cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/63872574
Daniel “Des” Sanchez Estrada is set to be tried starting Tuesday on charges of corruptly concealing a document or record and conspiracy to conceal documents. He’s been in custody since July… He and his codefendants were recently transferred to county jail to await trial. Supporters report that they’ve been placed in solitary confinement and are dealing with other horrid conditions.
In plain language, Sanchez Estrada is facing up to 20 years behind bars for allegedly moving a box of anarchist zines from his parents’ house to another residence in his hometown of Dallas. His indictment came on the heels of Trump’s signing an executive order to classify “Antifa” as a “domestic terrorist organization” and issuing National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) on Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.
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Once possessing literature is considered criminal, it opens the door to corollary charges, like transporting literature to conceal evidence or the “offense” of possessing it. That’s what happened to Sanchez Estrada. What other crime could the magazines have incriminated Rueda of?
Last month, activist Lucy Fowlkes became the 19th person indicted in connection with the same Texas protest. Fowlkes’s alleged crime is using Signal, the encrypted messaging app made famous by Pete Hegseth, telling people how to delete messages, and removing people from group chats, which government lawyers argue amounts to “hinder[ing] prosecution of terrorism,” a first-degree felony.
A prison volunteer also gave him a copy of a document titled “Warrior Society” that included a code of ethics that required Native Americans to serve the people, be honorable, kind, and not steal or be stingy. A prison guard searched his cell one day in 2005, and confiscated the AIM notes, along with the “Warrior Society” document. Both were classified as “written contraband.” Greybuffalo was written a disciplinary case and sentenced to 180 days in solitary confinement. The disciplinary charge was upheld in part by a federal district court in 2010.
Always worth reminding people that “solitary confinement” is recognized as a form of torture under international human rights law.
Not that the US has ever been opposed to torturing suspects or inmates as a form of punishment. But it bares repeating.
As Oliver detailed on “Ear Hustle,” the award-winning podcast created and produced from San Quentin State Prison, he came back to officers swarming his cell, which they had yellow-taped off like a real crime scene. Oliver was handcuffed and held in solitary confinement for the next eight years in California. His only offense was “possessing illegal contraband,” which also made him ineligible for new sentence under a 2012 California law easing life sentences on nonviolent “three strikes” convictions. (Oliver was finally freed in 2019 after serving 23 years.)
when the red road becomes contraband, shit is gong bad
Warrior Society is basically native talk for the older ways of walking through life avoiding the black path and staying in the red road
[whispering]: they’re trying to build a prison
For you and me to live in 🥰🥰
Fuck, this is bleak.
Yeah… we’re not just voting our way out of this. Violence is coming before the midterms, and I’ve never been this scared for our future.
