THIS IS HOW THE PRISON IS ESCALATING
For over a week, Malik Muhammed effectively vanished inside the prison system. No answers. No confirmation. Just a string of contradictions from the Oregon Department of Corrections and affiliated facilities, claims that they were “at court,” moved to a “confidential location,” or simply no longer there. (…)
Malik was only located after they were able to send a letter. They are now being held nearly 3,000 miles away at the Kirkland Reception and Evaluation Center, an intake facility inside South Carolina’s prison system.
Moving someone from one state prison system to another across the country is rare. Doing so while refusing to disclose their location, and cutting them off from legal counsel and community support, signals something else entirely: escalation.
Alissa Azar, April 7th, 2026
WHO IS MALIK MUHAMMED?
Malik Muhammed is a Queer, Black, and Palestinian Radical Anarchist from Chicago, Illinois. They have a beautiful son and family back home in the midwest.
Their first memory of rebellion was refusing to stand for, or say, the pledge of allegiance; their first protest was after the murder of Trayvon Martin.
They travelled across the country, ending up in portland, oregon. Malik was one of many Black Anarchists part of the 2020 popular uprising, organizing and fighting ameriKKKan oppression. When local and national militias attacked, Malik allegedly resisted using DIY munitions.
"I believe it was a week or so before George Floyd was murdered, and a kid named Dreasjon Reed in Indianapolis was shot dead by some pigs... Then I saw the video of George Floyd, and I heard that 'I can't breathe' again... I was literally hearing it again... it was so visceral, because that was a situation I was in, being choked to death and beaten by pigs... I knew that I needed to do something."
Malik Muhammed, August 17, 2025.
They were subsequently taken political prisoner in an act of repression, violently isolating them from the movement and society both through imprisonment and state propaganda.
Originally, ameriKKKan prosecutors told Malik's legal team that their case would remain in oregon state, but Biden’s Attorney General, Merrick Garland, urged the federal government to bring Malik's case to the federal level to set an example across ameriKKKa.
Neo-liberal media quickly followed suit, painting Malik as an outsider and alienating them from others in the uprising, despite the fact that they were resisting their own oppression.
They were charged on both the state and federal level with two 10 year sentences, to be served concurrently, the longest of any political prisoner captured during the 2020 uprisings.
"They wanted to appear as hard on left-wing extremists as they were on right-wing extremists… And it's interesting, because now all those January 6 rioters are free."
Malik Muhammed, August 17, 2025.
After incarcerating them, the ameriKKKan prison system has continuously transferred Malik and thrown them in the hole, numerous times. Malik spent most of 2025 in solitary confinement at snake river "corrections" Institution (SRCI) before being trafficked to eastern Oregon "corrections" Institution (EOCI).
Just as the prison violently isolates people from society, the prison isolates prisoners from each other through solitary confinement, also known as the hole. Solitary is a torture practice. Prolonged sensory deprivation, social isolation, and restricted movement, like prison, is disabling. It is a severe form of psychological and physical abuse.
It's also a huge part of the prison's systematic repression. By intentionally isolating political prisoners, the prison makes it harder for those who have organizing skills to share them, while also deteriorating mentally and physically under constant torture.
"Investigations can keep you in the hole for 180 days, like I said, without even a charge. Then even when you’re in IMU, that 180-day minimum can go up to 36 months and indefinite if they just 'don’t know what to do with you.’"
Malik Muhammed, August 17, 2025.
Cover art of "Blood in my Eye”, and “Open Veins of Latin America"
On March 2nd, 2026, eastern oregon "correctional" institution declared Malik a security threat and threw them in solitary confinement after they publicized EOCI's anti-Muslim abuse and neglect during Ramadan.
They were accused of racketeering for inviting fellow prisoners to study political books: Blood in My Eye by George Jackson, and Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano. There is no other way to put it: this scared ODOC.
ODOC created a fictitious reason to put me in the hole, then created an in-house RICO charge because the other wouldn't stick. They painted the blog and fundraiser as racketeering and spreading propaganda. The DR [disciplinary report] (I wish I still had it) was as ridiculous as the RICO charge on the Stop Cop City siblings. They wrote it in such a way to convince their superiors I was a threat to be sent away.
