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The Wanted 18: Israel Blocks Palestinian Filmmaker from Making NYC Film Premiere About Intifada Cows
The annual Human Rights Watch International Film Festival is underway here in New York City, but one of its featured directors won’t be able to attend his film’s U.S. premiere this weekend. That’s because Israel recently deemed Palestinian filmmaker Amer Shomali a "security threat" and prevented him from traveling to Jerusalem to obtain a U.S. visa. Then he went to Amman, Jordan, where the U.S. approved a visa but said their visa machine was broken. Shomali had previously attended half a dozen European festivals without incident, and his film has drawn international acclaim. Interestingly, the film, "The Wanted 18," shows how Israel has historically tried to undermine any form of Palestinian nonviolent resistance by branding such resistance as dangerous and threatening, and recreates an astonishing true story from the First Palestinian Intifada when the Israeli army pursued 18 cows, whose independent milk production on a Palestinian collective farm was declared "a threat to the national security of the state of Israel." We speak to Amer Shomali in Ramallah.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The annual Human Rights Watch International Film Festival is underway here in New York City, but one of its featured directors will not be in attendance at his film’s U.S. premiere on Saturday night. That’s because Israel recently deemed Palestinian filmmaker Amer Shomali a "security threat," preventing him from traveling to Jerusalem to obtain a U.S. visa. Then he went to Amman, Jordan, where the U.S. did approve his visa but said their visa machine was broken, so couldn’t issue it. Amer Shomali had previously attended half a dozen European film festivals without incident.
His film has drawn international acclaim. Interestingly, the film shows how Israel has historically tried to undermine any form of Palestinian nonviolent resistance by branding such resistance as dangerous and threatening. The film is called The Wanted 18. It recreates an astonishing true story from the First Palestinian Intifada when the Israeli army pursued 18 cows—that’s right, cows—whose independent milk production on a Palestinian collective farm was declared "a threat to the national security of the state of Israel." This is the film’s trailer.
NARRATOR: Early 1988, a Beit Sahour cow truck drove to an Israeli kibbutz. An Israeli peacenik there agreed to sell my town the cows. There was Rivka, Ruth, Lola, and then there was Goldie.
MAJED NASSAR: We are Palestinians. We deserve to have a home. We deserve to have our land. We deserve to have our freedom. And we deserve to have cows.
UNIDENTIFIED: For me as a teenager at that time, it was about the fun and about, you know, proving that we can stop Israeli cars and vans and products coming into our city.
JALAL OUMSIEH: The military governor came one day with his soldiers. He said—and I quote the exact words—"These cows are dangerous for the security of the state of Israel." I can’t understand. How can 18 cows be dangerous for the security of the state of Israel?
MAJED NASSAR: We were kings. We were mastering our own destiny, actually. We had a full life. Complete, I would say.
AMY GOODMAN: That is an excerpt of The Wanted 18, which will premiere Saturday night at Lincoln Center, the Walter Reade Theater, at 6:30. The guest who we are now being joined with from Ramallah was supposed to be there to speak about his film after it premieres, Amer Shomali, the director of The Wanted 18. He’s a Palestinian filmmaker, visual artist. Here in New York, we’re joined by Julia Bacha, a longtime documentary filmmaker who’s worked in Israel and Palestine for the last decade. She’s creative director of Just Vision and impact producer of The Wanted 18.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Amer Shomali, why aren’t you here in New York? Can you explain what happened?
AMER SHOMALI: Hi. Thanks for having me today. Basically, I applied for an American visa at the American Consulate in Jerusalem. And in order to get to Jerusalem, you need to cross a main checkpoint blocking the road between Ramallah, where I live, and Jerusalem, where the American Consulate is. And to get that permit, you need to apply for the Israeli army. And my permit was rejected for security reasons. And it’s not a special case, like there’s tens of thousands of Palestinians, young Palestinians, who are labeled as a security threat to the state of Israel. And it’s quite frustrating. Jerusalem is just 25 minutes away from here. From this studio, it’s like 10 minutes. But you still can’t reach there. The American Embassy in Jerusalem does not offer any facilities for Palestinians who can’t get there. And they even ask you, even if you thought of sneaking to Jerusalem illegally, without a permit, to attend your interview, they will ask you, "Where is the Israeli permit?" as if there’s a kind of coordination. Anyway, I missed my appointment—
AMY GOODMAN: But you went to many different film festivals. Isn’t that—
AMER SHOMALI: —and we tried to go to Amman. I believe that in Amman—yeah, yeah, I toured the whole world. Not New York yet, but hopefully soon. Hopefully soon, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Continue with what you were saying.
AMER SHOMALI: And I crossed the main borders to Jordan many times, so I’m not really a security threat, yeah. Come again?
AMY GOODMAN: So you went to—sorry, we have a four-second delay here between New York and Ramallah, making the conversation more difficult than it would have been if, Amer, you were right here with us. But so you didn’t go to Jerusalem, you went to Amman. Explain what happened there at the U.S. Embassy.
AMER SHOMALI: I believe that the U.S. Embassy in Amman had good intentions, but something went wrong with the system, so I didn’t get the visa yet. So, I’m waiting for their call to go back to Amman to stamp my visa. Obviously I’m going to miss the first screening, but I still have other screenings in New York and L.A. Hopefully I’m going to catch those.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to another clip, Amer, of the film, The Wanted 18.
JALAL OUMSIEH: We have decided in Beit Sahour that we need to boycott Israeli products.
