with her.
As Angola 3 member Robert King struggled to find words to express the depth of his sorrow, he invoked the biblical reference…"I was hungry and you fed me, was thirsty and you gave me drink, was in prison and you visited me. Althea fed us with hope. She had an enormously giving spirit that we will all deeply miss."
In the late ‘90’s, Althea and Marion Brown, together with Malik and Mwalimu, Shana and Brice, Anita Yesheaux, Vicky Wallace, and Ed (Alton Edwards), solidly grounded the efforts to free the Angola 3 and create a base for political prisoner work in New Orleans.When King was released in February of 2001, he moved to the home that Althea and Marion were staying in on Bartholomew St. in the 9th Ward.For the first few years of visiting the prison and organizing the effort, Althea’s home was the base that all of us worked from.There was always food and room for another mat on the floor.
Althea was finally able to purchase a home-base for her daughters and grandchildren in the Gentilly area of New Orleans.Katrina ripped apart the security she had at long last established and the years since 2005 were a tense balancing act between work in Atlanta, work in New Orleans, her children and her grandchildren.Though Al rarely complained, she was beset with a number of crippling maladies- asthma, high-blood pressure and the incessant pressure of keeping a family together in these difficult times with never enough support.
She loved her daughters with the ferocity of a lioness and was so proud of their accomplishments. They were the center of her being and I know that what would worry her most now is the pain they will feel at her loss.
Sadly, Althea had no insurance and no savings, thus leaving her daughters not only with the grief of losing her, but with the challenge of raising funds for her funeral.If you can help with a donation to the family, please send what you can to defray the funeral costs one of three ways:
You do not have to have a pay Pal account to use this option. Look for link on bottom after you enter your donation amount.
3.Mail funds to:
Olga Francois c/o Todd Taylor, 7704 Benjamin St. New Orleans, LA70118
Please join the family for a celebration of her life and service:
Saturday, January 2, 2010 @ 1:00PM
Rhodes Funeral Home
3933 Washington Avenue
New Orleans, LA
(504) 822-7162
Additional information will be posted as received.
--View the photo presentation from Althea's January, 2009 birthday party here. Al loved her some Nina Simone.We've included two selections below for you to listen to.
Video Interview With Kiilu Nyasha: Counterrevolution in the United States
By Angola 3 News
This new video focuses on the counterrevolution launched against the Black Panther Party, other 1960's revolutionary groups, and the poor and oppressed communities that these groups were organizing. To learn more about Kiilu's work with with the Panthers, read the recent interview with her, entitled "Media, Revolution, and the Legacy of the Black Panther Party." This is the second video released from the hour-long interview conducted by Angola 3 News with Kiilu Nyasha at her home in San Francisco, CA in November, 2009. The first video was released several weeks ago, and focused on Kiilu's recent article entitled "America's Supermax Prisons Do Torture."
Kiilu Nyasha is a San Francisco-based journalist and former member of the Black Panther Party. Kiilu hosts a weekly TV program, "Freedom Is A Constant Struggle," on SF Live (Comcast 76 and AT&T 99). She writes for several publications, including the SF Bay View Newspaper and BlackCommentator.com. Also an accomplished radio programmer, she has worked for KPFA (Berkeley), SF Liberation Radio, Free Radio Berkeley, and KPOO in SF.
--Angola 3 News is a new project of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3. Our website is www.angola3news.com where we provide the latest news about the Angola 3. We are also creating our own media projects, which spotlight the issues central to the story of the Angola 3, like racism, repression, prisons, human rights, solitary confinement as torture, and more.
On Friday, December 4, Herman Wallace filed his Habeas Corpus petition with the federal courts. You can read/download the filed petition here.
The petition asserts: "...129. Mr. Wallace has been convicted of murder and sentenced to life in violation of the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution."
One excerpt states: “…93. The factual scenario presented to Mr. Wallace’s jury in 1974 was entirely different than it would have been if the State had honored its constitutional obligation to disclose materially favorable evidence to the defense. Post-conviction proceedings have revealed that—in a case where the prosecution relied exclusively on inmate testimony to secure a conviction—the State purposefully withheld evidence of deals, perjured testimony, and prior inconsistent statements. This evidence would have discredited each and every one of the State’s witnesses.”