Malik Muhammed, April 22nd 2026
The ameriKKKan prison system subsequently interstate compact transferred them 2,500 miles to south carolina on March 30th, 2026, to:
- Isolate them from their support network, inside and out.
- Weaken avenues for pressure campaigns.
- Deter Malik and other organizers through systematic censorship and fear.
south carolina is an ameriKKKan legal jurisdiction purpose-built to work against the incarcerated members of our movement. It has especially strict rules on visitation and communications. south carolina is rare in that it maintains that prisoners “lose the privilege of speaking to the news media when they enter south carolina department of ‘corrections.’"
This means Malik faces a more brutal, systematic censorship in south carolina.
It is harder to reach them 1:1, and with surveillance, even if press reaches out anyways, the lines will likely be cut, which creates a further layer of surveillance while they navigate a completely new terrain.
The intake process at the kirkland facility has been one of blatant torture. kirkland reception center forcibly cut Malik's locs off to further force assimilation, and gave them nowhere to sleep but the hard floor of a freezing, crowded cell.
This is what repression looks like. ameriKKKa understands that messages from our prisoners are historically necessary for political movements. The empire slows our movements down first by taking our comrades from the streets, dwindling our numbers and isolating the bravest of us as outliers, and again by taking the most important voices from popular discourse.
oregon chose now, after all their state sanctioned violence did not break me, to make me the problem of another DOC, and to attempt to sever the ties and connections forged in the crucible
of revolutionary love and struggle.
Malik Muhammed, April 22nd 2026
This is how the system tries to stop political prisoners from fighting, sever them entirely from our struggle, and silence all prisoners from speaking out against systematic torture.
This is the same system that is already strangling our comrade, tightening its grip.
TIMELINE
Ramadan begins, February 18th, 2026, and well past dawn, EOCI serves Muslim prisoners rotten food. When prisoners speak out, the kitchen coordinator retaliates by cutting necessary nutrients from meals.
For a few weeks, Malik had been studying political books with fellow prisoners.
On February 20th, Malik publicizes EOCI's abuses and demands edible food and dignity for Muslim prisoners.
On March 2nd, to punish for publicizing the abuse they endured, EOCI throws Malik in solitary confinement and puts them on "Security Threat Management" and “Loss of Privileges" (STM LOP). This means:
- No phone calls
- No visits
- No receiving letters
- No access to their belongings
- No access to commissary (can't buy themselves supplies or food)
- No out-of-cell time
- No attending programs offered by the prison
On March 11th, Malik is brought to a hearing where they are told (for the first time) they are on day nine of serving a 14-day sanction, and they will be released from solitary after.
On March 16th, EOCI does not release Malik from solitary, instead they are on an “STM-hold.” This supposedly means they will be held indefinitely, without recourse. Lieutenant Richmond of the "STM unit" will meet with Malik the next day to discuss.
On March 17th, no meeting occurs. They're left completely in the dark.
On March 18th, the prison keeps Malik in solitary during Eid, so they miss the celebration with their fellow prisoners.
March 20th: Malik is finally allowed a phone call. EOCI superintendent, David Pedro, sits in the room for the entire conversation. He also limits Malik's access to literature to two zines and two books at a time, and informs them that they are banned from their studies with other prisoners. Malik will not be allowed any more calls before they are trafficked.
On March 23rd, oregon department of “corrections” officers (COs) tell Malik that the STM unit "doesn't want them to have anything."
On March 25th, Malik writes to friends and family, requesting press interviews, urging the public to support them and other prisoners enduring ODOC's abuse.
On March 27th, Malik begins a hunger strike (with no access to their support team). They put a sign in their window to say they don't want food trays. Friends and family travel to see Malik, but the prison denies visitation.ODOC blocks one person from speaking to Malik entirely.
On March 30th, Malik vanishes from ODOC records. Their whereabouts and status are hidden from their friends, family, and legal team. Friends and family search tirelessly for them, calling numerous government agencies. No answers.
