TEHACHAPI HUNGER STRIKERS STILL NEED OUR HELP
(letter from a tehacapi hunger striker)
http://ppnews-request@freedomarchives.org
Hunger Striker's at Tehachapi still need our help!
CCI Tehachapi; July 21, 2011
(Regarding this hunger strike) I am glad the word
is out, I'm just saddened that I don't see
anything on the news of our struggle. As far as
we last heard it?s been like 12 prisons that are
involved. Here there are a lot of people on
strike - all races, Pelican Bay and Corcoran for sure.
As far as commissary, that's a negative. It is
CDC policy to search our cells and remove all
store when hunger strikes begin, and they did so here.
All they do is weigh us and take our vitals
(blood pressure, temp., and heart rate), but of
course they weigh us in chains to weigh us down
and they allow the c/o's to operate the scale. I
am at 171 on my last weigh-in, down from 185.
They attempt to take my blood, which I refuse;
I'm weak as it is, if I do that I?ll fall out.
They truly don't care and they are perfectly
content in watching us pass rather than admit
fault and make changes to a policy that is brutal
and baseless. I can?t take my medication anymore
because I have to take it with food? I asked for
help and they just ignored me.
They also took my shoes when I got here and my
feet hurt. (*He had only been at CCI 2 weeks
before the strike started, and he was never given any shoes!)
Help get the truth out there. I pray some
attorneys get involved. Let them know the CDC is
without truth and will lie to keep this issue
from ever getting coverage. I am here validated
for no actual action. This policy of validating
people for no reason robs us of our lives, so we
are on a hunger strike in which we could pass
because in this environment we've already passed. This is not a life.
I have no food and no meds (that I can take). All
they do is weigh me. They don't treat us
(example; Ensure, Gatorade, nutrients of some sort). Nothing.
So I remain strong in the hopes that change will
come. I get sad when I watch the news and they
talk about stuff with no meaning and ignore us. I
am an American citizen and when enemy combatants
in Guantanamo Bay had a strike they covered it,
all networks, beginning to end, but we are just forgotten.
Contact all media networks and let them know this
is a peaceful protest and we have been given no
other option for relief rather than to hunger
strike in the hopes that someone, ANYONE, will
care enough to step in and help us.
One might think that us as prisoners must be held
under duress and extreme conditions in order to
refuse the most basic necessity; food. I choose
to remain on strike for I have been robbed of my
life, my ability to be a father to my son, a son
to my parents, a lover to my love, a friend to
friends, and to experience life in the minimum of its meaning.
I was sentenced to life in prison at 18 for an
action I committed, but now I am validated for no
actual action committed by me. And I?ll be held
here in the SHU until I die or debrief. Just
imagine if anyone out there could be put in jail
just for someone?s accusation. It?s unheard of.
But in here its common practice for we are
forgotten. We are the tragic aftermath of an angry committee.
Some believe we don't deserve common decency or
compassion because we didn't show any when we
committed our crime. To those people I say, in
life wrongs are committed. I don't justify
anything. But this country was founded on mass
genocide and yet that is forgotten.
Now that civil rights have passed the oppression
that must be has moved behind these walls of the new ?concrete slave ship".
I am only a man who prays that I will be judged
by my actions and my disciplinary file, not by
the words of faceless informants and a
confidential file that I can?t see. We must
defend ourselves against the unknown. It?s literally impossible.
My feet still walk the trail of tears. I am in my
soul still a believer in justice and the good in
people. I believe if society really knew what
happened in here they'd be appalled.