Prison officials in Pennsylvania revoke ban on the ‘Militant’
https://themilitant.com/2020/08/08/prison-officials-in-pennsylvania-revoke-ban-on-the-militant/
BY TERRY EVANS
Vol. 84/No. 32
August 17, 2020
In an important victory for the rights of workers behind bars and of the
press, Pennsylvania state prison officials overturned Camp Hill State
Correctional Institution’s ban on issue no. 28 of the Militant on Aug.
3. The paper’s attorney, David Goldstein, had informed prison officials
that the Militant was prepared to appeal the impoundment.
The reversal of the ban was made possible because an inmate who
subscribes to the paper mailed the Militant to report his issue had been
impounded and he was challenging the ban. “Please help me fight out
there,” he wrote.
When Goldstein contacted Diana Woodside, the Pennsylvania Department of
Corrections official responsible for reviewing literature bans in state
prisons, she said Camp Hill hadn’t sent her a notice of impoundment. She
told Goldstein to send the issue and her office would review it.
“The Policy Office is reversing the SCI denial,” Woodside wrote Aug. 3.
“The publication will be delivered to the inmate.”
The Militant intends to check with him to make sure he got it.
“We fight every time prison officials anywhere try to ban the paper, and
in most cases we win,” said editor John Studer. “Prisoners have the
right to read the political views they’re interested in, to hear about
and speak out on political questions and social struggles.”
The inmate had sent the Militant the form he was given, which justified
the confiscation on the basis of pages 3 and 4 in the issue. But they
didn’t offer any reason why the news stories on those pages would
“create a danger within the context of the correctional facility.”
In fact what those articles describe are protests demanding the
prosecution of police officers who killed Breonna Taylor in Louisville,
Kentucky, and Elijah McClain in Aurora, Colorado, as well as reports on
the Socialist Workers Party presidential campaign. The “dangerous” pages
include a picture of Alyson Kennedy, the party’s candidate for
president, and Malcolm Jarrett for vice president joining striking
shipyard workers in Bath, Maine, on their picket line to offer
solidarity. Page 4 also reprints the party’s 2020 campaign platform.
Pennsylvania prisons are home to the second largest number of inmate
subscribers after Florida. Had authorities at Camp Hill followed their
own rules and informed state prison officials of their ban, all other
prisons across the state would have been told to impound that issue.
“Fighting every ban on the Militant is part of the broader working-class
struggle against attacks on political rights and free speech,” Studer said.
According to their records, the Militant has never been banned in the
Pennsylvania prison system.
Front Page Articles
Workers need a labor party, control of production, safety
‘A labor party can organize workers in their millions’
Prison officials in Pennsylvania revoke ban on the ‘Militant’
Build solidarity with shipyard workers strike in Bath, Maine
Workers fight bosses’ attempts to solve deepening crisis on our backs
Intervention by capitalist rivals is disaster for toilers in Libya
Feature Articles
Fight for health care to treat everyone, not to make profit
Also In This Issue
Court backs Nevada gov’t attack on right to worship
Workers reject both federal cops and disruption by antifa
Veterans against cop brutality rally in Pittsburgh
Protests in Russia Far East rock Putin government
Philadelphia Greyhound workers resist layoffs, speedup, attack on wages
75 years since US rulers bombed Hiroshima, Nagasaki
Books of the Month
Sankara: ‘We draw lessons from all the world’s revolutions’
25, 50 and 75 years ago
Letters
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Carl Sagan
“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder
and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to
nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will
prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront
the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the
Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