April 2nd. Local independent journalism collective, We Will Free Us, calls various ODOC offices. No answers.
April 6th, Malik's name reappears at midnight, on a SCDOC registry. Later, friends and family receive a letter from columbia, south carolina. In it, Malik details horrific abuse: their locs cut off, forced to sleep on the cold, concrete floor of a packed cell, and thousands of dollars in debt to the prison system.
On April 13th, a local lawyer is denied attempting to visit Malik.
"No one gets sent FROM oregon to south carolina, one of the most dangerous DOC's in this fascist carceral state. The Lee County Riots saw twenty one dead, forty five injured. This prison system has one of the worst overcrowding in the country. The intake and — reception process takes up to 180 days I’ve — heard people be here longer because they don’t have any bed space. They get bed space when someone is killed."
Malik Muhammed, April 22nd 2026
INTERSTATE COMPACT
When they were initially fighting their case, Malik was frequently shuffled all over between federal facilities and county jails to coerce them into accepting a deal. This is known amongst prisoners as a federal bureau of prisons practice known as “diesel therapy,” an ironic name for a torture practice.
"The county jail sucks, every single one imagine prison guards who think they're cops and heroes and better than you, and multiply that by 10,000, give 'em badges, guns, deputize them and tell — themselves they're better than everyone plus, worse living conditions. With an overworked, underpaid litigator, you're likely to speak with them once a month."
Malik Muhammed, April 7, 2024.
The prison coerced them into remaining in oregon to stop the torture. This is why Malik was recently trafficked under the authority of the Interstate Compact, instead of the bureau of prisons, even though they have federal charges.
Transfers, arrests, and investigations triggered by the compact's rules are also executed by local and state law enforcement agencies, just like fed bop diesel therapy. All institutionalized militias founded in slave-catching and enforcing capital interests.
The interstate compact for "adult offender" supervision (ICAOS) was enacted in 2002, a binding contract between ameriKKKan states and territories to ensure that when prisoners cross jurisdictional lines, they are surveilled the entire time. The ICAOS commission was created at the same time to oversee transfers and prisoner movement between state facilities, and enforce the compact with sanctions if needed.
The commission is essentially a federal bureau that has the ability to write and pass laws that supersede all lower jurisdictions, since "the agreement created a compact that must be construed as federal law." The commission also runs a data base surveilling the movement of incarcerated people across state lines called ICOTS.
In 2025 alone, the commission passed 19 new amendments. The 2025 amendments sped up transfer procedures, strengthening the commission’s rule making and enforcement powers. Transfers are even faster, and harder to contest.
In an ICAOS training video, Suzanne Brooks, Education and Implementation Manager for the National Office, says that these new amendments make transfers and interstate surveillance "a lot easier and cleaner, especially when you're dealing with your external stakeholders that are involved in this process."
The ICAOS commission can be pointed at to articulate why revolutionaries reject ameriKKKan electoralism at any level; local governments are fronts for mythic ameriKKKan democracy, legitimizing fascism while serving as active oppressors and overseers.
What this illustrates is that “small” governments across ameriKKKa each have their own rules, their own front end, with government agencies and abuse hotlines presented to the people as the “proper” method of challenging injustice.
When we are forcibly taken across jurisdictions by the state, we are expected to learn the new rules, follow them, and adapt to new jurisdictions by retaining new legal counsel if necessary, all while incarcerated and cut off from the outside world.
While this happens, ameriKKKan jurisdictions are connected through one, unified back end, where they can simply pluck our comrades and place them in more surveilled areas, purpose-built for repression.
This shows how Malik's transfer to south carolina, and transfers in general are not merely an act of retaliation, in which one government sends them to a more repressive one as a punishment for speaking up, but an escalation from a unified fascist system of repression that can quickly mobilize against people they deem political threats.
This shows how the empire uses political prisoners as perpetual examples to ensure they remain isolated; The state did not stop using Malik as an example after incarcerating them, just as Malik did not stop being a part of our movement. This shows us the dual nature of repression: Every act of repression aims to set an example, meaning that every act of repression is a threat of future violence.