One more excerpt states: “…123. In addition to the State’s suppression of deals, false testimony and prior inconsistent statements with respect to the inmate witnesses who testified against Mr. Wallace, the State also failed to disclose statements by other witnesses that would have undermined the State’s case.”
Background
On September 19, 2006, State Judicial Commissioner Rachel Morgan recommended overturning Herman's conviction, on grounds that prison officials had withheld evidence from the jury that prison officials had bribed the prosecution's key eyewitness, Hezekiah Brown, in return for his testimony.
However, in May 2008, in a 2-1 vote, the State Appeals Court rejected Morgan's recommendation and refused to overturn the conviction. Herman appealed this to the State Supreme Court, but on October 9, 2009 the Court ruled against Herman and affirmed the conviction.
Dr. Terry Kupers, M.D., M.S.P. wrote the introduction to From the Bottom of the Heap and is Institute Professor at The Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. Dr. Kupers is a psychiatrist with a background in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, forensics and social and community psychiatry. His forensic psychiatry experience includes testimony in several large class action litigations concerning jail and prison conditions, sexual abuse, and the quality of mental health services inside correctional facilities. He is a consultant to Human Rights Watch, and author of the 1999 book entitled Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About It.
King and Kupers were interviewed in Oakland, California in October, 2009, when King was in town for Black Panther History Month. This video is only part two, so please stay tuned for more!
Kiilu Nyasha is a San Francisco-based journalist and former member of the Black Panther Party (BPP). Kiilu hosts a weekly TV program, "Freedom Is A Constant Struggle," on SF Live (Comcast 76 and AT&T 99), which can be viewed live hereon Friday at 7:30 pm (PST), and rebroadcast Saturdays at 3:30 p.m., and Mondays, 6:30 p.m.. She writes for several publications, including the SF Bay View Newspaper and BlackCommentator.com. Also an accomplished radio programmer, she has worked for KPFA (Berkeley), SF Liberation Radio, Free Radio Berkeley, and KPOO in SF. Some of her work is archived at www.kpfa.org. and www.myspace.com/official_kiilu
ARTWORK BY KIILU NYASHA: From left to right: Hugo "Yogi Bear" Pinell, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Albert "Nuh" Washington.
AMERICA’S SUPERMAX PRISONS DO TORTURE
by Kiilu Nyasha
November 22, 2009
President Barack Obama has clearly stated, “We don’t torture.”
Oh, yes we do. Big time.
A myriad of studies have clearly shown that human beings are social creatures – making prolonged isolation torture.
The New Yorker published an article March 30, 2009 by Atul Gawande titled, Hellhole: The United States holds tens of thousands of inmates in long-term solitary confinement. Is this torture?
Gawande asks, “If prolonged isolation is – as research and experience have confirmed for decades –so objectively horrifying, so intrinsically cruel, how did we end up with a prison system that may subject more of our own citizens to it than any other country in history has?”
By 2000, some 60 supermax prisons had been opened nationwide, in addition to new isolation units in nearly all maximum-security prisons.
The first such gulag was established in 1983 in Marion, Illinois. In 1989, California opened Pelican Bay State Prison near the Oregon border housing over 1,200 captives. It’s been the model for dozens of other states to follow. The SHU (Security Housing Unit) is entirely windowless, and from inside a cell with doors perforated with tiny holes, prisoners can only see the hallway.
They’re confined 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year with just a brief time (when permitted) in the “dog run” or outdoor enclosure for solitary exercise with no equipment, not even a ball.
But after nearly 20 years, California is now holding more people in solitary than ever; yet its gang problem is worse, and the violence rates have actually gone up.
Nationwide, at least 25,000 prisoners are in solitary confinement with another 50-80,000 in segregation units, many additionally isolated but those numbers are not released.
According to The Washington Post, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons reported there are 216 so-called international terrorists and 139 so-called domestic terrorists currently in federal facilities (I’m convinced the real terrorists are on Capitol Hill). No one has ever escaped from these “most secure prisons.”
