https://themilitant.com/2020/05/02/the-militant-is-being-banned-yet-again-in-a-florida-prison/
‘The Militant is being banned, yet again, in a Florida prison’
article
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
Vol. 84/No. 18
May 11, 2020
“The Militant newspaper is being suppressed, yet again, in a Florida
prison,” National Lawyers Guild President Elena Cohen wrote to the
state’s Department
of Corrections Literature Review Committee — urging it to overturn the
latest ban on the paper. “The NLG stands in solidarity with those
incarcerated and
their right to read the Militant, and against this blatant violation of
the Bill of Rights,” she said.
On April 6 the Jefferson Correctional Institution in Monticello,
Florida, impounded Militant issue no. 13, claiming photos of workers
organizing to defend
their rights, safety and dignity on the job, and to build unions, are
“gang signs.”
The pictures show striking meatpackers at a Perdue chicken processing
plant in Kathleen, Georgia, and nurses protesting work conditions
outside a medical
facility in Richmond, California, raising their fists in the air — a
well-known expression of determination and pride in the justice of their
fight.
Also cited is a photo of United Steelworkers Local 8888 members during
their successful fight to organize a union at the Newport News,
Virginia, shipyard
in 1979, a strike that registered the strengthening of the working class
as a result of the fight for Black rights in the South.
This is the first time in eight months that the Militant has been
impounded by Florida prison authorities, after years of skirmishes over
numerous issues.
Most of these were reversed on appeal after organizations and
individuals who backed the rights of the Militant, and of prisoners to
read what they want,
wrote letters protesting the bans.
In response to the latest blatant attack on rights, the Literature
Review Committee has been getting letters protesting the banning. “We
urge the Committee
to reverse the impoundment at its next meeting and permit Florida
prisoners to receive these issues of the Militant,” wrote Benjamin
Stevenson for the
American Civil Liberties Union of Florida April 23. Objecting to workers
“holding a fist in the air,” he said, “appears to be a pretext to
prohibit current
concerns about safety and health.”
Stevenson added, “We urge the Committee to comply with the constitution.”
When authorities seize a copy of the Militant at any Florida prison,
the issue is removed from all 48 subscribers in prisons across that
state, and countless
others who read the paper as it’s passed around.
“Officials from Florida DOC institutions have repeatedly attempted to
censor issues of this publication over the past three years,” wrote
Justin Mazzola,
deputy director of research for Amnesty International USA, April 23. He
urged prison authorities to overturn the impoundment and “cease the
arbitrary impoundment
of the publication by Florida DOC institutions in the future.”
“The act of informing subscribers about events of the outside world in
and of itself should not be means to violate prisoners’ freedom of
expression,”
he wrote.
The Militant ’s attorney, David Goldstein, is preparing the paper’s
appeal and Literature Review Committee officials say they will take it
up at its next
meeting, scheduled for the first week of May.
“We will fight to reverse this,” said Militant editor John Studer, “as
we have done in every instance where officials ban an issue of the
Militant from
workers behind bars.
“We’re fighting to defend our right to have subscribers behind bars and
for the right of prisoners to read material of their choosing,” Studer
said. “The
reason prison officials give for barring the Militant is clearly
spurious. The Militant is being banned for positively portraying
working-class struggles.”
Studer urged readers of the paper to get statements from co-workers,
unions, churches and defenders of political rights calling for ending
the impoundment.
They should be sent to Literature Review Committee, Attn: Dean Peterson,
501 South Calhoun St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-2500. Email:
Allen.Peterson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Send copy to
themilitant@xxxxxxx.
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IN THIS ISSUE
Front Page Articles
list of 6 items
• Fight for jobs! Organize to defend wages, job safety!
• Demand gov’t-funded public works program to create jobs
• Calif. caravan says, ‘Charge cops who shot Steven Taylor’
• ‘The Militant is being banned, yet again, in a Florida prison’
• Protests challenge Polish gov’t moves to outlaw all abortions
• Join drive to expand reach of the ‘Militant’, SWP 2020 campaign
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Feature Articles
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• Cuban workers, youth help lead fight to increase food supply
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• New titles on working-class politics now out in Arabic
• ‘Stimulus’ payout donations are big boost to SWP
• Protest hits US sanctions on Cuba, Iran, NKorea, Venezuela
• Packinghouse shutdowns deepen crisis for workers, farmers, food supplies
• Irish department store workers defy lockdown, protest layoffs
• Anti-government protests sweep Lebanon
• Today’s social crisis rooted in decline of capitalism
• Campaign to expand reach of ‘Militant,’ books, fund (week three)
list end
Books of the Month
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• First imperialist world war sped Britain’s decline, US rulers rise
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25, 50 and 75 years ago
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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