On August 13, 2014 the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) posted an blog post by Nzinga A. Harrison, MD that we thought was reposting. An excerpt follows and you can read by the entire piece by clicking here.
Every time they throw my brother into solitary, he loses contact visits. When we visit, he’s behind glass, or we can only see him via video. We can’t hug him. He can’t hold his new baby niece.
My brother, Kofi M. Ajabu, has been imprisoned by the Indiana Department of Correction for nearly 20 years. All told, we estimate that he’s spent nearly 10 of those years in a solitary cell, alone for 23 hours a day.
I am a psychiatrist. I know that I could prescribe a million medicines and give countless hours of psychotherapy, but none of it will be as effective if I do not help my patients connect to other human beings.
The effects of solitary confinement are well documented. High rates of suicide, anxiety, obsessive ruminations, violent thoughts, trouble sleeping, paranoia, and hallucinations are direct results of confinement. Because of these effects, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan E. Méndez, has called for an absolute ban on the use of solitary confinement lasting longer than 15 days.
Every day, I treat individuals with the same symptoms, albeit with biological and psychosocial causes other than solitary confinement. The unifying theme in each of my recommendations is reconnecting my patients to a social support system.
Our “correctional” system, whose original goal was rehabilitation, takes the opposite approach. At a time when many are at a point of greatest need, the system removes the one factor that is universally accepted as a basic psychological and physiological need: contact with other human beings. Without it, prisoners’ minds deteriorate.
The Chicago Coalition to Shut Down Guantánamo, of which ICAT is a member, will protest U.S. militarism and human rights violations at the 2014 Chicago Air and Water Show, Saturday and Sunday, August 16-17.
Year after year, hundreds of thousands of people from Chicago and the surrounding area gather on the lakeshore to watch aerial displays by an array of planes. Most don’t suspect that they are being subjected to an intense propaganda effort by multiple branches of the U.S. military.
The Coalition views this as a perfect opportunity to engage with the public and enlist them in the growing movement against U.S. war, torture, surveillance, and other crimes. We will join activists from many other peace and justice groups who have had a growing presence at this event in recent years.
The focus of Coalition activity at the Air and Water Show 2014 will be drone killing and surveillance, rendition torture flights, and Guantánamo. Find out more at the Chicago Coalition to Shut Down Guantánamo blog.
Please join the Facebook event page for the protest at the 2014 Chicago Air and Water Show and share widely! (The Coalition will be present during the show on Saturday, August 16,and tentatively also on Sunday, August 17.)
Not Another Broken Promise! Not Another Day in Guantánamo!
Rally – 4:30 PM – Water Tower Park – Procession down N. Michigan Avenue
On May 23rd of last year, President Obama again promised to close the detention facility at Guantánamo. His pledge came in response to the mass hunger strike by men protesting their indefinite detention and to the renewed, global condemnation of the prison.
One year later, far too little has changed: few detained men have left the prison, and hunger strikes and forced feeding continue. Demonstrations will be taking place across the United States and the world to demand that President Obama and the US Congress end indefinite detention and close the detention facility at Guantánamo.
Please join us in Chicago for a spirited demonstration and march, starting the Water Tower Park on Friday, May 23rd at 4:30pm. There will be a performance piece highlighting the poems of the men detained at Guantánamo and the speech that President Obama made one year ago. We will march to Tribune Plaza and perform a skit to give voice to the men at Guantánamo. Lastly, we will march to Millennium Park.
During his May 2013 speech, President Obama asked the American people: “Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are being held on a hunger strike . . . Is this who we are?” Sadly, as we face yet another broken promise, this is what the United States remains — a country that indefinitely detains and brutalizes the men at Guantánamo.
The May 23rd Day of Action in Chicago is being coordinated by the Chicago Coalition to Shut Down Guantánamo.
For information on actions in Chicago go to:
http://shutdowngitmochicago.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/ChicagoCoalitionToShutDownGuantanamo
If you are on Facebook, please join our event there and invite friends!
The following is an excerpt from a Common Dreams column by Robert Koehler published on May 1. The column cites the Historians Against the War publication “Torture, American Style,” particularly the introduction by ICAT member Margaret Power.
Ten years ago, photos of the crucifixion — and worse — were released to the American public. The media still call it “the Abu Ghraib scandal,” as though, oops, the awkward repercussions for Team Bush were the torture photos’ primary horror.
No one talks about “the Auschwitz scandal.” The depth of our moral wrong has yet to be plumbed.
Ten years later . . . the hooded man with arms outstretched, electrodes attached to his fingers, revisits the national conscience. Iraq is in a shambles. The prison itself was closed in mid-April because Sunni insurgents are too much of a threat in the region. We wrecked and contaminated two countries in reckless pursuit of revenge and national interest.
