DOCSLIB.ORG

A Manifesto for the Break the Chains Conference, to He Held on August 8-W,2003, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Manifesto for the Break the Chains Conference, to He Held on August 8-W,2003, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR BREAK THE CHAINS A manifesto for the Break The Chains Conference, to he held on August 8-W,2003, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR. Issued in Spring of 2003. Please address feedback, suggestions, and criticism to: Break The Chains PO Box 11331, Eugene, OR 97440. Email: [email protected] Web-link: www.breakthechains.net A collaborative effort between the Break The Chains collective (Eugene, OR), the Anarchist Prisoner's Legal Aid Network (AKA APLAN, Portland, OR) and the National Anarchist Black Cross Network. BREAK THi GHAIMS A manifesto for the Break The Chains Conference, to be held on August 8-10, 2003, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR. Prison Is Ground Zero Perhaps no other single issue so convincingly illustrates the inter- connectedness of the struggle for total liberation as does the prison industrial complex. Resisting prisons is resisting state repression and blatant social control; it is resisting the most terrifying examples of racism, sexism, and homophobia, the criminalization of the poor and capitalist exploitation of labor. For this reason, the Break the Chains conference hopes to exemplify the need for continued and heightened prisoner support with our ultimate goal being prison abolition. Prison abolition is a political vision that seeks to eliminate the need for prisons and acknowledges the devastating effects that prisons have on poor and marginalized communities. Prisoner support, for both social and political prisoners, means learning from the incarcerated, making their voices heard and their existence visible and meaningful. The Break The Chains conference is dedicated to fighting repression, supporting prisoners, and eliminating prisons altogether. By providing anti-prison education, building on existing prisoner support efforts, learning from veteran prison activists, and initiating new campaigns against the prison industrial complex, we want to use this conference to initiate a new era of heightened prisoner-support and anti-prison activism. We feel that the prisoner support and prisoner resistance movements, by virtue of their broad-based nature, offer the best starting to points to begin to dismantle the webs of power. Race, White Supremacy & the Criminal Justice System Prisons in the United States are a crude example of how white supremacy and racism are played out in daily life. The modern-day slave patrols called police are given a green light to do whatever they want, whenever they want to keep oppressed people "in line." Private-prison profiteers and law-and-order politicians built the cages, and they depend on cops to fill them, using whatever tactics they want. Over a year ago, we talked about the use of code words and subtle gestures for racism and imprisonment. Today, such dynamics are at work with the mass detention and tagging of Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent. The genocide agenda has reached a new stage, as the techniques perfected against prisoners for the last 30 years are now being tried on the free-world population through people of color. White supremacy's war against colonized people is no longer just a "war on crime" or a "war on poverty," but a "war on terrorism." Just as with Vietnam, Nepal, Somalia and Occupied Aztlan, the United States expects us to wave flags when their lackeys open the concentration camps. The only proper response is using those flags to ignite torches to destroy the cages. History demands it. orrespondence (project: fl. Rttfe tiling for women on tfie outside. Brought to you by Wildflowers, APLAN .And Break the Chains. 'Writing to (prisoners from http://www.spiritoffreedom.org. uk/writtinft.htm One of the main proBlems that puts people off getting invoked in supporting prisoners is a feeling of Being intimidated aBout writing to a -prisoner for the first time. It is very hard to write a letter to someone you dont know. people findthat they dont Know what to say, theyfeeCthere are things they cant taByiBaut, or thin^that prisoners wont Be interestedin what they have to say. 'Wettthis is aproBlem most of us have had to get over, so we've drawn up some suggestions to help you. OBviousCy these arent rigid guidelines, and we dont pretend to have solved att proBlems here. (Different people will write different letters. JfopefuOy they wiffBe of some use. Some prisons restrict the numBer of letters a prisoner can -write or receive, and they may have to Buy stamps and envelopes: and! prisoners arent millionaires. So dont necessarily expect a reply to a card or letter. £. Cot of prisons adow stamp's orands.a.e to Be included -with a. card or letter, But some dont. Letters do also get stopped, read, delayed, 'diverted'. If you suspect Has Been orwiUBe niched' By the screws, you can send it Recorded deKvery, -which unfortunately costs a Cot But then they have to