Vol. 80/No. 28      August 1, 2016

 

‘Militant’ scores partial win in prison censorship fight

 
The Militant has scored a partial victory in the fight against censorship of two recent issues by Florida state prison authorities, but the fight is still on. Prison officials backed off July 13 from the impoundment of one issue, claiming it “was done in error.”

At the end of June a subscriber at the Santa Rosa Correctional Institute informed the Militant that he was being denied the issue dated June 13. Authorities falsely claimed “hang/gang signs” appeared on a page that included an article and photo on a peaceful demonstration in Puerto Rico demanding U.S. authorities free Oscar López. López has been incarcerated in the U.S. for 35 years for supporting independence for Puerto Rico.

The May 30 issue, with an article, “Prisoners Strike to Protest Abuse and Little or No Pay in Alabama,” was also impounded at Santa Rosa and at the Northwest Florida Reception Center.

The Militant’s attorney David Goldstein, from the law firm of Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Lieberman, filed an appeal July 7 requesting the Florida Department of Corrections Literature Review Committee reverse these decisions and deliver the papers to the subscribers.

The “error” in impounding the June 13 issue has been corrected and the paper “had been issued to the inmate,” wrote the department’s Library Services Administrator Dean Peterson July 13. At its next meeting the Literature Review Committee will “re-review” its decision that “rejected” the May 30 issue, he said.

“Prisoners have First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and press,” wrote Mary Ratcliff, editor of San Francisco Bay View, in a July 12 statement condemning the impoundment of the Militant. “Being locked away from the world, they more urgently need to know a greater variety of perspectives on the news than they see on TV.”

“Publishers, too, have First Amendment rights,” she said, “and a moral obligation to see that their newspapers reach all their subscribers, including those behind bars.” Papers like the Militant, the Bay View and Prison Legal News have been involved in censorship fights with prison authorities, while “mainstream papers are delivered to their subscribers with coverage of the same stories found objectionable in our papers,” Ratcliff wrote.  
 
 
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