The continued hunger strike that resumed on Monday, September 26th, is spreading rapidly throughout CA's prison system.
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity has confirmed that at least 6,000 California prisoners in jails, General Population, Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg/ASU) and Security Housing Units (SHUs) are hunger striking for the human rights of California's SHU-status prisoners.
We have confirmed prisoners are striking at Pelican Bay, Calipatria, CCI Tehachapi, Centinela, Corcoran, Chuckawalla Valley State Prison, and West Valley Detention Center.
Like in July, the CDCR is withholding any accurate numbers or information. What we do know is that the CDCR has upped retaliation.
The spreading strike and overwhelming international support for its demonstrate the seriousness of torture throughout the prison industrial complex:
It is no coincidence that the first round of the hunger strike started following the US Supreme Court's finding that CA's prison system is in violation of the 8th Amendment.
It's not surprising that the CDCR is criminalizing the strike and insisting that the hunger strikers are violent gang members that deserve to be tortured instead of addressing the real problems.
It's also not surprising that on the outside cities across CA are stepping up suppression policing tactics, such as gang injunctions, youth curfews and loitering ordinances, inevitably sweeping more people from working class communities of color into prison.
On top of all of that, the state's realignment plan gives us a huge opportunity to get people out of prison but also adds the threat of unprecedented jail construction to this landscape.
Given this "perfect storm," we can and must connect our struggles and to continue to vigorously defend our communities and unleash our will to resist and organize.
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