Russell Maroon Shoatz: Call to demand his IMMEDIATE release from solitary confinement

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[icffmaj] You Can Help Get Maroon Out of Solitary!




Russell Maroon Shoatz: Call to demand his IMMEDIATE release from solitary confinement!

http://russellmaroonshoats.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/action-alert-russell-maroon-shoatz-call-to-demand-his-immediate-release-from-solitary-confinement/

Former Black Panther Russell Maroon Shoatz has been held in torturous conditions of solitary confinement in Pennsylvania prisons for the past thirty years. He has not had a serious rule violation for more than two decades. Maroon's role as an educator, human rights defender, writer, and critical intellectual of liberation movements is widely renowned.

From April 8 to May 10, 2013, the Campaign to Free Russell Maroon Shoatz is calling for an intense call-in and write-in campaign to bring pressure on the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PA DOC), to release Maroon from solitary confinement and into the general prison population. This is the first major phase of a coordinated political-legal campaign, beginning with Maroon's attorneys sending a "Demand Letter" to the PA DOC on the morning of April 8, 2013. The letter, outlining the legal and humanitarian reasons why an immediate release from solitary is needed, gives the PA DOC an opportunity to correct the grave injustices being carried out on a daily basis before litigation begins.

April 8—Begin flooding the office of PA Department of Corrections (DOC) Secretary John Wetzel with phone calls, letters, and faxes. Send a copy of that letter, or address a similar letter, to the office of SCI Mahanoy Superintendent John Kerestes.
PA DOC Secretary John Wetzel 1920 Technology Parkway Mechanicsburg, PA, 17050

Phone number: 717-728-4109 Fax number: 717-728-4109

Download Sample Letter/Email to Wetzel here (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5M-mWxx2NWJdHBCZ3ZMNTREZ28/edit?usp=sharing)

SCI Mahanoy Supt. John Kerestes 301 Morea Road Mahanoy, PA, 17932

Phone number: 570-773-2158 Fax number: 570-783-2008

Download Sample Letter/Email to Kerestes Here (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5M-mWxx2NWJR1FPQkprQjVvcE0/edit?usp=sharing)

If you have contact with media in your area, consider suggesting that they cover this story, including the April 8 – May 10 pressure campaign. Help publicize the campaign in schools, workplaces, churches, and communities nationwide.

Talking Points

Russell Maroon Shoatz (if writing DOC, always put his prison number – AF-3855) has been in solitary confinement for almost 30 years despite the fact that his disciplinary record has been impeccable—without incident for the past 20 of those years.

Such "prolonged" solitary confinement is a violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture, according to UN Special Rapporteur Juan Mendez. It starves the mind of basic social interaction, human contact, and intellectual stimulation needed for proper brain functioning.

Other Pennsylvania prisoners with more extensive violent histories and more recent disciplinary infractions have nevertheless been released from solitary and are now held in general population.

Maroon is being targeted because of his work as an educator and because of his political ideas; his time in solitary began just after he was elected president of an officially-sanctioned prison-based support group. This targeting is in violation of his basic human and constitutional rights.

At age 69, Maroon poses no threat to the physical well-being or running of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. His 23-hour-a-day physical isolation in solitary is unnecessary and costly.

We join the American Civil Liberties Union, Physicians for Human Rights, and a growing number of prominent world leaders in calling for an end to prolonged solitary confinement. Maroon's case is one of the most egregious, politically motivated, and long-standing of the nation's solitary cases.

Maroon has deep roots in Pennsylvania's Black community, many friends in peace, justice, and human rights organizations, and family members and supporters throughout the State, the USA, and the world. We understand the PA DOC Secretary's Office and the Warden of SCI Greene to be particularly and personally responsible for the torturous and lethal conditions of solitary under which Maroon is still kept.

Maroon must be released from solitary confinement IMMEDIATELY!!!

Who is Russell Maroon Shoatz?

Russell Maroon Shoatz is a former leader of the Black Panthers and the Black freedom movement, born in Philadelphia in 1943 and originally imprisoned in January 1972 for actions relating to his political involvement. With an extraordinary thirty-plus years spent in solitary confinement—including the past twenty-three years continuously—Maroon's case is one of the most shocking examples of U.S. torture of political prisoners, and one of the most egregious examples of human rights violations regarding prison conditions anywhere in the world. His "Maroon" nickname is, in part, due to his continued resistance—which twice led him to escape confinement; it is also based on his continued clear analysis, including recent writings on ecology and matriarchy. THOUGH MAROON WAS RECENTLY TRANSFERRED to a lower-security correctional facility in Central Pennsylvania, he IS STILL HELD in a SOLITARY CONFINEMENT UNIT. It will take a mass, grassroots movement to free this inspiring community activist.