When the state escalates against our comrades inside, it's flashing its guns at all of us. It’s threatening all of us.
We prove to the state that these threats work, every day the prison is left standing.
PATTERN OF ESCALATION
Malik’s transfer wasn’t an anomaly, but the state follow through on its many threats.
Over a year ago, Rashid Johnson was also interstate transferred, "interstate compacted", to south carolina after he exposed the virginia prison crisis: a wave of self-immolations protesting the systemic torture, retaliation, starvation, and severe medical neglect at virginia’s two supermax prisons, red onion and wallens ridge.
Rashid's hands and feet were shackled as south carolina "corrections" officers trafficked him across state lines from red onion—in the back of an empty steel van, with no seats or seatbelts.
The pigs severely injured Rashid's leg, by driving erratically at high speeds and throwing him against the van's steel walls.
"At every turn I’ve suffered abuse and blatant attempts on my life."
Rashid Johnson, Dec 28th 2025
He was kept at Kirkland reception center for a day, before being transferred again to Perry "corrections" Institution in South Carolina. He was immediately thrown in conditions of solitary confinement that he describes as "downright medieval."
The cement cell, with no bed, was coated with an insecticide meant for outdoor use only. Inhaling poisoned air, Rashid developed a severe respiratory infection that had to be medically treated. When he requested a bed to sleep on, pigs brought one that reeked of human feces.
Rashid later developed a tooth infection that the prison refused to treat, leaving him to both coordinate private dental care and pay for it out of pocket to avoid septic shock.
Multiple prisoners who engaged in acts of protest or reveal abuse to the public were systematically tortured and silenced through the interstate compact. Ekong Eshiet and Demetrius Wallace are two prisoners among at least six who set themselves on fire in protest of the horrific conditions at red onion and had to be treated for third degree burns, with Demetrius needing a 14-day hospitalization and a skin graft. Both, like Rashid, exposed the virginia prison crisis by getting personal testimony out of the prison walls and were transferred to indiana and maine afterword. Describing the racialized torture at red onion, Ekong said,
"I don’t mind setting myself on fire again...
This time, I would set my whole body on fire before I have to stay [in solitary confinement] and do the rest of my time up here.”
Ekong Eshiet, January 15th 2025
In early 2025 Ekong was taken from virginia to indiana and was thrown in long term solitary confinement, further mental and physical torture meant to silence, or kill him.
UPROAR (Uniting prisoners’ Relatives, Organizing Against Repression) was founded in direct response to the virginia prison crisis, and after they organized a public pressure campaign he was transferred back to virginia in February of 2026.
Once prisoners learn they are getting transferred, they know they will be completely cut off from the outside world for an undisclosed amount of time. This includes losing access to legal counsel while in transit, and often during intake at the second location.
This is less to prevent lawsuits or prisoners' access to legal channels, as the prison is not very scared of the "justice" system. What this does is ensure all communication avenues including legal counsel are shut down, so that prisoners cannot get information to the public through their lawyers if they lose access to their support team.
When prison system shuts down legal or "proper" channels, it communicates to us that repression and oppression are the primary objectives, more so than maintaining the façade of a rules based order. The prison cares more about controlling the oppressed than they do about giving themselves permission to control the oppressed. We witnessed this in how the prison escalated further in the wake of the virginia prison crisis.
In other words, it isn’t the prison or police that keep up the lie that they each generate peace rather than oppressive colonial violence: it is the settlers who legitimize it as necessary for peace, that maintain the façade. In that way, settlers are a prison.
We also witnessed this dynamic on full display when immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) targeted Palestinian people after the Student Intifada.
ICE targeted Leqaa after a protest against columbia university's support for the zionist settler-colony; The zionist entity has murdered over 200 members of her family as it continues its genocidal bombardment of Gaza.
The New York police department provided ICE with Leqaa’s information.
She was abducted and then taken 1,500 miles from her home in new jersey to ICE's Prairieland migrant prison camp in Texas. The facility like most prisons is intentionally overcrowded, and known for medical neglect, and unsanitary facilities.
Leqaa, like Malik, was trafficked to separate her from her support network and family, and to a different jurisdiction with anti-immigration judges.
