A poster for Bashir Hameed created by the Jericho Movement

Bashir had a triple bypass heart surgery about two years ago, so we have to treat these symptoms very seriously. Call the prison immediately at (518) 639-5516 and demand the following:

1. Bashir must receive immediate medical attention.

2. He must be taken immediately to the hospital that performed his heart surgery.

3. He must be transferred immediately to a facility where his medical needs can be taken care of.

Make a similar phone call to Assemblyman Jeffrion L Aubry, chairman of the Corrections Committee. Call his Albany office at (518) 455-4561 and ask for Ms. Shauny Smoakes. Bashir has reached out to Assemblyman Aubry to investigate conditions at Great Meadows Correctional Facility with little success.

Change is good, and Louisiana has a historic opportunity to atone for its past sins and express its commitment to progress by fixing the policies that have held the state in the cultural, political and economic quagmires of the past.

Mark King, 50, uses his wheelchair to get around the Pleasant Valley State Prison gymnasium where he sleeps. Valley Fever, which he contracted at the prison, led to a four-month hospital stay, where he lost 30 pounds. “It got so bad I almost died,” he said. Photo: Brian Baer, Sacramento Bee

Valley Fever attacks the body through the respiratory system When breathed, the fungus enters the lungs where it acts like a cancer and grows in tumor-like lesions along the wall of your lungs. After time these lesions burst and spread at the point you develop what is known as cocci-pneumonia, where the lungs fill with fluid and inflammation sets in, making it very hard to breathe.

Imam Jamil, shown here with his son, must be free to come home to his family and his people.

After being forced to serve five and a half years in administrative segregation - 23-hour-per-day lockdown, no human contact etc. - at the state prison at Reidsville, Georgia's notorious K-Block, Imam Jamil Al-Amin in August 2007 was transferred to the maximum security federal prison at Florence, Colorado, known as the Supermax. His housing conditions remain 23-hour lockdown, no human contact, silence, five social visits per month, two phone calls per month and denial of all media requests for interviews.