Red Greetings and solidarity. I wanted to say thanks for your support in recent issues (258 and 259), and to let you know I got some positive developments in my struggle to not get indefinitely sent to Communications Management Unit (CMU), a repressive control unit prison.
In November 2017 the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) of the US Bureau of Prisons ruled that I should not be sent to CMU. I’m sure that the hundreds of people who sent letters and emails (some from Britain) to various BOP officials, demanding I not be sent to CMU were a big part of this ruling. Also my National Lawyers’ Guild attorney Paul Gattone filed a federal lawsuit contesting my transfer and the entire process of how people are designated for CMU. Two weeks later the CTU said no CMU!
It’s like the old saying: ‘Struggle brings results’. Of course the whole idea of trying to send me to CMU for sending a eulogy for my friend, the human rights attorney Lynne Stewart, and a greeting to a Women’s March, was outrageous to begin with. I’ve (unfortunately) been in captivity for decades (one of the Ohio 7 United Freedom Front defendants of the 1980s) and have been analysing US and world events for years, without many censorship problems. Presently in the US there is an increase in state and prison repression and particularly against political prisoners.
With all this said, I am still in segregation (since March 2017). I’m sure there are some SIS (security branch) guards who are not pleased with this ruling. Now they want to give me a ‘security’ transfer to some other US pen. I’m in this process now.
So thanks for your support. Keep up your important work and, as I said previously, there are many prisoners here who look forward to ‘that really informative British paper’.
Freedom is a constant struggle!
Jaan Laaman
Jaan Laaman is a political prisoner, who is serving a 53 year sentence for a series of bombings of US government buildings, carried out by the United Freedom Front, an armed, anti-imperialist group which was active in the 1980s.
Since writing us this letter from USP Tucson, Arizona, Jaan has been moved as he predicted. Please send him solidarity greetings, cards and letters to his new address, which is
Jaan Laaman #10372-016
USP McCreary
P.O. Box 3000
Pine Knot, KY 42635
