Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! stands in solidarity with all prisoners in Britain and internationally who are being doubly punished by being held in solitary confinement within the prison system. Solitary confinement is a barbaric practice, designed specifically to break the mental and physical health of prisoners; its use on a prolonged basis has been condemned across the world, including by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. In the US, which has the world’s largest prison system, and where up to a fifth of prisoners are held in solitary, legal action has resulted in the states of California and New York, among others, banning the use of solitary confinement for more than 15 days.
Talha Ahsan who spent six years in British high security prisons without trial before being extradited to the US in 2012, told FRFI. ‘I had already spent time in small group isolation at the Detainee Unit in HMP Long Lartin but matters would get worse. I was put in solitary confinement next to death row at Northern Correctional Institution in Connecticut where I stayed for almost two years. Mercifully, that prison’s closure was announced in February 2021.’
Unlike the US, Britain does not officially accept that it uses solitary confinement at all. This has rendered it difficult to bring legal challenges against decisions to hold prisoners for lengthy periods in segregation units, confine them to ‘close supervision centres’, ‘separation centres’ or other forms of control unit, or exploit the Covid pandemic to keep prisoners isolated in their cells for weeks on end. However, outside of the court room, awareness is growing of the continued use of solitary as a form of punishment.
Solidarity with Kevan Thakrar! Close the CSC!
On 29 April, RCG comrades joined the family and friends of Kevan Thakrar on a protest outside the Ministry of Justice organised by the Prison Solidarity Network and supported by the Payday Men’s Network and other prison solidarity groups. Kevan has been held in the Close Supervision Centre (CSC) system since 2010 when he was charged with attempting to murder prison guards who had attacked him. Over ten years in solitary confinement is the state’s revenge for Kevan’s subsequent acquittal at trial in 2011.
At the protest, Kevan’s mother Jean described how he has recently been relocated from the CSC unit, which is bad enough, to Full Sutton’s segregation unit, where his cell has ‘no window, no electricity, no toilet seat or lid, and is basically just a stone bed and there’s a little hatch at the bottom of the door where they put his food through’. This has been done on the basis of some spurious ‘increase in risk’. Jean then went on to explain how ‘Kev is always fighting for other prisoners and for himself against the prison system, because there’s no accountability for anything they do, whether its racism, whether its brutality against prisoners. He gets the message out; he gets protests against the prison, against the justice system. And they don’t like him for that.’
Full Sutton prison outside York, where Kevan is currently being held is one of the planned sites for construction of a further new prison to hold 1,440 people. On 17 May a group of protesters visited Full Sutton at night, with fireworks, flares and a loud sound system protesting against the treatment of Kevan and of another prisoner, Dwayne Fulgence, as well as against the plans to build a further site in which to put yet more working class people behind bars. The Campaign Against Prison Expansion is organising a further protest at Full Sutton on 5 June.
FRFI readers are encouraged to write to Kevan and to send emails protesting about his treatment to the prison governor, Gareth Sands [email protected]
You can email Kevan via the website emailaprisoner.com or write to him at: Kevan Thakrar A4907AE, HMP Full Sutton, Moor Lane, York YO41 1PS
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 282 June/July 2021