Ten years later, a 6,300-page Senate Intelligence Committee report on the U.S. detention and “enhanced interrogation” program is due to be released, or partially released, at some point in the near future — pending declassification, i.e., censorship, of its findings by the White House and even the CIA itself.
Read the entire column by clicking here.
Hello Everyone!
The Illinois Coalition Against Torture (ICAT) is launching a campaign to end solitary confinement in Illinois prisons. We hope you will join us. In this message we will explain why we are working on this campaign, what some of the materials we have produced are, what the campaign entails, and ways you can support the campaign.
ICAT has always opposed solitary confinement in prison and viewed it as a form of torture. When the Chicago City Council passed the ICAT anti-torture resolution in January 2012, one of the provisions of the resolution was opposition to solitary confinement. In the last two years opposition to solitary confinement has grown, in Illinois and across the United States. We welcome this development and are glad to work with others to end this inhumane treatment of prisoners.
We have produced two materials for this campaign so far. The first is a petition. We hope that you will circulate this petition widely, both online and as a hard copy. We want to get as many signatures as possible, and we hope that you can help us get them. The petition as serves three goals. First, it alerts people to the fact that solitary confinement is wrong and should stop now. Second, it provides people with a means to act to end solitary confinement. Third, it sends a message to our elected officials that a large number of people oppose solitary confinement and want them to stop it. When you have obtained signatures, please send the completed petition to ICAT, 2502 W. Division St., Chicago, IL, 60622.
We also include a leaflet that we produced. Again, please feel free to distribute it far and wide. We have printed a number of leaflets in color, so if you would like some of them, please let us know. If you can make a small donation for them, so much the better! If not, we are happy to get them to you anyway.
Please join us. You can do so by distributing the petition, keeping in contact with us through our Facebook page or this blog, or attending our meetings. We look forward to working with you.
Chicago attorney and ICAT member Melinda Power sent the following letter to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin the day before a February 25 hearing called by Senator Durbin and held by the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights. The title of the hearing was “Reassessing Solitary Confinement II: The Human Rights, Fiscal, and Public Safety Consequences.”
Read press coverage of the hearing by Progress Illinois here and get the hearing materials here.
February 23, 2014
The Honorable Senator Dick Durbin
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C.
RE: Solitary Confinement
Dear Senator Durbin:
Sometimes I try to imagine how I would function in solitary confinement. I quickly conclude that I would deteriorate rapidly, both mentally and physically. I imagine you might also. The executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, Rick Raemisch’s, editorial in the N.Y. Times on 2/21/14 confirmed how devastating his twenty-four hour sojourn in solitary confinement was on his mental well-being. It further reaffirmed his opposition to the use of solitary confinement.
His editorial illuminated what I have come to believe is the effect solitary confinement has on the vast majority of people in solitary confinement. The Department of Correction’s confinement of people in small 6′ by 8′ cells for days, months and even years on end often drives people crazy. This is because when an intent is not able to control or determine when he or she is allowed out of solitary and speeds his or her day alone, there is a physical and mental health breakdown. Being forced to eat food shoved through the aptly named chuckhole; not being able to have any contact with loved ones, family or other inmates; not being allowed access to the law library or to the commissary and limited access to fresh air only further breaks down the prisoner’s mental and physical health.
How can we treat human beings this way and still proclaim we live in a humans society? Every day, states across the U.S. do this to thousands of human beings. This is not a kind of society I want to be part of.
I know this happens on a daily basis because as an attorney who has visited prisoners in Illinois and federal prisons around the U.S. for over thirty years, I have met prisoners who have suffered the effects of solitary confinement. It is sad and disheartening to see these prisoners. Often, they won’t even look at me. They certainly are not able to carry on a conversation without effort. No one should spend even 24 hours in solitary.
I believe solitary confinement is torture. It destroys prisoners and it dehumanizes the guards and prison administrations who enforce it.
I request that you introduce and make your your best effort to get passed legislation to end solitary confinement in the U.S.
Sincerely,
Melinda Power
Is it ever morally justified to risk one’s life for justice? Or to prevent someone from doing that? One year ago this month, courageous and desperate men imprisoned at Guantanamo began a hunger strike. Their action has again focused world attention on their plight and revealed the intransigence of the Obama administration on Guantanamo.
On February 27, the Chicago Coalition to Shut Down Guantanamo hosts an evening to examine how the detainees have put their bodies on the line to defeat their unjust imprisonment without charges or trial, and how forced feeding is used to block their last form of protest – denying themselves nourishment.
