Santa Cruz-Statewide Coordinated Actions To End Solitary Confinement

Thursday, June 23, 2016 and 23rd of every month, 12-2 pm, outreach & rally
11:30 am - set up.
12 noon – signs and outreach.
12:30-2:00 pm – rally, speak-out, readers’ theater.
https://www.facebook.com/events/988617214527474/

STOP SLEEP DEPRIVATION in CA Solitary Units in Pelican Bay SHU and Central CA Women’s Facility Death Row

The California prisoners’ 2012 Agreement to End Hostilities between racial/ethnic and geographic groups made possible the CA Prisoner Hunger Strike of 2013 by over 30,000 CA prisoners and 100's more nationwide. Prisoners' human rights organizing has built an amazing movement and led to the historic 2015 settlement ending indefinite solitary confinement in CA.

Now people are being awakened by guards every 30 minutes day and night in CA solitary confinement units:
* in Central CA Women’s Facility Administrative Segregation death row since May 18, 2014
* in Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit (SHU) since August 2, 2015

Please write letters to Lindsay Hayes, the suicide expert who has endorsed this harmful practice by CA Dept. of Corrections. Hayes can stop the “security/welfare checks.” We want Hayes to hear the voices of the women and men affected by these torturous checks, and we ask you to be the messengers.

"This is torture. We are being emotionally, mentally and physically battered by the security checks throughout the nights." -20 death row prisoners in Central California Women's Facility

“The negative health consequences of inadequate sleep ha[ve] been extensively documented and nowhere in the literature is there a report on as severe a disruption in sleep as is occurring in the Pelican Bay SHU.” – Dr. Jamie Zeitzer, internationally recognized sleep expert, Oct. 2015

Letter templates, instructions, and prisoners’ quotes at:
https://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/letter-writing-launch-to-end-harmful-security-welfare-checks/

Central California, please send copy of your letter to kohenet [at] sbcglobal.net

June is Torture Awareness Month.
Solitary confinement and deprivation of sunlight and sleep, basic Maslow human needs, violate prisoners’ constitutional, human, and penal rights, including numerous international laws that prohibit torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.