open it in the prisoner's presence. fllso you should put a return address, not just so the prisoner can reply (I), But also Because some prisons dont allow letters without a return address. Of course it dbesnt have to Be your address, But Be careful using <PO (Bo^numBers as some prisons dont aCCow these either! Say who you are, andifit's relevant that you're from such and such a group. Some people reckon it's Better to Be upfront aBout your poRtics as wed, to give prisoners the choice to stay in contact withyou or not. Say where you heard aBout them and their case. The first letter can Be reasonaBCy short, mayde only a postcard. OBviousfy whenyouget to know people Better you'll have more to taC^ aBout. If you are writing to a 'framed" prisoner, and you Believe them to Be innocent, it helps to say so, as it gives people confidence to know that you Believe them. Some people when they write to prisoners, are afraid to talking aBout their lives, what they are up to, thinking this may depress people Bangedup, especially prisoners with Cong sentences, or that they are not interested in your Rfe. Jllthough in some cases this may Be true, on the whole a letter is the high-point of the day for most prisoners. (Prison Rfe is dead Boring, and any news that Rvens it up, whether it's aBout people they know or not, is generally welcome. 'Especially if you didnt know them Before they went to prison, they want to know aBout you, what your Rfe is Rkf etc. Vse your sense, dont write aBout anything that is Rkely to get a prisoner in shit with the screws, or get you or any one else in trouBle with the cops. for people imprisoned from out movements and struggles it's vital to keep them involved in the ongoing resistance - telRng them aBout actions, sending them magazines if they want them, discussing ideas and strategies with them. Vse your head though. Some people will just want to keep their head down till they get out. iHis was adapted from a leaflet produced By the fl.narch.ist <BlackjCross. Downingia clegans flfew dos anddonts on writing prisoners whose Backjjrounds/poRtics you may not know. a. flower (front) b. flower (side) (Dos (Do use common sense. Vse a "neutraf''address, such as a <Post Office <Bo^ for correspondence. (Do not divulge sensitive personal information (i.e. your home address, phone numBer, credit card and Banf^details, people's full names, etc.) toaprisoner, particularly one t\n+ an. OCLCAA Women in Oregon's Coffee Cree^Correction Facility seeking correspondence: Gretchen Schumacher Melanie Schmidt real people, have conversations #6732990 #5992221 beyond superficial stuff, someone PO BOX 9000 PO BOX 9000 who has educated opinions, ect. Wilsonville, OR 97070 Wilsonville, OR 97070 I am from lane county. In for robbery 1, serving 80 months and Interested in politics, education, Native woman looking for get out in 2005. cooking, music and art. Needs someone to fight DOC from the ^ someone to help me fight DOC outside. A real fighter, looking for Amanda Durbin from outside, and new friends. more than just a pen pal. #13230643 In for being at the wrong place at PO BOX 9000 the wrong time. Wilsonville, OR 97070 Andrea Case Suzanne Miles #11669857 I aspire to be a naturopath and I #7122894 PO BOX 9000 love medicine. I love music - PO BOX 9000 Wilsonville, OR 97070 almost all of it. I love art - my Wilsonville, OR 97070 favorite artist is Salvador Dali and Interested in reading, writing my favorite poet is Mark Strand. Interested in why courts work (or poetry, science, kids (they're our Need a mentor who can be a don't) and any type of case law. future), learning the ways of my supportive amd positive influence. Might request books, beads, cards native people, dance and travel. I'm from Portland. I am 19 years and art work. Want a pen pal to Needs a friend, someone that she old and have been incarcerated help me have an eye on the can meet on the outside and still since two weeks after my 16* outside. Keep me up on trends, be friends with - companionship birthday. In for attempter robbery info, ect. and the knowledge that I am not 1, criminal conspiracy and In for 25 years for the shooting alone. Want a pen pal because I've committed robbery 1. I am two co- death of my husband. been locked up since I was sixteen defendants robbed my workplace years old and am 23 now and (McDonalds). Randy Stewart don't know anything about the #9675536 free side. My family disowned me Christine Foos PO BOX 9000 and I yearn for some kind of #8949435 Wilsonville, OR 97070 support - support that my family PO BOX 9000 doesn't give me.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Legacy of Supremacy: Prison, Power, and the Carceral Nation
