defending victims.. making prisons unnecessary
Image by ChelseaLibera via Flickr
from Dandelion Salad with thanks Chris Hedges Transcript available here
Continue reading “Hedges: Jeremy Hammond gets 10 years for exposing Corporate Espionage”
After 4 Decades in Solitary,
Dying Angola 3 Prisoner Herman Wallace Freed,
Conviction Overturned
A dying prisoner has been released in Louisiana after serving nearly 42 years in solitary confinement, longer than any other person in the United States.
Herman Wallace and two others, known as the Angola Three, were placed in solitary in 1972 following the murder of a prison guard. The Angola Three and their supporters say they were framed for the murder over their political activism as members of one of the first prison chapters of the Black Panthers.
In a surprise development on Tuesday, Wallace was released from prison after a federal judge overturned his conviction, saying he did not receive a fair trial. Wallace, who is near death from advanced liver cancer, was taken directly to a New Orleans hospital where supporters greeted his arrival.
We are joined by three guests: Robert King, who until Tuesday night was the only freed member of the Angola Three and helped deliver to Wallace the news of his release; Wallace’s defense attorney, George Kendall; and Jackie Sumell, an artist and Wallace supporter who is with him at the Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans.
“This is a tremendous victory and a miracle that Herman Wallace will die a free man,” Sumell says. “He’s had 42 years of maintaining his innocence in solitary confinement, and if his last few breaths are as a free man, we’ve won.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/2/after_4_decades_in_solitary_dying
This morning we lost without a doubt the biggest, bravest, and brashest personality in the political prisoner world. It is with great sadness that we write with the news of Herman Wallace‘s passing.
Herman never did anything half way. He embraced his many quests and adventures in life with a tenacious gusto and fearless determination that will absolutely never be rivaled. He was exceptionally loyal and loving to those he considered friends, and always went out of his way to stand up for those causes and individuals in need of a strong voice or fierce advocate, no matter the consequences. Anyone lucky enough to have spent any time with Herman knows that his indomitable spirit will live on through his work and the example he left behind. May each of us aspire to be as dedicated to something as Herman was to life, and to justice. Below is a short obituary/press statement for those who didn’t know him well in case you wish to circulate something. Tributes from those who were closest to Herman and more information on how to help preserve his legacy by keeping his struggle alive will soon follow. |
On October 4th, 2013, Herman Wallace, an icon of the modern prison reform movement and an innocent man, died a free man after spending an unimaginable 41 years in solitary confinement.
Herman spent the last four decades of his life fighting against all that is unjust in the criminal justice system, making international the inhuman plight that is long term solitary confinement, and struggling to prove that he was an innocent man.
Just 3 days before his passing, he succeeded, his conviction was overturned, and he was released to spend his final hours surrounded by loved ones. Despite his brief moments of freedom, his case will now forever serve as a tragic example that justice delayed is justice denied.
Herman Wallace’s early life in New Orleans during the heyday of an unforgiving and unjust Jim Crow south often found him on the wrong side of the law and eventually he was sent to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for armed robbery. While there, he was introduced to the Black Panther‘s powerful message of self determination and collective community action and quickly became one of its most persuasive and ardent practitioners.
Not long after he began to organize hunger and work strikes to protest the continued segregation, endemic corruption, and horrific abuse rampant at the prison, he and his fellow panther comrades Albert Woodfox and Robert King were charged with murders they did not commit and thrown in solitary.
Robert was released in 2001 after 29 years in solitary but Herman remained there for an unprecedented 41 years, and Albert is still in a 6×9 solitary cell.
Herman’s criminal case ended with his passing, but his legacy will live on through a civil lawsuit he filed jointly with Robert and Albert that seeks to define and abolish long term solitary confinement as cruel and unusual punishment, and through his comrade Albert Woodfox’s still active and promising bid for freedom from the wrongful conviction they both shared.
Herman was only 9 days shy of 72 years old.
Services will be held in New Orleans. The date and location will be forthcoming.
For more information visit www.angola3.org and http://angola3news.blogspot. com/.
The Barcelona 5 will be released in the coming hours, thank to you all again. At last they can hug their children and family, you have broken the chains, thanks mates.
But thousands are still imprisoned and for them the struggle continues.
LONG LIVE ANARCHY Continue reading “Facebook 5 Anarchists are FREED without bail”
10/09/2013 by Don Quijones
This week’s film of the week is an absolute must-watch documentary for anybody remotely interested in what’s happening in the present and what lies in store for the future. Continue reading “Film of Week: We Are Legion — Story of the Hacktivists”
Self-Portrait of Billy Sell, who committed suicide on July 22nd Courtesy Prisoner Express
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) released a statement this morning that all hunger strike participants had resumed eating, ending a two month long hunger strike. 100 hunger strikers were participating as of yesterday afternoon, with 40 on hunger strike the entire 59 days since the launch of the strike. Protesting long-term solitary confinement and sensory deprivation in California’s Security Housing Units (SHUs), 30,000 prisoners in 24 prisons across the state and in out-of-state facilities housing CDCR prisoners launched a hunger strike on July 8th. Continue reading “California Prison Hunger Strike Ends After 60 Days”
Jeremy Hammond is a gifted young computer programmer facing a decade in prison. His crime? Leaking information from the private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, information which revealed that Stratfor had been spying on human rights activists at the behest of corporations and the U.S. government. Continue reading “Resistance Call from jailed anarchist whistleblower Jeremy Hammond”
…”sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society…”
Chelsea (ex-Bradley) Manning’s post-sentence statement, issued by his lawyer, was the kind of statement you would expect to be given by a Nobel Peace Prize recipient in their acceptance speech. It is both unequivocal and profound. …
That Manning issues such a statement on the day he is sentenced to 35 years in prison is testimony to his resilience, his courage and his love. In doing so, the politicians of this world must surely cower in shame. If President Obama has any integrity left, he must pardon immediately this noble individual. Below, we reproduce it with one difference: we have added hyperlinks, where relevant, to provide greater perspective…. Continue reading “Manning shames her Tormentors, vows to Live as a Woman”
The Free 