Rudy Davis is a 54-year-old resident of the U.S. state of Texas, a Christian activist, conservative, member of the Christian human rights organization “Gideon’s Army”, conducts active information and educational activities dedicated to political prisoners in the United States. Provides an online platform for anyone who wants to tell their story. According to Davis, the criminal justice system and the institute of advocacy in the United States are in a systemic crisis and are not functioning properly.
Mira Terada: Hello, Rudy! I am very glad that you managed to devote time to the Russian Foundation to Battle Injustice. After talking with you a little, I concluded for myself that you are one of the most principled and consistent people I have ever met. And one of the very few conservative human rights activists in the United States. Tell us about yourself and your struggle for civil rights in America.
Rudy Davis: Thank you, Mira, and I want to say thank you for your Foundation. I was very impressed with your website and thank you for having a heart that cares about prisoners. It’s very rare to meet somebody who actually cares about the unjustly incarcerated, and in order to understand my wife and I, his ministry, it’s a small corner of the Lord’s vineyard. You have to understand what drives us. Belief system drive behavior, right? And so my wife and I love the Lord, we love the Bible. And in Matthew Twenty-five, it says to care about those in prison. Matthew twenty-five thirty-six specifically. And so Hebrews 13 three, I believe, says remember those in bonds as being bound in the body with them in prison. And so when we get to know these prisoners that we advocate for and you’ll see on our website, they become our friends, they’re almost like our family. My wife and I joke around and we said we talked to prisoners more so than we do people on the outside of prison. But that’s what drives us, these people. Once you get to know their stories, once you get to know the injustices and your eyes begin to open about how bad the prison system is in America and how bad the prosecutors just try to get a win rather than pursue the truth. You know, you can’t walk away. It becomes impossible to turn your head and just go live your life while someone like a Schaeffer Cox sits in prison over 20 years or an Amy Gonzalez.
These men and women that we come to know they are our friends, they are our families. And so sometimes I feel powerless and what we can do about it. But we collect their stories, we collect their letters, we tell their stories to anybody that will listen. We publish that on our website. We don’t ask for money. We’re not in this for anything except to say we want freedom for the unjustly incarcerated prisoners and we want massive reform for the American prison system. We think it’s broken. And, you know, to meet somebody like yourself, Mira, that has been through it, you’ve been in it and you recognize the problem. It’s a real blessing because so many people. They got enough problems in their own life. And so when I start telling them about prisoners and all the problems they’re facing, they don’t want to hear it. Even politicians in America, they just they have this stance of «you’ve got to be tough on crime». But I would say, rather than being tough on crime, we have to be right. We have to be right on crime. We have to deal with it appropriately. And so many times we think of these prisoners as being expendable and not important. And so we want people to care. We want people to get to know what’s going on so that we can fix the problem.
M.T.: Your website yearofjubile.com dedicated to protect the rights of American political prisoners. Officially, this term does not exist in the United States: it is not used in the media, it is no such phrase in any documentations. According to your opinion, why there does the US government hide the fact of the existence of political prisoners? What charges do you think are most often brought against those who disagree with the current government in certain areas?
R.D.: Yeah, that’s a really good question, Mira. I was talking to somebody a few months ago and I said that our website advocates for political prisoners in America and his response to me was very telling, he said: «We don’t have political prisoners in America». The majority of people are brainwashed. I hate to say it. I don’t mean to sound so negative, but they think that America is the land of freedom. America is the land of justice. If you go to court, you’ll have a fair day and trial that is a fairy tale. We absolutely do have political prisoners in America. They are imprisoned, not because they broken any laws, but because of what they believe. And you asked the question «What is the what is the I think you said, what is the crime that’s most used to incarcerate these prisoners? ». So, here’s what I would like to share with you. And I hope your audience can understand this, so a while back, a few years ago, are you familiar with who Ron Paul is?
M.T.: I’m not sure would you remind me, please?
R.D.: Yeah, he’s a politician in America, an elder gentleman. He stands for the Constitution Liberty. He’s very conservative politician and many people look up to him and admire him. There’s also Christians that actually believe the Bible. When I talk about Christians, there’s what’s called cultural Christians. They go to church just to have a culture, you know, and have friendship and social clubs. But there’s also Christians who actually believe the Bible. We love the Bible and we love the Lord, and that’s a different type of Christian. So, you know, the what I’m trying to get to is the government put out a document and it identified anybody who speaks about the Constitution, anybody who supports the politician, Ron Paul, anybody who speaks negatively. They were called terrorist. And that’s a hard thing for most people to believe. But I have the document that I can share with you. If you have a Ron Paul bumper sticker, you would be identified as a terrorist. And so the government is very oppressive in America. There is no such thing as free speech. There is a tremendous amount of censorship in our culture. If you go against the mainstream media, they will take your YouTube channel down. But going back to what crime do they charge the most? What my wife and I have seen is the FBI is an integral part of the of the satanic agenda.