In a 60 Minutes segment titled, Supermax: A Clean Version of Hell (revisited), June 21, 2009, the reporters took cameras into the ADX-Florence, Colorado Supermax where there have been six wardens since it opened in 1994. It’s where Imam Jalil al-Amin and Mutulu Shakur are held captive, along with myriad other political prisoners.
One former warden stated, “I don’t know what hell is, but I do know the assumption would be, for a free person, it’s pretty close to it.”
“Supermax is the place America sends the prisoners it wants to punish the most – a place the warden described as a clean version of hell.”
In a national study (Hayes and Rowan 1988) of 401 suicides in U.S. prisons —one of the largest studies of its kind—two out of every three people who committed suicide were being held in a control unit.
In one year, 2005, a record 44 prisoners killed themselves in California alone; 70 percent of those suicides occurred in segregation units
Bret Grote is an investigator and organizer with Human Rights Coalition/Fed Up!, a prisoner rights/prison abolitionist organization based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In the Angola 3 Newsletter, Grote details how HRC/Fed Up! Documented many hundreds of human rights abuses in Pennsylvania’s 27 prisons. Their investigations concluded that Pennsylvania is “operating a sophisticated program of torture under an utterly baseless pretext of ‘security,’ wherein close to 3,000 people are held in conditions of solitary/control unit confinement each day.”
Supermax prisons can also contain death rows where prisoners can spend decades in isolation, torture, with the added torment of impending execution. One obvious example is the highly political case of former Black Panther, journalist and author, Mumia Abu-Jamal, falsely convicted of killing a cop in 1981. Despite hard evidence of innocence, he’s still locked up in SCI Green, a Pennsylvania Supermax, after 27 years on death row and the signing of two death warrants.
These conditions are a flagrant violation of article 6 of the U.S. Constitution which affirms that treaty law (i.e. international law) is the “supreme law of the land.” Thus, article 10 (3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights stipulates that “The penitentiary system shall comprise treatment of prisoners the essential aim of which shall be their reformation and social rehabilitation.”
Contrary to the lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key rhetoric of politicians, A Zogby poll released in April 2006 found 87 percent of Americans favor rehabilitative services for prisoners as opposed to punishment only.
The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons, a bipartisan national task force, produced a study after a yearlong investigation (2005-2006) that called for ending long-term solitary confinement of prisoners. The report found practically no benefits and plenty of harm – for prisoners and the public.
One of the most egregious cases of prolonged torture is the politically-charged isolation of Hugo Pinell still held in PelicanBay’s SHU after nearly 20 years. For his active resistance back in the 1960s and assault conviction in the San Quentin Six case (1976), my dear friend has spent a total of 40 years in hellholes – 45 of his 64 years in California prisons. (http://www.hugopinell.org).
“In much the same way that a previous generation of Americans countenanced legalized segregation,” writes Gawande, “ours has countenanced legalized torture. And there is no clearer manifestation of this than our routine use of solitary confinement – on our own people, in our own communities, in a supermax prison, for example, that is a 30-minute drive from my home.”
In the words of Friedrich Nietzsche, Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
The infamous “Death by a Thousand Cuts”, a method of torture in Imperial China, appears to be the model the State and Federal judicial systems are employing in the handling of the appeals for Herman and Albert. Year by year, month by month, day by day, the myriad indignities and injustices mount up as endless delays hinder the final resolution of their cases.
Herman's brief stint in a two-man cell ended last week when he was moved to a one-man cell again, but he remains in lockdown for another 90 days or so from now. This means he has limited material in his cell, infrequent time in the exercise pen, no contact visits and minimal commissary. All his mail is monitored closely, but that's nothing new.
Albert meanwhile remains in CCR in Angola awaiting a decision from the 5th Circuit Court on upholding the overturning of his conviction and so another year grinds to a halt with the State increasing their efforts and expenditures to keep two men, 62 and 68 respectively in punitive lockdown after 37 years in solitary confinement for a murder that there is still no evidence that they actually committed.
