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PARC'S NEW CONTACT INFO!

PO BOX 70447

Oakland, CA 94612

Check out our My Space page to read about upcoming events, and network with others trying to take action. We encourage people to become our "friends" to broaden our abolitionist community. Please contact us via phone or email if you are interested in volunteering with us.
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PARC'S PRISONER SUPPORT DIRECTORY

(UPDATED OCT. 2007) IS NOW
AVAILABLE ONLINE IN PDF !!
PLEASE PRINT THIS DIRECTORY AND USE IT TO ASSIST
PRISONERS IN YOUR COMMUNITY !!

UPDATES FOR SF 8:

Conspiracy Charges Dropped against

Five of the San Francisco Eight!

Three defendents still facing

conspiracy charges. See article

Francisco Torres freed on bail Friday September 21
Hank Jones freed on bail Tuesday, September 18
Harold Taylor freed on bail Wednesday, September 12
Ray Boudreaux freed on bail Tuesday, September 11
Richard Brown freed on bail Thursday, August 30
Richard O'Neal freed on bail Wednesday, August 29

FOR REGULAR UPDATES & SUPPORT EFFORTS FOR SF8
CHECK THESE WEB SITES OFTEN .....

www.cdhrsupport.org/ (sign up for e-mail list!)
www.thejerichomovement.com
www.fbiwitchhunt.com/BP.html
www.freedomarchives.org/BPP/torture.html
www.itsabouttimebpp.com/home/home.html
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Liberation_Army
www.assatashakur.org

Tuesday, January 23, 2007--article on SF8

taken from http://bombsandshields.blogspot.com/

San Fransisco, California, U.S. - Eight veterans of the Black Panther Party (BPP,) seven of whom are accused of belonging to the Black Liberation Army (BLA,) were arrested today on charges stemming from the 1971 shooting death of San Fransisco Police Sgt. John V. Young.

The August 29, 1971 attack on the Ingleside Police Station came only eight days after San Quentin prison guards gunned down BPP Field Marshal "Soledad Brother" George Jackson. The murder of Jackson provoked threats of retaliation and even sparked the Attica Prison rebellion.

Seven of the men arrested, all suspected BLA members, were charged with murder and conspiracy. They are Ray Michael Boudreaux, 64, of Altadena; Richard Brown, 65, of San Francisco; Herman Bell, 59, and Jalil Abdul Muntaqim formerly known as Anthony Bottom, 55, both currently incarcerated in New York state; Henry Watson (Hank) Jones, 71, of Altadena; Francisco Torres, 58, of Queens, New York; and Harold Taylor, 58, of Panama City, Florida.

Another suspect, Ronald Stanley Bridgeforth, 62, was still being sought on murder and conspiracy charges. Authorities believe he could be in France, Belize or Tanzania.

Taylor and two others faced murder charges in 1973, but the case was dismissed after a San Francisco judge ruled that torture was used to extract confessions from the men. San Francisco Police Department Inspectors Frank McCoy and Ed Erdelatz were present for the interrogation and torture which consisted of stripping the men naked and beating them with a lead pipe, blind folding them and throwing wool blankets soaked with boiling water over their bodies, placing electric probes on their genitals and other body parts, inserting an electric cattle prod in their anus, punching and kicking, and slamming them into walls while blindfolded.

McCoy and Erdelatz came out of retirement to lead the investigation when the case was reopened sometime in 2002. The decision to re-investigate the incident followed the Department of Justice's expanding prosecution of political crimes in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks.

Bell's attorney Stuart Hanlon called the arrests a "prosecution based on vengeance and hate from the '60s." "There's a law enforcement attitude that they hate these people, the Panthers," Hanlon said. "Now they're going after old men."

As in other recent political cold cases, and even some new cases, it seems that the prosecution relied on the grand jury system to gather evidence that had for so long eluded them. In 2005 five former Panthers including Ray Michael Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Hank Jones, Harold Taylor, and John Bowman were jailed for not cooperating with the grand jury.

Jones is now a Pasadena area real estate appraiser in his 70s. He refused to cooperate because of the coercive and punitive nature of the grand jury proceedings. He said "I spent six weeks in San Francisco County Jail, and I'd spend six years if necessary."

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FREE THE JENA 6! http://www.freethejena6.org

FREE THE NEW JERSEY 4! http://www.fiercenyc.org/updates_events/index.html

MIDWEST GREEN SCARE!

www.Greenisthenewred.com (GREEN SCARE!)

