SEPTEMBER 14 COALITION

TO END MASS INCARCERATION AND CLOSE ATTICA

September 25, 2012

For immediate release

Contact: Lewis Webb 212 598-0965

Gwen Debrow 718 849-6886

WHAT? DELIVERY OF PETITION/LETTERS TO GOVERNOR CUOMO DEMANDING THE CLOSING OF ATTICA PRISON

WHEN? WED, SEPT 26, 12 NOON – 1 PM

WHERE? 633 Third Avenue (corner 41^st Street )

Following on what organizers describe as a hugely successful community gathering of at least 2100 people at Riverside Church , a coalition of sponsoring groups has asked to meet with
Gov. Andrew Cuomo at his New York office on September 26 to discuss
shutting down the nationally and internationally notorious Attica
Correctional Facility.

The
coalition also plans to deliver thousands of petitions at noon that day
asking the Governor to "take a principled stance against one of our
country's most enduring symbols of brutality and racism", and mass
incarceration, by closing the prison.

The
petition goes on to say that "closing Attica would not resolve larger
systemic problems, but would be a first step on the part of New York
State to address the widespread violations of basic human rights that
exist throughout the prison system".

Attica was the scene of a four-day protest by the men incarcerated
there in 1971 who demanded that their basic human and civil rights be
respected. The protest ended in a massacre by the New York State Police
and the National Guard which left 39 people dead, including ten guards,
after then-governor, Nelson Rockefeller, refused to negotiate with the
protestors.

Last
year the Correctional Association of New York (CANY) issued a report
which said that many of the severe problems that date back to 1971,
still exist. The report particularly highlighted the rampant guard violence, brutality, and lack of accountability on the part of the guards for their abuse of the incarcerated men. According
to the Correctional Association Report, people incarcerated at Attica
who completed the Association's survey described "staff mistreatment
that was far worse than almost all other CA-visited prisons in nearly
every category of abuse".

The September 14^th petition mentions that while Governor Cuomo has closed some prisons, he has not shuttered any

maximum
security facilities, where most of the brutality and violence occur. It
ends by saying that "four decades after the uprising, Attica does not
only stand as a symbol for a legacy of racism and culture of brutality, but many of the actual conditions remain as they were in 1971". Attica is both an example and a major site of the abusive conditions that prevail in New York 's maximum security prisons.

The
September14th Coalition declares that it joins the New York State
Correctional Association in calling for the closing of Attica once and
for all. It concludes that "if we are committed to
humanity, respecting the lives of those lost in 1971, and the many
brutalized today, we must close Attica ".

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--Mumia is Innocent! Stop the Frame Up! Free Mumia!--

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC
www.FreeMumia.com,