Letters call on Florida prisons to end ban on the ‘Militant’
https://themilitant.com/2020/09/26/letters-call-on-florida-prisons-to-end-ban-on-the-militant/
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
Vol. 84/No. 39
October 5, 2020
Supporters of prisoners’ rights and freedom of the press continue to
speak urging Florida prison officials to overturn the ban on four recent
issues of the Militant.
“The Militant has a right to publish factual information, and Florida
prisoners have a right to access the information,” wrote Fran Reilly,
executive director of the News Leaders Association, in a Sept. 16 letter
to prison authorities. “The impoundment infringes on the First Amendment
rights of both the Militant and its incarcerated readers.”
The association’s board includes editors and other leaders of the
Associated Press, Miami Herald, National Public Radio, CBS News,
Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and more.
“We urge the Literature Review Committee to reverse the decision,” she
wrote.
The first issue was confiscated, prison officials at the Florida State
Prison said, because of the article “Prisoners Demand Release from
Overcrowded Jails” by Jeff Powers in issue no. 30. It describes efforts
by prisoners, inmates’ family members and others urging the California
state government to take steps to relieve the dangerous overcrowding in
prisons there amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which was extensively covered
by the media.
The article describes “how families of the incarcerated have peacefully
called on leaders in the State to respond to the danger posed by COVID
to their loved ones in prison,” wrote Dolores Piper in an Aug. 30 letter
urging authorities to reverse the bans. She first became active in the
fight against police brutality after her 15-year-old nephew, Derrick
Gaines, was killed in 2012 by a South San Francisco, California, cop.
“This article and this publication do not encourage any kind of riots or
rebellion in your facilities.
“Mr. Powers points out facts that should be important concerns for your
staff members and your incarcerated persons,” Piper wrote. Prisoners
“who subscribe to this publication do so to keep informed and encouraged.”
Also impounded were issues nos. 31, 33 and 34. Authorities claim that
these issues are “dangerously inflammatory” and “advocates or encourages
riot insurrection, rebellion, organized prison protest, disruption of
the institution, or the violation of the federal law, state law, or
Department rules.”
Issues nos. 33 and 34 were banned simply for reporting on efforts to
reverse the impoundment of issue no. 30. Issue no. 31 was banned for an
article that unambiguously opposed violence in Portland, Oregon, by both
antifa and federal cops.
After the Florida Department of Corrections Literature Review Committee
upheld the bans, Militant attorney David Goldstein filed appeals against
these rulings, requesting they be overturned.
If the impoundment of an issue by one Florida prison is not reversed,
the paper is then banned in all of the state’s 143 prison facilities.
The Militant has challenged the bans on over 40 issues of the paper in
Florida prisons over the last seven years, and succeeded in overturning
a large majority. In impounding Militant issues, prison officials refuse
“to identify any specific material in an article that they find
objectionable,” wrote Goldstein in his recent appeal, “or to give any
explanation of what is objectionable and why.”
“I am writing to strongly object to your banning of recent issues of the
Militant,” wrote Chris Pennock, a National Association of Letter
Carriers union steward in Minneapolis. “Workers who are in prison have
just as much a right as you or I to read newspapers of their choice.”
The banning of the paper is “a serious attack on freedom of expression
which is highly valued in many countries around the world,” wrote the
African Diaspora Association of Canada, which groups together different
African organizations in Canada.
Other groups that have sent letters calling for lifting the ban include
the Florida Press Association, Amnesty International USA, American Civil
Liberties Foundation Florida, Reporters Committee on Freedom of the
Press and PEN America. A growing number of individuals have done so as well.
“These letters let prison officials know the support that exists for the
rights of the paper and our inmate subscribers,” said Militant editor
John Studer. “We need more to press them to overturn their ban.”
“At stake is the constitutional right of the Militant to publish its
point of view,” he said. “The Militant will not back down from defending
the right of prisoners to read different views, to think for themselves
and form their own opinions.
“The deepening capitalist crisis impacts workers whether behind bars or
anywhere else, leading to growing interest in a paper published in the
interests of working people. Our subscription list in prisons across the
country is growing,” Studer said.
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 a copy to
the Militant.
Letters protest Florida’s ban on the ‘Militant’ in state prisons
Florida prison officials have banned four recent issues of the Militant,
preventing them from reaching dozens of subscribers behind bars. The
Militant is urging supporters of freedom of the press and prisoners’
rights to join in pressing Florida Department of…
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Robert G. Ingersoll
“Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts, never
inquires. To doubt is heresy, to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the
Church does neither.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll,
