PENNSYLVANIA — For more than 38 years, Russell Maroon Shoatz has been held as a political prisoner in Pennsylvania. Held in SCI Greene, the same prison as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Shoatz has been isolated under intense lockdown spending no more than one hour a day outside of his cell for the past 21 of those years.
Russell Maroon Shoatz was locked up in 1972 for his activity as a member of the Black Liberation Army. Like many of those who stood up to protect and struggle for the freedom of black people inside the U.S., Shoatz suffered the brutal assault the U.S. government waged against the Black Power Movement of the Sixties, assassinating and imprisoning our leaders and destroying our organizations.
The struggle waged by courageous Africans like Russell Maroon Shoatz is what forced the U.S. government to make any concessions it has made to the African community. It is this struggle that has made it possible for there to be an Obama in the White House. Of course, it is also the assassination and imprisonment of genuine leaders of our struggle and their replacement by government-approved “leaders” willing to sell out the black community for their own selfish interests or to forward the interests of the system that oppresses us that makes an Obama possible as well.
African people owe a debt to the sisters and brothers who now rot in prison cells as a result of their selfless sacrifice in struggling for our freedom. We must continue to struggle for the release of the incredible sisters and brothers like Russell Shoatz whose only crime was opposing an unjust system and demanding freedom for our oppressed people.
On January 5, Russell Shoatz is scheduled to go before a Program Review Board to determine if he will be allowed into general population inside the prison. The Superintendent of SCI Greene, Louis Folino, opposes this and instead wants to keep 67-year-old Russell Shoatz on continued 23-hour solitary confinement.
We are calling on you to call in TODAY and call for Russell Maroon Shoatz to be taken out of solitary confinement!
Call: Superintendent Louis Folino at 724-852-2903. If Folino is not available, talk to Tracey Shawley.
Write: Superintendent Folino, 169 Progress Drive, Waynesburg, PA 15370
Also Call: Secretary Of PA Prisons, Shirley Moore Sneal Phone at 717-975-4918.
Uhuru!
