Florida Press Association calls on prison officials to lift ‘Militant’ ban
https://themilitant.com/2020/08/29/florida-press-association-calls-on-prison-officials-to-lift-militant-ban/
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
Vol. 84/No. 35
September 7, 2020
After the Florida Department of Corrections Literature Review Committee
upheld the banning of Militant issue no. 30, David Goldstein, the
paper’s attorney, filed an appeal Aug. 24 challenging the ruling. The
Militant was also informed that authorities at the same state prison in
Raiford, Florida, had banned issue no. 31.
“Prison officials are targeting the Militant because of its political
viewpoints,” writes Goldstein in his appeal, “in violation of the First
Amendment rights of both subscribers and publishers.” Their suppression
of issue no. 30 “is arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory,
unconstitutional.”
Prison authorities had informed the Militant Aug. 8 that issue was
impounded because of an article entitled, “Prisoners Demand Release from
Overcrowded Jails.” It’s a news story about efforts in California to
press for the release of inmates in the overcrowded state prison system,
where over 5,800 inmates statewide have contracted COVID-19. Similar
coverage has appeared in newspapers in Florida and nationwide.
Prison authorities claim this article is “dangerously inflammatory in
that it advocates or encourages riots, insurrection, rebellion,
organized prison protest, disruption of the institution, or the
violation of the federal law, state law or Department rules.”
“The justification offered for the ban is unsupported by the article’s
content,” Samuel Morley, general counsel of the Florida Press
Association, wrote in an Aug. 18 letter to the Literature Review
Committee opposing the banning of issue no. 30. “We do not believe it
advocates any facility disruption or violation of the law,” he adds.
“Rather, the decision appears to be arbitrary and irrational.”
In response to a question from the Militant, Morley said he was not
aware of impoundments of any other papers, like the Miami Herald and
Orlando Sentinel that had carried coverage of COVID-19 outbreaks in
Florida prisons. The Herald’s coverage included a report of a prisoner
on a hunger strike. It wasn’t banned.
Florida state prison authorities gave the same reason for impounding
issue no. 31, claiming the objectionable article was “Workers Oppose
Federal Cops, Antifa Violence in Portland.” The article opposes looting
and violent attacks by groups like antifa in Portland, Oregon, and
explains how this is an obstacle to building a broad-based movement to
press for prosecution of cops who brutalize and shoot working people.
Again, this is a topic the media has covered extensively. The Militant
plans to appeal this suppression also.
Word about recent impoundments of the Militant has gotten around among
prisoners. “I am an inmate currently housed with a recipient of your
newspaper,” a prisoner from Florida wrote to the Militant. “However,
issue no. 30 was denied. I am a prison legal advocate and will grieve
this issue at this institution,” he said, adding, “I would also like to
receive the newspaper.”
Supporters of political rights have been contacting the Literature
Review Committee urging them to overturn these impoundments. Among those
that have sent letters are the Florida American Civil Liberties Union
and The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Over the past several years the Militant has fought, and in most cases
been victorious in overturning impoundments by Florida prison
authorities. From mid-2017 to August 2019 they impounded almost three
dozen issues, more than one-third of Militant issues printed over that time.
They then stopped banning the paper for about eight months, until May of
this year when issue no. 13 was impounded. Prison authorities claimed
pictures of workers protesting with raised fists were “gang signs.” This
was reversed. “No explanation,” Goldstein wrote in the appeal, “let
alone a reasoned one, is ever given by the censoring FDOC officials as
to what they actually find objectionable and why.”
“Workers behind bars have the right to read different viewpoints, to
think for themselves and form their own opinions about political
questions,” said Militant editor John Studer. “And the Militant is
guaranteed the right to freedom of the press, to be able to send our
paper to subscribers behind bars.”
Studer urged workers, unions, church groups and civil liberties
organizations to write to the Literature Review Committee asking that
these impoundments be overturned.
Send letters to Dean Peterson, Literature Review Committee, Florida
Department of Corrections, 501 South Calhoun Street, Tallahassee, FL
32399, or via email at Allen.Peterson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, with copies to
the Militant.
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Florida Press Association calls on prison officials to lift ‘Militant’ ban
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Carl Sagan
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― Carl Sagan, Cosmos