May 1 - The United Front to Abolish Security Housing Units took to the streets again, the third month in a row that we have been out in different cities across California to protest this country's torture isolation chambers in our brutal domestic prison system. These isolation chambers are known in California as Security Housing Units, and almost 3,000 people are being held in them in California alone. These protests the first Saturday of every month, organized by the United Front to shut down the SHU, are staffed by organizations and individuals active in this campaign in each city. In May we had people on the streets in San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Oakland, Los Angeles, Watsonville and the San Fernando Valley.

In California, and across the country, Security Housing Units principally target oppressed nations. In 1998 the California Department of Corrections (CDC) reported that 34% of the population in all CDC institutions was Latino, and 31% was Black. The populations of the SHUs is even more disproportionate. 82% of people in SHUs were nonwhite, & 52% of those in SHUs were Latino. This compares to a California population that was 32% Latino and 7% Black in 1998.

The United Front to Shut Down the SHU includes wide range of people in movements such as the Barrio Defense Committee (BDC), the African People's Socialist Party (APSP), African People's Solidarity Committee (APSC), the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM), Justice for Palestinians, California Prison Focus, the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL), Proyecto Common Touch and RASCALS. On the first Saturdays of every month we hit the streets to educate and rally public support to abolish the SHUs.

Like other control unit prisons across the country, the SHU are prisons within a prison. They are solitary confinement cells where prisoners are locked up 23 hours a day for years at a time. The one hour a day these prisoner sometimes get outside of their cell is spent alone in an exercise pen not much larger than their cell, with no direct sunlight. This long term isolation causes serious mental and physical health problems for many prisoners. And these torture cells are used to target politically active prisoners using a system of classification that makes it impossible for prisoners to appeal their assignment.

MIM recently printed up a 4 page newsprint pamphlet on prison control units, focused on the California Security Housing Units. These pamphlets are being used throughout the state for our tabling and petition collection, helping us educate people about why these torture cells must be shut down.

This month students from UCSC and CSUMB went to the downtown plaza in Watsonville, where just a few days earlier people held a vigil for Durrell Feaster & Deon Whitfield, two youths found hung in their cells in the Stockton California Youth Authority (CYA-the prison system for our youth). This was the first time we petitioned in Watsonville. It was very positive, for many community members were outside together, young and old, either walking downtown or in the park. We set up a replica of a SHU prison cell, constructed from PVC pipe, and placed our table and materials inside it. Many people walking by had experiences with the state correctional system. A large number of folks knew others who were in prison and were very warm and paused to listen to us. About 25 people signed our petition and we passed out all of our flyers in Spanish as most of the people we approached at the plaza in downtown Watsonville only spoke Spanish. Communication went well because two of our activists could speak Espanol to La Raza community of Watsonville.

At the Oakland protest in May at 14th and Broadway we had a good reception from the locals. Since the area is largely populated by the Black Nation, a major target of the Amerikan criminal injustice system, many people who walked by were interested and have some kind of personal experience with the criminal injustice system (either themselves or a friend or relative). We collected about 30 signatures and handed out literature to many more people. We also got contact info for several people interested in getting involved.

In April in San Francisco activists collected about 75 petition signatures in the two hours we were on the streets. The corner we choose, at Powell and Market streets, is an area with a diversity of pedestrians including many former prisoners who are very excited to see us working to abolish the SHU. Several men stopped to sign the petition and tell us how important this work is, describing their stay in the SHU as torture. One woman joined us for a short time, trying to explain the torture her boyfriend had endured in the SHU to passers by who did not stop to sign the petition. With the recent mainstream media publicity about prison brutality in California, many people who had never been inside a prison were familiar with the issues and the need for change. Most people were clear that abolishing the SHU would not eliminate the fundamental oppression that is a part of the Amerikan Criminal Injustice System. And activists staffing the table explained the need to fight for this reform while taking on the larger system.

The April protest in San Jose, CalifAztlan at the Berryessa Flea market, led by the BDC, displayed a replica of a SHU prison cell from 7:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. A banner was hung which read: "Domestic War, Torture Programs in the California Prisons Must Go Now, Abolish the Security Housing Units NOW!". This Banner was done in Spanish and English. Many people came by and looked, and some asked questions. A flyer with information on the SHU conditions was passed out to many people along with a Press Release announcing the April 10th Statewide meeting and the April 26th Federal Court hearing in San Francisco challenging SHU classification. Everyone who stopped was asked to sign a petition. Those that knew of the SHU and were in the SHU quickly got their families to sign the Petition to shut it down. We are also protesting to CDC Warden Scribner, Gov. Schwarzenegger and Gloria Romero that Corcoran State Prison is holding the families of prisoners hostage by not allowing families to visits with their loved ones.