What they have done is they’ve looked across America and they have identified men and women. That good could be potential leaders to change the political establishment. You’ve heard of interfering in fair elections. That’s what we do inside our own country. If, for instance, a Schaeffer Cox would have had an incredible political career, there was a guy by the name of Charles Dyer in Oklahoma. He would have had an incredible political career. People were following him. He led a militia that that has become a dirty word that has become a terrorist word in America if anybody is associated with a militia. But that didn’t used to be the case. That’s part of our constitution. If you join a militia, all that means is that you believe in the right to own guns and to protect yourself and your community. And so the government has turned that into a terrorist thing, and they’ve also looked across the landscape of America, and they’ve identified these men and women who could be potential leaders in the political establishment to change our country for the better. And they don’t have any particular crime, although conspiracy charges seem to be very common, but they’ll look for any weakness in their in their lifestyle. With Charles Dyer, they found a weakness in his wife. And so they came in and they were going through a divorce with a bitter custody battle, and they charged him with some very heinous crimes regarding his child.
But many of us know that he’s absolutely innocent of that. It took three trials to finally convict him, and they do something called withholding of exculpatory evidence, which means the prosecution will not let the evidence that shows the defendant’s innocence to get into the courtroom. And that’s a very common thing. There is a senator named Senator Ted Stevens and there was a book written, there’s a book on Amazon that you can download called… I’m trying to remember the name of it… “Not guilty. The story of Senator Ted Stevens”. And that book shows how the prosecution did incredibly wicked things in the courtroom to get a conviction. But to answer your question, I don’t think they have a particular crime they use all the time. The most common one is conspiracy to murder, which means there is no victim. You know, conspiracy means there’s no dead body. It just means you’re talking about killing somebody, but they’ll use anything and everything to convict you. It doesn’t have to be conspiracy if they can get you on another charge and as long as they put you in jail, that’s ultimately what the FBI wants to do. And it’s funny that your organization is also called the FBI. You’re the good FBI and in America we have a very wicked FBI.
M.T.: That’s right. We are good. The modern left-wing political agenda, both in Europe and in the United States, directly attacks Christianity. Churches are being burned in the USA, Canada, Europe, and Christians being threatened, physically attacked by an atheist. I think this is disastrous for us and for the world at large. Do you think the current left-wing activists are doing this on their own or are they controlled by someone? And what should we do to preserve the faith for future generations?
R.D.: Yeah, you have a lot of good questions, Mira, so the Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil. Right.
And let me just bring up Black Lives Matter as an example, right? There is some truth in what they protest about. There is unfairness in our court system. There is unfairness with the police brutality and how the police treat black people. My only concern is it’s bigger than just a black problem. We have a problem for everybody that needs to be fixed and you talk about an attack upon Christians. There are governors in the state of California, in America they made rules where Christians could not go to church. They could not sing hymns. We’re seeing a direct attack upon Christianity everywhere. And so what they’re doing is they’re forcing us to quit our jobs or to be fired. And so nurses who were Christians and hospitals and Christian nurses, they their belief system. Remember, in the beginning, I said belief system drives behavior. They have empathy for all people. That’s what Christians are told to do to love your brother, be kind to your neighbor. But when you drive the Christian nurses out of a hospital and you only leave unbelievers in a hospital, it becomes a place of a nightmare of death and they’re driving Christians out of their jobs all over America.
Your question about what do we do to preserve that? I would say we don’t compromise. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. We stand on the word of God. And even if we’re outnumbered, the Bible says to be faithful even unto death. And I believe that’s what we need to do. And I don’t know if the Lord will save our country at this point. We have become so wicked and we’ve moved away from God so far. A lot of my friends are still praying to God to save America. I don’t know that he will. And many times, in the Bible, if you read the Old Testament, remember in Jeremiah, there was a couple of verses where God told Jeremiah, I pray not for this people anymore. I’ve had enough. I don’t know if we’re at that point, but also the abortions, the abortions in America. We kill millions of babies every year. It’s incredible. We have become a very ungodly country, and I’m sorry to admit that it’s not something I’m happy about at all, but you have to say the truth if you’re ever going to fix the problem.
