Previous posting
http://groups.google.com/group/National-CW-E-mail-List/browse_thread/thread/599e9858648310cb
Leonard Eiger <subversivepeacemaking@gmail.com>
Mon, May 30, 2011
Important Note
Now Plowshares Blog http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com/ as I
posted brief updates there as I receive any new information to share.
Friends,
This has been, and continues to be, a difficult time for all of us who
know and love Sr. Jackie Hudson. First - Please know that there is an
extraordinary convergence of people, including lawyers and physicians
who are working virtually 24/7 on Jackie's behalf. As of this moment
none of us has had direct contact with Jackie, and so we cannot
confirm her present health status. That having been said, here is
what we know.
Since Sr. Carol Gilbert, who is also at
informed us (on May 29th) of Jackie's severe chest pain and that
nothing was being done for her medical condition, Joe Power-Drutis
immediately set a process in motion to secure her transportation to a
hospital to reserve proper medical care. He contacted everyone
possible, and engaged 2 physicians and 3 attorneys to engage directly
with the prison staff. The prison has been completely uncooperative,
only saying that Jackie "was being taken care of." She is evidently
in the prison medical facility (God only knows what that is like!!!).
At one point there was an indication that Jackie may have been
transported to the local hospital and then returned to the jail.
However, a followup conversation with staff at the local hospital
confirmed that Jackie has not been admitted there, and he staff
indicated that theirs is the only hospital in the area. There is
absolutely no evidence that Jackie has been sent anywhere for proper
medical evaluation.
The prison medical facility, as far as I know, is ill equipped to
evaluate or treat Jackie's possible medical condition and experts
(MDs) agree that based on her presentation to prison medical staff,
she should have been immediately transported to a hospital emergency
facility for a thorough cardiac work-up.
Based on all the information we have received it appears that her
treatment since her chest pain began, even beyond her basic medical
needs, has been substandard and inhumane.
The legal team working on Jackie's behalf includes Bill Quigley, Legal
Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights; Anabel Dwyer, lawyer
and international human rights expert; and Blake Kramer, Tacoma-based
attorney who has been deeply involved in defending the Disarm Now
Plowshares. I understand that the legal team is currently working
every possible angle, and one involves getting the Judge for the Y-12
trial, which was the reason for Jackie's current imprisonment, to
order her release/transport to the hospital.
Another major concern and an egregious disregard for the rule of law
is prison's refusal to allow Jackie's right to legal counsel.
Jackie's court-appointed attorney, Brad Henry, found out at the jail
that the Warden told all the staff at the jail that no information was
to be given out about Jackie, including her appointed council. The
prison is stonewalling every step of the way.
Beyond the obvious moral and ethical implications of the prison's
treatment of Jackie Hudson, it is evident that she is being deprived
of her Constitutional rights as well as essential human rights. This
on top of Jackie's very real status as a Prisoner of Conscience, quite
literally a political prisoner in a nation that flouts both national
law and international humanitarian law and then imprisons those who
follow their conscience and the law to speak and act out to call on
our nation to uphold these laws.
This maltreatment must not stand. The people operating
accountable for their actions. If this is how they treat Jackie,
someone with a broad base of support, I can only imagine the
mistreatment of a vast number of prisoners who have no one to advocate
on their behalf. What of the forgotten???
Besides the work being done by this dedicated group to whom I've
referred, many of you out there are working on Jackie's behalf, and
for this I thank you all! We evidently flooded the prison phone line
with calls, and I have no doubt that this has had an impact. They
know we are watching! I have contacted the ACLU of
them to act on Jackie's behalf. We are working on alerting media
locally(
will also be contacting members of Congress to act on her behalf.
What can you do to help Jackie? For one thing, we can continue to
call, fax and/or email the prison to let them know we are watching and
demand that they send Jackie to the hospital. The phone number is
229-468-4121. You may get a recorded message during some hours. There
is also an email listed
Additional phone numbers
Director of
into a message system, LEAVE A MESSAGE!
Here are some suggested talking points
Sr. Jackie Hudson, who is in your care and for whom you are
responsible, has had intense heart pain, which began Saturday
afternoon. She is being obstinately denied proper medical care. Her
symptoms suggest that she may have one or more occluded coronary
arteries. If this is the case, her heart, as a muscle, will
progressively worsen in the hours and days to come.
Jackie must be taken to an emergency room immediately. The Emergency
Department at the Irwin County Hospital verifies that Sr. Jackie has
not been taken to their hospital, and that there is no other local
hospital to which she might have been taken. They Emergency
Department has been in contact with the ICDC to no avail.
Such treatment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, and if
Sister Jackie is not moved to an emergency room immediately and
suffers any negative medical consequences as a result I will hold
Michael Croft Enterprises, operator of ICDC and in particular Warden
Barbara Walrath and Medical Director Howard C. McMahon personally responsible.
Those supporting Jackie Hudson must have direct access to her and her
physicians so they know her whereabouts, her condition and her
treatment. These people include
Sr. Jackie’s brother; Sister Nathalie Meyer O.P., provincial of the
Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids, Sr. Jackie’s religious order; and
Brad Henry, Jackie's attorney.
Send an email to (or call) any news media contacts you have, or even
if you don't have any you email the newsroom (look them up in the
contacts section of that newspaper's Website).
I understand that the Koinonia Partners community in
As I stay focused on dear Jackie's immediate needs I find myself also
focusing on a much broader issue. Here is a person with so much
support from so many wonderful people. And yet, there is a huge
percentage of the
incarceration rate in the world) for whom there is no support. What
becomes of these forgotten prisoners when they become ill??? We will
take up that issue once we get Jackie taken care of!!!
One last thing before I close; an excerpt from something by Liz
McAllister and Chrissy Nesbitt of the Jonah House community that I
find quite pertinent today
"It is Memorial Day as we write. Meaning no disrespect, but on this
"war heroes' weekend", isn't it time to also honor those who have
"fallen" in a different battle - against the slaughtering wars? It
often takes a different kind of moral and, yes, even physical courage
to resist a war and/or a weapons system that you believe is a crime,
when all your family, friends, teachers and the vast American majority
support them. But what about the Sr. Jackie Hudsons who don't want to
kill people, who don’t believe it is right to build more and more
weapons of mass destruction? They're an odd breed who count among
their number such as Muhammad Ali, Mahatma Gandhi, Sergeant York,
David Hockney, three
medal of honor. What kind of guts does it take for war objectors,
whether they're Quakers, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mennonites or Roman
Catholic, who simply don't want to kill? On this Memorial Day, it
might be a time to think about the outcasts who refuse to take life.
Should Sr. Jackie Hudson be required to give her life in a jail that
displays absolutely no respect for life? Is this what the
That's all for now. In between these emails I am regularly updating
the Disarm Now Plowshares Blog as I hear of anything that you should
know. Please check in at the top of the home page occasionally for
updates. And - Please forward this email far and wide.
Thanks to all who have offered to help in so many ways. As bad as
this all is, Jackie is surrounded by such a wonderful, loving
community, and I can imagine that this knowledge is deeply embedded in
Jackie's heart and mind, and that it is a great comfort to her.
Peace,
Leonard Eiger
Disarm Now Plowshares (Media & Outreach)
http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com
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