In February, Leqaa suffered a seizure.
She was hospitalized for three days, in shackles the whole time, while ICE denied her family proof of life and withheld her whereabouts from her lawyer. Doctors confirmed her seizure was from malnutrition, sleep deprivation, and stress. The meals at migrant prison camps, like prisons, lack necessary nutrients; and Leqaa, like Rashid and Malik, was made to sleep on concrete floors.
When she stabilized, ICE took her back to detention. At her third bond hearing, her lawyer pleaded with the court that if she wasn't released, she would likely die.
"Twice now, an immigration judge has ordered Leqaa’s release on bond. And twice, the government has overruled its own judges, exploiting a rarely used provision to keep her confined."
Update from Leqaa’s fundraiser prior to her release.
She spent over a year, also sleeping on cold hard floors, denied proper food, and was prevented from practicing her faith. She spent a second Ramadan enduring ICE torture, finally released on March 16th, 2026, shortly before Eid.
AMERIKKKA HAS 6-7 MILLION PEOPLE UNDER PRISON SURVEILLANCE: IN MIGRANT CAMPS, PRISONS, JAILS, PROBATION AND PAROLE.
Trafficking is a strategy ameriKKKa has long used to subjugate Black and Brown people. The trafficking of Leqaa, Rashid, Malik and so many others show how this is not a colonial legacy but a practice that never retired.
Many speak out against the Trump administration; they often do not speak out against ameriKKKa, nevertheless support the actions needed to bring down the settler-colony. Settlers march and chant, “This is what democracy looks like.”
The reason we write this is simple, despite many understanding that the effects of chattel slavery still exist through prisons and policing, it remains a widely uncontested function of society.
And, this is substantiated by the fact that ameriKKKa is erecting racialized detention camps across the country, and they are not destroyed. They are widely condemned, sure, but they still stand.
They still stand because the prison still stands.
police and prisons are rendered different concepts from ICE altogether, even though “local jails obscure and facilitate mass deportation under Trump.” Nearly half of ICE abductions are facilitated by local jails. We know they are just as capable of kidnapping our loved ones, taking them away, murdering them, and have done it the entire time they’ve had a badge.
There are pleas and petitions for local police agencies to arrest immigration agents as if these forces are not an active part of ameriKKKa’s 500 year tradition of oppressive violence. police are welcome to drive their cars through most neighborhoods, enter store fronts and public spaces. Members of the internal colonies are told to go peacefully when abducted into a system that throws us into unmarked graves under the jail and tells our families we ran away.
Normalizing this horrifying reality we live in enables the suffering caused by pigs and the prison just by nature of giving them access to our communities, by demanding they “do their job,” or carry out “justice.” Normalizing this reality legitimizes ameriKKKa as an authority, as if any idea of safety we think we know now is only thanks to its threats of violence.
ameriKKKas barbarism renders proper channels as merely dressing the state uses to quell dissent, meanwhile prisoners suffer while their families often navigate near-useless mazes without end.
Meanwhile, jurisdictions all over ameriKKKa are mandated to work together through one fascist backend. Efficiency at any cost.
We cannot prioritize the legal system as the safe, the low risk, the "green" option. It has always been a line up towards the grave.
Every act of repression is a threat of future violence.
Daily life in ameriKKKa normalizes systemic violence and fosters inaction.
And every second that passes, the prison escalates: Simple, disruptive pressure tactics are met with torture, and brutal repression. Blatant murder attempts across prisons painted as medical neglect. The zionist entity has given itself the permission to murder Palestinian prisoners through laws it enforces on land it stole through catastrophe.
Political prisoners face a formidable front.
There is no passive way to prepare for the curfews we know all too well are coming, the door knocks, the raids, the “smoke curling black against the daylight sky.”
We must become formidable.
The prisons are escalating.
It’s time we do too!
"PRISON IS JUST ANOTHER FRONT”
This Essay was published on Malik Muhammed’s blog on May 7th, 2026 and written on April 22nd, titled “Update from South Carolina.”