“Hunger: Guantanamo Detainees and Their Resistance”
What: Film screening and discussion (free, donations accepted)
When: 7 pm, Thursday, Feb. 27
Where: Grace Place, 637 S. Dearborn, Chicago (near Red and Blue El lines)
We will screen the award-winning film, Doctors of the Dark Side, that explores the critical role of physicians and psychologists in crafting and implementing programs of detainee torture at Guantanamo.
The film will be followed by a panel discussion of the serious legal and ethical questions posed by both hunger striking and forced feeding. The Guantanamo prisoners have said this is their last means of protest, and they would rather die than continue in conditions of extreme isolation and torture. Obama has defended forced feeding as a means to prevent death, even though it is widely regarded as torture. These issues are not confined to Guantanamo. During last summer’s hunger strike by prisoners in California to end solitary confinement, a court held that the State could force feed them. And right now, some prisoners at Menard Prison here in Illinois are engaged in a hunger strike to end their solitary confinement as well. As prisoners stand up for humane treatment, where will we stand?
Our panel will feature Dr. Frank Summers, a clincal psychologist who has played a leading role in the fight within the American Psychological Association to bar members who participate in torture. We have also invited Abu Noor Abdil Malik, Muslim chaplain at DePaul University, to shed light on the Islamic perspective on risking one’s life through a hunger strike to attain justice. Please join us for this important film and indepth discussion of these and other questions. If you are on Facebook, please ‘join’ the event and invite friends.
Members of The Chicago Coalition to Shut Down Guantanamo includes Illinois Coalition Against Torture, World Can’t Wait Chicago, Witness Against Torture, White Rose Catholic Worker, and Chicago Committee to Free the Cuban Five. This event is also endorsed by Radical Public Health.
We’ve posted this petition calling for an immediate end to solitary confinement in Illinois. We further demand that Governor Quinn and Attorney General Madigan immediately act to end this practice. Locking a prisoner alone in a cell with no human contact for up to 23 hours a day, without access to commissary, phone calls or exercise constitutes torture.
Medical experts have determined that solitary confinement is extremely harmful to a prisoner’s mental health and has no rehabilitative value. 85% of prisoners are placed in solitary in Illinois as a disciplinary action for minor infractions. The State of Mississippi drastically reduced solitary confinement in 2007. This change has resulted in healthier prisoners, increased safety, and reduced costs for Mississippi.
In January 2012, the Chicago City Council adopted a resolution condemning prolonged solitary confinement in Illinois prisons as torture. Illinois has approximately 2,200 prisoners in solitary confinement whose average length of stay is 2.8 years. This is inhumane and unacceptable.
Why is this important?
Sign the Petition because it is inhumane to keep people locked up in solitary without access to other people, fresh air, commissary and medical care. It does not rehabilitate people and leads to more violence.
You can sign by clicking on this link: http://www.credomobilize.com/petitions/end-solitary-confinement-in-illinois
Thanks to all who came out to our “12 Years Too Many Vigil” on January 10 and/or our panel discussion on January 11. We had a significant visual presence, including people wearing orange jumpsuits and black hoods and lighted signs spelling out the message “CLOSE GITMO” provided by the Overpass Light Brigade. We read aloud the names of all the 155 men who are still imprisoned at Guantánamo, including the 76 men who have been cleared for release. We’ve posted some photos of the vigil here and click on the link to read press coverage by Progress Illinois.
(Photos by FJJ)
Friday, January 10, 4:30 to 5:30 PM
“12 Years Too Many!” Vigil
Meet at Federal Courthouse in Chicago (northeast corner of Dearborn and Jackson)
If you are on Facebook, please join our event there and invite friends.
Our witness is more powerful with you !
Saturday, January 11, 7 to 9 PM
An Evening to Discuss and Dissent!
Doors open at 6:30 for art exhibit, videos
Grace Place, 637 S. Dearborn, Chicago
We will begin the evening with short performance by the Chicago Danz Theatre followed by a panel discussion on the current legal and political situation at Guantánamo Bay, followed by Q&A session. Our speakers are:
- Candace Gorman, a U.S. attorney for 2 men detained at Guantánamo (one has been released, the other remains in prison),
- Mario Venegas, an activist and torture survivor from Chile, and
- Dr. Antonio Martinez from the Institute for Survivors of Torture and Human Rights Abuses and a co-founder of the Marjorie Kovler Center here in Chicago.
If you are on Facebook, please join this event there, and invite friends.
Events sponsored by the Chicago Coalition to Shut Down Guantánamo (World Can’t Wait Chicago, Witness Against Torture, White Rose Catholic Worker, Illinois Coalition Against Torture, Chicago Committee to Free the Cuban Five).
Endorsed by 8th Day Center for Justice, Voices for Creative Non-Violence, Neighbors for Peace, The Chicago Cuba Coalition, Veterans for Peace Chicago, Amnesty International USA
Illinois Coalition Against Torture (ICAT) 