M.T.: Well, let’s hope for the best and pray to God that all the countries will be saved and all the people will be saved. Amen. Recently, especially over the past year, censorship in the media and social networks has reached a level beyond comprehension. Moreover, the most severe restrictions affected conservative-minded citizens, people of traditional beliefs. American censorship has not bypassed you either. Tell us briefly about that and how do you combat against artificial restrictions on freedom of speech?
R.D.: Ok, that reminds me, Mira, of Edward Snowden’s book “Permanent record”. It’s an incredible book that exposes how the American government is spying on everybody. They’re keeping tabs on the inside Edward Snowden’s book, he said. The CIA director, he said the CIA director bragged they were just on the verge of capturing every human communication, whether that be phone call or email our location with our phones. In other words, they may not review it all the time, but they have the information and they use that information to go against any of their political dissidents. And so if a man is cheating on his wife, God forbid that he should never do that. But they use that to say: «Now we’ve got you, we’ve got some information on you and you will not run for political office anymore». All of that information is collected and used against any political dissidents that rise up in this country. And so I believe it’s horrific not only the amount of censorship, but the amount of lack of privacy. And Edward Snowden reveals that in his book, and the government thinks of Edward Snowden as a criminal. But true, American patriots think of him as a hero for blowing the whistle and exposing that. I myself have been censored. I think I’m not the only one, of course, but it has risen to horrific levels.
Your own website? I don’t know if your audience knows this, but you wrote an article about the January 6th protesters and I have a Facebook page. I tried to take your article, Mira, that your organization wrote and post is on Facebook, and Facebook said that it goes against community guidelines and they would not let anybody see your article. Who are they to think they can control what we talk about and what news we watch? They think that they’re better than us and they can control us, but that’s not the case. They are suppressing human behavior. They’re suppressing human speech and it is satanic. The Lord says, I came to give you liberty and I come to give you freedom where the spirit of the Lord is. There is liberty. And so I don’t know how we combat this except move off of YouTube. There’s other organizations that are opening platforms. Besides YouTube, they are evil and censoring. They’ve done a lot of good, but at the same time, if you don’t say what they want you to say, they’ll kick you off. Facebook is the same way. I think in Russia you have a platform called VK. If I’m not mistaken.
M.T.:Yes, VK dot com. Yes.
R.D.: It seems to be a lot more open than America’s platforms. Isn’t that amazing? As an American, I was always told, Mira, that we are the land of freedom. We are the land of free speech. We are the land of justice, you know? But now that I’ve grown up a lot of times, I see that Russia is much more free than America. I don’t know a lot about the Russian country, to be honest with you, but I know that America has really gotten off track. We’ve really lost our way in the world and we need an intervention of God basically the way I see it. But we have lost a lot of free speech to fix the problem. We just got to continue to not be intimidated. They want to intimidate us. They want to silence us. We got to continue to speak out no matter what.
M.T.: That’s right. There are a lot of materials on prison arbitrariness in the USA and dozens of innocent convicts on your website and on your social media accounts. It just so happens that I am one of them. I am ready to confirm that everything you write is true. The American prison is monstrous, and the people in it have absolutely no rights. How did it happen that the US prison system turned from a means of correction into an instrument of torture?
R.D.: Yeah, that’s a great question. I’m going to answer it two ways. Back early, several decades ago, America came out with a war on drugs, and when American government did a war on drugs, the prison population in America skyrocketed. I mean, we have we went from like a hundred and eighty thousand people in prison to over two point three million people in prison. I’m going to say this statistic and people can look it up to confirm it’s accurate. But America has five percent of the world’s population. You know, five percent of the whole world we have in population, but we have over twenty five percent of the world’s prison population and we have over 30 percent of the world’s women prisoners. And as in regards to how did that happen, I’m going to say that our prison population exploded because of the war on drugs, and that threw a lot of people in prison that did not need to go to prison. But the second part of your question is how did it become instruments of torture? The most popular book in the English language is the authorized King James Bible. The second most popular book is a book written by Paul Bunyan called “Pilgrim’s Progress”, and in the later chapter of “Pilgrim’s Progress”, there’s. It talks about a trial of Vanity Fair. Vanity Fair means to lust after the things of the world and the trial. The judge is bezel book, which is another name for Satan. And it’s a very let me. It’s a very popular book. It’s the second most popular book in the English language “Pilgrim’s Progress”, but I would ask your audience if they read it when they get to the trial, which is ran by Basil Bub, look at how the trial is handled.