JAD ISHAD: Most of all, milk comes from Tnuva, which is an Israeli company. We wanted to produce a project that would produce the milk that is needed by our children and population.
ELIAS RISHMAWI: A group of people in Beit Sahour thought, "Why wouldn’t we have cows to make milk available from local source, instead of buying milk from Israel?"
NARRATOR: This is Beit Sahour—or, as it used to be during the intifada in 1987. This is my town, and those are my people, 10,000 people who gave Israel a headache.
AMY GOODMAN: And let’s go to another clip from the film. Again, this is about the First Intifada in Beit Sahour. The film, The Wanted 18.
JALAL OUMSIEH: The military governor came one day with his soldiers to the farm. First thing they did there is to take a photo for each cow with its number on its body. And he told us en prive that we have to remove the cows and get rid of them. When I asked him why, he said—and I quote the exact words—"These cows are dangerous for the security of the state of Israel." I told him, "I can’t understand. How can 18 cows be dangerous for the security of the state of Israel? That’s very strange."
AMY GOODMAN: From The Wanted 18. Again, these are 18 cows. Amer Shomali, you directed this film with Paul Cowan, who also wrote it. You lived in Beit Sahour. You lived in a refugee camp in Syria, but learned of this story in Beit Sahour. Why did you feel it was important to tell this story today?
AMER SHOMALI: I feel that young Palestinians, and young Arab, in general, nowadays are faced with two options. One of them is to accept to be the absolute victim for the occupation, the Israeli occupation, for capitalism, or to go lunatic and join ISIS, for example. I tried in this film to show an example happened in the First Intifada, late '80s, where a young generation could manage to take action and decide what they want to do with their lives. So it's kind of highlighting a moment where we, as Palestinians, knew what we wanted to do. And we had our third option: to choose a better future. And I think this is an important film especially for young Palestinians to see and respect themselves again.
AMY GOODMAN: You said that the U.S. Embassy had good intentions, but they had technical difficulties giving you your visa to come here for the premiere. What were the technical difficulties?
AMER SHOMALI: I have no idea. Something with the system, system collapse. I don’t know. I have no idea. But they were smiling when they said that, so I have—I believe they have good intention.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you have any thought that you might be able to make it in the next few days, although you won’t be here for the premiere?
AMER SHOMALI: No. No, no, I won’t be in the premiere, but I’ll be in the next screening maybe, hopefully, on the 19th.
AMY GOODMAN: Julia Bacha, you’re the impact producer of this film. The significance of, especially for our radio audience who can’t see the claymation, the illustrations of the cows? It is painful to talk about this as a hilarious film, but there are parts where you’re holding your sides.
JULIA BACHA: Yeah, we believe that the film has the possibility of opening the conversation, for people who might be feeling fatigued and hopeless about this issue. And the humor opens that way. We really want communities, particularly here in the United States, to start thinking about what are the stories that we are hearing from the region and what are the stories about resistance that arrive to us. I think historically we have been told that Palestinians only used violence to achieve their aims, when in fact there’s a very long history of civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance, which this film is one example of. And for Amer to be able to tell this story with some humor, we hope we’ll be able to attract more people to join.
AMY GOODMAN: Amer, since you can’t be here to address the audience directly at Lincoln Center at Walter Reade Theater on Saturday night, what message do you have for those who watch, or are weighing whether to watch, The Wanted 18?
AMER SHOMALI: I think in The Wanted 18 you will see a different face of Palestinians and a different face of Israelis, a new take, a new point of view, which is the cows’ point of view. And it’s crazy, but 'til today, all of those insane things happening in Palestine under the label of security, security threat—for example, nowadays as Palestinians we don't have—we’re not allowed to have 3G network on our mobiles. The Israelis have 4G; we are not allowed to have 3G. We don’t have Internet on our mobiles, because they said having frequency for the Palestinians is security threat. So everything can be a security threat, like digging a well to water natural reserve in the Palestinian cities is security threat. Everything can be labeled as a security threat, and which is a valid excuse.
AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds.
AMER SHOMALI: And we became, as Palestinians, like traumatized people living under a paranoid army, controlled by a paranoid army. And this film is just an example of—
AMY GOODMAN: Amer Shomali, we have to say thank you so much, look forward to seeing you in New York if you get here.
Tamir Rice Killing: Activists Push for Arrests After Judge Finds Probable Cause to Charge Officers
A judge in Ohio has found probable cause to charge a police officer with murder for the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was shot dead at a playground while holding a toy gun. On Thursday, Judge Ronald Adrine of the Cleveland Municipal Court said there are grounds to prosecute the officers. The ruling came after community leaders in Cleveland took the unusual legal step on Tuesday of appealing directly to the judge to commence prosecution of the officer, saying they were tired of waiting over six months without any progress on the case. We speak to Rice family attorney Walter Madison and Rhonda Williams, the director of the Social Justice Institute at Case Western Reserve University. She’s one of the eight community activists who signed the affidavits in Tamir Rice’s case.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: A judge in Ohio has found probable cause to charge a police officer with murder for the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice last November. On Thursday, Judge Ronald Adrine of Cleveland Municipal Court said there are grounds to prosecute Officer Timothy Loehmann with murder, manslaughter and reckless homicide. The ruling came after community leaders in Cleveland took the unusual legal step Tuesday of appealing directly to the judge to commence prosecution of the officer, saying they were tired of waiting over six months without any progress on the case. In a court filing, the community activists invoked a rare Ohio law that allows citizens to ask judges for charges, bypassing police and prosecutors. Church pastor Jawanza Colvin was one of the eight who signed the affidavit. He told reporters citizens are seeking justice themselves.