    Western Washington University Western CEDAR WWU Graduate School Collection WWU Graduate and Undergraduate Scholarship Winter 2017 A Legacy of Supremacy: Prison, Power, and the Carceral Nation Luke J. Hickey Western Washington University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://cedar.wwu.edu/wwuet Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Hickey, Luke J., "A Legacy of Supremacy: Prison, Power, and the Carceral Nation" (2017). WWU Graduate School Collection. 554. https://cedar.wwu.edu/wwuet/554 This Masters Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the WWU Graduate and Undergraduate Scholarship at Western CEDAR. It has been accepted for inclusion in WWU Graduate School Collection by an authorized administrator of Western CEDAR. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A LEGACY OF SUPREMACY: PRISON, POWER, AND THE CARCERAL NATION By Luke J. Hickey Accepted in Partial Completion of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Kathleen L. Kitto, Dean of the Graduate School ADVISORY COMMITTEE Chair, Dr. Kathleen Young Dr. Sean Bruna Dr. Shurla Thibou MASTER’S THESIS In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master’s degree at Western Washington University, I grant to Western Washington University the non- exclusive royalty-free right to archive, reproduce, distribute, and display the thesis in any and all forms, including electronic format, via any digital library mechanisms maintained by WWU. I represent and warrant this is my original work, and does not infringe or violate any rights of others. I warrant that I have obtained written permissions from the owner of any third party copyrighted material included in these files.
    [Show full text]
  • Congressional-Executive Commission on China Annual Report 2019
    CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA ANNUAL REPORT 2019 ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION NOVEMBER 18, 2019 Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China ( Available via the World Wide Web: https://www.cecc.gov VerDate Nov 24 2008 13:38 Nov 18, 2019 Jkt 036743 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6011 Sfmt 5011 G:\ANNUAL REPORT\ANNUAL REPORT 2019\2019 AR GPO FILES\FRONTMATTER.TXT CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA ANNUAL REPORT 2019 ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION NOVEMBER 18, 2019 Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China ( Available via the World Wide Web: https://www.cecc.gov U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 36–743 PDF WASHINGTON : 2019 VerDate Nov 24 2008 13:38 Nov 18, 2019 Jkt 036743 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 G:\ANNUAL REPORT\ANNUAL REPORT 2019\2019 AR GPO FILES\FRONTMATTER.TXT CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS House Senate JAMES P. MCGOVERN, Massachusetts, MARCO RUBIO, Florida, Co-chair Chair JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio TOM COTTON, Arkansas THOMAS SUOZZI, New York STEVE DAINES, Montana TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey TODD YOUNG, Indiana BEN MCADAMS, Utah DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon BRIAN MAST, Florida GARY PETERS, Michigan VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri ANGUS KING, Maine EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS Department of State, To Be Appointed Department of Labor, To Be Appointed Department of Commerce, To Be Appointed At-Large, To Be Appointed At-Large, To Be Appointed JONATHAN STIVERS, Staff Director PETER MATTIS, Deputy Staff Director (II) VerDate Nov 24 2008 13:38 Nov 18, 2019 Jkt 036743 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 0486 Sfmt 0486 G:\ANNUAL REPORT\ANNUAL REPORT 2019\2019 AR GPO FILES\FRONTMATTER.TXT C O N T E N T S Page I.
    [Show full text]
  • From Slave Ship to Supermax
    Introduction Antipanoptic Expressivity and the New Neo-Slave Novel As a slave, the social phenomenon that engages my whole con- sciousness is, of course, revolution. Anyone who passed the civil service examination yesterday can kill me today with complete immunity. I’ve lived with repression every moment of my life, a re- pression so formidable that any movement on my part can only bring relief, the respite of a small victory or the release of death.1 xactly 140 years after Nat Turner led a slave rebellion in southeastern Virginia, the U.S. carceral state attempted to silence another influential EBlack captive revolutionary: the imprisoned intellectual George Jackson. When guards at California’s San Quentin Prison shot Jackson to death on August 21, 1971, allegedly for attempting an escape, the acclaimed novelist James Baldwin responded with a prescience that would linger in the African American literary imagination: “No Black person will ever believe that George Jackson died the way they tell us he did.”2 Baldwin had long been an advocate for Jackson, and Jackson—as evident from his identification with the slave in the block quotation above—had long been a critic of social control practices in the criminal justice system reminiscent of slavery. Jackson was a well-read Black freedom fighter, political prisoner, Black Panther Party field marshal, and radical social theorist who organized a prisoners’ liberation movement while serving an indeterminate sentence of one year to life for his presumed complicity in a seventy-dollar gas station robbery. He first exposed slavery’s vestiges in the penal system in Soledad Brother, the collection of prison letters 2 Introduction he published in 1970.
