African-American Albert Woodfox, a former Black Panther activist who spent 43 years in solitary confinement, died Thursday, six years after his release from prison, his lawyer said.
As a prisoner, he spent more than forty years alone in a small cell for a murder he always denied, becoming a symbol of the flaws of the American prison world. He died at the age of 75 from complications related to Covid-19, his lawyer, George Kendall, told AFP.
Convicted of armed robbery, Albert Woodfox was held at the Angola Correctional Center, a notorious prison in Louisiana, and a white guard was killed during a riot.
He was charged with this murder, despite his denials, placed in solitary confinement in 1972, along with two other inmates, Herman Wallace and Robert King.
The three men were later members of the Black Panthers, a radical movement against apartheid in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.
Nicknamed the “three of Angola”, they have been kept in isolation for decades, despite campaigns carried out on their behalf, notably by Amnesty International.
Robert King was released in 2001 and Herman Wallace in 2013, but died of cancer three days later. Albert Woodfox was released in 2016.
Solitary detention is equivalent to being alone in a small cell for 23 hours a day. There are currently about 80,000 prisoners in this situation, and many have been in this situation for years. Advocates of prison reform find the treatment inhumane.
Various studies show that depriving a person of visual stimulation, interaction, natural light or physical activity can change the structure of their brain within a few days.
source: Noticias
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