Forty years in solitary: two men mark sombre anniversary in Louisiana prison

was 23 hours per day during the last 40 years in a cell 9 feet by 6 feet. But as advocacy groups for human intensify calls for his release, a documentary gives an idea of ??an isolated life

"I can do about four steps forward before it touches the door," said Herman Wallace as he describes the cell in which he lived for the past 40 years. "If I become an about-face, I'll hit something. I'm used to it, and it is one of the bad things about him. "

Tuesday, Wallace and his friend Albert Woodfox is one of the most unusual birthday, and ashamed of American criminal history. Forty years ago the day they were put in solitary confinement in Angola prison in Louisiana famous. They have been there.

been 23 hours of each of 14.610 days locked in their profession than 9 feet by 6 feet cell. Each cell, Amnesty International, has a toilet, mattresses, sheets, blanket, pillow and a small bench against the wall. Their contact with the world outside the room without windows is limited to the occasional visit and phone call, "exercise" three times a week on a concrete patio cage, and the letters are opened and read by prison guards .

A new documentary takes us to that cell, providing a rare glimpse of the personal impact that prolonged psychological isolation. Herman House followed the experiences and thoughts of Wallace as evidenced by four decades, hit in a box.

The film is based on recorded telephone conversations between Wallace and Bhalla, director of the documentary Angad. Wallace, a native of New Orleans and 70 years, speaks with powerful understatement of his time alone.

"Being in a cage for a long period of time, has its downfalls. You do not feel, you do not know, you may think you're fine, and you are right on the surface ".

In records that are not included in the film, but were made available to the tutor, Wallace gives details on his cell: "Every time I get out of bed I could reach hips on the table is that with regard to travel around -. no movement in the arthritis that has occurred due to being in the cell "..

Wallace was imprisoned for the first time in 1967 after committing a bank robbery. The sixties were an exciting time in the interior of Angola, the reputation of being the worst prison in America, including 5,000 prisoners still racial segregation and where violence and sexual slavery are common.

Wallace, Woodfox and a third man in black, Robert King, joined to form a chapter of the Black Panther movement in the prison, hoping to organize African Americans held against the brutal treatment they have suffered. Then, 17 April 1972, a prison guard, Brent Miller called was killed during an arrest in a wing.

The Angola 3 were immediately accused of murder, and since day one. They have since insisted on his innocence, pointing out the absence of any physical evidence linking Miller's death and suggested that the main witness against them was bribed by prison officials.

murder charge that was invented to punish them for their political activities.

Since 1972, Wallace and Woodfox were presented to more than 150 tips from the prison, where he was his life in solitary confinement without previous comment, just so they can be sent directly to their cells. The only explanation: "The nature of the initial reason for blocking"

• "This is a case of innocence and human rights violations," said Robert King on the eve of the anniversary. Conviction was overturned and King was released in 2001, saying he fears for his fellow prisoners now considering it is more than a decade of solo him.

"I was in a cell six by nine to 29 years and know what you have done for me -. I Shunk the brain, was reduced to the person to adjust to small distances. "

Amnesty hopes to pressure the governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, to free the two remaining men of isolation by providing a petition with more than 65,000 companies in the State Capitol Louisiana in Baton Rouge on Tuesday. The human rights organization denounced his imprisonment in solitary confinement as a form of cruel and inhuman treatment is prohibited by both the U.S. Constitution and international law.

In his taped conversations with Bhalla, Wallace gives an idea of ??his mental state after so much time alone. He says his memory is deteriorating. "Many times I lose. I find it hard to make things easier, C. A, B, .."

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