Many of you have asked about the addresses for our KBP7 (now) prisoners of conscience. Here are the addresses for Carmen, Martha, and Patrick. Fr Steve Kelly is in transit so there is no address currently for him. Clare reports to FCI Alderson on February 12th; Mark is scheduled to be sentenced on February 19th. Liz has finished serving her sentence, and lives with her family in New London, CT. Please go to our website for current updates https://kingsbayplowshares7.org/
Carmen Trotta #22561-021 FCI Otisville-Satellite Camp PO Box 1000 Otisville, NY 10963
MONTHS AFTER NEW York had become a global epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic, state officials began quietly moving dozens of elderly men with underlying health conditions from prisons across the state to a facility close to the Canadian border.
The transfers, which began in June 2020, after the virus had spread widely and caused several deaths among the state’s incarcerated population and prison staff, were ostensibly intended to protect the most vulnerable from Covid-19. But defying both public health recommendations and common sense, prison officials moved the men from different facilities, including some with large outbreaks, without first testing them, transporting them on crowded and poorly ventilated buses. They then mixed them at the Adirondack Correctional Facility in Ray Brook, New York, without quarantining them. Since then, officials have tested the men only sporadically, even after some were exposed to the virus inside the prison, and have taken minimal steps to promote hygiene and social distancing. When a man incarcerated at the facility was discovered to have contracted the virus, prison officials ordered the guards who had come in contact with him to quarantine at home for two weeks. But they took no measures to test and isolate the incarcerated people with whom he had also been in close proximity.
WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing WHEN: 7pm, Tuesday, December 12th, 2021 WHERE: YOUR HOME COST: Free
NYC Anarchist Black Cross is promoting virtual letter writing to elder political prisoner David Gilbert who has been in New York State prisons since 1981.
“It’s our first every-other-week political prisoner letter-writing event of 2021 and we are starting off by writing to David Gilbert–someone close to us, both physically and in spirit. For this first event of the year, NYC ABC and Page One Collective are asking you to continue to write to from home, staying safe, while also keeping our imprisoned comrades front and center.”
For David to come home, he would need Governor Andrew Cuomo to grant him clemency (release or make him parole eligible). Please write Cuomo and urge him to grant clemency to David Gilbert (#83A6158):
On Monday January 18th, The Free Maroon Now Coalition will be gathering at 11 am on the Capitol Steps in Harrisburg (501 N. 3rd St, Harrisburg, PA 17120) demanding the immediate release of PA political prison Russell Maroon Shoatz. On this Martin Luther King holiday, we remind the community that Martin Luther King was unpopular with the government of his time and that he was a political prisoner incarcerated for standing up for Black Lives.
Russell Maroon Shoatz is a 77 year old grandfather who has spent over 50 years in prison for standing up for Black Lives. 22 of those years were spent in solitary confinement. Maroon was diagnosed with stage 4 colo-rectal cancer in 2019 and has undergone chemo over the last year. He is an elder who is no threat to anyone. Maroon is one of 1300 people over the age of 60 sentenced to die in PA Prisons. We must change the practice of excessive sentencing and the mass incarceration of elders.Maroon was diagnosed with Covid in December, where he experienced “refugee like” circumstances with 30 ailing men living in a gym with only one bathroom. 145 organizations from across the country signed on to a letter demanding his immediate release.
Join us as we call for Mercy for Maroon. Join us as we demand Amnesty for all Political Prisoners.Join us as we invoke the call for Reparations. Granting compassionate release for people defending Black lives is a part of Reparations.Join us as we mourn the death of justice. For as long as people continue to be incarcerated for defending Black Lives there can be no justice.There will be a funeral procession to an undisclosed location following the gathering at the Harrisburg Capitol Steps.
Please sign up here, so we can get an idea of how many people are planning to attend and keep you updated with event details. Traveling is expensive, so if that is a barrier to your participation we can support your gas and toll money.
