WASHINGTON - Prisoners throughout the United States went on strike Friday, answering social media calls to protest prison living conditions in a mobilization whose magnitude remains difficult to assess. Late Wednesday at Holmes Correctional in northwestern Florida, a revolt involving more than 400 inmates preceded the nationwide strike. The Florida Department of Corrections called it a "major disturbance involving several hundred inmates housed in multiple dorms." Elsewhere in the US, activist groups took to social media and called for peaceful protests to improve the lives and working conditions of prisoners. Friday's events occurred on the anniversary of the historic September 9, 1971 rebellion in which inmates took over and shut down upstate New York's Attica prison, a bloody uprising that prompted four days of intense negotiations.

Source: Bangkok Post September 10, 2016 01:41 UTC