GuantanamoBay has drawn universal condemnation, but the evolution of our own prison system remains as far away as ever, impervious to the rising tide of public criticism and the economic hardships created by this system. The articles below are a sad testament to these dark times.
Dr. Terry Kupers, M.D., M.S.P. wrote the introduction to From the Bottom of the Heap and is Institute Professor at The Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. Dr. Kupers is a psychiatrist with a background in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, forensics and social and community psychiatry. His forensic psychiatry experience includes testimony in several large class action litigations concerning jail and prison conditions, sexual abuse, and the quality of mental health services inside correctional facilities. He is a consultant to Human Rights Watch, and author of the 1999 book entitled Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About It.
King and Kupers were interviewed in Oakland, California in October, 2009, when King was in town for Black Panther History Month. This video is only part one, so please stay tuned for more!
Jeanne Theoharis is the author of an April, 2009 article in The Nation, entitled “Guantanamo At Home,” which focuses on the arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment of US citizen Syed Hashmi in a New York City prison with Guantanamo-like conditions. Theoharis holds the endowed chair in women's studies and is an associate professor of political science at BrooklynCollege, CUNY.
Syed Hashmi’s trial will begin in New York City on December 1. The website www.freefahad.com explains that: “Syed Hashmi, known to his family and friends as Fahad, was born in Karachi, Pakistan in 1980, the second child of Syed Anwar Hashmi and Arifa Hashmi. Fahad immigrated with his family to America when he was three years old. His father said ‘We knew there would be many opportunities for us here in the United States. We came here to find the American dream.’ The large Hashmi family settled in Flushing, New York and soon developed deep roots throughout the tri-state area. Fahad graduated from RobertF.WagnerHigh School in 1998 and attended SUNYStonyBrookUniversity. He transferred to BrooklynCollege, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science in 2003. A devout Muslim, through the years Fahad established a reputation as an activist and advocate. In 2003, Fahad enrolled in LondonMetropolitanUniversity in England to pursue a master’s degree in international relations, which he received in 2006. On June 6, 2006, Fahad was arrested in London Heathrow airport by British police based on an American indictment charging him with material support of Al Qaida. He was subsequently held in Belmarsh Prison, Britain’s most notorious jail.” For more information on the Hashmi case, also visit: www.educatorsforcivilliberties.org.
Angola 3 News:Can you please give us background on the arrest and prosecution of Syed Hashmi? For example, what are the charges against him? What is their evidence?
Jeanne Theoharis:In June 2006, Hashmi, who is a US citizen, was arrested by the British police at HeathrowAirport (he was about to travel to Pakistan, where he has family) on a warrant issued by the US government.In May 2007, he was extradited to the United States, the first US citizen to be extradited under terrorism laws passed after 9/11. Since then, he has since been held in solitary confinement at Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC).
The US government alleges that early in 2004, a man by the name of Junaid Babar, also a Pakistani-born US citizen, stayed with Hashmi at his London apartment for two weeks.According to the government, Babar stored luggage containing raincoats, ponchos, and waterproof socks in Hashmi’s apartment and then Babar delivered these materials to the third-ranking member of Al Qaida in South Waziristan, Pakistan.In addition, Hashmi allegedly allowed Babar to use his cell phone to call other conspirators in terrorist plots.
The government has claimed that Babar’s testimony is the “centerpiece” of its case.Babar, who has pleaded guilty to five counts of material support for Al Qaida, faces up to seventy years in prison.While awaiting sentence, he has agreed to serve as a government witness in terrorism trials in Britain and Canada as well as in Hashmi’s trial.Under a plea agreement reported in the media, Babar will receive a reduced sentence in return for his cooperation.
A3N:What can you tell us about Hashmi as a person, especially your personal experience of knowing him when he was a student of yours?
JH:Fahad was a student of mine at BrooklynCollege in 2002.An outspoken Muslim student activist, Fahad wrote his senior seminar paper with me on the treatment of Muslim groups within the United States and the violations of civil rights and liberties that many groups were facing.Needless to say, this feels particularly chilling—and no longer academic—as we have now witnessed his own rights being violated.
A3N:Since his arrest, what have the conditions of his incarceration been?