JAWANZA COLVIN: We believe that officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback caused the death of Tamir Rice in deeds which were unconscionable, reprehensible and, yes, criminal. So, today, as citizens, we are taking this matter and the matter of justice into our hands, using the tools of democracy as an instrument to ensure that every person, regardless of their race, religion, sex orientation, social class or profession, is ensured that their rights as victims, citizens and human beings are respected in the courts and throughout society.
AMY GOODMAN: Last year, Tamir Rice was playing with a toy gun at a playground when police pulled up and fatally shot him within two seconds of their arrival. They failed to provide medical help and tackled Tamir’s 14-year-old sister to the ground as she tried to help him, handcuffed her and put her in the cruiser. Investigators recently submitted their findings in the case.
Last month, Cleveland agreed to increase racial bias training and tough limits on the use of police force, after a federal probe uncovered a pattern of unlawful abuses. Meanwhile, a Cleveland judge recently acquitted a white police officer who fired 49 shots at two unarmed African Americans in their vehicle.
For more, we go directly to Cleveland, Ohio, where we’re joined by Walter Madison. He’s the lawyer for Tamir Rice’s family who filed the affidavits. And we’re joined by Rhonda Williams, the director of the Social Justice Institute at Case Western Reserve University. She’s one of the eight community activists who signed the affidavits in Tamir Rice’s case. She’s also a member of the Collaborative for a Safe, Fair, and Just Cleveland and the author of Concrete Demands: The Search for Black Power in the 20th Century.
Walter Madison and Rhonda Williams, thanks so much for joining us. Walter Madison, let’s start with you. Can you explain what the legal avenue you pursued was, rather than waiting for a prosecutor in the case to bring charges?
WALTER MADISON: Well, it’s a very fundamental concept of citizens participating. And in Ohio, they have that right. And there’s a few other handful of states that also share that citizen participation right. And it’s really, at its core, the most American thing I’ve ever seen in my life. What the government and any person would want is their people to be engaged, be involved with the system. Through that engagement, the citizen can realize and see transparency in the administration of justice. When you have that, what you develop is trust.
And that is the very—that’s at the core of the problem in this country at this moment between African Americans and law enforcement. They don’t trust their system and their authoritarians, therefore there’s no legitimacy in their orders and/or their version of justice. If you can increase that, then you will have people who are more willing to be obedient to law enforcement. And when you have obedient citizens, you can avoid the fusillade of 137 bullets fired into a vehicle at two unarmed citizens and all the other maladies that appear to pop up daily and that’s just a function of lack of trust.
So, the law in Ohio essentially says that any person—any person—with knowledge of a felony can aver those facts in an affidavit and present that directly to a judge. And the judge, an experienced jurist, can evaluate the affidavit, based upon the evidence supplied, and make a determination of probable cause. There’s nothing elaborate. There’s nothing circumvent—there’s no circumvention here. This is not anarchy. This is just law. And this is the—
AMY GOODMAN: And so, what does this mean exactly? Is the officer charged?
WALTER MADISON: Well, what it means is the people have been heard and vindicated and validated by the senior-most judge in Cleveland, Ohio. Judge Adrine has been on the bench since 1981. He’s regarded highly as one of the best municipal court judges in all of Ohio. His record, reputation and service to the community is beyond reproach. He, too, is a public servant. He heard the people. He has offered transparency in his opinion, that you all have now, suggesting to another set of public servants that charges be brought. This is how our system works. And I suppose what we’re witnessing, based upon statements that I’ve read, is a reluctance to simply follow the law. So anyone—if there is any group of individuals being anarchist and un-American, it would appear to be our public servants, i.e. the prosecutor, if they should choose not to obey—again, that keyword "obey"—the judge’s recommendation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, he has made this recommendation. What happens next?
WALTER MADISON: Well, we’re going to wait and see exactly what happens next, because, quite frankly, the world, the international community, is now watching what the Cleveland municipal prosecutors will do. They are public servants, and they serve the people. And the people—when they arrest or make charges for any other citizen, they do so in the name of the people and the peace and dignity of the state of Ohio. Now, when their conduct is outside of the law, we have every right to bring that conduct to the attention of a judge and ask that charges be brought. So we shall see if they respect the law themselves. And we’ll take the appropriate steps at this point. That’s all that, you know, the Cleveland Eight and myself can say at this point. We’ve done nothing but follow the law.
AMY GOODMAN: Rhonda Williams, what was your reaction when you heard the judge’s recommendation?
RHONDA WILLIAMS: We were very pleased. We were very pleased that Judge Adrine found probable cause to bring these charges. The key is, right now we don’t have the charges. We’re asking for the charges. We’re asking for the arrests. We’re asking for the system to move this forward in an expeditious and reasonable way. We’re asking for everyone to have their right in a transparent, accountable court and judicial system. And so we were pleased, but, you know, we’re not giddy. You know, we’re not—we don’t think the struggle is over. We know there is a long road to achieve justice and a sense of justice. And so, we are eagerly awaiting what’s going to happen.
AMY GOODMAN: And how did you discover this rarely used Ohio law?
