The Militant and its readers scored a victory March 23 when the open-ended ban on the paper at the Federal Correctional Institution Three Rivers in southern Texas was reversed!
Only a few days after Militant attorney David Goldstein filed an appeal, prison officials said they would “allow delivery of the rejected issues to the subscriber.” They added, “We apologize for the inconvenience.”
When Timothy Richardson, program director of journalism and disinformation for PEN America, heard the news he messaged the Militant: “That is fantastic news! I’m hoping for the same in Florida.”
On March 2 the Militant had received a notice from authorities at Three Rivers saying an inmate there who subscribed in December would be denied the paper, and five issues were returned. In violation of Federal Bureau of Prisons regulations, the notice did not cite a single headline, article or photo to justify the ban.
“Even when courts have held that inmates’ First Amendment rights are more limited than those of non-inmates,” Goldstein wrote, “they have upheld the rights of inmates to receive publications in the mail, particularly political news.”
“Great news!” Justin Mazzola, deputy director of research for Amnesty International USA, another group that had sent an appeal, wrote when he got the news of the victory.