Correction Officials Agree to Negotiate with Pelican Bay Revolutionaries

h2 a href="http://sfbayview.com/2011/corrections-officials-accede-to-pressure-begin-negotiating-with-hunger-strikers-as-their-health-deteriorates/" title="Corrections officials accede to pressure, begin negotiating with hunger strikers as their health deteriorates"Corrections officials accede to pressure, begin negotiating with hunger strikers as their health deteriorates/a/h2 div class="date" July 15, 2011/div div id="google_translate_element" style="float: right;" div class="skiptranslate goog-te-gadget" style="" div id=":1.targetLanguage" select class="goog-te-combo"option value=""Select Language/optionoption value="af"Afrikaans/optionoption value="sq"Albanian/optionoption value="ar"Arabic/optionoption value="be"Belarusian/optionoption value="bg"Bulgarian/optionoption value="ca"Catalan/optionoption value="zh-CN"Chinese (Simplified)/optionoption value="zh-TW"Chinese (Traditional)/optionoption value="hr"Croatian/optionoption value="cs"Czech/optionoption value="da"Danish/optionoption value="nl"Dutch/optionoption value="et"Estonian/optionoption value="tl"Filipino/optionoption value="fi"Finnish/optionoption value="fr"French/optionoption value="gl"Galician/optionoption value="de"German/optionoption value="el"Greek/optionoption value="ht"Haitian Creole/optionoption value="iw"Hebrew/optionoption value="hi"Hindi/optionoption value="hu"Hungarian/optionoption value="is"Icelandic/optionoption value="id"Indonesian/optionoption value="ga"Irish/optionoption value="it"Italian/optionoption value="ja"Japanese/optionoption value="ko"Korean/optionoption value="lv"Latvian/optionoption value="lt"Lithuanian/optionoption value="mk"Macedonian/optionoption value="ms"Malay/optionoption value="mt"Maltese/optionoption value="no"Norwegian/optionoption value="fa"Persian/optionoption value="pl"Polish/optionoption value="pt"Portuguese/optionoption value="ro"Romanian/optionoption value="ru"Russian/optionoption value="sr"Serbian/optionoption value="sk"Slovak/optionoption value="sl"Slovenian/optionoption value="es"Spanish/optionoption value="sw"Swahili/optionoption value="sv"Swedish/optionoption value="th"Thai/optionoption value="tr"Turkish/optionoption value="uk"Ukrainian/optionoption value="vi"Vietnamese/optionoption value="cy"Welsh/optionoption value="yi"Yiddish/option/select /div p Powered by span style="white-space: nowrap;"a class="goog-logo-link" href="http://translate.google.com/" target="_blank"img src="http://translate.googleapis.com/translate_static/img/mini_google.png" /Translate/a/span/p/div /div p emstrongby Isaac span data-scayt_word="Ontiveros" data-scaytid="6"Ontiveros/span, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity/strong/em/p p a href="http://sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/I-stand-with-CA-prisoner-hunger-strike.jpg"img alt="" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-22053" height="520" src="http://sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/I-stand-with-CA-prisoner-hunger-strike.jpg" width="417" //aWith the Pelican Bay prison hunger strike entering its third week, mediators reported Thursday that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (span data-scayt_word="CDCR" data-scaytid="8"CDCR/span) has responded to pressure from strikers and outside supporters, beginning initial negotiations with strike leaders in the prisonrsquo;s Security Housing Unit, along with an outside mediation team./p p Advocates working on behalf of the strikers continue to rail against the span data-scayt_word="CDCR’s" data-scaytid="15"CDCRrsquo;s/span slow movement over the past two weeks in addressing the prisonersrsquo; demands, expressing grave concerns about the strikersrsquo; rapidly deteriorating health. Hundreds of prisoners at Pelican Bay remain on strike, with thousands more participating in prisons throughout Californiarsquo;s 33 prisons./p p Dorsey span data-scayt_word="Nunn" data-scaytid="17"Nunn/span, executive director of a href="http://www.prisonerswithchildren.org/"Legal Services for Prisoners with Children/a, and a member of the prisoner-selected mediation team, says