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Vol. 78/No. 47      December 29, 2014

 
Rights fighters in UK beat
back prisoner book ban
 
BY ÖGMUNDUR JÓNSSON
LONDON — In a victory for workers’ rights, the High Court here ruled Dec. 5 that a yearlong ban on family members and others sending books to prisoners is unlawful. The ban has been fought by English PEN, the Howard League for Penal Reform, poet laureate Carole Ann Duffy, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot, Militant editor Doug Nelson, and current and former prisoners and writers, including Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and Nick Hornby. It remains in effect while the government decides whether to appeal.

The legal challenge to the ban was brought by inmate Barbara Gordon-Jones, who is serving a life sentence at Send prison in Surrey. Under the new rules, Gordon-Jones was denied five books sent to her in April.

“Reading is a right and not a privilege,” solicitors from the firm Lound Mulrenan Jefferies, who acted pro bono as counsel for Gordon-Jones, said in a public statement.

“The legal case was pivotal,” Rob Preece, press officer of the Howard League for Penal Reform, told the Militant Dec. 11. “It built on months of public campaigning.”

“We and English PEN took hundreds of books to the Ministry of Justice after the decision, asking that they be delivered to prisoners,” Preece said, describing a demonstration organized that day. “We also told them it’s an opportunity to lift bans on other things prisoners’ need, from writing materials to underwear.”

“The challenge relates to what are said to be unlawful restrictions on the ability of prisoners generally and the Claimant in particular to receive or have for their use books,” Justice Andrew Collins said in his ruling. “I see no good reason in the light of the importance of books for prisoners to restrict beyond what is required by volumetric control and reasonable measures relating to frequency of parcels and security considerations.”

The prison regime’s Incentives and Earned Privileges scheme lists books as privileges that can be restricted. “In light of the statement made about the importance of books,” Collins concluded, “to refer to them as a privilege is strange.”

“This is a surprising judgment,” an unnamed spokesman for the Prison Service told BBC News in response to Collins’ ruling. “We are considering how best to fulfill the ruling of the court. However, we are clear that we will not do anything that would create a new conduit for smuggling drugs and extremist materials into our prisons.”

“We’ll have to see what the ministry does,” Preece said. “Our campaign to relieve the ban on parcels will continue.”  
 
 
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