Prisoners Justice Day 2015

August 10, 2015 - 2:00pm - 6:00pm
Jack Purcell Community Centre, Room 101
320 Jack Purcell Lane (off Elgin Street), Ottawa
RSVP on Facebook

This will be an afternoon of solidarity with the criminalized and imprisoned.

From 2:00pm to 4:00pm:

• Express your unity with prisoners and resistance to state repression
• Access resources from community-based groups that work with criminalized persons
• Participate in healing arts projects in a safe space

From 4:00pm-6:00pm:

• March against deaths in custody and other human rights attrocities behind bars - starts outside Jack Purcell Community Centre;
• Vigils at the office of Ottawa-Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi and on Parliament Hill;
• Ends at the Human Rights Monument

Prisoners’ Justice Day (PJD) emerged as a prisoner-initiated day of non-violent strike action to commemorate the death of Eddie Nalon in the segregation unit of Millhaven maximum-security penitentiary on August 10th 1974. It was first observed in 1975. In 1976, the prisoners of Millhaven issued a communication “To All Prisoners and Concerned Peoples from across Canada”, calling for one-day hunger strikes in opposition to the use of solitary confinement and in support of prisoners’ rights, in memory of Eddie Nalon, as well as Robert Landers, who also died alone in ‘the hole’. Since that time, PJD has become an internationally-recognized day of solidarity and action, both inside and outside the prison, to commemorate deaths in custody and reflect upon other human rights atrocities behind bars.