Del Norte County, CA – On July 1, prisoners in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at California's Pelican Bay State Prison started an indefinite hunger strike to protest the cruel, inhumane and tortuous conditions of their imprisonment. The hunger strike has been organized by prisoners in an unusual show of unity across prison-manufactured racial and geographical lines.

The notorious Pelican Bay prison is a ‘supermax’, meaning it is a super maximum security prison explicitly designed to keep the prisoners that California’s alleges to be the ‘worst of the worst’ in long-term or permanent solitary confinement, under conditions of extreme sensory deprivation that many consider torture. Political prisoners are often sent to supermax prisons to isolate them and their ideas from the rest of the prison population.

The prisoners at Pelican Bay have sworn to refuse food until conditions are improved in Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit. Built in 1989, Pelican Bay is one of the most notorious supermax prisons in the country for its abysmal and repressive conditions. It is also dramatically overcrowded – it was built to house 2280 prisoners but it currently holds over 3100.

The hunger strikers have developed five core demands (read explanations here):

1. End Group Punishment & Administrative Abuse
2. Abolish the Debriefing Policy, and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria
3. Comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006 Recommendations Regarding an End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement
4. Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food
5. Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates.

The prison system in the U.S. is the most expansive and sophisticated prison system in world history, with over 2 million people currently locked up. This is a higher rate than any other country in the world. Large scale protests by U.S. prisoners against their extreme treatment are becoming more common in recent years. Just last December, Georgia saw one of the largest prisoner work stoppage protests in history.

Video: Support the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike

Click here to sign an online petition to support the hunger strike:

http://www.change.org/petitions/support-prisoners-on-hunger-strike-at-pelican-bay-state-prison

Click here for more info on the hunger strike:

http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/

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