PARC REPORT ON TOXIC SWEATSHOPS:

PARC is proud to release a new report, "Toxic Sweatshops: How UNICOR Prison Recycling Harms Workers, Communities, the Environment, and the Recycling Industry." For the first time, prisoners speak out on deplorable health and safety conditions within electronics recycling factories run by UNICOR. UNICOR, also known as Federal Prison Industries, is a government-owned corporation operated under the Department of Justice that uses captive prison labor in a range of industries, including the dismantling of electronics. Leroy Smith, a former safety manager at Atwater Prison, blew the whistle on UNICOR's facility there and was named "Public Servant of the Year" by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel in September 2006. Download the report here.

In September 2006, the OSC stated, "Federal employees and prisoners inhaling poisons due to the neglect of their superiors, and federal agencies whitewashing the investigation. It sounds like a Hollywood dramatization like 'Shawshank Redemption,' or a John Grisham novel with wild conspiracy theories. In this case, however, workers and inmates were exposed to hazardous materials without protection, including lead, cadmium, barium, and beryllium, without adequate safety precautions, and the Bureau of Prisons and Federal Prison Industries did nothing to stop it, and indeed frustrated attempts to investigate the matter. These are powerful arms of the United States Department of Justice. Even if the problem is less a wholesale coverup and simply a cabal of self-interested bureaucrats, challenging it is a formidable task." Read the strongly worded statement here. Read Leroy Smith's thoughts here. Check PARC's "Prisons Poison" page soon for more on this issue.

On October 18th, in Austin, Texas, people attending E-Scrap, the leading conference for electronics recyclers in North America, were greeted by protesters in orange jumpsuits in a "cage" dismantling electronics, while quotes from prisoners and pictures were posted outside. The report includes a list of "Ten Things You Can Do to Stop UNICOR Recycling", including contacting your workplace, university, school district, or local waste management district to find out how it disposes of its electronic waste. Despite rising complaints from prisoners and guards, and a 2005 BOP report conceding that prisoners and staff at at least three prisons--Atwater, Texarkana, TX; and Elkton, OH--were exposed to toxics, UNICOR has continued to promote itself as a "true green solution" to the problem of e-waste and to pursue more business. PARC thanks report co-authors Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, the Center for Environmental Health, and the Computer TakeBack Campaign; for a look at the global problems of e-waste, and student campaigns against it, download the 2006 report "System Error", also available from SVTC.

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To receive current alerts, subscribe to prisonact-list.

Ongoing updates 2008:

**** Prisoner letters posted to the Prisoners' Voices section.

**** The PARC Resource Directory has been updated for 2006. Last year, PARC mailed approximately 10,000 of these directories to prisoners, friends and family members across the U.S. Currently, PARC is updating the Big National Resource Directory for Educators and Activists on the Crisis in Prisons. For more information, including our needs for on-line volunteer work and donations, go here.

**** New pages "Prisons Torture" , "Prisons Kill" "Prisons Poison", and "Prisons Corrupt" have been added to Issue/Research Archives.

**** PARC is looking to post book reviews written by prisoners.

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CA Youth Authority Updates : The campaign to close CHAD contiues.... More at the Books Not Bars Alternatives for Youth site

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NO MORE WAR

PARC is opposed to the war on terror which, like the war on drugs and the war on crime, targets poor people and people of color. We have seen the war on terror legitimize the expansion of immigration law enforcement powers - allowing for the detention and deportation of thousands of immigrants, and more recently the forced registration of Arab, Asian and African immigrants throughout the country. This is only one example of many on how the military industrial complex feeds the prison industrial complex in a cycle that destroys communities while creating profits for capital.

In California alone we've seen proposed budget cuts that would gut funds from education (libraries will be closed & teachers may be layed off), from the social responsibility of caring for poor children and elders (more than a million children in California will be without any medical insurance), from aid to disabled citizens (attendants will be eliminated as well as transportation services), in short - from all services that have anything to do with citizens day to day needs; while prison and military spending continue.

The stupendous amounts of money being spent by the military industrial complex (MIC) are beyond any sane person's fantasy/nightmare. At the same time, the masters of unreason are continuing the growth of the prison industrial complex (PIC). The Federal Bureau of Prisons now holds the world record for more prisoners than any other prison system. The i.n.s. has now become homeland security, and this means more immigrants will be thrown into the prisons of amerika. The 'just-us system' seems to have no need to recognize any of the so-called constitutional rights of the accused, much less their human rights under international law. They can hold who they want for as long as they want without attorneys or even naming the suspects or what they are suspected of doing. This is not new in some communites. And this epidemic is the fastest growing social disease in amerika and seems to be immune to any concerns for humanity. If you are against war for oil, war for profit, war against poor people and people of color - stand up and be counted!