RHONDA WILLIAMS: I was called. I received a phone call: "Please come hear what—you know, what we have in mind." It was a call by a colleague of mine, by Pastor Colvin, some other friends, some of the eight. Joe Worthy was a part of this. Pastor Colvin was a part of this—Julia Shearson, Ed Little, Rachel Smith, Pastor Vernon, Bakari Kitwana. We came together, and we listened. And as we learned more, we asked questions: What does this mean? What opportunities does this give us? This is an Ohio state law? This is something that we can use? What kind of latitude does it afford us?
And so, we said, "Yes. We have been waiting more than six months. We want to see this move forward. We want to see some progress. We want to see it in the criminal justice system, with all its flaws. We know the criminal justice system is not perfect. We know that there is racial and other kinds of inequalities embedded in the criminal justice system. But we want to see it move forward. We want to see it in a transparent and accountable way. We want to be able to follow the case. We want to see the case tried in court and not at the grand jury—in the grand jury process, which often happens sometimes." And so, we were excited to hear about this opportunity to take handle, take control, take some leverage through the law, and be able to apply that law and apply our rights as citizens to speak out and say, "We want to see something happen."
The critical thing here is citizen engagement, right? Citizen input. And we’ve been told all along in this process, from November to now, and even before, because of the U.S. Department of Justice findings report in Cleveland, which establishes a broader context for this, that community must be engaged, community must provide input. We have to create the space for community to be really involved and invested and have leverage and decision-making power in the way that the criminal justice system operates, in the police reforms, in transformation of culture in relationship to African-American communities and to the police department, and other communities, as well—
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask—
RHONDA WILLIAMS: —and the police department. So—
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask about the record of the officer. Reports have emerged that the officer responsible for Tamir Rice’s death, Officer Timothy Loehmann, was deemed unfit for police service over two years ago when he worked in the suburb of Independence. A letter from a superior specifically criticizes Loehmann’s performance in firearms training, saying, "He could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and his handgun performance was dismal," unquote.
Meanwhile, the other officer, Frank Garmback, the officer who was driving the police cruiser when Tamir Rice was killed, also has a troubled history. Cleveland reportedly paid out $100,000 earlier this year to a city resident named Tamela Eaton to settle an excessive force lawsuit brought against Officer Garmback. The settlement stemmed from a 2010 confrontation in which Eaton said Garmback, quote, "rushed (her) and placed her in a chokehold, tackled her to the ground, twisted her wrist and began hitting her body."
Walter Madison, now, Officer Garmback was not—the judge did not recommend him—a charge against him, is that right? Only against Officer Loehmann, the man who pulled the trigger on Tamir Rice?
WALTER MADISON: No, that’s not correct. There are two recommendations for arrest for Mr. Garmback for negligent homicide as well as dereliction of duty. And it’s interesting you point out their records, because we’ve seen and heard a lot of victim blaming of a 12-year-old child. And it’s quite, quite puzzling to me, because you have to—a 12-year-old can only see the world through its eyes. And, you know, I hardly doubt a 12-year-old can appreciate the danger of a toy gun. You know, those are adult considerations, with adult repercussions. So, the more fair criticism would lie with these officers, who receive hundreds of hours of training. They’re adults. They’re seasoned police veterans. They should have the experience and emotional intelligence to understand the gait, the behavior, the posture of a child—in particular, outside of a recreation center that weekly has Saturday morning programming for adolescent children. Not even teenagers, they’re adolescent children. So that’s just, you know, a lack of concern and engagement by the officers in that particular community, which ultimately comes right back to the relationship building—
RHONDA WILLIAMS: Right.
WALTER MADISON: —and the lack of trust. You know, there are a number of contextual clues that would have suggested that this was just a 12-year-old boy.
AMY GOODMAN: And what is happening with Tamir Rice’s family right now, his 14-year-old sister, his mother? Where are they living? How are they being taken care of?
WALTER MADISON: Mother is stable at the moment. Naturally, Tamir’s sister is having her struggles, as any sibling would, having watched—and the separation anxiety—watched her brother die, helplessly, with a window seat. Tamir has a father. It’s Father’s Day season. This is his first Father’s Day without his firstborn son. This is—this was the first Mother’s Day without her baby boy. So, you can only imagine what it—and how they feel about having to put away a 12-year-old child. Words can’t begin to explain that, you know? And I hear the concern and the sentiment of officers all over—good officers, you know, they’re concerned about the general characterization of them all being bad officers.
RHONDA WILLIAMS: Right.
WALTER MADISON: I do empathize with them, but I don’t think for a moment their pain matches that of a parent.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both so much for being with us, Walter Madison, lawyer for Tamir Rice’s family, and Rhonda Williams, director of the Social Justice Institute at Case Western Reserve University, one of the eight community activists who signed the affidavit in Tamir Rice’s case.
This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a moment. What happens when a prisoner goes from complete solitary to complete freedom? Stay with us.