The May protest in San Jose was held in front of the Centro Aztlan Chicomoztoc. We also had a flea market for the Centro at the same time. Activists had interesting discussions with people mostly with the young students from the nearby Catholic School who had absolutely no idea of the torture SHU units. They were extremely curious. People signed the Petition to Shut Down the SHU and accepted the fact bulleted flyer. It was a good experience to protest the SHU in front of the Centro Aztlan Chicomoztoc because of the exposure not only to the SHU but to the community organizing center Centro Aztlan Chicomoztoc.

MIM, RAIL and Studies for the Liberation of Aztlan and Latin America (SLALA) petitioned at the Silver Lake Farmers' Market in Los Angeles in both April and May. Both months activists collected around 50 petition signatures. The foot traffic here is made up youth, foreign students and Latin American Immigrants. Many of the people we approached had never heard of the SHU and wanted to know more about the SHU program. Most were appalled to hear that SHU's are used as retaliatory attacks against politically active prisoners and prisoners who have grievances against the prison system, being caged like dogs and prevented from exercising and contact with other people.

A few people proclaimed the old reactionary line: "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime." We pointed out to these people that placement in the SHU is an extralegal punishment, meted out to those who are unpopular with the guards often for their political activism or their legal work on behalf of other prisoners. But as is typical with this kind of retrograde thinking, these people weren't really interested in a discussion or in having their opinions disrupted by the facts.

The city of Los Angeles is no stranger to political unrest sparked by the inhumane and unjustifiable acts of Amerikan injustice system. The SHU program re-visits these injustices on a daily basis and on a historically unheard of scale. We will continue to fight against the SHU in Los Angeles while exposing the root causes of all injustice and oppression.

In addition to these monthly protests, the United Front held a demonstration on Monday, April 26, at the United Nations Plaza in San Francisco, in front of the Federal Building. Activists spent the day gathering petition signatures, handing out educational literature and talking with passers by about the torture in Amerikan SHU prison cells. We set up a wooden SHU replica, illustrating the small size of these 6x9 ft cells. The SHU replica was very effective. It leaves an impression of the torture inside the U.S. prisons in the minds of people. Throughout the day new people joined in to help gather petition signatures. A lot homeless helped (who many of them were SHU prisoners). The educational leaflets were a powerful tool and the petitions serve to have a discussion on the SHU, the government, the conditions that we face as colonized people, and the role of the police. The UN has recently stated that the Control Units at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is torture, & yet the same thing is happening in CA prisons.

Other actions in May included the defense of a SHU prisoner Martin Villa in Delano who had a tumor and CDC would not treat him. With the massive call- ins, fax-ins and emails, CDC moved on investigating and supposedly to treat Martin Villa. Martin thanked everyone involved and will keep us informed as to what they have concretely done. This is a victory which shows the power of the people.

We need more activists to help us expand the monthly protests to other cities across the state of California. At the demonstrations we set up a literature table and use posters and banners to get people's attention, attaching them to the table and other structures. And in some cities we are setting up mock SHU structures to illustrate to people the small cell size and sensor deprivation that is part of life in the SHU. It only takes one or two people to get a protest going in a new city, and we can provide people with all the needed materials.

Contact us if you want to get involved in this important campaign against these torture units as a part of the larger battle against the Criminal Injustice System as a whole. (more details on control units in general and the Security Housing Units in California's prisons).

Protests will be held Saturday June 5th at the following locations:

Los Angeles: Silver Lake Farmer's Market at Sunset Blvd. and Griffith Park Blvd.
11am to 1pm
Contact: mim136@mim.org

San Francisco: at the anti-war rally at UN Plaza
11am - 4pm
Contact: mim124@mim.org (415) 267-4879

San Jose: Contact: barriodefens@earthlink.net (408) 885-9785

Santa Cruz: Contact: rufus4you@yahoo.com (408) 471-9098

San Fernando Valley: Contact: lizm9698@sbcglobal.net (818) 848-0402