Part of the momentum for the campaign will come from a book tour taking place during this period, promoting the newly-published Maroon the Implacable: The collected writings of Russell Maroon Shoatz. (https://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=541) But it is up to everyone concerned with human rights anywhere and everywhere to spread the word far and wide, to make these 30 days count—for an end to solitary confinement and an end to the torture of Russell Maroon Shoatz

Campaign to Free Russell Maroon Shoatz, [email protected],
c/o WRL/Matt Meyer, 339 Lafayette Street, New York NY 10012; 412-654-9070

Download PDF of Action Alert Here (https://docs.google.com/file/d/1qmPvHhri9sjK6AZu2HGSmaAayOqqR1WcrGLs1IntX6e8_U8R2 BahNhQ-R5wq/edit?usp=sharing)

Download Organizers Packet Here (https://docs.google.com/file/d/1U0MEWtJq2SwOf-1Cdyh5ymeCjoxmwPiZX4CG2GIyNf7BadVnNYkgRgpa8k2d/edit?usp=sharing)
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Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org

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[icffmaj] RUSSELL MAROON SHOATZ LAWYERS FILE W/UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON TORTURE

MEDIA RELEASE: Lawyers for Russell Maroon Shoatz submit request to UN Special Rapporteur on Torture

Contact: Bret Grote [email protected] 412-654-9070


October 17, 2013: Pittsburgh PA — Lawyers for Russell Maroon Shoatz submitted a communication to the United Nations Special Rapportuer on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Juan Mendez, requesting that he inquire into Shoatz’s nearly 30 years of solitary confinement within the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PA DOC). Shoatz is a 70-year-old, former Black Panther Party member who has been locked in solitary confinement at various state prisons for the past 22 consecutive years, and 28 of the past 30 years.

The request comes at a time when the campaign to release Shoatz from solitary confinement has been gathering increasing international attention. In August, Nobel Peace Prize laureates Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor, Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa marked the occasion of Maroon’s 70th birthday by sending a letter to PA DOC Secretary John Wetzel that read: “We also affirm, in the strongest possible humanitarian terms, that now is the time for the immediate and unconditional release from solitary confinement and restricted housing of Russell Maroon Shoatz. After decades of solitary confinement – including the past 22 consecutive years – there is no reason for further delay. Continued confinement in 23-hour-a-day isolation is nothing short of torture.”

For the last 23 years, Shoatz has had an impeccable disciplinary record, and has not received on serious rule violation during this time. Despite his model behavior, advancing years, and health problems, the PA DOC has refused to release this father, grandfather, great-grandfather, human rights advocate, and published author into the general prison population.

“The Special Rapporteur on Torture has recently spoken out about similar instances of extraordinary long-term solitary confinement in the United States in Pelican Bay state prison and in the case of the Angola 3. Like these cases, the solitary confinement of Russell Shoatz is yet another extreme violation of international human rights standards,” said Jules Lobel, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights and one of the attorney who submitted the document to the Special Rapporteur on Shoatz’s behalf.

Although Shoatz is still held in the solitary confinement unit, he has been permitted more out of cell time in recent weeks, as prison officials inform him that he is being assessed for release from isolation. On September 23, 2013, Shoatz began a 60-day step-down program where he is permitted out of his cell as a block worker for approximately one-hour Monday through Friday.

Although this program represents the most out-of-cell time Shoatz has been afforded since he was in federal prison in 1991, and the most in a PA DOC prison since 1983, there is no guarantee that he will eventually be released into the general population. Prison officials have stated that he will merely be considered for release after the completion of the program.

The communication to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture was submitted by Jules Lobel; Dan Kovalik, Senior Associate General Counsel for the United Steelworkers; Dustin McDaniel and Bret Grote of the Abolitionist Law Center; and attorney Hal Engel.

The 14-page document observes that a 2011 report issued by the Special Rapporteur provided a “legal analysis . . . that resoundingly affirms the conclusion that U.S.-style solitary confinement units are prohibited under international law.” It called on the Special Rapporteur to “immediately initiate a prompt and comprehensive investigation into the facts surrounding Russell Maroon Shoatz’s nearly 30 years of solitary confinement in the PA DOC.”

The communication concluded by recognizing that even if he is soon released from isolation, “It is vital that the egregious violations of Shoatz’s human rights are recognized by your office and the international human rights community more broadly, both for his own sake, and for the hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children who have been subjected to these conditions of social isolation and sensory deprivation in U.S. jails and prisons over the years.”


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Campaign to Free Russell Maroon Shoatz