From Solitary to the Street: Coping with Freedom After Years in Prison Isolation
The Department of Justice estimates that about 80,000 prisoners are in solitary confinement. Some have been held in isolation for decades. Former Black Panther Albert Woodfox has been in solitary for over 40 years. While Woodfox could be released as early as today, we look at a new investigation by The Marshall Project and NPR that reveals prisons are sending thousands of people directly from solitary confinement back into their communities with almost no help or preparation. Many wind up homeless or back in prison. We speak to Christie Thompson of The Marshall Project and Five Mualimm-ak, founder of Incarcerated Nation Collective, a collective of previously incarcerated people. He spent 11 years in New York’s prison system, including five years in solitary.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: "Almost Free" by Sarah Quintana, a New Orleans artist who was a pen pal with the late Herman Wallace, member of the Angola Three who was held in solitary confinement for more than 40 years. He died three days after his release from prison in Louisiana last October. In our next segment, we’ll talk more about the last member of the Angola Three, who could be freed today as early as this afternoon. Yes, this is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
The release of former Black Panther Albert Woodfox, the longest-serving U.S. prisoner in solitary confinement, could come as early as this afternoon. On Monday, a federal judge ordered Louisiana to immediately release Woodfox, who is now 68 years old and was first placed in solitary in 1972 after he was charged in the murder of a prison guard. Woodfox is a member of the Angola Three and a former Black Panther who says he was falsely accused of killing a prison guard because of his political organizing. Despite the judge’s extraordinary ruling, Woodfox’s release was delayed when Louisiana appealed to the Fifth Circuit.
Meanwhile, here in New York, hundreds of people rallied outside a Manhattan jail last night to remember Kalief Browder. In 2010, at the age of 16, Kalief was arrested after being accused of stealing a backpack. He would spend three years at New York City’s Rikers Island jail, more than two of those years in solitary confinement. After a judge finally dismissed the case against him and he was released—he had refused repeated offers of plea bargain, saying he wanted to go to court to prove his innocence—Browder tried to reclaim his life, after three years in prison. He wound up going to community college. But in the end, the nightmare he lived through overwhelmed him. This past Saturday, 12 days after his 22nd birthday, Kalief Browder wrapped an air conditioner power cord around his neck and hanged himself. According to the New York Daily News, Browder killed himself just days before he was scheduled to appear in court on charges described by his lawyer as "baseless."
Nationwide, the Department of Justice estimates that about 80,000 prisoners are in solitary confinement. Today, we look at a new investigation by The Marshall Project and NPR that reveals prisons are sending thousands of people directly from solitary confinement back into their communities with almost no help or preparation. In the state of Texas, for example, only 14 percent of prisoners in the general prison population were released without supervision. But for those sent home from solitary confinement, that number rose to 63 percent. Many wound up homeless or back in prison.
For more, we’re joined by two guests. Christie Thompson is staff writer at The Marshall Project. Her new story is headlined "From Solitary to the Street: What Happens When Prisoners Go from Complete Isolation to Complete Freedom in a Day?" Also with us is Five Mualimm-ak, a human rights and prison reform advocate, founder of Incarcerated Nation Collective, a collective of previously incarcerated people. He was formerly imprisoned and spent 11 years in New York’s prison system for criminal weapons possession and other charges. During that time, he was held in solitary confinement for a total of five years.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now!
FIVE MUALIMM-AK: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to begin with you, Christie. Talk about what you found.
CHRISTIE THOMPSON: So, what I and NPR set out to do was find out how often prisons were taking someone from solitary confinement, where they’re locked down 23 hours a day, almost no human contact, and then releasing them the very next day back to their families. So we reached out to all 50 corrections departments and found that in 24 states last year over 10,000 people were sent straight from segregation back to their community. But what was even more striking was that 26 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons actually couldn’t tell us how often that was happening.
And we talked to many people who had had this experience, and what was really interesting was how similar many of their stories were. They had a fear of crowds. They had difficulties dealing with anger and anxiety. And like you mentioned, many—in several states, these people are actually more likely to be released without any supervision. So, in many ways, the prisoners that need the most help and support after coming home from prison are actually getting the least.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what trouble did you have in gathering data?
CHRISTIE THOMPSON: So, as anyone who’s dealt with solitary confinement knows, states define how they use segregation very differently, and they track it very differently. So some states could only give us the number of people that were held in what’s known as administrative segregation, which are cells that they use for alleged gang members or people that they deem a threat to security. Other states gave us everyone that was released from any kind of segregation, be it disciplinary or allegedly protective segregation for an inmate’s own safety. So we couldn’t really compare the numbers. And, like I said, 26 states said, "We don’t keep track of that data. It would cost us thousands to provide it to you." So that was a real problem, is that many states just didn’t know.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us the story of Mark and Brian?
CHRISTIE THOMPSON: So, Mark is a family—we spent a lot of time with his mother, Sara Garcia, down in Austin, and he first entered the criminal justice system when he was 14 for armed robbery. And even when he was in juvenile detention, psychologists there recognized that Mark had a long history of mental illness—anger issues, schizoaffective disorder, emotional disturbance. And his psychologists there said this is someone who really needs intensive treatment and life skills training.
And instead what happened is, when he was 18, he was moved to a maximum-security adult prison and very quickly ended up in a segregation unit because his cellmate told guards that he was threatening to run away. And Mark’s family talked about how they really watched him, even though he had always had these issues, deteriorate even further. And he was there because the prison thought he was going to escape, and they held him right until the day of his release.
So, in July, Mark came out of prison having spent the last two-and-a-half years without any human contact, basically sitting by himself in a cell. And his mother said that she felt that day like relief, that she thought, you know, things were going to get better, she can start helping her son. But actually, for their family, that was when a lot of the problems began.
AMY GOODMAN: At a 2012 Senate hearing, psychologist and solitary confinement expert Dr. Craig Haney testified about how inmates may have trouble adjusting to life after solitary confinement.
