http://themilitant.com/2017/8147/814702.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 47 December 18, 2017
(lead article)
Join fight to overturn ban against ‘Militant’!
BY SETH GALINSKY
“By refusing to allow prisoners to read the Militant, the Literature
Review Committee is depriving individuals of their constitutional right
to read material of their choosing,” says a Dec. 1 letter from PEN
America, backing the Militant’s fight against the decision of Florida
prison officials to repeatedly impound the Militant this year.
“Although every issue of the Militant covers public protests and
encourages workers to back protests that advance their interests, the
Militant does not suggest or incite rebellion against prison
institutions or the government.”
The impoundment of the Nov. 6 issue of the paper is the ninth time this
year the paper has been prevented from reaching its dozens of
subscribers in Florida’s 16 prisons. Any time authorities at any Florida
prison seizes a copy of the Militant, they are removed from subscribers
at all state institutions.
The Militant has appealed every act of censorship and the Literature
Review Committee overturned four of the first seven impoundments and
upheld three. The committee will review the impoundment of the Nov. 6
issue, as well as the seizure of the Oct. 30 issue.
Prison officials impounded the Oct. 30 issue because it reported on the
Militant’s appeal of Florida prison censorship of yet another issue of
the paper, even though the Literature Review Committee has overturned
the impoundment of previous issues banned on the same basis.
The impoundment of the Nov. 6 issue is even more serious. Unlike
previous impoundment notices, this one makes the outrageous claim that
the entire paper is “dangerously inflammatory in that it advocates or
encourages riot, insurrection” and “may lead to the use of physical
violence.” Florida authorities give no reason for this belief, merely
listing four pages in the issue.
The nine impoundments this year “are at least twice as many as in the
prior decade in Florida, and twice as many as in the rest of the nation,
state and federal combined,” David Goldstein, the Militant’s lawyer, of
the well-known civil liberties law firm Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard,
Krinsky & Lieberman, states in his Dec. 4 appeal of the ban.
The censoring of the latest issues is “difficult to understand as
anything other than a highly improper intensifying effort by the Florida
Department of Corrections,” Goldstein wrote, “to target the Militant for
unconstitutional and arbitrary content-based and viewpoint-based
censorship.”
Jefferson Correctional Institution prison officials also charged that
the Militant “encourages protesting and group disruption.”
One article on the pages cited is headlined, “Protest US Economic War
Against Cuban Revolution!” and the other pages feature ads promoting a
“Rally and march for silver miners on strike” in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho,
and a “Rally to defend Cuban Revolution at the United Nations” in New York.
Goldstein points out that the Literature Review Committee overturned the
impoundment of the Sept. 11 issue, which prison officials had singled
out because of a front-page article that reported and advocated protests
against racism. He also noted that in 2013 and 2016 the Literature
Review Committee overturned attempts to censor the paper for reporting
on prisoner hunger strikes and protests in California.
In addition to PEN America, Amnesty International USA, New York’s
Riverside Church Prison Ministry and Miami-based Alianza Martiana, a
coalition of Cuban-American groups, have sent letters to the Literature
Review Committee, and more are on their way.
Alianza Martiana said that the prison authorities “have violated the
letter and spirit of the First Amendment of the United States
Constitution.”
Amnesty International points out that the impoundment violates not only
the Constitution, but also the United Nations Minimum Rules on the
Treatment of Prisoners, commonly known as the Mandela Rules, after South
African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela.
“Prisoners are fellow workers behind bars,” said Militant editor John
Studer. “They have a right to read about the world we live in, to
consider different views, to form their own opinions. Prison authorities
have no right to ban views they disagree with.
“We are not going to stop supporting the struggles of working people
around the world and urging readers, including those behind bars, to
take a stand,” Studer said. “Our fight against arbitrary and
unconstitutional censorship in Florida strengthens everyone’s right to
free speech and for freedom of the press.”
Related articles:
Guantánamo prisoners’ art brings threats from US gov’t
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