The Militant is asking for readers’ help in fighting to overturn a ban on one of its issues in Florida prisons. In February two subscribers at the Santa Rosa Correctional Institution sent to the paper impoundment notices for issue no. 2, dated Jan. 20, 2025.
The notice says the issue is banned because it had been rejected at “another institution,” which it does not identify. When authorities at any prison in Florida impound a publication, the Florida Department of Corrections orders them impounded at all of its 134 state facilities.
Authorities cited a prison rule allowing them to impound any publication they consider “presents a threat to the security, order, or rehabilitative objectives of the correctional system or the safety of any person.”
They said they found “inadmissible” two Militant articles in the issue, one on the front page, “Israel fights for right to exist as a refuge from Jew-hatred,” and a box on page 7, “Jew-hatred, ‘racial purity’ at heart of Hamas program.”
The first article reports on political developments in the Middle East, explaining the importance of Israel’s fight to defend its existence as a refuge from Jew-hatred and pogroms, like the one carried out against Jews in Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. The box reports on how Hamas’ origins are rooted in reactionary Arab forces that collaborated with Adolf Hitler’s drive for a “Final Solution” in the Nazi Holocaust.
“The justifications offered for the ban are unsupported by the articles’ content,” wrote Samuel Morley, general counsel for the Florida Press Association, urging the Florida Department of Corrections Literature Review Committee to overturn the impoundment.
Morley explained, “The Florida Press Association, established in 1879, represents all the daily and most of the weekly newspapers in Florida.” These include the Miami Herald, Tampa Bay Times, Gainesville Sun and Orlando Sentinel. “Its mission includes working to defend First Amendment rights and press access to information of concern to citizens.”
“The news articles simply report the facts about what is happening in Israel and Gaza and the publication’s views regarding that situation,” he says. “Nothing in the articles pose a ‘threat to the security’ of the prison or safety of anyone.
“We, therefore, request that you reverse the ban by Florida prison authorities,” Morley said, “and that all impounded copies of The Militant Vol. 89, Issue No. 2, be delivered to The Militant’s subscribers at the applicable facility.”
In fact, the Militant has never received a notice of impoundment from the prison that originally impounded it, as required by Florida’s prison regulations.
‘It infringes on prisoners’ rights’
Amnesty International USA also wrote to the Literature Review Committee asking them to reverse the impoundment. It “infringes on prisoners’ rights to freedom of expression and violates the UN Standard Minimum Rules on the Treatment of Prisoners, otherwise known as the Mandela rules,” wrote Justin Mazzola, the group’s deputy director of research.
Under those rules, he said, “Prisoners shall be kept informed regularly of the more important items of news by the reading of newspapers, periodicals” and other methods.
In response to an inquiry about the status of the ban from David Goldstein, the Militant’s attorney, Saritza Legault, from the Florida Department of Corrections, informed him in writing that the impoundment of the Militant “is awaiting review.” She said its Literature Review Committee “will review the impoundment on March 6.”
Letters urging the ban be reversed should be sent to: Saritza.Legault@fdc.myflorida.com and Melvin.Herring@fdc.myflorida.com with a copy to themilitant@mac.com.