DR. CRAIG HANEY: One of the very serious psychological consequences of placing people in solitary confinement for long periods of time is that it renders many people incapable of living anywhere else. In other words, they have to transform themselves—their habits of being, their ways of acting and thinking and relating to themselves as well as the world—premised on—premised on the assumption that they will not be around other human beings. And they actually get to the point where they find that it is frightening to be around other people. Many of the people who I work with who come out of solitary confinement and go either into mainline prisons or come out into free society talk about being anxious, overcome, overwhelmed with anxiety, when they’re around other human beings, because they become accustomed to be—to being isolated or being alone.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Dr. Craig Haney testifying before the Senate. Exonerated Texas death row prisoner Anthony Graves also testified before the Senate at this 2012 hearing. He spoke about the self-mutilation carried out by prisoners in solitary confinement. And a warning to our listeners and viewers, this is very graphic.
ANTHONY GRAVES: I watched men literally self-mutilate themselves. They had to be put on razor restrictions, because if they’re given a razor, they will cut their own throat, their own neck, wherever they could cut at on their own bodies. They just stand there in front of you and cut themselves. And this one man in particular that I watched do this, they took him over to what they call the psychiatric ward. A few days later, he hung himself, all because of the conditions. There’s a man right there sitting on Texas death row right now who’s housed in solitary confinement, pulled his eye out and swallowed it—all because of the conditions. Solitary confinement dehumanizes us all.
AMY GOODMAN: Exonerated Texas death row prisoner Anthony Graves testifying before the Senate at this 2012 hearing. We are joined also by Five Mualimm-ak. You spent, what, close to five years in solitary confinement here in New York. Talk about your experience, why you would be put in solitary confinement. Does what Anthony Graves described ring true for you, these horrific circumstances?
FIVE MUALIMM-AK: Yes, Anthony is a very good speaker, but also speaks from experience, his time in solitary as a death row. It also—he also revolutionarily brought the connection of death row people confined into normal people confined into solitary, not into those conditions, how similar they are.
In solitary, you experience a few things—one, sensory deprivation, and, two, my self human validation, which is missing, right?—and how important that is for us. How do we receive information? How do we communicate with others? We’re very social creatures. Solitary deprives you of all of that. There is no skills to use, so you don’t use that.
The most egregious punishment, because we always think of solitary as the worst of the worst, the Hannibal Lecters of the world, and this is "we have to keep these people confined, or else they’ll just jump up and bite your face off"—but that is just not true. The New York Civil Liberties Union did a "Boxed In" report, and they revealed that five out of six tickets were for nonviolent disciplinary infractions, right? And the disciplinary infractions are based on your behavior, so people with mental illness who behave outright are higher in there.
I found over the years the solitude brought more damage to my everyday actions in how I relate to other people, how do I talk—right?—remembering how to smile when a person looks at you, you know, or the importance of somebody hearing you or not paying attention to you. It enrages you, right? The point of being ignored enrages you. And then they drop you off at 42nd Street at Times Square. You’ve got Spider-Man fighting the Statue of Liberty, 20 million commuters, and you get off the bus from an isolated cell, right? No social skills, no communication.
And majority of people, 50 percent of people, commit suicide. We suffer from depression and live through those moments. If you can’t take your life because you’re restricted from it, now that you’re finally free, those options are a little different. And the warning signs—there’s plenty of opportunities to see warning signs from people when they come home. Those were ignored, like in the case of Kalief. Totally ignored that he was hearing voices, right? That is a form of schizophrenia. I mean, I suffer from schizophrenia. My son suffers from schizophrenia. It’s a different form when you’re isolated in a box and then you’re suddenly into the loudest city in the world—it’s a different form of attack on you. And people live with these invisible scars every day, struggle. Right down the block from here, three people committed suicide coming home directly from solitary, jumping off the roof of the shelter. This is something that if we don’t address, we’re never going to end mass incarceration or incarceration, period.
AMY GOODMAN: Last year, I interviewed Lance Lowry, president of AFSCME Local 3807 of Texas Correctional Employees, the union which represents Texas prison employees, the guards. He explained why he had written an open letter to Texas prison officials, calling on them to reduce the use of solitary confinement.
LANCE LOWRY: When you place somebody in solitary, you lose a lot of management control over that person. There’s not much more you can do. And, you know, correcting bad behavior at that point is—it’s not a positive step. You don’t have the steps and the ability to correct negative behavior. Plus you have the aspects, increased exacerbation of mental health issues. I’ve seen offenders cut on themselves, go to the point of even rubbing feces on theirselves due to the rapid deterioration. There’s no sensory stimulation in these cells, and that creates a major problem.
AMY GOODMAN: So, this is very interesting, because he’s head of the union that represents the guards.
FIVE MUALIMM-AK: Right. Well, you know, it’s an environment that affects everyone, right? So you can’t just say the public safety for these people incarcerated, you can’t just say public safety for the community that is negligent to their returning and to the lack of training or therapy or even empathetic or sympathetic support for these people coming out. But also, who is trapped in the environment while these people are going through these same emotions? They’re trapped in, too. They do sentences, 10, 20 years, eight hours at a time, right? And they go through social emotional skills because they’re trained not to speak to anyone. They’re trained not to keep eye contact with people. They’re trained to not call people by their name, but by numbers, to recognize them as bodies. So these people are trained, because if you were human, and you looked at a person as a human, and you called him as a recognizable name, not an inmate, not a convict, but a person incarcerated, then it would cause you to reflect on yourself and treatment that you would want to receive, right?
