The Militant is appealing the banning of its Nov. 11, 2024, issue of the paper by authorities at the Lower Buckeye Jail in Phoenix. The paper is urging supporters of civil liberties and prisoners’ rights to join this fight and help get the unconstitutional ban reversed.
Officials at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office say that issue no. 42 was impounded because “there is a photo on the cover of the newspaper that was found to violate MCSO policy,” which “does not allow photos of weaponry.”
The photo illustrates armed Hamas thugs seizing a woman and taking her hostage during the Oct. 7, 2023, pogrom the reactionary outfit carried out in Israel. The photo accompanied an article explaining why the fight against Jew-hatred is central to the working class everywhere, including in the U.S.
Most major newspapers nationwide carried similar pictures in their reports on Hamas’ massacre. And often guns or other weaponry appear in coverage of other conflicts around the world, including reports of battles to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty against Moscow’s attacks. The jail would have to bar a large number of newspapers.
The “confiscation of an inmate’s political literature, as here, violates the First Amendment” of the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing the right to freedom of speech and of the press, Militant attorney David Goldstein wrote in his Jan. 13 appeal of the ban. “It is discriminatory and arbitrary, in violation of the Militant’s rights to Due Process and Equal Protection under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.”
The Militant is currently mailed to 301 inmate subscribers in 29 states at 156 state, federal and municipal prisons or jails. “None of the 155 other facilities with subscribers to the Militant found the photo (or anything else) in no. 42 justified rejection,” Goldstein wrote.
The Militant was not informed by the Central Mailroom or the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, as prison rules require, that this issue of the paper had been impounded. Instead, the paper first learned about it from a letter sent to the Militant in November by a long-term reader at that jail. He filed a grievance requesting the ban be overturned after being denied access to the issue. The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office promptly rejected it. He told the Militant he has received every issue since the ban on no. 42.
Letters are needed now urging prison authorities to overturn the ban. They should be mailed to Ancillary Services Division Commander, MCSO, 3250 W. Lower Buckeye Road, Phoenix, AZ 85009. Also email a copy to mcsocentralmailroom@MCSO.Maricopa.gov, with a copy to themilitant@mac.com.
Join the fight to get this impoundment overturned!