Florida Prisoner Solidarity

organizing alongside prisoners to end all forms of incarceration

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GRAPHIC VIOLENCE: Incarcerated activist Robert Ear

GRAPHIC VIOLENCE:
Incarcerated activist Robert Earl Council aka "Kinetik Justice" formerly of the Free Alabama Movement was assaulted last night by Alabama correctional staff in clear retaliation for his political work. We are asking all concerned advocates and followers to call in ask to his well-being and safety immediately:

The prison is Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer Alabama, call 205-436-3681 and ask about Earl Council #181418 (legal name and prisoner #).

Heres link to share. CW there is a lot of blood, but you can't see Kinetik. The contact info to prison is in YouTube description.

https://youtu.be/FriYOcA9b-Y

Ever wonder what Christmas is like inside a Florid

Ever wonder what Christmas is like inside a Florida prison? Our comrade describes it here in detail at one of the worst, Florida State Prison.

We had freezing weather these nights in North Florida. Pigs responded to a prisoner speaking aloud with continued torture of turning off the heat and turning on the fans for days for the entire block. FDOC’s cruelty has no limits and they face zero accountability for it.

#PrisonAbolition

[IMAGE TEXT: “I see y’all had a hard freeze here on Christmas day, well we had one double. The transformers who worked that night got upset because they heard a voice (someone talking, we are not allowed to speak at all, not even to ourselves) and turned off heaters while turning on the exhaust fans, sucking the cold air outside into the building the entire weekend, 20 degree weather. We survived. I had on every piece of clothing in my box, 3 socks, 3 boxers, 1 gym shorts, 3 pairs of blue pants, 3 blue shirts. The shit was coming through the walls. But they only taught me one lesson, I am way more durable than I thought. I should be a fucking roach all this cold I’ve survived and winter ain’t over yet.
Oh I forgot to tell you, they’re throwing people’s mail in the garbage, yeah, the overseers who work on the wing. So this one Pro Imperialist goon, three this prisoners mail into the trash, and someone told the prisoner and gave him the letter and he informed the lieutenant, ain’t no telling what’s gonna be done about it.
The issue here is we get caught talking, we might not eat, they deny us our trays, and/or put us on strip (property restriction), and/or gas us (with pepper spray), and/or beat us during cell extraction when we don’t surrender to the gas, then they write DR’s (disciplinary reports) to cover their asses, and the DR’s are used as excuse to keep us on CM.”
(CM is solitary confinement)]

GNV City Manager Lee Feldman replied to our emails

GNV City Manager Lee Feldman replied to our emails with a form response. It’s devoid of accountability and includes misleading statements to distract from the escalating crisis houseless people downtown are facing.

The statement that "the City did not remove or relocate any of the property of the houseless neighbors in front of the CMC" is a intentionally misleading. Multiple people and news reports from the last year can corroborate that the City removed the property this summer. And over the course of many months threatened to remove more by “impoundment.”

Feldman's statement that "the property owner worked with each individual to relocate and store their personal property," is misinformed at best. In actuality it caused trauma and further isolation. Folks were screamed at, threatened, and physically pushed across Main St.

The property owner was intimidated into moving folks belongings under threat of a $5,000/day fine from the code violation. This punitive measure shifts responsibility onto businesses to carry out the city’s agenda of displacing houseless folks from the downtown business district. Recently this tactic has evolved to GPD canvassing downtown businesses asking for trespass authority, allowing the police to use their own judgement on who they deem welcomed downtown or not.

In order for the City to have even decided to issue the code violation means they determined that HUMAN BEINGS and their BELONGINGS were a “sanitation” problem. They decided aesthetics were more important than the right to safe shelter.

We appreciate the actions the City has taken to provide porta-potties and trash cans in this area. However the porta-potties were placed in an unlit parking lot off a side street, and folks feel unsafe using them at night. These small gestures don’t make up for the near constant harassment folks have lived through by order of Feldman.

Keep emailing him and the City! Make sure they know their "homeless issue" isn’t the aesthetic of poverty interfering with downtown commerce. It's the egregious wealth gap that leaves people unhoused as they focus their attention on investing in rapid, reckless, and racist development.

⚡️URGENT EMAIL/PHONE ZAP ⚡️ Despite Gaine

⚡️URGENT EMAIL/PHONE ZAP ⚡️
Despite Gainesville's claim to be "citizen centered," they have continued to use GPD and Code Enforcement to criminalize basic survival activities and “impound” people's essential belongings. We are tired of seeing our city treat its own citizens so cruelly.

We DEMAND an immediate end to police harassment of our houseless neighbors; an end to prioritizing business interests over houseless people's survival activities; an end to blanket trespass authority by GPD in downtown businesses; a return of the benches that were removed from Lynch Park with no public input; delivery of the lockers promised so long ago by the City Commission; funding for more outreach workers instead of police to address houselessness downtown; and housing.

