We ask you to take this crucial action right now. It is urgent please call into the Westfield Correctional Facility they have turned off Ekon Eshiet’s water again: 219-785-2511 press * then 6 to speak to an operator. Please say turn the water back on in his cell B4-202 (Peach Range).
It’s been one year since Ekong Eshiet and his cellmate Trayvon Brown set fire to the lower half of their bodies at the Red Onion State Prison in Wise County, Virgina.
Joined by over a dozen Black men who were faced with conditions of degradation, racial taunts, and daily human rights abuses, self-immolation seemed like the only way out of this isolated Western Virginia Supermax facility. If only a temporary reprieve for medical recovery.
“When Fire is The only Way Out” Click here to read INQUEST article
These men, with serious burn wounds, were taunted and left untreated for days, then, with infection setting in they were transported 7 hrs. to Richmond to burn centers, where they underwent emergency surgery.
Upon their return to Red Onion the protesting prisoners have faced torture from guards: physical assaults, tear gas, ghost trays and starvation, death threats, medical neglect, and tampering with food. This is taking place in extreme isolation, literally no calls, no tablets, and no ability to communicate with the outside world.
Three of the most outspoken individuals – Demetrius Wallace, Ekong Eshiet, and whistleblower Kevin “Rashid” Johnson who reported these immolations to the outside world – have been transferred to prisons hundreds of miles away. Demetrius was sent to a Maine. Ekong to Westville Correctional Facility in Indiana where he faces solitary confinement, spending 23 to 24 hours a day in a tiny cell and is being denied mental health care.
CALL TO ACTION: DEMAND EKONG ESHIET’S RELEASE FROM SOLITARY Ekong’s picture is below
In retaliation for his courageous and bold reporting, Rashid has been transferred to Perry Correctional Facility in South Carolina. Held in the Restrictive Housing Unit he is forced to sleep on a concrete slab without any form of bedding, denied hygiene materials, books, his legal documents and fed woefully inadequate meals. Cut off from communicating with the outside and allowed only two letters a month, Rashid has a respiratory infection and a dangerous dental abscess that requires medical care. All this on top of the denial of adequate care and monitoring of his prostate cancer.
| Meanwhile, the abuses at Red Onion have not abated. The independent investigation that was promised by the Office of the State Inspector General (OSIG) in December 2024 has yet to materialize. The prison administration was allowed to form its own investigation team which reported back to the OSIG that there was “no staff misconduct.” Human rights violations are the norm at Red Onion but one thing is clear: your voice can be a powerful tool. Making phone calls, submitting formal complaints, writing to officials and representatives and holding the government oversight board accountable, extending solidarity to the impacted populations, keeping this facility and the appalling treatment of the people in the public light are all things we can do right now. Shout out to Uproar Action Network, Team Ekong, VA Coalition on Solitary Confinement and The Virginia Defender for their consistent advocacy and support work. CLICK HERE TO READ THE EXTENDED VERSION OF THIS REPORT Donate now to stand with us, and help us continue this critical work. |
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