https://themilitant.com/2020/05/09/fight-grows-to-overturn-ban-on-the-militant-in-florida-prisons/
Fight grows to overturn ban on the ‘Militant’ in Florida prisons
article
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
Vol. 84/No. 19
May 18, 2020
“The prison officials are targeting the Militant because of its
political viewpoints,” wrote the paper’s attorney, David Goldstein, in
an appeal filed
with the Florida Department of Corrections’ Literature Review Committee
May 1. This is “in violation of the First Amendment rights of both
subscribers
and publishers.”
The Militant received notice April 17 that the Jefferson Correctional
Institution in Monticello, Florida, impounded issue no. 13, claiming
photos on pages
1, 5, 14 and 16 were “gang signs.”
What “you perceive as ‘gang related’ symbols are meant to be symbols of
solidarity,” wrote Walmart workers Danielle Snyder and Dan Fein from the
Chicago
area April 29 to the Literature Review Committee, urging it to overturn
the ban. “The U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech for all,
and this
includes prisoners” who “still have the right to read and possess
different points of view.”
What the pictures prison authorities cite to try to justify their ban
actually show are workers with their fists in the air expressing their
determination
to fight for safety, unions and dignity on the job. They include
striking meatpackers at a Perdue chicken processing plant in Kathleen,
Georgia, and nurses
protesting outside a medical facility in Richmond, California, in March.
Another photo shows members of United Steelworkers Local 8888 during
their successful
fight to organize a union at the Newport News, Virginia, shipyard in 1979.
Authorities allege these photos are “a threat to the security, good
order, or discipline of the correctional system or the safety of any
person.”
This impoundment “is arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory,
unconstitutional,” wrote Goldstein. “There is not the slightest hint of
anything on the listed
pages (or elsewhere in the issue) that could rationally be construed as
threatening FDOC prison security.”
Letters urging the Literature Review Committee to overturn this
outrageous ban have been sent by the National Lawyers Guild, American
Civil Liberties Union
of Florida and Amnesty International USA.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press “strongly urges the
Literature Review Committee to overturn the impoundment,” said the
organization’s
May 4 letter. “It appears arbitrary and irrational. Prisons should not
invoke facially legitimate but overly broad justifications — such as
‘safety and
security’ — to censor content.”
From Piedmont, Quebec, professor David Lefrancois wrote, “Raising fists
in the air is overly familiar as part of public, political, sportive,
events. Like
numerous defenders of political rights, subscribing or not to the
Militant, I am sending this letter of support of the fight against
censorship, calling
on the Committee to overturn all the bans of the paper in Florida prisons.”
This is the first issue of the paper Florida prison officials have
barred in eight months. But from mid-2017 to August 2019 they impounded
almost three
dozen issues, over one-third of all Militant issues printed over that
time. Most of these were subsequently overturned.
The bans of the Militant over the two years “were at least 7-8 times as
many as in the entire rest of the nation, state and federal prisons
combined in
the past decade,” wrote Goldstein.
The Militant is mailed to subscribers in 87 federal and state prisons in
21 states. It has 53 subscribers in 24 prisons in Florida. Banning an
issue at
one prison removes the paper from all subscribers throughout the state.
04/ban_8417
“A policy that bans the reporting or coverage of worker protests,” wrote
Goldstein, “or otherwise offends the political sensibilities of a prison
official,
as is plainly the case here, cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny.
“The Militant requests that the Literature Review Committee overturn
this impoundment and direct that this issue be immediately distributed
to all inmate
subscribers in FDOC custody.”
“Whether workers are protesting in the streets or are behind bars they
have the same constitutional right to freedom of speech and the right to
read and
form their own opinions about political events around the world,” said
Militant editor John Studer. “We are fighting to reverse this ban as
we’ve done
every time other issues have been barred over the years.”
Studer urged readers of the paper to keep getting statements from
co-workers, unions, churches and defenders of political rights calling
for ending the
impoundment. They should be sent to the Literature Review Committee,
Attn: Dean Peterson, 501 South Calhoun St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-2500.
Email:
Allen.Peterson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Send a copy to
themilitant@xxxxxxx.
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IN THIS ISSUE
Front Page Articles
list of 6 items
• Demand jobs! Join workers fights over wages, conditions
• Independent truckers rally over attacks on their pay
• Demand gov’t-funded public works program to create jobs
• Working people hold May Day celebrations all across Cuba
• ‘Militant’ extends drive for readers, to spread the word about
workers’ struggles
• Fight grows to overturn ban on the ‘Militant’ in Florida prisons
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Feature Articles
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• Hong Kong protest movement revives with May 1 rallies
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• Venezuela: Working people pay price for US sanctions
• NY Mayor de Blasio scapegoats Jews for spreading coronavirus
• NY cops turned loose on political rallies, people ‘gathering’
• Contributions grow to SWP ‘stimulus’ payout appeal
• Unfolding capitalist crisis fuels interest in ‘Militant’
• Celebrate Cindy Jaquith’s 55 years building the communist movement
• Asarco strikers say ‘We’re still out here fighting for our rights’
• Debenhams workers fight layoffs in Ireland
• Cuban embassy attack
• Campaign to expand reach of ‘Militant,’ books, fund (week four)
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Books of the Month
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• The FBI: The political police of the US capitalist class
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Steven Pinker
“It's natural to think that living things must be the handiwork of a designer.
But it was also natural to think that the sun went around the earth. Overcoming
naive impressions to figure out how things really work is one of humanity's
highest callings.
[Can You Believe in God and Evolution? Time Magazine, August 7, 2005]”
― Steven Pinker