Help save the life of former Black Panther & political prisoner Kamau Sadiki/Freddie Hilton. Tweet @GovKemp & call the Augusta State Medical Prison at (706) 855-4700 to demand he be taken to the wound care clinic ASAP.
Send him a message of hope and healing: Freddie Hilton #0001150688 Augusta State Medical Prison 3001 Gordon Highway Grovetown, GA 30813
Sadiki has spent more than four decades fighting for Black people. At seventeen, he joined the NYC Black Panther Party. He been imprisoned since 2002 for refusing to aid in the capture of Assata Shakur.
Despite Rattler’s compassionate release being denied by the federal courts, and the prison as well as federal probation offices refusing to look into Rattler’s legal change of address to be housed with family during the pandemic, Rattler was made to get on a public plane (regular commercial airflight, not Bureau of Prisons personal airlines) despite his attorney being physically present to pick him up to have safe travel and limiting exposure during the pandemic.
We are unsure if he was tested again for COVID before being put on the plane, but he has reported having no more symptoms since his contraction of COVID at Sandstone federal prison last month. He is now in ND heading for the halfway house for the next 6 months.
We will update his mailing address for support mail. Any donations can be added to his Support Committee- PayPal www.paypal.me/siouxic and messages for him can be sent to this Facebook page. Please pray for those stuck in federal halfway houses, local jails, and state/federal prisons because they are ALL affected by COVID. #stillnodapl#strugglecontinues
Veronza was a member of the Black Panther Party, convicted in the murder of a U.S. Park Ranger on the word of two government informants, both of whom received reduced sentences for other crimes by Federal prosecutors. There were no eye-witnesses and no evidence independent of the informants to link him to the crime.
At trial, Veronza offered alibi testimony, not credited by the jury. Nor was testimony of two relatives of the informants who insisted that they were lying. The informants had all charges against them in this case dropped and one was given $10,000 by the government according to the prosecutor’s post-sentencing report. Veronza has consistently proclaimed his innocence of the crime he never committed, even at the expense of having his appeals for parole denied for which an admission of guilt and contrition is virtually required.
Write: Veronza Bowers, Jr. #35316-136 FCI Butner Medium II PO Box1500 Butner, NC 27509
It’s January 2021 and time to open up the 2021 Certain Days calendar and check out our inside editor Xinachtli’s artwork commemorating our 20 year anniversary!
What’s that? You don’t have one yet? Be sure to pick up copies from these distributors!
About Xinachtli Xinachtli (Nahuatl, meaning “seed”) is a community organizer and Chicano movement revolutionary, currently imprisoned in Texas. Formerly known as Alvaro Luna Hernandez, he worked diligently in the barrio on civil and human rights issues, and is known widely for his legal skills.
Xinachtli gained international recognition as the national coordinator of the Ricardo Aldape Guerra Defense Committee, where he was instrumental in helping to free Mexican national Aldape Guerra from Texas’ death row, where he had been framed for the murder of a police officer.
In July 1996 Xinachtli was arrested after disarming a sheriff who was attempting to shoot him. After defending himself at trial, Xinachtli was sentenced to 50 years in prison for aggravated assault, a charge he vehemently denies. While imprisoned, Xinachtli continues to write frequently, has helped to organize multiple prison strikes, and has been held in solitary confinement for the last 20 years and counting.
Xinachtli is a prolific jailhouse lawyer, as referenced by Mumia Abu Jamal in his book Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v the USA. Folksinger David Rovics has produced a ballad in his honor, and he is in discussion to produce a documentary about his life and freedom struggles. Xinachtli assists many prisoners in seeking new trials, and filing suits against the repressive, inhumane Texas prison system. He has been a frequent contributor to the Certain Days calendar for many years, and joined as an inside collective member in 2018.
Xinachtli* #255735 James V. Allred Unit 2101 FM 369 North Iowa Park, TX 76367 *Address envelope to Alvaro Luna Hernandez.
