Vol. 80/No. 45 November 28, 2016
Fight against ban on ‘Militant’ at Attica wins support
The Oct. 3 Militant included a feature on the 45th anniversary of the Attica prison rebellion and an article on recent protests in various states against prison conditions, from inadequate food to low or nonexistent wages.
The Militant’s attorney, David Goldstein, of the law firm of Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Lieberman — well-known for its defense of civil rights and liberties — filed an appeal Nov. 3. He notes that dozens of mainstream media carried articles on the Attica rebellion anniversary over the last several months.
“No reasonable, fair minded reading” of any of the articles in the Militant could conclude that the paper “advocates” rebellion against government authority, much less “presents a clear and immediate risk” of rebellion, Goldstein pointed out.
“I spent seven years in prison for a crime I did not commit,” wrote Yusef Salaam in a statement opposing the ban. One of the Central Park Five, who were railroaded to prison in 1990 falsely accused of raping and beating a woman the year before, Salaam said he “learned firsthand the reality of the so-called justice system in the United States.”
“Being found ‘guilty’ does not mean you lose the right to think for yourself and to know what is going on in the world,” he wrote. “The censorship of the Militant is a violation of the prison’s own rules, of the U.S. Constitution, and of the standards of basic human decency.”
“The Militant’s socialist leaning and critical viewpoint is clear in the discussion of these events, but censorship is not justified merely by differences of opinion,” wrote Karin Deutsch Karlekar, director of Free Expression at Risk Programs for PEN America, the U.S. chapter of the prominent literary and human rights organization. The banning of the issue of the Militant “is an uncalled-for restriction on the freedom of the press and prisoners’ rights.”
The National Lawyers Guild, New York Civil Liberties Union, Justice League and San Francisco Bay View have also called on the prison to reverse its impoundment of the Militant.
After receiving notice that Attica had impounded the Oct. 3 issue, the Militant learned that prison authorities have also been violating the right of a prisoner there, Anthony Bottom, who now uses the name Jalil Muntaqim, to correspond with others and to receive literature. Last year they banned four books that were sent to him, including one of poems Muntaqim himself wrote.
Muntaqim is a co-founder of the Jericho Movement, which was organized in 1998 to back the fight for amnesty for political prisoners in the United States and to demand that they receive adequate medical care.
On Oct. 7, Muntaqim informed his supporters that prison authorities had placed him in keeplock status on Sept. 23. He reported that “my correspondence is being censored; some mail is not being sent out of the facility, some has been sent out opened after I had sealed them, and I have not received mail from correspondents.”
Prison authorities issued Muntaqim an “inmate misbehavior report” Sept. 24, for writing a letter to the I Am We Prison Advocacy Network, which officials said is “not an authorized group.” The report stated he is on mail watch.
Anne Lamb sent a letter to Acting Prison Commissioner Anthony Annucci protesting the interference with Muntaqim’s mail. Lamb said that since mid-September she has not received mail that Muntaqim told her he had sent.
“These mailings were never returned to Mr. Bottom at Attica,” she wrote.
Muntaqim, a former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, has been in prison since he was 19 years old, accused of killing two police officers in 1971, and sentenced to 25 years to life. He has repeatedly been denied parole.
“The constitutional rights to free speech and freedom of the press do not stop at the prison gates,” Militant editor John Studer said Nov. 15. “The Militant reports the conditions workers and farmers face in the United States and around the world. Our fight to overturn the censorship of the Militant will also help push back other undemocratic and arbitrary actions by prison authorities.”
Related articles:
Join ‘Militant’ fight against Attica ban!
Fight prison censorship
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home