that leaders are determined to keep up their strike. But he worries about the span data-scayt_word="CDCR’s" data-scaytid="16"CDCRrsquo;s/span willingness to move negotiations forward./p p ldquo;Both parties are dug in,rdquo; says span data-scayt_word="Nunn" data-scaytid="18"Nunn/span. ldquo;The span data-scayt_word="CDCR" data-scaytid="9"CDCR/span is not offering anything substantial, and the strikers arenrsquo;t receiving anything substantial. So theyrsquo;ll keep going. And we donrsquo;t know how long itrsquo;ll be before people start span data-scayt_word="dying.”" data-scaytid="1"dying.rdquo;/span/p p Earlier this week, advocates and supporters received word that some of the strikersrsquo; health had deteriorated to near-fatal levels. With the span data-scayt_word="CDCR" data-scaytid="10"CDCR/span slow to move on negotiations, and with already poor health conditions at the core of the prisonersrsquo; demands, many fear that time is running out./p h3 style="text-align: center;" span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);"Some of the strikersrsquo; health has deteriorated to near-fatal levels. With the span data-scayt_word="CDCR" data-scaytid="11"CDCR/span slow to move on negotiations, and with already poor health conditions at the core of the prisonersrsquo; demands, many fear that time is running out./span/h3 p ldquo;The strikersrsquo; claims of substandard and prejudicial medical care at Pelican Bay are certainly true,rdquo; says Dr. Corey Weinstein, a correctional medical consultant and human rights investigator with 40 yearsrsquo; experience providing health care to California prisoners. Weinstein continues, ldquo;Given my long history of working with California prisoners I have grave doubts about the Department of Correctionsrsquo; ability to adequately carry out their own guidelines and protocols even during this urgent and public span data-scayt_word="moment.”" data-scaytid="2"moment.rdquo;/span/p p Meanwhile, organizations and individuals have held demonstrations throughout the span data-scayt_word="U.S" data-scaytid="3"U.S/span., in Canada and in Australia and have flooded span data-scayt_word="CDCR" data-scaytid="12"CDCR/span headquarters and span data-scayt_word="Gov" data-scaytid="20"Gov/span. Jerry Brownrsquo;s office with demands for negotiation. Strike supporters are urging people to take further action to have the strikersrsquo; demands met./p p ldquo;Everyone who is against torture needs to support this hunger strike by matching the courage of these prisoners,rdquo; says Molly span data-scayt_word="Porzig" data-scaytid="21"Porzig/span of Critical Resistance, a member of the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition. ldquo;Historically, people have taken up civil disobedience to prevent mass death, and wersquo;re in such a moment span data-scayt_word="now.”" data-scaytid="4"now.rdquo;/span/p h3 style="text-align: center;" span style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0);"Everyone who is against torture needs to support this hunger strike by matching the courage of these prisoners. Historically, people have taken up civil disobedience to prevent mass death, and wersquo;re in such a moment now./span/h3 p Negotiations are set to continue Friday. Mediator Dorsey span data-scayt_word="Nunn" data-scaytid="19"Nunn/span says the team will continue to urge the span data-scayt_word="CDCR" data-scaytid="13"CDCR/span to negotiate in good faith: ldquo;The strikersrsquo; demands are so minimal, they want to have hope like anyone else. The span data-scayt_word="CDCR" data-scaytid="14"CDCR/span could end the strike by providing even a little bit of hope for these span data-scayt_word="prisoners.”" data-scaytid="5"prisoners.rdquo;/span/p p emIsaac span data-scayt_word="Ontiveros" data-scaytid="7"Ontiveros/span of a href="http://www.criticalresistance.org/"Critical Resistance/a, a national grassroots organization working to abolish the prison industrial complex, is also a spokesperson for the a href="http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/"Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity/a Coalition/em/p