<\/p>\n
A political activist<\/span> serving the longest federal prison sentence of any 2020 Black Lives Matter protester was transferred without warning to a detention facility thousands of miles away from their supporters and attorney. <\/p>\n Malik Muhammad\u2019s transfer from the custody of the Oregon Department of Corrections came almost immediately on the heels of a misconduct report about organizing protest activity about their conditions from prison.<\/p>\n The report \u2014 which was obtained by The Intercept and flags conversations that are critical of Israel, the U.S., and the Oregon prison system\u00a0\u2014 and subsequent transfer raise serious concerns about the state of censorship and free speech within the state\u2019s carceral system.\u00a0<\/p>\n In March, Muhammad vanished\u00a0from every inmate tracking system without a trace<\/a>, after missing a scheduled call with their lawyer. Days went by with no word. Inquiries from their attorney were met with vague runarounds from officials.<\/p>\n Muhammad, a veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, spent much of their time in Oregon in and out of solitary confinement. As a result, trouble communicating with Muhammad was not altogether unusual. As the days of silence became weeks, however, fear set in among Muhammad\u2019s loved ones.\u00a0<\/p>\n In April, Muhammad\u2019s partner received a letter saying that Muhammad was alive \u2014 but thousands of miles away at Kirkland Correctional Institution in South Carolina.<\/p>\n \u201cThey want it to be another state\u2019s problem, so they don\u2019t face the same scrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The\u00a0Oregon Department of Corrections, in response to questions from The Intercept\u00a0in May<\/a>, denied that Muhammad, an avowed anarchist and father of one, had been transferred as retaliation for their activism inside the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution.\u00a0Prison system officials said instead that there were \u201cextensive background reasons\u201d for Muhammad\u2019s transfer.<\/p>\n A misconduct report issued in March suggests that Muhammad\u2019s public-facing and internal activism \u2014 particularly on their blog,\u00a0\u201cMalik Speaks!<\/a>\u201d \u2014\u00a0was a major thorn in the side of the Oregon prison system. Other prison write-ups of Muhammad\u2019s activities behind bars described to The Intercept by their attorney took a similar line, focusing on Muhammad\u2019s organizing on their blog and communications with other incarcerated people.<\/p>\n The misconduct report from March details posts from Muhammad\u2019s blog urging their supporters to undertake a coordinated phone and messaging campaign; Muhammad wanted them to write to the prison and to public officials to call for better conditions inside and an end to Muhammad\u2019s solitary confinement.<\/p>\n Oregon corrections officials are \u201cpunishing Malik for their political beliefs, for things that would normally be First Amendment protected and not within the normal scope of exceptions,\u201d said Lauren Regan, director of litigation and advocacy at the Civil Liberties Defense Center and Muhammad\u2019s attorney. Prison systems, she said, \u201chate anarchism and anti-fascism.\u201d<\/p>\n The March misconduct report, which accuses Muhammad of \u201cformulating an impact on the safety and security while promotion of security threat activity,\u201d came only six days before the transfer to South Carolina. (The Oregon Department of Corrections declined to comment on \u201cdisciplinary matters,\u201d citing department policy.)<\/p>\n To Christopher Kuttruff, a friend of Muhammad\u2019s, it all seems like Oregon\u2019s transfer was a ploy to make the publicity around Muhammad\u2019s case into someone else\u2019s issue.<\/p>\n \u201cThey want it to be another state\u2019s problem,\u201d Kuttruff said, \u201cso they don\u2019t face the same scrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As they clutched the wrinkled pages of the misconduct report, Muhammad knew something big was about to happen.<\/p>\n In early March, officials flagged messages where the activist said they \u201chave always been anti-Israel my whole life.\u201d In another message, Muhammad says, \u201cI\u2019m begging for them to do it\u201d \u2014 allegedly in reference to someone bombing the U.S. The messages prompted a further review, according to the misconduct report obtained by The Intercept.<\/p>\n The review turned up a message in which Muhammad called a guard a pig and said they wanted to \u201cbreakkk\u201d their face.\u00a0Muhammad maintains that the messages were spliced out of context and that the face comment was not a threat, but an insult tossed out in frustration.<\/p>\n Muhammad was thrown back into a disciplinary housing unit.<\/p>\n Weeks after their time in the \u201chole,\u201d Muhammad received another misconduct report. This one, however, felt different.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew that was what they were constructing to get me sent out,\u201d they said. \u201cI sent like a hundred letters as soon as I got the DR\u201d \u2014 referring to the disciplinary report.<\/p>\n The three-page report accused Muhammad of engaging in \u201cracketeering,\u201d \u201cunauthorized transfer\u201d of digital currency, \u201cunauthorized organization,\u201d and \u201cunauthorized use of info systems.\u201d All the allegations were related to Muhammad\u2019s blog, which they maintain with the help of their supporters and use to organize advocacy around their case and raise funds for their commissary account.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew that was what they were constructing to get me sent out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cEvidence supports that AIC Muhammad utilizes his visitor [redacted] to actively maintain a blog on his behalf while he is incarcerated,\u201d a prison official wrote, referring to Muhammad, who uses they\/them pronouns, as an \u201cAdult in Custody.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHis blog website,\u201d the misconduct report says, \u201cfocuses on an organized grouping of individuals that support AIC Muhammad in his beliefs, using visual, written, and recorded readings from AIC Muhammad. These items contain his propaganda messages and are dispersed in a social seeding manner through his visitor(s) through his blog.\u201d<\/p>\n The report says Muhammad had broken Oregon administrative rules on \u201cunauthorized use of info systems\u201d by allowing a recording from a prison call system to be transcribed and uploaded to their blog.<\/p>\n Another conclusion was more consequential: Citing writings on Muhammad\u2019s blog, officials claimed that the protest organizing and political activity was having \u201can impact on the safety and security\u201d of the facility. The report cited Muhammad\u2019s encouragement of the phone campaigns and other activities related to the blog, such as purchasing left-leaning reading materials for other incarcerated people.<\/p>\n Conor Fitzpatrick, an attorney who has litigated prison free-speech cases and is today with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said that speaking out on conditions inside of prison<\/a> is generally First Amendment-protected speech. Officials can\u2019t curtail speech to the outside by exempting complaints from inside about prisoners\u2019 incarceration.<\/p>\n \u201cIf an inmate,\u201d said Fitzpatrick, \u201cis sending a letter or posting online peacefully making their views known about, \u2018Hey, here\u2019s what\u2019s going on inside the facility. If you think this is wrong, I suggest writing your congressman or writing the facility, and asking that something be done to fix this\u2019 \u2014 to me, that strikes me as something that ought to be protected by the First Amendment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Behind bars, though, it\u2019s not always that simple. A chasm lies between what should fall under First Amendment protections in prison and what does in practice.<\/p>\n\n
In the Hole<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n