Uhuru!
On Tuesday, September 1st, Fred Hampton, Jr. was moved fromStateville Correctional Center to Tamms. Tamms is the notorioussupermax prison opened this year in southern Illinois, constructedfor the purpose of imposing "behavior modification" techniques onprisoners, including complete isolation and sensory deprivation.Prisoners are locked in a small cage-like cell 23.5 hours a day withno phone calls or contact visits with family or friends on theoutside or with other inmates. Although prisoners are kept incomplete isolation with no possibility of obtaining any form ofcontraband, they are subjected to daily body cavity searches and anyrefusal to submit to searches or to invasive and undesired medical"treatments" results in an extension in the inmates confinement atTamms.
Fred Hampton, Jr. was framed and imprisoned in 1993 and given 18years for walking in the footsteps of his father, the heroic BlackPanther leader, Fred Hampton; for exercising his rights to freedom ofspeech, assembly and association, in defense of the rights of Africanand oppressed peoples throughout the world. Yesterday's kidnapping ofFred Jr. to Tamms is retribution carried out by IDOC Deputy DirectorGeorge DeTella, the former warden of Stateville, in response to FredJr.'s successful organizing against unhealthy and inhuman conditionsthere.
This move has come on the heels of a campaign led by Fred Jr.inside Stateville prison where he organized pressure from within andoutside the prison for repairs to be made to broken plumbing, backedup toilets, standing water in the cells that bred disease-carryinggnats, faulty and exposed electrical wiring and contaminated drinkingwater. Investigations by the EPA found drinking water at Statevilleto contain twice the maximum allowable levels of radium, which causesbone cancer. Yet, rather than enforce their own standards, the EPAset an increased level of allowable radium levels within the prison.This is "Jim Crow" law at work.
Having been shipped to Tamms without a determination as to whetherhe fits into one of Tamms' two eligibility categories, Fred will havea hearing in 10 days.
All supporters of Fred Hampton, Jr. must immediately respond tothis attack by flooding Tamms prison, the Illinois Department ofCorrections and Mayor Daley with calls, letters & faxesdemanding: