Sometimes we only find out about the censorship when a prisoner writes to ask why he did not receive the paper or book he requested. Sometimes this censorship is reported to us or to the prisoner (as is required by prison regulations) by the prison and the reasons given are explicitly political, and sometimes the prison officials try to hide behind bureaucratic rules to keep prisoners from receiving educational material.
One of the key aspects to a personÕs ability to educate him or her self is access to educational materials. Prisons in this country suPosedly have the purpose of rehabilitating people, but they deny prisoners access to these educational materials. This censorship is not arbitrary, it is targeted against political publications and against prisoners who are politically organized. Sometimes we can win legal battles against this censorship and sometimes outside pressure will force the prison to obey their rules and allow in literature sent to prisoners.
In Massachusetts MIM Notes is being censored from some of the most politically conscious prisoners in its gulags. The reasons given range from a total distortion of existing Mass. regulations to the invention of new reasons out of whole cloth. One prisoner has a federal civil rights suit on this issue in the Courts since 1996.
In Massachusetts RAIL is taking up the battle of censorship by taking this struggle to the streets. We are asking individuals and organizations to endorse a petition oPosing the censorship and as we continue the legal battle, we will build public pressure on the prison administrators and the commissioner of corrections. We encourage all readers to get involved in this fight against censorship in Massachusetts and in your home state.
If you want to know which prisons are censoring MIM Notes or other political literature in your state, write to RAIL and we will get you all the information you need to start building the protests in your area. For more on the history of MIMÕs censorship battles in Mass, write to MIM or see http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/rail/mr2.html#Censor.