    [Show full text]
  • Locked Down: the Hidden History of the Prisoners' Rights Movement
    Locked Down: The Hidden History of the Prisoners’ Rights Movement Tiana Alexandria Williams* Mentor: Dr. Jesse Drew Department of Cinema and Digital Media, UC Davis Abstract In recent years, there has been an increasing discourse centered on the prison-industrial complex, addressing issues that range from ending the school-to-prison pipeline to calls for the abolition of prisons entirely. However, this movement is far from a novelty, rather, it is the resurgence of a forgotten moment in history that is being revitalized by a new generation. In order to understand the recent development of the anti- incarceration movement, it is important to provide context to these current conversations and ensure that the contributions of the prisoner’s rights movement are properly understood. Through the uncovering and analysis of archival materials, collections of recorded oral histories and published prison letters, this paper illustrates how prisoner activism of the 1970s brought the plight of prisoners into the limelight, while also leading to increased systemic repression and a debilitating historical declension narrative. By highlighting this history of prisoner activism, this paper challenges the declension hypothesis approach to the prisoners’ rights movement and investigates the movement’s effects on the current day structure of the criminal justice system. Introduction The prisoners’ rights movement is an undermentioned and understudied movement that grew for decades in the United States, finally reaching maximum visibility in the early 1970s. The dominant narrative surrounding the movement can be traced as: The American prison system was cruel, inhumane and unjust. Prisoners fought for better conditions and rights, using similar rhetoric to that of the Civil Rights Movement.
    [Show full text]
  • North Korean Political Prison Camps Starts with the So-Called “August Faction Incident” in 1956
    North Korean Prison Camps Radio Free Asia Radio Free Asia Copyright: 2016 by Radio Free Asia . Table Of Contents Chapter 1 Prison Camps from Hell ..................................................................................................................... 2 1) What are Political Prison Camps? ........................................................................................................... 2 2) Testimonies of Former Prisoners ............................................................................................................. 2 3) North Korea Keeps its Political Prison Camps Secret ............................................................................ 3 4) Names Used by North Korea to Disguise the Camps ............................................................................ 4 5) The Intensity of Labor and the Guilt-By-Association System .............................................................. 4 Chapter 2 What is My Crime? ............................................................................................................................ 6 1) Total Control Zones and Revolutionizing Zones .................................................................................. 6 2) Nine Years of Imprisonment as No.1 Criminal ..................................................................................... 6 3) Christians All Go to Prison Camps ......................................................................................................... 8 4) Preposterous Espionage Charges and Passed-Down
    [Show full text]
  • ABSTRACT BITCHES and THIEVES: GULAG GUARDS, ADMINISTRATORS, and PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS in the BITCHES' WAR by Adam Richard
    ABSTRACT BITCHES AND THIEVES: GULAG GUARDS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS IN THE BITCHES’ WAR by Adam Richard Rodger Amongst the professional criminals imprisoned in the Soviet Gulag, a split developed between those who kept to the Thieves’ Law and those who broke the Law and collaborated with the State. This violent schism, the Bitches’ War, raged across the entire Gulag system, becoming most heated between 1948 and 1953, and implicated the camps’ guards and administrators as much as the prisoners themselves. This research examines primary and secondary sources, heavily incorporating Gulag survivor memoirs, to investigate the culture of the Thieves-in-Law, these professional criminals, and also to uncover the involvement, intentions, and guilt of the camp administration. This study argues that the Bitches’ War sheds light on the real purpose and function of the Gulag; that it was not primarily about ideological re-education, nor was it primarily about economics and production, but that the Gulag served as a model for social control through use of power, persuasion, and violence. BITCHES AND THIEVES: GULAG GUARDS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS IN THE BITCHES’ WAR Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of Master’s Degree by Adam Richard Rodger Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2017 Advisor: Dr. Stephen Norris Reader: Dr. Dan Prior Reader: Dr. Scott Kenworthy ©2017 Adam Richard Rodger This thesis titled BITCHES AND THIEVES GULAG GUARDS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS IN THE BITCHES’ WAR by Adam Richard Rodger has been approved for publication by The College of Arts and Sciences and The Department of History ____________________________________________________ Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Political Prison Camps, North Korea, and Waltz's Three Images
