from It’s Going Down

[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]

In this column, we present our monthly roundup of political prisoner, prison rebel, and repression news, happenings, announcements, action and analysis. Packed in as always are updates, calls to action, fundraisers, and birthdays.

There’s a lot happening, so let’s dive right in!

Political Prisoner News

One major piece of political prisoner news is that Mumia Abu-Jamal has an important chance to overturn his conviction after 41 years behind bars. As Democracy Now! reports, a Philadelphia judge has given the prosecution and defense 60 days to review all the evidence in Mumia’s case, including new files that the defense has never had access to before, and is then expected to make a decision on whether or not to grant Mumia a new trial. Key evidence from the files includes a letter seeming to indicate that the prosecution was paying a witness for testimony.

General Prison and Abolitionist News

January 2023 is still set to see the launch of a strike across the Pennsylvania prison system. From an article by Kim Kelly:

On January 6, incarcerated workers across Pennsylvania will launch a statewide strike in solidarity with the Alabama strikers, and in protest of the inhumane policies to which they and other incarcerated workers are subjected by the state of Pennsylvania and the U.S. carceral system writ large. They announced their intention to strike with a November 26 communique that was circulated on social media and within the broader abolitionist community. Organized under the name Subaltern Peoples Abolitionist Revolutionary Collective (SPARC), the workers outlined their demands while castigating the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PA DOC). “The PA DOC is the enemy of public safety,” they wrote. “It is the enemy of human decency.”

SPARC’s demands echo those of past prison strikers, from the 1971 Attica Rebellion to the massive nationwide prison strikes of 2016 and 2018 as well as their Alabama brethren. The unifying factor in all of these actions — and in the many other strikes, protests and acts of resistance that have taken place in prisons and central facilities throughout the centuries — is a simple request for humanity. The strikers want to be treated as people, to be acknowledged as the human beings that they are and treated with basic decency, compassion and respect. Their list of demands shows a deep desire for connection with loved ones and the world outside the walls. Requests for video visits, easier access to communication devices, and family picnic days sit alongside economic concerns like higher wages and ending the loss of jobs, like mail sorting and commissary, that are meant to be available to incarcerated workers but are being outsourced to vendors like Secure Pak.

It is clear that, like so many other unions, SPARC is not only concerned with so-called bread-and-butter economic issues. The collective is also calling for material improvements to members’ quality of life, both on and off the job, and for sweeping reforms to the state’s criminal punishment system.

Mongoose Distro continues to publish new prisoner writings regularly, including the Cries from the Gulag zine, and the Pennsylvania prisoner zine IB64, as well as individual pieces from writers such as Dan Baker, Jason Renard Walker, Jesse Mocha Scoggins, and Steven McCain.

Uprising Defendants

Everyone should support the defendants facing charges related to their alleged participation in the George Floyd uprising – this list of our imprisoned comrades needs to be getting shorter, not longer. See Uprising Support for more info, and check out the Antirepression PDX site for updates from Portland cases. The status of pre-trial defendants changes frequently, but to the best of our knowledge they currently include:

David Elmakayes 77782-066
FCI McKean
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 8000
Bradford, PA 16701

Upcoming Birthdays

Joseph “Joe-Joe” Bowen

Black Liberation Army (BLA) Prisoner of War, serving two life sentences for the assassination of a prison warden and deputy warden, as well as an attempted prison break which resulted in a five-day standoff.

Pennsylvania uses Connect Network/GTL, so you can contact him online by going to connectnetwork.com, selecting “Add a facility,” choosing “State: Pennsylvania, Facility: Pennsylvania Department of Corrections”, going into the “messaging” service, and then adding him as a contact by searching his name or “AM-4272”.

Birthday: January 15

Address:

Smart Communications/PADOC
Joseph Bowen #AM-4272
SCI Fayette
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
United States