[Ppnews] From Hunger Striker at CCI Tehachapi

[Political Prisoner News]

Letter from CCI dated July 21st: Help still needed!

by 
<http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1632063879>Kim 
Albanese on Saturday, July 23, 2011 at 9:32pm

Hunger Striker’s at Tehachapi still need our help!
CCI Tehachapi; July 21, 2011

Dear Brooke,

(Regarding this hunger strike) I am glad the word 
is out, I'm just saddened that I don't see 
anything on the news of our struggle. As far as 
we last heard it’s been like 12 prisons that are 
involved. Here there are a lot of people on 
strike - all races, Pelican Bay and Corcoran for sure.

As far as commissary, that's a negative. It is 
CDC policy to search our cells and remove all 
store when hunger strikes begin, and they did so here.

All they do is weigh us and take our vitals 
(blood pressure, temp., and heart rate), but of 
course they weigh us in chains to weigh us down 
and they allow the c/o's to operate the scale. I 
am at 171 on my last weigh-in, down from 185. 
They attempt to take my blood, which I refuse; 
I'm weak as it is, if I do that I’ll fall out.

They truly don't care and they are perfectly 
content in watching us pass rather than admit 
fault and make changes to a policy that is brutal 
and baseless. I can’t take my medication anymore 
because I have to take it with food
 I asked for 
help and they just ignored me.

They also took my shoes when I got here and my 
feet hurt. (*He had only been at CCI 2 weeks 
before the strike started, and he was never given any shoes!)

Help get the truth out there. I pray some 
attorneys get involved. Let them know the CDC is 
without truth and will lie to keep this issue 
from ever getting coverage. I am here validated 
for no actual action. This policy of validating 
people for no reason robs us of our lives, so we 
are on a hunger strike in which we could pass 
because in this environment we've already passed. This is not a life.

I have no food and no meds (that I can take). All 
they do is weigh me. They don't treat us 
(example; Ensure, Gatorade, nutrients of some sort). Nothing.

So I remain strong in the hopes that change will 
come. I get sad when I watch the news and they 
talk about stuff with no meaning and ignore us. I 
am an American citizen and when enemy combatants 
in Guantanamo Bay had a strike they covered it, 
all networks, beginning to end, but we are just forgotten.

Contact all media networks and let them know this 
is a peaceful protest and we have been given no 
other option for relief rather than to hunger 
strike in the hopes that someone, ANYONE, will 
care enough to step in and help us.

One might think that us as prisoners must be held 
under duress and extreme conditions in order to 
refuse the most basic necessity; food. I choose 
to remain on strike for I have been robbed of my 
life, my ability to be a father to my son, a son 
to my parents, a lover to my love, a friend to 
friends, and to experience life in the minimum of its meaning.

I was sentenced to life in prison at 18 for an 
action I committed, but now I am validated for no 
actual action committed by me. And I’ll be held 
here in the SHU until I die or debrief. Just 
imagine if anyone out there could be put in jail 
just for someone’s accusation. It’s unheard of. 
But in here its common practice for we are 
forgotten. We are the tragic aftermath of an angry committee.

Some believe we don't deserve common decency or 
compassion because we didn't show any when we 
committed our crime. To those people I say, in 
life wrongs are committed. I don't justify 
anything. But this country was founded on mass 
genocide and yet that is forgotten.

Now that civil rights have passed the oppression 
that must be has moved behind these walls of the new “concrete slave ship".

I am only a man who prays that I will be judged 
by my actions and my disciplinary file, not by 
the words of faceless informants and a 
confidential file that I can’t see. We must 
defend ourselves against the unknown. It’s literally impossible.

My feet still walk the trail of tears. I am in my 
soul still a believer in justice and the good in 
people. I believe if society really knew what 
happened in here they'd be appalled.



Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
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