JH:Under special administrative measures (SAMs) imposed in October 2007 by the former Attorney General, Hashmi must be held in solitary confinement and may not communicate with anyone inside the prison other than prison officials.Family visits are limited to one person every other week for one and a half hours and cannot involve physical contact.While his correspondence to members of Congress and other government officials is not restricted, he may write only one letter (of no more than three pieces of paper) per week to one family member.He may not communicate, either directly or through his attorneys, with the news media.He may read only designated portions of newspapers – and not until thirty days after their publication – and his access to other reading material is restricted.He may not listen to or watch news-oriented radio stations and television channels.He may not participate in group prayer.He is subject to 24-hour electronic monitoring inside and outside his cell – including when he showers or relieves himself – and 23-hour lockdown.He has no access to fresh air and must take his one hour of daily recreation – when it is given – inside a cage.
As the expert testimony supplied by Hashmi’s attorneys in a pre-trial motion of December 2008 attests, the conditions of Hashmi’s detention may have severe physical and mental consequences and impair his mental state and ability to testify on his own behalf.
While former Acting Attorney General Keisler claimed that these measures are necessary because “there is substantial risk that [Hashmi’s] communications or contacts with persons could result in death or serious bodily injury to persons,” Hashmi was held with other prisoners in a British jail for eleven months without incident.The SAMs were renewed by Attorney General Mukasey in November 2008 and upheld by Judge Loretta Preska in January 2009, citing Hashmi’s “proclivity for violence.” There has been no change to the SAMs under the Obama Administration. They were renewed again by Attorney General Holder in early November 2009. Yet, Hashmi is not being charged and has never been charged with committing an actual act of violence.
Currently, according to research by the New York Times in February 2009, there are six people in the United States being held on pre-trial terrorism SAMs; three (including Hashmi) are under the jurisdiction of the Southern District of New York, which has long served as a stepping stone to national political office.
A3N:Looking particularly at the harsh solitary confinement imposed on Hashmi, how is this officially justified? Do you think the stated reason is the actual motivation, or do you think there are other reasons for the solitary confinement and other harsh restrictions?
JH:My colleagues and I have begun to come to the conclusion that the use of prolonged solitary confinement is a tactic to ensure convictions.Such conditions weaken people mentally and the toll of sensory deprivation and isolation simultaneously makes people more eager to take a plea or not able to fully assist their counsel. Most experts agree it is torture (see Atul Gawande's “Hellhole” in The New Yorker).While our public discussions have tended to see torture as a tactic to get information, in cases like Hashmi's, torture is being used to help secure convictions.
A3N:How are the prion conditions for Hashmi in NYC different from those in Guantanamo?
JH:There are key similarities of prolonged isolation and sensory deprivation between Hashmi's treatment at MCC in lower Manhattan and what we have heard of the conditions at Guantanamo.However, there has been much less attention to these inhumane conditions within the United States.
The focus on prisons like Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Baghram stems, in part, from a larger post-civil rights paradigm that assumes the judicial process is now fair in the United States and relatively incorruptible and thus it was necessary to go outside of the US courts to do the extreme bad things.
Rather, what made Guantanamo possible stemmed from domestic legal practices, many already in place and many others expanded after 9/11, which have continued almost unabated under the Obama Administration.
A3N:With Hashmi’s trial beginning on December 1, what are activists currently doing to support him?
JH:Theaters Against War began holding weekly vigils in October to draw attention to the inhumane conditions of confinement and the due process violations Hashmi and others are facing within the federal courts.Artists and actors such as Wallace Shawn, Kathleen Chalfant, Bill Irwin, Jan Maxwell, Betty Shamieh, and Christine Moore have performed at the vigils.
A3N:Any closing thoughts?
JH:Three central Constitutional issues have become clear in the treatment of Hashmi and others within the federal system: the inhumane conditions of confinement, the abridgement of due process rights , and the lack of 1st Amendment protections.
If these are not addressed, then moving the Guantanamo detainees into the federal system does little to return America to the rule of law, of which we are rightfully proud.I am reminded of that quote by former Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1967, ""It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of...those liberties...which [make] the defense of the nation worthwhile."
