Robert Seth Hayes is a former member of the Black Panther Party and a US Political Prisoner who has been locked up for over 32 years. Recently he has been facing increased harassment from prison guards as a result of his political beliefs, and his cell has been raided and political and personal materials confiscated without cause.

A phone interview with Seth outlining the situation is available
on-line at http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=20492. Please check it out if you can. An official letter of complaint from Seth to the prison superintendent is reproduced verbatim below, and we encourage you to read it and then write your own letter to Superintendent Kirkpatrick asking him to put a stop to the harassment that Seth has been facing.

In brief, the issue around the harassment by the prison guards has to do with the fact that while he was walking through the prison, Seth was stopped and harassed for having material printed from the Internet. Later that same day he came back to his cell to find that it had been ransacked by prison authorities and that important personal information including contact lists and private mail had been removed. Also taken were this and last years' political prisoner calendars. Seth notes that former Black Panther Party member and political prisoner Russell Maroon Shoats, has also been recently targeted as a "terrorist" by prison authorities in a different prison and that they removed all of his personal effects from his cell, claiming that due to their political content they could be considered "terrorist".

Seth is concerned that something similar might be going on in his case, although it is also possible that it is just certain individuals going on a power trip within the prison. In either case, we urge you to write a letter of support for Seth asking the prison superintendent to look into this matter.

If you require more information please email info@sethhayes.org or check out http://www.sethhayes.org.

Please write a letter supporting Seth's demands for fair treatment to:

Superintendent Robert Kirkpatrick
Wende Corr. Facility
3040 Wende Rd, Alden,
New York 14004, USA

Please also mail or fax a copy of your correspondence to Seth's lawyer:

Susan Tipograph
Attorney At Law
350 Broadway
New York, NY
10013
fax (212) 625-3939

You can reach Seth by mail at:

Robert “Seth” Hayes
#74A2280, Wende Corr. Facility
P.O. Box 1187, Alden, NY
14004-1187, USA

He is always happy to hear from friends and comrades...