The Biden admin's fascist state propagated prosecution of me to “appear as hard on left wing extremists as the right." This kicked off the politicized nature of my case. A "Black, Muslim, militant, extremist domestic terror threat," as my FBI profile says. I've been designated a "doomed man” in the words of George Jackson, long before the FBI did so. Born poor, Black, and Muslim, twenty five was the average age we'd make it to, before being dead or in jail. The fascist state's systems of oppression orchestrate the demise of doomed men, women, and children like this, daily, for fun. They love their controlled and manipulated statistics.
I'm no one to be controlled. ODOC [oregon department of Corrections] found that out, clear and present. No matter the hole they put me in, nor the length of time they put me there, I do not capitulate. Nor does the community of love and solidarity and rage I have. The people who fight the state because resistance IS essence, because the people are what matter, their love endures. oregon chose now — after all their state sanctioned violence did not break me — to make me the problem of another DOC, and to attempt to sever the ties and connections forged in the crucible of revolutionary love and struggle.
They'll succeed in making me another DOC's problems, at least. But it’s nothing new as an abolitionist. Our rage at the carceral state encompasses ALL prisons. Cuz none are free 'till we ALL are free, 'till ALL cages are empty, and all prisons are libraries. As a revolutionary, prison is just another front for the war. Any prison.
So I'll fight and resist on this new front, I'll continue to agitate, aggravate, and organize against the state. I will NOT leave ODOC alone either. They will need to answer for their hole abuses, their hindering of my legal counsel, turning away visitors without cause or reason. Their blatant, racist political persecution. And their hope that sending me across the u.s. to the south would see me as a fish out of water — but I can swim anywhere. Anywhere the people are, I'll build community, through love, rage, and solidarity.
ODOC did not like my cross racial study group. They didn't like the education of the people because they prefer slaves. But to break free from the slave mentality, one must be ACUTELY aware of being one. That’s why education is the cornerstone to giving the people the tools to liberate themselves. Militancy without education is wanton aggression. Political education without militancy is all theory — academic. To forge both is to create a weapon most deadly against the state. So ODOC created a fictitious reason to put me in the hole, then created an in-house RICO charge because the other wouldn't stick. They painted the blog and fundraiser as racketeering and spreading propaganda. The DR (I wish I still had it) was as ridiculous as the RICO charge on the Stop Cop City siblings. They wrote it in such a way to convince their superiors I was a threat to be sent away.
No one gets sent FROM oregon to south carolina, one of the most dangerous DOC's in this fascist carceral state. The Lee County riots saw twenty one dead, forty five injured. This prison system has one of the worst overcrowding in the country. The intake and reception process takes up to 180 days — I've heard people be here longer — because they don’t have any bed space. They get bed space when someone is killed. Each soul carted off from R&E [Reception and Evaluation] to their prison is replacing a dead one. They passed an overcrowding act to let out nonviolent people. They make everyone eligible for parole and do percentages on their time, and still, they do not have enough beds for the people the state persecutes. R&E is three to a cell — one on the floor because there's only two bunks.
The food has no nutritional value — yesterday's breakfast was bread and water. This system believing prisoners deserve bread and water is on par with this being the Bible belt, the Antebellum south, the home of those capitalists that sent poor racist whites to defend their ideal form of capital accumulation against the north and were rewarded with Black codes, the prisoner leasing program, and the mass incarceration we see today. Of course, they don't even believe we deserve bread and water. We're still only 3/4 of a human being. Work horses that need to be beat, not food.
They mask the racism by having a nominally all Black staff. That means nothing. The overseers of the plantation are just inundated and indoctrinated to do the bare minimum, not think. They're turnkeys, nothing more. That's why they do not stop violence, much like pigs on the street can hide behind the Supreme Court decision that ruled they have "no duty to protect," so can these fascists let stabbings occur, even orchestrate them, and continue on overseeing the plantation. Who cares about another Black man's death in here? Certainly not those coming for a check. prisons are an otherwise destitute economy, providing careers for those not qualified to work at McDonald's — which would be much more respectable.
