Pennsylvania prison system threatens to ban Workers World newspaper for reporting on Florida prison strike
By Joe Piette
The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections is threatening to censor Workers World newspaper from being read by over 300 prisoners in the state system.
The immediate reason given in the DOC’s Jan. 29 letter is that “information contained on pages 1 and 6 calls for action that may advocate criminal activity within the correctional facility.” The title of the offending article by J. White in the Jan. 18 Workers World issue was “Fla. prisoners launch strike against slave labor.”
Four issues of WW were denied to Pennsylvania prisoners in 2017. This time, the DOC is escalating its threat by planning to ban all issues of Workers World to all prisoners.
The DOC was forced to overturn its decision to ban the Aug. 31, 2017, issue of WW after a social media and press campaign urged readers to send letters and make phone calls to the DOC.
WW urges all readers, activists, writers and reporters to send complaints to Department of Corrections, 1920 Technology Parkway, Mechanicsburg, PA 17050, as well as 717-728-2573 and [email protected].