    Georgia Southern University Digital Commons@Georgia Southern Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of Spring 2015 Explaining Depravity through the Looking Glass: Political Prison Camps, North Korea, and Waltz's Three Images Amanda Battles Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd Part of the International Relations Commons Recommended Citation Battles, Amanda (2015) Explaining Depravity through the Looking Glass: Political Prison Camps, North Korea, and Waltz's Three Images. Statesboro: Georgia Southern University. This thesis (open access) is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of at Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. For more information, please contact [email protected]. EXPLAINING DEPRAVITY THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: POLITICAL PRISON CAMPS, NORTH KOREA, AND WALTZ’S THREE IMAGES by AMANDA BATTLES (Under the Direction of Darin H. Van Tassell) ABSTRACT The political prison camps of North Korea are blatant violations of human rights within the state. They have recently received international attention within the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Security Council. This paper examines these political prison camps through Kenneth Waltz’s levels of analysis in order to better understand the existence of these camps. Keywords : Political prison camps, North Korea, levels of analysis, first image, second image, and third image. i EXPLAINING DEPRAVITY THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: POLITICAL PRISON CAMPS, NORTH KOREA, AND WALTZ’S THREE IMAGES by AMANDA BATTLES B.A. International Studies, Georgia Southern University, 2012 B.A.
    [Show full text]
  • SLAV 503 28 November 2017 Contrasting Russian and American
    SLAV 503 28 November 2017 Contrasting Russian and American Media Perspectives on the Soviet Gulag In seeking an expert historical opinion on the media representation and public conceptualization of the gulag in these two countries, I was directed to Erik Scott, a History Professor at the University of Kansas who specializes in Russian History. He teaches classes on Russian history and the Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, and has published works on Georgian culture and Diaspora. In our meeting he posited that there are differing concepts of trauma between Russia and U.S. Namely, that Russians as a nation contextualize their trauma in relation to the sheer amount of Russian lives lost in World War II. On the other hand, the only comparable metric that Americans can use conceive of such widespread trauma is the holocaust, even though it did not necessarily affect the United States as a nation itself. Finally, he made note of an ongoing debate in Russia surrounding representation of the nation’s history, especially considering the ever-changing socio-political climate which has most relevantly seen a recent growth of Stalinist exceptionalism, which has discouraged the representation of Soviet misdeeds. He touched on ongoing conflicts surrounding human rights in Russia from before the Soviet era which in several ways, continue today. Professor Scott’s informed theories provide a sturdy foundation from which to investigate the question of how these two countries’ media representations and public perceptions of the Soviet gulag system compare. Literature, film, and historical findings, as well as how they are presented, what information is included, what information is omitted, and conversations surrounding the historical accuracy of materials and sources between Russia and the United States will be analyzed and compared to provide a historical example of the difference in mass communication surrounding the gulag system between the two countries.
    [Show full text]
  • Hostages in Civil War Virginia and West Virginia
    Crossing into War: Hostages in Civil War Virginia and West Virginia Randall S. Gooden Introduction Secession and civil war presented Virginia with perhaps the most difficult crossroads in its history. The state’s government wrestled with the choice over secession, and when secession came, a substantial part of the state’s legislators and local officials—particularly in the west and along the Potomac River—resisted the decision. Resistors declared the state government in Richmond void and organized a state government, based in Wheeling and designed to keep Virginia in the United States. While the state government in Richmond declared allegiance to the Confederate States of America and gave support to its military, the government at Wheeling supported the military efforts of the United States. As an adjunct to the creation of Virginia’s pro-Union government, a new state formed in the midst of the Civil War and the dispute over state government legitimacy. West Virginia came into being in 1863 with the permission of the Virginia government at Wheeling and was admitted to the Union as a new state. It established its capital at Wheeling, while the pro-Union government of Virginia moved its headquarters to Alexandria, which had been quickly occupied by federal forces soon after Virginia seceded. In each of these transitions of government, the people of Virginia stood at forks in the road. Individually, Virginians had to choose whether to follow the government in Richmond, which possessed the institutional legacies of the state, in adhering to the South and the Confederacy or whether to follow the upstart government in Wheeling in order to remain aligned with the United States and retain connections with the North and Midwest.