Thanks to this transfer and being in R&E, I missed the Eid meal in oregon and could not participate in the one here. The state's repressive tools seek to break me down and eviscerate my relationships, but the people who love the people, like I, don't break so easily and exist all over the u.s. I take state repression as a sign I'm doing something right. Anytime you have the oppressor in a reactionary stance — it's good. Their rigidity and yearning for consistency is their downfall.
An anarchist's greatest weapons are their critical thinking skills and adaptability. I adapt well. No environment can change me or break me. So I'll do here what I do. I'll organize, aggravate and agitate against the state. I'll rally community. I'll educate. I'll link folks to inside-outside resources and organizing spaces. I'll grow ties, build bonds, and forge relationships that will endure lifetimes full of revolutionary love, rage, and solidarity.
I'll never stop fighting for the people. I'll live, fight, and die for them because I love the people. Because I am the people, not the pig. And those that are with me, I hope it's not out of pity, but cuz you realize this shit is killing you, too, however much more softly.
Ours is a love, rage, and solidarity that recognizes no imaginary border lines, abandons the constructs of time, permeates through walls, bars, and prison gates. It stays like the roots of an oak, stands tall as the fir, and may bend as the willow but defies gravity still and won't break. Our love persists like daisies pushing through sidewalk cracks and dandelions blown through the wind, from a child's wish.
I sit on the floor in this cell, meant for two but rooming three, awaiting the ticking clock to send me to what will be my residence for the next four years. And I am reassured, steadfast, and ready. This is an opportunity to meet new people, organize in a new space, a new state. To do whatever I feel called to, by my creator and myself. It feels like part of the plan, Allah's plan. I will remember that resistance is essence. And no matter the circumstances, I'll sow seeds of revolutionary love, rage, and solidarity.
At this time, they only give me two envelopes per month and four sheets of paper. I have to buy things from the "cadre" that work the units. It’s gross, prisoners exploiting prisoners, but that's the deal. If I don't respond right away to your letters, I will when I can.
If anyone from my queer Ashville community would reach out, I'd love to talk more about the community you're forging there. I'd love to know if there are any groups like CARE out here.
Love Rage & Solidarity, Malik
WRITE TO MALIK
You can write to Malik at:
Malik Muhammed #400523
Kirkland Reception and Evaluation Center Unit F3A-203
4344 Broad River Rd Columbia SC 29210
Malik’s communications are currently very restricted, although they may not be able to respond quickly, they would still deeply appreciate receiving letters.
Malik has requested that people write their address in their letters because they no longer have access to their address book.
They are not allowed to receive photographs or newspapers until they are transferred again.
If you are interested in providing additional methods of support, please email freemaliknow@proton.me
OUR CHALLENGE
- Read Blood in My Eye by George Jackson, and/or Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano.
- Write a letter to Malik, answering any of the following prompts:
a) What is a discovery you made while reading the book(s)? It can be a personal discovery or something you learned.
b) What is bringing these books into relevance, even 50 years after their publishing?
c) What brings you hope from these texts? - Thank Malik for recommending these books (even if you’ve already read them)!
BOOKS
- George Jackson, Blood in my Eye
- Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America
- Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism
- Angela Y Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete
- Rashid Johnson, Defying the Tomb
ARTICLES & ESSAYS
- Malik Muhammed, Segstutionalization
- Rashid Johnson, I NOW FACE RETALIATION AND CENSORSHIP FOR REPORTING PRISON ABUSES.
- Ekong Eshiet, My name is Ekong Ben Eshiet Jr.
ICAOS SOURCES
- Interstate Compact. “1.5 Effect of the ICAOS on the States,” April 1, 2026. https://interstatecompact.org/bench-book/ch1/1-5-effect-of-the-icaos-on-the-states.
- Interstate Compact. “1.7 Effect of Withdrawal,” April 1, 2026. https://interstatecompact.org/bench-book/ch1/1-7-effect-of-withdrawal.
- Interstate Compact. “1.8 Key Features of ICAOS,” April 1, 2026. https://interstatecompact.org/bench-book/ch1/1-8-key-features-of-icaos.
- “2025 Rule Amendment Training- December 2025,” December 11, 2025. https://vimeo.com/1145754678.
