JAILED ANTI-ABORTION ACTIVIST SUFFERS STROKE AFTER SOLITARY CONFINEMENT WHILE AWAITING SENTENCING
WASHINGTON D.C—(May 2nd, 2024) Reports have emerged alleging that Heather Idoni, a 59 year old pro-life activist, who was convicted under the FACE Act (Freedom to Access Clinic Entrances), has suffered a stroke in the Northern Neck Regional Jail in Virginia after being held in solitary confinement.
Idoni is one of nine other defendants who were convicted and who are awaiting sentencing for their involvement in a nonviolent demonstration at the Washington Surgi-Center, a notorious all term abortion center in Washington DC where in 2022 activists with the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) recovered the remains of five late-term aborted babies known as the “DC Five”.
Two of those defendants, Lauren Handy and Herb Geraghty are affiliated with PAAU, a leftist anti-abortion organization which organizes peaceful direct actions to protect preborn children from abortion.
The defendants have all been incarcerated since August of last year and each face a maximum penalty of 11 years in federal prison. Heather’s sentencing is scheduled for May 17th in federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s Washington DC courtroom.
Idoni’s was reportedly forced into solitary confinement for sharing food with another inmate and was isolated for 22 days. Most recent reports allege that she recently was rushed to the hospital after suffering a stroke. Her condition has reportedly been stabilized.
Idoni has also stated that she was allowed to walk outside her cell only for two hours in the middle of the night each day and that the lights of her cell were continually kept on.
The U.N. document on international rules for the humane treatment of prisoners, titled United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) prohibits solitary confinement “in excess of 15 consecutive days” (Rule 44), deeming it “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The Nelson Mandela Rules (Rule 43) also forbid the “(p)lacement of a prisoner in a dark or constantly lit cell.”
This is not a novel occurrence for the Northern Neck Regional Jail. In 2016, a female inmate at this same facility died after suffering from a stroke after the jail failed to give her stroke-preventative medications following open-heart surgery. After being found unresponsive, the inmate was then left in a cell for more than 11 hours before being sent for medical care. The jail was sued for $46 million.
Caroline Smith, PAAU Executive Director said today, “The ongoing abuse and mistreatment at this facility is sick and cruel and must be stopped before more people are killed by neglectful jail staff. This is elder abuse that is being perpetrated and paid for by the DOJ and the US Government. The Department of Justice should release Heather and grant her time served for her conviction. We do not want a dead Heather Idoni – we want a free Heather Idoni.”
PAAU founder Terrisa Bukovinac says “Heather Idoni’s life and wellbeing is being put at grievous risk by the Biden administration’s vicious attack on peaceful pro-life people and Merrick Garland should be impeached for weaponizing the Department of Justice against a nonviolent grandmother living out her deeply held beliefs. Heather should be freed immediately to be reunited with her family and we are asking Judge Kollar-Kotelly to do just that.”
Idoni faces over 50 years of incarceration in federal prison and over $1 million in fines for taking part in several peaceful pro-life Rescues in Washington, D.C., Michigan, and Tennessee. Should Idoni receive maximum penalties in these cases, in which previous counts can be compounded to heighten subsequent sentences, she will have been sentenced to the longest prison term in the history of the U.S. civil disobedience movement for human rights.
Press contact: 919-525-4431 // press@paaunow.org
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