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“A FORTY YEAR HISTORY OF REPRESSION:

On April 17, 1972, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3 were placed in solitary confinement at Angola Prison in Louisiana. Wallace and Woodfox were subsequently railroaded and convicted for the murder of a prison guard, and remain in solitary to this day. They were framed COINTELPRO-style, in retaliation for co-founding a Black Panther chapter at Angola that initiated multiracial work and hunger strikes.

Currently held inside California’s notorious Pelican Bay State Prison, Hugo “Yogi Bear” Pinell, of the San Quentin Six, has now been in continuous solitary for at least 42 years. A participant in the recent statewide prisoner hunger strike, Pinell was a close comrade of Black Panther and prison author, George Jackson. Having been continually denied parole despite a clean record for the last 27 years, Pinell is, in the words of the Angola 3’s own Robert H. King, “a clear example of a political prisoner.” His next parole hearing is scheduled for this May.

The stories of the Angola 3 and Hugo Pinell are the most extreme examples of a widespread human rights crisis in US prisons, where prolonged solitary confinement has become routine. According to http://www.solitarywatch.com, there are “at least 75,000 and perhaps more than 100,000 prisoners in solitary confinement on any given day” in the US.” from this source

See also this clip : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RorvRbUWWTE&feature=related