“On Saturday, January 10th 2015 Phil Africa, revolutionary, John Africa’s First Minister of Defense, and beloved brother, husband and father, passed away under suspicious circumstances at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas, PA. On Sunday, January 4th Phil Africa wasn’t feeling well and went to the prison infirmary. Though he wasn’t feeling well, other inmates saw Phil Africa walking, stretching and doing jumping jacks. Hearing that Phil was in the infirmary MOVE members drove up to visit him and were denied a visit by the prison. While they were visiting with Delbert Africa, Phil was secretly transported to Wilkes Barre General Hospital where he was held in total isolation, incommunicado for five days.”
from OnAMOVE.com’s statement on the death of Phil Africa. More can be found by following that link.
This week, The Final Straw spoke with Kevin Price about the medical emergency that William Phil Africa of the MOVE9 was undergoing and lack of transparency on the part of his captors at SCI-Dallas in Pennsylvania. Phil Africa was suffering from diarrhea and vomiting and his supporters and family were not being clearly communicated with in terms of his whereabouts or his state of well-being for days on end. Phil was moved to Wilkes Barr General Hospital and his supporters were told he wasn’t there for days until public pressure on the prison officials and hospital employees forced them to acknowledge his presence there. Arguing HIPPA, they refused to comment on his status or allow him to call his wife (Janine of the MOVE9) or the MOVE organization until enough calls and twitter pressure occurred that Janine was allowed to speak with Phil on Thursday. This conversation was recorded on Saturday, January 10th 2015.
Just before The Final Straw airtime (January 11th, 2015), we caught wind of the news that Phil had died. Our sympathies go out to his supporters and loved ones.
We’re deciding to air a slightly modified version of this episode for a few reasons. Though this effort won’t bring attention to help save Phil’s life from the horrors of prison, it stands as a testament to his work and that of the other defendants in the MOVE9 case. It discusses the corruptions of the police, prisons and courts (particularly in PA in this case) and the struggles and injuries suffered by the MOVE organization over the years. The fact of Phil’s death brings extra weight to the argument that prisons kill, that imprisonment is a political punishment, that aging prisoners have special needs that prisons (even if they were to work “humanely”) don’t have the infrastructure and don’t function to sustain the healthful life of prisoners, particularly those who’re aging and have special needs. This is, among many others, a case of Medical Injustice, torture and murder.
Firstly, though we announce that Eric McDavid, long time anarchist prisoner of the Green Scare in the U.S. has been released after 9 years in prison. His petitioning of the courts and activists on the outside have revealed information that the prosecution denied him information that may have exonerated him of his accused “crimes”. More info at http://supporteric.org/eric-is-free/
Also on this episode, we feature audio from Črna Luknja (Black Hole), an anarchist radio show from Slovenia and airing on Student Radio in which they speak to “P” in Barcelona, Spain, about the recent series of raids and repressions against anarchists around that country. The raids and repression has been dubbed Operation Pandora and has ostensibly centered around the publication of a book entitled “Contra la Democracia” (Against Democracy), which breaks an arcane law against the current order which remains on the law books from the era of Francisco Franco’s dictadura. https://efectopandora.wordpress.com/category/english/
More from Black Hole at: http://radiostudent.si/dru%C5%BEba/%C4%8Drna-luknja/
Finally, we air audio from A-Radio Berlin. In this segment, A-Radio interviews a member of Belarus Anarchist Black Cross about current situations for radicals and refugees in Belarus, Ukraine, & Russia, as well as how those ABC’s work together. More from A-Radio at http://aradio.blogsport.de
