Note from the editor:
As I see through social media violent police crackdowns on pro-Palestinian demonstrators across the United States, I’m reminded that free speech is once again under attack on college campuses. Students have been clubbed and tased and met with SWAT police, some on horses, while exercising their right to speak out against the atrocities against civilians being committed by Israel in Gaza and on the West Bank. In the same spirit as students who took over college campuses to pressure their institutions to divest from the apartheid South African regime in the 1980s, these students are demanding an end to their universities’ investments in companies that have ties to Israel for its colonizer settler rule and ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. We at the Vanguard Incarcerated Press condemn any attempt to silence dissent. Our mission is to shed light in the darkest corners of America’s criminal justice system with an uncensored newspaper written for and by the incarcerated. In a letter to VIP, contributor James Kor reminds us of our vital mission: “I thank the force of good in the universe that VIP is uncensored. In fact, the barbarians don’t play by any rules and are deserving of as much brutal truth being publicly rained down on them as is technologically possible.” Kor reminds us there has never been a better time to speak truth to power.
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In conclusion, I hope you are enjoying reading the VIP. We would love to hear from you. Please feel free to write a letter to the editor about an article we have printed or a topic you would like to see discussed. We encourage the fullest participation and discussion from our readership.
—Joan Parkin, editor of Vanguard Incarcerated Press.
