There Is No Freedom While Prisons Stand.

       We all know that prisons are one of the state's tools for keeping control of the population, and the development of super high security prisons, is just a tightening of that control. Prisons have never been institutions of reform, except to reform the rebellious to the submissive. They are also symbols of state cruelty, when you consider that a very high proportion of those incarcerated have mental health problems, and/or suffer from substance addiction, they are therefore more in need of medical help rather than locked up in a super high security cage. There is also a very high rate of illiteracy among those incarcerated, the humane answer would be training in literacy, rather than being caged. There is no place in a free society for those repressive symbols of power and repression.

 This from Contra Info:

Five days of gatherings and debates September 29th – October 3rd 2015 in Brussels The program of events can be found here.

      If the state counted on silently building in Brussels the largest prison complex in Belgian history, it was mistaken. Against this maxi-prison project, a struggle was born and has intensified. An uncompromising struggle that has taken the initiative, which creates paths without political parties or formal organisations, that embodies itself in self-organisation and direct action against what makes the maxi-prison possible.

      The project to build a maxi-prison is inscribed into a wider economic and political context. In this time of new economic and political instability, the Belgian State, like other States, level up with strengthening the repression. Whether this translates into tougher laws, more control at all levels, cameras everywhere, militarisation of borders, soldiers in the street, urban regeneration to “restore order”, there are also all types of extensive prison building programs. Because prison will always be one of the threats used to try to make us fall into rank as well as a powerful state tool to keep in order its world divided into rich and poor, powerful and excluded, oppressors and oppressed.

If ideas and actions have to join hands, if thought and experience can sharpen the fight we lead, if the construction of the maxi-prison is not just a question of four walls, but perhaps above all a social issue that affects the whole of this society, these five days of gatherings around the struggle against the maxi-prison could be a valuable opportunity.

      At these meetings, comrades from different corners of the world will chat about their experiences of struggle, bringing along their reflections around insurrectionary struggle and explore ways to deepen the fight against the maxi-prison, but not solely.

      Text in French | Program of events in French and Dutch (pdf)
      Further reading: “The struggle against the maxi-prison” (pdf)

Tuesday 29th September, 7:30pm
Le Passage – Rue Rossini 11, Anderlecht
The hour of the revolt (comrade from London)

Wednesday 30th September, 3pm
Lion D’or – Avenue Jamar 5, Anderlecht
The struggle against the maxi-prison

Wednesday 30th September, 7:30pm
Pianofabriek – Rue du Fort 35, Saint-Giles
The struggle against the new Type C prisons in Greece

Thursday 1st October, 7:30pm
Acrata – Rue de la Grande Ile 32, Brussels
Towards the insurrection (comrade from Italy)

Friday 2nd Octoer, 5pm
Acrata – Rue de la Grande Ile 32, Brussels
Undermine the prisons of the democracy in Chile

Friday 2nd Octoer, 7:30pm
Le Passage – Rue Rossini 11, Anderlecht
Rebellion in Spanish prisons (comrade from Spain)

Saturday 3rd October, 2pm
L’eau Chaude – Rue des Renards 25, Marolles
Feedback and perspectives of struggle

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