    [Show full text]
  • The Politics of Prison Abolition: an Organizer’S Guide to Effective Abolition Research and Activism
    The Politics of Prison Abolition: An Organizer’s Guide to Effective Abolition Research and Activism by Nathan Brandli Dr. Joseph Richardson, Advisor A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts In the Department of African American Studies Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences © Nathan Brandli 2016 University of Maryland College Park Spring 2016 Abstract This thesis paper is an analysis of the politics of the prison abolition movement. Using qualitative semi-structured interviews with University of Maryland students and activists, I incorporate findings from these interviews to discuss common experiences and perspectives among participants regarding prison abolition, criminal justice reform, and the criminal justice system. In addition to the interviews other sources used for this thesis include: published interviews with public figures; literature reviews of prison abolition and anarchist writers; research journals and articles that discuss data and other evidence of our nation’s historical relationship with the criminal justice system; slavery; policing; race; and recent news publications or human rights reports that provide relevant discussion for current political developments regarding criminal justice reform. By analyzing and synthesizing different ideas, events, data, and statements regarding prison abolition, criminal justice reform, and anarchism, I answer important research questions about the prison abolition movement. These questions include: What is the historical context
    [Show full text]
  • Mass Internment Camp Implementation, Abuses
    CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA ANNUAL REPORT 2020 ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION DECEMBER 2020 Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China ( Available via the World Wide Web: https://www.cecc.gov 2020 ANNUAL REPORT CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA ANNUAL REPORT 2020 ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION DECEMBER 2020 Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China ( Available via the World Wide Web: https://www.cecc.gov U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 40–674 PDF WASHINGTON : 2020 CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS House Senate JAMES P. MCGOVERN, Massachusetts, MARCO RUBIO, Florida, Co-chair Chair JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio TOM COTTON, Arkansas THOMAS SUOZZI, New York STEVE DAINES, Montana TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey TODD YOUNG, Indiana BEN MCADAMS, Utah DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon BRIAN MAST, Florida GARY PETERS, Michigan VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri ANGUS KING, Maine EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS To Be Appointed JONATHAN STIVERS, Staff Director PETER MATTIS, Deputy Staff Director (II) CONTENTS Page Section I. Executive Summary ................................................................................ 1 a. Statement From the Chairs ......................................................................... 1 b. Overview ....................................................................................................... 3 c. Key
    [Show full text]
  • Palestinian Political Prisoners
    PALESTINIAN POLITICAL March 2011 PRISONERS Since the occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967, Israel has sys- tematically used arrest and detention as a political instrument to control the population and quell and punish resistance. As a result, Palestinians have been subjected to one of the highest incarceration rates in the world in flagrant violation of international and humanitarian law. The release of these prisoners is vital to the achievement of a just and durable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to the PA Ministry of Detainees’ Affairs, Israel has detained and imprisoned over 750,000 Palestinians since 1967, the vast majority of them political prisoners. Approximately 420,000 were arrested in the pe- riod between 1967 and the beginning of the first Intifada in 1987, 210,000 during the first Intifada (December 1987-1994), and over 70,000 since the outbreak of the second Intifada in September 2000. During the Oslo years (1994-September 2000), the number of arrests fell considerably. Most Palestinian detainees are considered to be ‘security prisoners’, but, since redefining Gaza as an ‘enemy entity’, Israel also ap- plies the 2002 Illegal Combatants Act to seize Palestinians engaged in acts of hostility against Israel, which includes membership in ‘terrorist’ organizations. Israel is currently holding three ‘illegal combatants’ (rather than ‘security detainees’), who are therefore not entitled to prisoner of war status. The aim of this bulletin is to raise awareness about the issue of Palestinian political prisoners and provide up-to-date information and statistics about their arrest, interrogation and imprisonment, in addition to Israeli violations of international law.
    [Show full text]