Jan6: The American Gulag

[grarpamp]

Reports of Human Rights Violations against Jan6 political
prisoners over the last couple months.

The US intends to imprison Assange in this system...



Jan. 6 Defendants Taken Out Of Cells On Stretchers: Court Filing

https://www.theepochtimes.com/jan-6-defendants-taken-out-of-cells-on-stretchers-court-filing_4102264.html
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21103797-filing-in-usa-v-meggs
https://twitter.com/julie_kelly2/status/1458870639775961088
https://www.theepochtimes.com/judge-orders-release-of-jan-6-detainee-because-of-problems-at-dc-jail_4087967.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/rep-greene-gains-entry-to-dc-jail-holding-jan-6-defendants_4088627.html


Multiple Jan. 6 defendants were taken out of their cells on stretchers
on Thursday, according to a court filing.

The situation started when one of the defendants refused to wear a
mask, family members of Kelly Meggs, who is being held in the D.C.
Jail, told Meggs lawyer.

Prison guards began spraying a chemical substance described as “some
kind of mace or pepper spray, according to a filing in federal court.

    “They sprayed mace or some type of gas at an inmate and kept
missing so it went into an intake that fed into other cells and the
lady with the key left because she didn’t like the gas, so the inmates
in the cells who were being fed the gas from that intake were locked
in for like 15 minutes while it was going into their rooms and they
couldn’t see/breathe,” the family told Jonathon Moseley, the lawyer.

More than one of the defendants was taken out on stretchers to medical bays.

Julie Kelly, a writer for the American Greatness, reported on
Wednesday that prison guards filled an area of the jail with chemical
spray and three detainees had to be taken out on stretchers.

Moseley and the D.C. Department of Corrections did not respond to
requests for comment.

The lawyer said his client was not in one of the cells that the gas
was cycled into by the ventilation system. He urged the court to
explore with the Bureau of Prisons and Congress whether any federal
funds are already or can be allocated to repair and upgrade the D.C.
Jail facilities.

Neither prosecutors nor the judge has yet responded to the filing.

The jail has been under heightened scrutiny in recent months due to
its holding of dozens of people accused of participating in the breach
of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

One defendant, Christopher Worrell, was released from pretrial custody
last week because U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth became troubled
by the lack of proper medical care he received from the jail.

The U.S. Marshals Service showed up unannounced at the facilities in
mid-October. Officials deemed the part holding Jan. 6 detainees
suitable but found conditions in another part that “do not meet the
minimum standards of confinement,” the agency said in a recent
statement.

Lamont Ruffin, the acting U.S. Marshal for Washington, told Quincy
Booth, director of the D.C. Department of Corrections, in a letter
that he personally went to the jail and saw “evidence of systemic
failures.”

Prison guards routinely shut off water to cells as punishment and
multiple cells had “large amounts of standing human sewage (urine and
feces) in the toilets,” inspectors found. Additionally, guards were
observed antagonizing detainees and hot meals were observed being
served “cold and congealed.”

Jail officials were ordered to transfer around 400 detainees, or 36
percent of the inmates in the Central Treatment Facility, one of the
facilities that makes up the D.C. Jail, to a prison in another state.

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas),
after months of attempts, were able to tour the facilities last week.
Greene said she witnessed terrible conditions, including Jan. 6
detainees receiving “very poor food” and “virtually no medical care.”

    “I want to be very clear that we will deal with those deficiencies
so that we have a safe jail until such time that the District is able
to build a new one,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat who
helped the members secure access, told The Epoch Times in an email.

Avis Buchanan, director of the Public Defender Service for the
District of Columbia, said in a statement it has called out the
treatment of detainees at the D.C. Jail for years.

    “The inhumane conditions have included long-term solitary
confinement for people with no disciplinary issues, lack of running
water, full illumination of cells for 24-hours per day resulting in
sleep deprivation, cells soiled with feces and blood, lack of air
conditioning during the summer, and heat during the winter, lack of
proper medical care, failure to provide mental health treatment, and
physical and mental abuse by correctional officers of people in their
custody,” Buchanan said.

Councilman Charles Allen, the Democrat chairman of the D.C. City
Council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, described the
situation as “a crisis” during a remote hearing this week.

    “I do not use that term lightly. The District of Columbia has a
moral and constitutional duty to provide humane and dignified
conditions of confinement and to do so immediately. And that’s not
happening here,” he added.

D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, a Democrat, acknowledged during the
hearing that concerns about the conditions in the jail “received
little attention until they were raised, of course, by mostly white
defendants accused of perpetrating the Jan. 6” breach, adding, “That’s
not because people weren’t complaining.”

Chris Geldart, a deputy mayor, told councilmembers that there are
“systemic issues” at the jail and the issues raised by U.S. Marshals
were being addressed, but also claimed that the problems were “not so
pervasive that [the jail] has become uninhabitable.”

Geldart also confirmed that Marshals were blocked from re-entering the
facilities about a week after the inspection, pinning the decision on
the warden.

The D.C. Department of Corrections and the U.S. Marshals Service on
Nov. 10 entered into a memorandum of understanding that outlines plans
to improve conditions at the jail. Each party is forbidden from
issuing press releases or speaking to the media about the agreement
without consent from the other party.