Third Week of Hunger Strike by Colombia Prisoners-Show Your Solidarity

i8UQ3ShN0gLrBjdVn8nqxr4IwBiXsx7QmAVv0iNtwcZDEwljwX_kvhVInVLM1DGdUAhW3w=s113Click HERE to send an email to Colombian authorities in support of the prisoners’ demands!

Prisoners in the Doña Juana Penitentiary in Colombia are halfway through the third week of a hunger strike to demand better conditions. Located in La Dorada, Caldas, the prison is one of the new jails built with US funding and advice as part the “New Penitentiary Culture”. Typical of such prisons are overcrowding, lack of medical treatment, a concentration of political prisoners, and beatings and other forms of torture by prison guards. The US government is exporting the “New Penitentiary Culture” around the world, not only to Colombia, where it was pioneered, but to Mexico, Honduras, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere. It is no coincidence that prisoners at Doña Juana and prisoners in the California prison system began hunger strikes on the same day. Strikes are or have been also underway in Guantanamo and Afghanistan. From California to Colombia, all are protesting US “Prison Imperialism” that jails the population at high rates and uses inhumane practices such as solitary confinement, torture and denial of services to dehumanize the incarcerated.

Over 1,300 inmates in La Dorada began a two-day hunger strike and acts of nonviolent resistance on July 8th. The hunger strike has been maintained by 53 prisoners, who have begun experiencing rapidly deteriorating health. Jail officials are not monitoring their conditions, nor providing any form of health services. The Alliance for Global Justice was contacted by our Colombian partners, Lazos de Dignidad, saying the situation had become urgent and that international solidarity is desperately needed in support of the prisoners’ demands, which are that:

  1. medical care and attention be made available to all inmates, with a healthcare professional on site at all times;
  2. sanitary facilities be made available, after more than six months of not functioning;
  3. measures be taken to end overcrowding;
  4. degrading treatment of visitors be stopped;
  5. beatings and the use of torture and collective punishment be ended.

Click HERE to send an email to Colombian authorities in support of the prisoners’ demands!

Click HERE to sign a petition in Spanish in support of the Doña Juana Hunger Strikers!

BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT :

In August, 2012, prisoners at Doña Juana began a previous period of nonviolent resistance and hunger strikes which were ended when the government agreed to negotiations with the prisoners. These negotiations took place in April 2013, yet none of the accords are being honored. Of special concern is the lack of medical attention and clean, functioning sanitary facilities. The current protests are to demand fulfillment of these accords.

There is a wave of prisoner resistance in US and US funded and advised prisons around the world right now. Similar actions are occurring or have recently occurred in prisons in California, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and elsewhere. In California, over 30,000 prisoners also began a hunger strike on July 8th, and today there are still more than 986 refusing to eat in protest of the inhumane practice of solitary confinement. More than 80,000 US inmates are being held in solitary confinement, including Colombian Prisoner of War Ricardo Palmera.

We at the Alliance of Global Justice have been writing about the issue of “Prison Imperialism”. This refers to a style of incarceration being exported around the world. Along with border militarization and increased law enforcement, these measures serve as tools to control and manage the disruption and dissent that neoliberal capitalism breeds. (For a powerful description of a visit by AfGJ to La Tramacúa prison, the first US funded prison built in Colombia, click here.)

 

RELATED ACTIONS:

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CALIFORNIA PRISON STRIKERS, CLICK HERE!

DEMAND THAT GUANTANAMO BE CLOSED!

 

FOR FURTHER READING:

USA’s Prison Industrial Complex Moves South of the Border

A Visit Inside Colombia’s Most Notorious Prison, La Tramacúa

The “New Penitentiary Culture”: US Designs for Colombian Jails (How the USAID, Federal Bureau of Prisons and the School of the Americas Have Impacted Colombia’s Prison System)

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