We recognize that there is an unprecedented desire by the public to see houselessness addressed, but we need to do it right; instead of sweeping the problem under the rug through criminalization and displacement, we need to focus on giving houseless people the care they need and deserve. ⚡️⚡️⚡️

LINK TO SAMPLE EMAIL IN BIO ➡️ SWIPE FOR MORE INFO

URGENT: Please share among your networks. Comrade

URGENT: Please share among your networks. Comrade Malik is facing retaliation at the GEO Group run Taylor Work Release Center for allegedly leaking information about a Covid outbreak in the center. His phone has been taken and he's been banned from leaving!

Help us get him released on home release! Share this and call!
Link to Phone Zap in Our Bio via @sacramento_iwoc !

Our friend Julius begins trial next week on Januar

Our friend Julius begins trial next week on January 11th, for self-defense against an attack he experienced at his place of work.

If you're in Gainesville, we need your help in showing up at the courthouse to stand in solidarity with Julius!

Self-defense is not a crime!

⚡️EMAIL ZAP TUESDAY⚡️ Help Eric get his ma

⚡️EMAIL ZAP TUESDAY⚡️
Help Eric get his mail back!

Shortly after the heartbreaking passing of Karen Smith, correctional officers visited the cell of Eric Wilridge. They took away Eric's legal mail and all his letters from Karen. Let's help get them back! Please send an email to he following contacts asking that Eric Wilridge (#107390) at Florida State Prison have his legal and personal mail returned immediately.

Contacts:

Regional Director / John Palmer john.palmer@fdc.myflorida.com

Asst Regional Director / Tony Anderson
tony.anderson@fdc.myflorida.com

Classification Officer /Patricia Hunter
patricia.hunter@fdc.myflorida.com

Colonel Michael Honour
michael.honour@fdc.myflorida.com

Warden / Don Davis
donald.davis@fdc.myflorida.com

Sample script:

“Hello,

I’ve been made aware that Eric Wilridge (#107390) who is currently incarcerated at Florida State Prison had all of his legal and personal mail taken away. There was no legal standing for FDC to do this as the mail was already screened through your mailroom and deemed to meet all requirements from Chapter 33. I demand that you return all of his legal and personal mail immediately as it is not contraband, and I would like to know why it was taken from him in the first place.”

#KarenSentUs #AbolishPolice #AbolishPrisons

❗️NOISE FOR NEW YEARS EVE ❗️Every New Year

❗️NOISE FOR NEW YEARS EVE ❗️Every New Year’s Eve, people across the world gather outside of prisons, jails, detention centers, and juvenile facilities to hold noise demonstrations to show solidarity with those incarcerated and demonstrate against mass systems of policing, incarceration and violence.
•
Join us in this New Years tradition to show the folks inside that you are outside fighting for them!
•
Bring anything that makes noise - drums, horns, bullhorns, pots and pans - and as many friends as you can gather. Flashlights, lanterns, and glow in the dark things encouraged!
•
We will caravan by car. Meet at the CMC at 10pm.

Its time to shift our focus from jail support for

Its time to shift our focus from jail support for those arrested this week at the protest to the bigger fight we were out there for, to (1) End Solitary Confinement, (2) Stop Retaliation and Torture Against Prisoners for Speaking Out, and (3) Shut Down Florida State Prison.

Our focus right now: Get Keith Soanes off Close Management status. The only reason he is being isolated and tortured in solitary is because he has been outspoken and received outside support.

Call these FDOC numbers and tell them to remove Keith Soanes from Close Management status:
(850) 488-5021,
(904) 368-2500,
(850) 488-9265.
Send emails to FSP Warden at Donald.Davis@@fdc.myflorida.com

Copy and distribute the flyer here.

BACKGROUND
Soanes is one among thousands of people held in state custody who are held in “close management,” FDOC’s code word for solitary, as punishment as a result of organizing to improve conditions and uphold basic human rights standards in the Florida prison system.

As a result of communicating with supporters on the outside, like Karen Smith, Keith was moved to FSP in Raiford. This prison is considered among the worst in a state that is full of terrible prisons. Since arriving there, he has witnessed and reported about repeated instances of torture against fellow prisoners including beatings, gassing with chemical agents and the use of “strip cells” where prisoners are left in nothing but underwear, even in freezing cold temperatures. Despite this he has continued to report on abuses and stay connected with efforts on the outside to bring about positive change.

Hear Soanes' report from abuse at FSP on Kiteline Radio, November 27, 2020: Careless With People’s Lives- Violence & Neglect in Florida
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kite-line-november-27-2020-careless-peoples-lives-violence/id1161477952?i=1000500614947

Send Keith a letter of support:
Keith Soanes #191981
PO Box 800
Raiford, Florida 32083

#KarenSentUs #AbolitionNow #WeWillFightHarder #ForKarenSmith #WeWillWin

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