BY JOHN STUDER
DES MOINES, Iowa - "Notice of Rejection of Correspondence" read the form handed to imprisoned union and political activist Mark Curtis April 13. It said he was being denied the new Pathfinder Press pamphlet Why Is Mark Curtis Still in Jail? Prison authorities said the pamphlet is not on the "list of approved publications."

Handwritten on the bottom of the form was a note to Curtis telling him to authorize paying shipping costs to send the pamphlet back to the Pathfinder bookstore in Des Moines. Otherwise, the pamphlet would be destroyed.

Curtis wrote back that he did not want the pamphlet sent back to the bookstore. If they were going to refuse to deliver it to him, he wanted it sent to the Publication Review Committee in the Des Moines headquarters of the Iowa Department of Corrections for approval. The next day Curtis was handed a one-word reply: "Noted."

Curtis has served more than six years in Iowa state prison on frame-up charges of rape and burglary. He was arrested after speaking out in Spanish at a public meeting to protest the arrest of 17 of his co-workers at the Monfort meatpacking plant in Des Moines.

Federal immigration agents and city police raided the plant, seized 17 workers from Mexico and El Salvador, and threatened them with prosecution or deportation.

On the night of his arrest, Curtis was brutally beaten by the cops, who called him a "Mexican lover." He was railroaded to prison and has been fighting since to win public support for his release and to win political vindication in the court of public opinion. The Mark Curtis Defense Committee was formed after his arrest to help advance this campaign.

Curtis is currently being held in lockup in a segregation unit at the Iowa State Penitentiary, the state's only maximum security prison. He was victimized by guards on trumped-up charges of assaulting another inmate at the end of August 1994. At the time, he was working with his supporters to organize an international public campaign to press the Iowa Parole Board for his release. Curtis was shackled and brought before a kangaroo prison hearing officer, convicted after a half-hour hearing where he was denied the right to confront his accusers. He was sentenced to 30 days in the hole and a year in lockup. In lockup, Curtis is confined to his 5' by 7' cell 23 hours a day.

The denial of the pamphlet to Curtis-like throwing him into lockup-is a conscious political attack. It is aimed at breaking his spirit, cutting him off from the outside world, derailing his fight for freedom, and demoralizing his supporters.

Prior to this, Curtis has had little trouble receiving literature, without any question being raised about being on any "approved list." He regularly receives basic Marxist literature, pamphlets about other defense cases, books on current political events - like the recent autobiography of Nelson Mandela, a variety of newspapers and magazines, and occasional novels.

In fact, the day the pamphlet was rejected, Curtis was given three other books sent to him, including Engine by Gore Vidal and Rebellion of the Hanged by B. Traven. None of the three given to Curtis are on the approved list either.

In an interview with Curtis, he stated that in the past he has seen the "approved list" of literature referred to in the prison form. It is roughly 100 books and magazines. Ironically, Curtis said, many of the titles on the list are books that were sent to him and approved by the state Department of Corrections when he was being held in the Iowa State Men's Reformatory at Anamosa a number of years ago. On the list, for instance, is a previous Pathfinder pamphlet about Curtis, The Frame-Up of Mark Curtis: A Packinghouse Worker's Fight for Justice, by Margaret Jayko.

Two years ago authorities at the Iowa State Penitentiary decided to change its policy on literature, and began sending all prisoners' magazines and books to the state Corrections office for review. After a public outcry and widespread media attention, the policy was reversed.

The rejection of the pamphlet comes shortly after Curtis filed a lawsuit in state court against prison officials for violating his rights in railroading him into lockup. Just the week before, Curtis told prison officials that he was appealing a new policy that denies him any time off from lockup for good behavior.

It also comes in the context of stepped-up attacks on the rights of all prisoners. More prisons are being built, the right to appeal convictions or challenge prison conditions in court is under increasing attack, prisoners are being denied the right to exercise, and use of the death penalty is expanding.

The rejection of the pamphlet comes one month after officials at the Iowa State Penitentiary convened a special meeting with the inmates' Prisoners Advisory Council (PAC), where Acting Warden Paul Hedgepath told them the prison is considering a series of steps to crack down on inmates. The PAC reported in its March 24 newsletter that among the threatened changes are shutting off the cable television between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. and forcing inmates to wear either earplugs or headphones all day. Inmates in lockup are a special target for the changes being weighed. Under consideration, Hedgepath said, are banning smoking in the lockup units and beginning "double bunking" to house more prisoners - two to each 5' by 7' cell.

Call for immediate protests
On April 23, The Mark Curtis Defense Committee issued a call for "an immediate, emergency campaign over the next two weeks - from April 24 to May 7 - to put public pressure on the Iowa Department of Corrections and officials at the State Penitentiary in an effort to get them to relent and grant Mark the pamphlet, and to press against any further efforts to politically censor the literature or correspondence Mark receives."

The defense committee issued a flyer to advance this campaign. "This act of political discrimination against Curtis is an attack on the rights of us all," it says. "It is especially outrageous as the pamphlet concerns Curtis' own fight to win support and freedom.

"Send a letter or fax today to Iowa authorities urging that the pamphlet Why Is Mark Curtis Still in Prison? be released to him now," the defense committee appeal says, "and any further effort to politically censor the mail or books he receives be halted."

The committee asks that messages be sent to Sally Chandler Halford, Director, Department of Corrections, Capitol Annex, 523 East 12th Street, Des Moines, Iowa 50309, fax (515) 281- 7345, and to Paul Hedgepath, Acting Warder, Iowa State Penitentiary, Box 316, Fort Madison, Iowa 52627, fax (319) 372-6967. Copies should be faxed to the defense committee at (515) 243-9869.

For further information, or to order a copy of the pamphlet denied to Curtis for yourself, contact the defense committee at Box 1048, Des Moines, Iowa 50311.  
 
 
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