AMY GOODMAN: How are you organizing people coming out not only of prison, but how are you helping people coming from solitary to freedom?
FIVE MUALIMM-AK: Well, we try to monitor those inside and help them through getting the—starting the process from the inside. That’s the problem, right? There is no communication. There is no connection. There is no phone call abilities. There’s no visit abilities. So you cannot properly prepare for your own release.
What we’ve helped inspire positions—we actually—people previously incarcerated now possess all the positions of re-entry in the state. So, like, my co-worker, Johnny Perez, he’s a safe re-entry advocate—in other words, helping people with mental illness re-enter society—because he’s been through it. He knows the ropes, right? So we’ve created a whole re-entry advocate network that is manned and womanned and supported by those who have been through the experience, know the hardship of reintegration, know the lack of programs—right?—know that chronic homelessness excludes you from being able to be housed when you come out. You’re not even considered homeless. You’re considered homeless for one day, if you did all the time in prison that you’ve done.
So these laws have to change, but until then, we have to support those. And we create projects to support, but also guide, right? That we need psychological assessments when people come home that day, not make it to parole by 5:00, not somehow navigate through the entire New York system and go get your services in Queens at the end by the airport, none of that. We have to actually treat people like humans, meet them when they come out of the train station, and guide them to their appointments and help them get the psychological care and support that they need, not just one day, but continuing afterwards.
"A Monster of a Facility": Amid Manhunt for Fugitives, Advocate Urges Reforms at Dannemora Prison
As two fugitives who escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, remain at large, human rights and prison reform activist Five Mualimm-ak discusses the need for reform at the massive prison. "This is a facility that is historically known for its abuse, has no accountability," Mualimm-ak says. "This place needs to be changed."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: On a slightly separate issue, I’m just curious, Five Mualimm-ak, if you have thoughts about the prison break that is getting so much attention today, entering its something like seventh day, of two prisoners at Dannemora, at the Clinton Correctional Facility.
FIVE MUALIMM-AK: Yes, Clinton is a monster of a facility, between the annex and the main. It is a—the most historical torturous beatings there, right? It is a place that is so far away.
AMY GOODMAN: Something like 3,000 prisoners.
FIVE MUALIMM-AK: Right, exactly. It’s so far away that we actually help and try to support a prison visiting project that Osborn does, as well. The visits are so hard to happen, we have a video visit project. But this is a facility that is historically known for its abuse, has no accountability. They have cameras and certain things in certain areas that are not necessary. So it is not a place that is totally accountable in its own construction. And it’s like, you know, a half-hour away from Canada. This place needs to be changed. There actually was some good programs there. There was residential humane units there before. And it’s staffed by people who are undertrained. We have 57.7 million people that suffer from mental illness in this country, and we do nothing to train the officers who have care of people every day.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Christie Thompson, you wrote about Rick Raemisch, right?
CHRISTIE THOMPSON: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: The director of corrections in the state of Colorado, who himself went into solitary confinement.
CHRISTIE THOMPSON: Yes. So, Rick has worked a lot on addressing the issue of people coming straight from solitary confinement back to their community, because there was a tragic case in Colorado in which someone who was accidentally paroled early from a segregation unit, where he had been—spent years completely by himself and actually had written grievances to the prison, saying, "Don’t you have some obligation to prepare me to come out to the world? If you allegedly think I’m so dangerous that I can’t be among other inmates, how can I be, you know, out on the streets among other people?"—he was accidentally released and ended up murdering the former head of the Colorado prisons department. So, after that, you know, there has been zero people that have been released straight from solitary in Colorado, since March of last year. And they’ve created new programs and two new units. And I think, when I was interviewing Rick, it sounded like he became very aware of what solitary can do to someone, after spending only 20 hours by himself in a cell.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us, a powerful testimony today, and we’ll link to your article at democracynow.org. Christie Thompson, staff writer at The Marshall Project, her new story headlined "From Solitary to the Street: What Happens When Prisoners Go from Complete Isolation to Complete Freedom in a Day?" And thank you so much to Five Mualimm-ak, a human rights and prison reform advocate, founder of Incarcerated Nation Collective, a collective of previously incarcerated people. He was imprisoned himself, spent 11 years in New York’s prison system. During that time, he was held in solitary confinement for a total of five years.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we go to Ramallah, on the West Bank, to speak with a film director who was supposed to be here in New York at Lincoln Center for the premiere of his film Saturday night at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. We’ll learn about Israel and the United States’ role in preventing him from being present. Stay with us.
Headlines:
Dempsey: U.S. May Build More Bases in Iraq
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Yemen: Saudi-Led Strikes Hit UNESCO Site Old Sana’a, Killing 6
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Ohio: Judge Backs Murder Charge for Cop Who Killed 12-Year-Old Tamir Rice
In Ohio, a judge has found probable cause to charge a police officer with murder for the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice last November. Rice was playing with a toy gun when police fatally shot him within two seconds of their arrival. The ruling came after community leaders in Cleveland took the unusual step of appealing directly to the judge, saying they were tired of waiting more than six months with no progress. We’ll have more on the case after headlines.
California: Video Shows Salinas Police Beating Man on the Ground
The police chief in Salinas, California, has asked the district attorney to investigate after a bystander’s video showed officers beating a man with their batons as he lies on the ground. Jose Velasco’s mother says her son is mentally ill and was having an episode when she called 911. Police say Velasco was high on methamphetamine and assaulted his mother.