They’re never given a chance to prove their innocence. They’re never given a chance to discuss what’s going on in the situation. Because why? Because the entire society has been corrupted and when the entire society has moved away from God and biblical values and justice people that are hired to run the prisons, their biases come into play. They want to be mean to people. They want to torture people. We have had murders in prison. We’ve had horrific rapes. I mean, the Bible says that it is a shame to talk about what happens in these prison. And I have had prisoners talk to me about how guards have raped them. I have had prisoners write to me that have been murdered. Robert David Neil was one example. It is horrific, horrific stories. And so most people don’t want to hear that they become uncomfortable and they turn away. But it doesn’t make the problem go away. So I would say the prison populations have skyrocketed and because we have moved away from God, there is just violence, perversion, neglect, abuse, mistreatment, rape, anything you can imagine. I hear this K2 spice. What happens is they the prisoners get a hold of an iron, which is supposed to iron clothes, and they use it to melt the plastics and they get high off this melted plastic and the noxious fumes go about the prison and it gets other prisoners sick. And the guards refused to do anything about it so we could go on and on. Most people don’t want to talk about it, but it does need to be talked about. It is horrific and there are human rights violations all over American prisons.
M.T.: Let’s talk about the victims of political repression in the case of the Jan. 6 protests. Hundreds of people are in custody are waiting for trial. Many of them did nothing wrong: they only used their constitutional rights to a peaceful gathering. What are the chances of them to be released? Why is there still no social movement for their release?
R.D.: Yeah, it goes back to our society has been corrupted. There are a few there are a few people in America that recognize that these men and women on January the 6th don’t need to be in prison. And they write them letters and they support them. But there was a particular prisoner. His name was Peter Schwartz. He’s facing over 20 years in prison, and he wrote me a letter and he said, it’s a very dark place where they have them. They have very little freedom. They only get out of their cell one hour every twenty four hours and they’re keeping them isolated. And he said the letters that he received from friends and fellow Christians and people that support him is the only light that he has in his life where he’s currently locked up. But he was mad at the conservative right when they have their radio shows, and they’ll basically sell out these prisoners on January the 6th. They don’t try to support them for the most part. There are a few, but they’re very small in number. And so I don’t believe these people should be in jail for expressing their political beliefs. And we know that it was a setup. I know several people who were actually there in Washington, D.C., and they said the policemen would open up the barricades and invite the people into the building. Why would you put somebody in jail when the policemen are removing the barricades and inviting the people into the building? That’s not breaking any laws. That’s just following what everybody else is doing, and they’re trying to make it out to be this horrific, violent protest when it was actually them that shot Ashli Babbitt. You remember Ashli Babbitt? I think it’s a political theater.
I think they want to make an example to cause to intimidate the rest of us. But I’m going to go back to Black Lives Matter. And earlier in the interview, I said they do have some truthful points about police brutality and how the court systems are corrupt, but they are not a God-fearing organization. They do. They do perform riots; they burn buildings down. They’re very violent and they’re never held accountable for what they do, right? It’s rare. Sometimes you see them held accountable, but there’s not the same amount of tension put on them as on the Jan. 6 protesters by the mainstream media because the mainstream media has an agenda and they want to protect the establishment in America. And so they try to make a devil or a demon out of anybody who wants to have political change. And so I wish that we would all come together and recognize, you know, Black Lives Matter. I wish that patriots and Christians would say we got a problem with our country, and the problem that we have is we’ve gotten away from biblical values and we need to have justice in the land. If you read the Book of Psalms, what David wrote Psalm one three fifty-five. Almost every psalm talks about justice and how God would take care of the enemies of God, and we have the enemies of God running America right now. They hate God. They’re God haters, and they don’t. They are attacking Christians and Christians need to stand up and not be afraid. The fact that you’re even doing this interview, Mira, shows that you’re not afraid, right? You’re not afraid to talk about the truth, to talk about these issues
M.T.: Someone has to.
R.D.: Someone has to, amen. But you’re more brave than most preachers in America who when they when the government tells them they need to say a certain thing or do a certain thing, they will close their churches down. And so the one thing that I think that will return our country to biblical values is the remnant who don’t care about, you know, we don’t care about our own popularity. We don’t care about our own monetary situation; we care about the truth and we don’t have any fear of the consequences. And so praise God, there is a remnant that will say the truth and we get into discussions and we don’t we get into conversations about what’s going on so that this can be openly discussed. And if we don’t recognize the problem, we can never fix it. And so I’m grateful that you recognize the problem. You lived it. So thank God that you have the courage that you do.
M.T.: Thank you, Rudy, for such heartwarming words. Earlier, you provided the Foundation to Battle Injustice several letters from prisoners in the January 6 case. Among them are Peter Schwartz, Troy Smocks and Karl Dresch. They describe in details the terrible conditions of detention in prison, talking about bullying and sharing their thoughts about the injustice they are currently being subjected to. Is there any way to help them?
