Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Solitary confinement is a crime
SARA CALLAWAY and SAM WEINSTEIN report on the growing movement to end ‘isolation torture’ in British and US prisons
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
STARTING in 2010 a series of work and hunger strikes took place in US prisons involving thousands of prisoners. These actions culminated in 2012 in a historic statement — an Agreement to End Hostilities — issued by men held in long-term solitary in Pelican Bay State Prison.
It reads: “Beginning on October 10 2012, all hostilities between our racial groups…will officially cease… We can no longer allow [the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] to use us against each other for their benefit!”
They urged their families campaigning for them to also cease racial hostility.
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As the US intensifies its economic and political pressure it is now vitally important to demand the British government intervene to end US aggression, writes GEOFF BOTTOMS
Groups are urging the US government to secure the 16-year old’s release as his mental and physical health decline dramatically after nine months inside Ofer prison, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Where normally only the US and its ally Israel vote to strangle Cuba economically, there have been special efforts to slander and isolate the besieged socialist island nation year — so we must redouble our solidarity, writes TARIQ ANDERSON
Mental health fears push Peers to change law on IPP torture sentences, reports Charley Allan