From the May-June 2018 issue of News & Letters
In October 2017 the two-year monitoring period of the Ashker vs. Governor settlement to limit solitary confinement expired. Ashker lawyers have filed a motion for the monitoring to continue.
“Trapped, Isolated” – Art: Roger “Rab” Moore, G-02296, HDSP Z-168, P.O. Box 3030, Susanville CA 96127.
Since then, the four drafters of the Agreement to End Hostilities (see prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com)—Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa, Arturo Castellanos, George Franco, and Todd Ashker, have all been removed from general population to Administrative Segregation Units, based on fabricated information created by staff and/or collaborating inmate informants.
In Todd Ashker’s case, he is being isolated “for his own protection,” although he does not ask for nor desire to be placed in isolation for this or any reason. Sitawa has since been returned to population, but cannot have visitors.
Please contact CDCr Secretary Scott Kernan and Governor Edmund G. Brown and demand CDCr:
• Immediately release back into general population any lead organizers still held in solitary
• Return other Ashker class prisoners to general population who have been placed in Ad Seg
• Stop the retaliation against all Ashker class prisoners and offer them meaningful rehabilitation opportunities
Contact Scott Kernan: write to 1515 S Street, Sacramento 95811. If you call 916-324-7308, press 0 for the Communications office. Email matthew.westbrook@cdcr. ca.gov and cc: scott.kernan@cdcr.ca.gov.
Contact Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr., c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173, Sacramento, CA 95814; Phone: (916) 445-2841; Fax: (916) 558-3160; Email: https://govapps.gov.ca.gov/ gov39mail/
Returning these four men and many other hunger strikers back to solitary in the form of Ad Seg represents an intentional effort to undermine the Agreement and the settlement, and a return to the lock ’em up mentality of the 1980s.
—Pelican Bay Hunger Strike Support Coalition