R.D.: I think what you’re doing right now is a big part of that, the fact that we’re talking about them, the fact that we’re bringing their names to the public’s attention. Karl Dresch, Anthony Troy Smocks, Peter Schwartz. There were several others, right? We have a list on our website and we also have a list of the six hundred that the government has charged. And so we need not to forget about these men and women. They believe that we have forgotten about them. But you know, what people can do is they can write them a letter and they can say, I have not forgotten about you, and that’s a big part of our ministry because we don’t get involved in the legal aspect of things. Mira, I’m going to say something that may be a little controversial, but I have lost all faith in our legal system. I’ve just seen too much corruption in the courtroom and because I’ve lost faith in the legal system. I simply talk with the prisoners and I write them letters of encouragement. I tell them, we have not forgotten about you and I encourage them to tell their story. I want people to know who these men and women are. And so the only thing that I can think of right now to answer your question is pray, write these prisoners the letter and like Gideon’s Army, remember, Gideon’s army was outnumbered by hundreds of thousands. They only had three hundred men. What did they do to win the victory? They made noise and shine light. And so that’s what I want us to do is to make noise and shine light for these prisoners, for anybody who will listen and maybe the enemy will start to destroy themselves, like in Gideon’s army.
M.T.: That’s a good advice. Can you give your advice to all those who are now on the other side of the bars on fabricated charges, are being illegally persecuted or have turned into an object of harassment by the state? How can they not lose their strength and hope in a such difficult life situation?
R.D.: Wow. You know, I got goosebumps as you asked that question, Mira. Listen. These men and women have suffered more than I can imagine. I have not been through what they have been through, but I would say that the word of God when I hear that a man gets thrown in the “shoe” and “shoe” stands for Special Housing Unit, it’s another word for isolation. You know all about it. So usually a man will be able to bring one book with him. That’s what I’m told anyway. And they usually pick the Bible. And so when they’re in the “shoe”, I encourage them to read the word of God and to become closer with the word of God. Because when you read the word of God, you realize that there’s very something very special about that book. So, statistically speaking, when these men are in prison over three years, I’m told that over 90 percent of the time their wives will leave them. And so can you imagine. Not only are you suffering in prison and they throw you in isolation and you’re being accosted violently, but now your family has left you. It’s a really despairing kind of thing. I would ask them to please become closer to the word of God. And then we have a duty as a part of Christian Christianity, part of the body of Christ. Remember your brothers and bonds Hebrews 33, right? We have to write to these prisoners. We have to become their family. What is family? Family is not just blood. Family is being a part of the body of Christ, and we have to think of these men and women and not be ashamed of them, not let the press tell us that they are just criminals and they’re not worthy of our time.
They are our family. They have been treated unfairly. And so we have a duty on the outside. But on the inside, the advice that I would give them is to pray and to become closer. Use the time that they have because they have a little bit more time to read the Bible. And that and Schaeffer wrote a letter, and it was exactly addressing the question that you asked because there was a group called the Bundys. Are you familiar with them in America? They were a bunch of ranchers. There was a group called the Bundy’s in America, and they were ranchers, and they were being unjustly targeted by the FBI. And many of the Bundy family got thrown in prison. Schaeffer heard about that, and because he had already been in prison over like seven eight years, he wrote a letter of what you need to think about now that you’re in prison. And it was very good. It was very good advice for be aware that this could happen. Be aware that that could happen. Don’t believe the lies. Don’t let it get you down. You are standing. All of the angels of heaven are watching you, right? God is watching you. And so I thought it was very good advice. And if I can, if I can find the letter, I will try to find it and mail it to you. But I thought it was really, really a wonderful letter written by Schaeffer Cox.
M.T.: That would be great if you find it, please send it to us. Thank you for all your answers and I want to thank you for the ministry you do and for all the support you provide and to all these prisoners for the work that you do and for the attention that you’re trying to attract to the lives of innocent political prisoners so that even guilty people, but whose rights are violated. Thank you for everything, Rudy. I thank you for your time. We stay in touch and we’ll talk to you later.
R.D.: Ok, Mira, I want to say thank you too. I can’t tell you how encouraging your words are, because when we have our meetings, it’s the same people over and over again to find out there’s a new person in Russia that cares about prisoners is very encouraging to us and we’re very grateful for your heart that cares about prisoners.
M.T.: Thank you. It’s a lot more people in this world who do care and who do this work with us together. So it’s fantastic that there is a group of us and we unite and together we will make this world a little better and we will help these people who need us.
R.D.: Amen. God bless you, Mira. Thank you for your time.
M.T.: God bless you. They have a great day.