Posted by Pinky.

I received a letter from someone at the Jonah House today. In her letter she spoke about nuns living in their community who had been in prison for their peace actions. I just sent a letter back; hopefully we'll be able coordinate some kind of interview or something.

I went to their website (www.jonahhouse.org) to do a bit of background reading and among other things (there is a lot to digest there) I came across a list of political prisoners, most of whom are being held here in the United States. For example:

Ft. Huachuca Witness:
Stephen Kelly (out March 2008)
Louis Vitale (out March 2008)

Cuban Five:
Gerardo Hernandez (life)
Fernando González Llort (out 04-20-2015)
Ramón Labañino Salazar (life)
René González (out 10-07-2011)
Antonio Guerrero (life)

Nuclear Resisters:
Helen Woodson (out 09-09-2011)
Native American Political Prisoner:
Leonard Peltier
Other political prisoners:
Igor Sutyagin (15 years, Russia)
Dr. Rafil Dhafir (out 04-26-2022)
Lori Berenson
Brendan Walsh (five years, out 7/15/08)
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Marilyn Buck (out 2/8/2011)

I read Leonard Peltier's and Mumia Abu-Jamal's prison writings a while ago, but still don't know much about political prisoners. Actually, I just remembered: the first time I saw a "Free Mumia!" poster I thought to myself "What's mumia and where can I get some?" It's embarrassing to say but I guess it's fairly indicative of how ignorant most of us are regarding political prisoners since the powers that be like to make believe that they somehow cease to exist once they are locked up.

One thing that I really liked about the above list is that it includes contact information for most of the people listed. So for example if you wanted to write a letter to Leonard Peltier, here is his address:

Leonard Peltier (#89637-132)
Lewisberg USP
P.O. Box 1000
Lewisberg, PA 17837

Somehow when I see addresses listed I feel like I need to start writing letters. As of today Mr. Peltier has done 11,739 days of illegal imprisonment. That's over 32 years.

~p.

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Posted by Bunny: Pinky and I had dinner with our friends Dean and Heijin last night. Dean said something like "If you really were a good person, everything you do would be illegal." I'm sure I have the wording a little wrong, but I think that's the basic idea. Think about it.