Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Media Review Committee
Clinton Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Dannemora, NY 12929-2000

July 15, 2007

Dear Sir/Madam:

This letter is in response to the censorship of 15 copies of Issue 3 of the New Afrikan Maoist Party?s Party Bulletin. These were mailed back to NAMP on June 27, 2007 without a notice from your office. They were merely stamped ?RTS Contents Prohibited.? This letter is to request a review of this decision and to further inquire as to the reasoning behind the decision to prohibit the publication.

As you may be aware, a member of Our movement is currently engaged in a legal battle with staff at Clinton Correctional Facility for allegedly being involved in an unauthorized organization because of his affiliation with NAMP. And you may also be aware that according to the DOCS rules, an outside organization does not fall under the guise of the rule forbidding involvement in ?unauthorized organizations.? This, of course, would be a violation of Our First Amendment rights to association.

This recent bit of censorship indicates to Us that Clinton Correctional Facility is continuing with its practice of censoring and persecuting members of Our movement. We hope that upon your review of this matter you will see that there is no reason to justify such actions.

We respectfully request your timely response to this matter,

Sharon Benson-Perry, Media Review Chairperson
Clinton Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Dannemora, NY 12929-2000

August 26, 2007

Dear Sharon Benson-Perry:

I am in receipt of your letter dated July 30, which we received here on August 9th. In it you state that there is no record of the censorship of 15 issues of issue 3 of the Party Bulletin. The newsletters were originally mailed out on June 12. They were all mailed back to us on June 27th in a large manila envelope. Each issue was individually stamped with a standard rejection stamp bearing multiple options, with the option ?Contents Prohibited (photo)? checked, and the ?(photo)? part crossed out. Since there was no record of this action by the Media Review Board at Clinton Correctional Facility you were unable to respond to my request for a review of the decision and a further explanation for it.

Enclosed is a copy of the publication in question per your request. We are confident that you will find that the contents of the publication are not prohibited according to the regulations at Clinton. Please notify us of your decision so that we can resend the newsletters to our subscribers at your facility.

Thank you for your time in this matter,