Activist Berrigan Confined Alone After Terrorist Attacks by Carl Schoettler
The 77-year-old peace activist Philip F. Berrigan was immediately shifted into solitary confinement at a federal penitentiary Sept. 11 when terrorists crashed hijacked airliners into the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
Berrigan was among a number of "high-profile" inmates segregated from the general population in federal prisons across the nation, according to Internet messages received Wednesday at Jonah House, the Roman Catholic anti-war community that Berrigan helped found in Baltimore nearly 30 years ago.
"Phil's in lockdown," said Elizabeth McAlister, Berrigan's wife, who is also a founder of Jonah House. "We don't even know if he's getting mail. We know he's not writing."
Berrigan is confined in the Federal Correctional Institution at Elkton, Ohio, a low-security prison.
Jonah House members believe that on Sept. 11 federal prison authorities also segregated Leonard Peltier, the Native American activist in prison for the killing of two FBI agents in 1975, and Marilyn Buck, convicted of joining a Black Liberation Army robbery of an armored truck during which two police officers and a Brink's guard were killed.....