Iowa: Cop Kills Unarmed Man for "Walking with Purpose"
In Iowa, a Des Moines police officer has shot and killed an unarmed man who police say was "walking with a purpose" toward her cruiser. On Tuesday night, police say 28-year-old Ryan Keith Bolinger led officers on a slow-speed chase and then walked toward Officer Vanessa Miller’s cruiser. Miller fatally shot him through her driver’s side window.
Albert Woodfox Awaits Decision on Release After 43 Years in Solitary
In Louisiana, a decision to release the longest-serving U.S. prisoner in solitary confinement could come as early as this afternoon. Albert Woodfox’s immediate release was ordered Monday by a federal judge, but delayed when the state appealed to the Fifth Circuit. Woodfox was first placed in solitary in 1972 after he was charged with murdering a prison guard, Brent Miller. Woodfox is a former Black Panther and member of the "Angola Three," who insist they were falsely accused because of their political organizing. The guard’s widow, "Teenie" Rogers, issued a statement Thursday calling for Woodfox’s release because she believes he is innocent. She wrote, "I hope the Appeals Court cares about the evidence and cares about justice. The judge has already said this is over. Let it be over. For all of us."
Greece at Risk of Default After IMF Recalls Negotiators
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Costas Maglaras, Greek pensioner: "They cut our salaries and pensions in half. With a small pension, we are supporting our unemployed children, we are supporting their families. What else must happen so that we take to the streets?"
Former IMF Head Dominique Strauss-Kahn Acquitted of "Aggravated Pimping"
The former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has been acquitted of aggravated pimping by a French court. Strauss-Kahn acknowledged participating in sex parties, saying he needed "recreational sessions" while he was "saving the world." He claimed he didn’t know the women were prostitutes. Some of the women described his behavior as "brutal." Strauss-Kahn was previously accused of sexually assaulting a New York hotel maid in a case he settled out of court.
Report: U.N. Peacekeepers Trade Goods for Sex in Haiti, Liberia
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Union Says Hackers Took Data on Every Federal Worker
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Net Neutrality Rules for Open Internet Take Effect
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Oregon Passes Landmark Law Expanding Birth Control Access
Oregon Governor Kate Brown has signed into law a landmark measure expanding access to birth control. The law makes Oregon the first state in the country to require insurance companies to cover a year’s worth of birth control at once, rather than forcing women to renew their supply every 30 to 90 days. Supporters say it could decrease unintended pregnancy by 30 percent.
Rupert Murdoch to Hand Media Empire to Son
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Puerto Rican Leaders Protest Deep U.S. Cuts to Medicare Program
Puerto Rican leaders are protesting the Obama administration’s unveiling of deep cuts to Puerto Rico’s Medicare program. Democracy Now! co-host Juan González reports in the New York Daily News the cuts will mean a loss of $300 million annually to Puerto Rico’s government and healthcare system, which are both on the brink of collapse. Puerto Rican leaders plan to protest the cuts at this Sunday’s Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City.
Yes Men Protest Shell Oil Drilling by Distributing Snow Cones from "Last Icebergs of North Pole"
Here in New York, the culture jamming activist group The Yes Men protested Shell’s plans to drill for oil in the Arctic by handing out ancient shaved ice from the "remnants of the last icebergs of the North Pole." Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum described the action.
Mike Bonanno: "This action is against drilling in the Arctic. Shell is just getting ready now to launch their drilling rigs from Seattle up into the Arctic to exploit it for the first time."
Andy Bichlbaum: "We’re just trying to make it more visible, and this is a funny way to make it visible, but, you know, people like humor, and they like snow cones. So those two things combined seemed to provide a sure recipe for letting people know about the Arctic drilling."
The new film "The Yes Men Are Revolting" opens today in select theaters.
Legendary Jazz Musician Ornette Coleman Dies at 85
The legendary jazz musician and composer Ornette Coleman has died at the age of 85. Coleman changed the language of jazz music, pioneering a new sound known as "free jazz." In 2006, I interviewed one of his closest musical associates, the late jazz bassist Charlie Haden, who described how he first heard Ornette Coleman play at a Hollywood club called the Hague.
Charlie Haden: "They tell him to come up, and he got his alto. It was a plastic—white plastic alto saxophone. And he starts to play, and the whole room lit up for me. It was so brilliant. And as soon as he started to play, they asked him to stop. So he put the horn back in the case and started out the back door."
Amy Goodman: "Why did they ask him to stop?"
Charlie Haden: "Well, you know, Ornette’s music was completely different than traditional jazz. It was free improvisation. It was his way of improvising. It was improvising and creating a new chord structure to the song that you were playing. That’s the way he played."
That’s Charlie Haden, who died last year. Ornette Coleman died Thursday of cardiac arrest in New York City. He was 85 years old.
Ellen Ray, Co-Publisher of Covert Action Information Bulletin, Dies at 75
The documentary filmmaker, publisher, journalist and activist Ellen Ray has died at the age of 75. Ray was a co-publisher of the magazine Covert Action Information Bulletin, which exposed CIA covert actions around the world, publishing the names of hundreds of CIA agents. As a result, the law changed, making it illegal. As head of Sheridan Square Press, she published the memoir of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, which became the basis of Oliver Stone’s Academy Award-winning movie, "JFK." Ray is survived by her husband, attorney Bill Schaap.
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Kalief Browder, Albert Woodfox and the Torture of Solitary Confinement
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