Farce.

         It seems that despite the covid19 lockdown, there is a long running farce continuing in Belgium. Though I have no doubt, even with the pandemic, such theatricals are being performed in cities across the world. If it was not so pathetic, vindictive and cruel, we could laugh.

The following from Act For Freedom Now:

 

The one spectacle that continues despite viruses and lockdowns (Belgium)

         While the cultural sector is still debating social distancing restrictions with whatever politician appears to be in charge, one venue keeps on hosting its spectacles in spite of everyone. So we are disgusted to announce to you the upcoming theatrical performance taking place on the 8th and 9th of October 2020 in the Palais de Justice in Brussels (that Moloch built on top of the proletarian Marolles and adored by many authoritarians for its oppressive bombast).
        Since it concerns an appeal case there will be no original content, alas! But be prepared for the rerun of unbelievable acts by the magician and prosecutor Malagnini. Watch as he just needs to add one person to another to create the illusion of an organization, while putting one accusation he just came up with on the table to suddenly find yourself faced with a criminal organization. (His previous act where he would demonstrate the existence of a terrorist organization got cancelled after even the managers of the venue thought of it as too far fetched.) Stand in amazement how fireworks in solidarity with locked-up immigrants gets twisted to fit the incredible story of an arson attack against those same people. Be blown of your feet by how the simple fact that there is no proof is, in fact, … the proof. (“Of course, since the modus operandi of the accused is that they remain unidentifiable. A proven hypothesis because we could not identify them. Aha!”) Wait with anguish for the appearance on stage of the magician’s assistant and investigative magistrate Panou. See how she is able (is she though?) to explain that an investigation going out on a fishing expedition to find accusations against persons is not at all proactive (gathering intelligence in view of deeds that didn’t happen yet or are unknown) but indeed reactive (starting from specific acts to identify their authors). (“Yes, your honour, a proactive investigation would have been illegal under the circumstances. But! Somewhere, at some moment, something happened. So! It is a reactive investigation, in hindsight …”)
        This is only a small and bitter taste of the infamous show that is already going on in Belgium since 2009 in the police departments and since 2016 in the juridical corridors. A show that distorts years of struggles and combative bounds against deportations, prisons, borders and other institutions of this oppressive society. We know that our individual lives and collective experiences will never fit their narrative, even if the collaborators in the rewriting of this clueless plot are eager to unveil their culprits to the audience.
         So we invite you to do as you please on the 8th and 9th of October (the accused will do the same).
We’ll speak,
       Anarchists concerned (more or less) by current events in Brussels, but not exclusively.

P.S. A verdict will be expected in the month following the pitiful event.
P.S.2 More information on the trial: https://actforfree.nostate.net/?p=33414 & https://actforfree.nostate.net/?p=33891

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Coming To A Street Near You.

         It is now obvious that the powers that be in the West are preparing for the army to be ready to function in civilian areas, in the event of civil unrest or threat of insurrection. They are always better prepared than we the public are, they do their planning well in advance and with unlimited funding. We tend to react to circumstances that are forced on us, rather than accept that there is a class war already operational at the moment. It is sold to us in various guises, austerity, national emergency, privatisation, gentrification, balancing the books, etc. when these start to hurt and anger rises, we react, but they are well prepared to quell that anger by force. What are our preparations for self defence?

      This from Act For Freedom Now:

 Coming to a street near you.

         For decades France has been one of the most important arms suppliers to the four corners of the world. With a flourishing industrial-military complex, it regularly carries out wars, supports irregular troops (such as that of general Haftar in Libya) and is also training on its own territory… and that of its neighbours. In the context of the ‘Motorized Ability’ program signed in June 2019 with one of NATO’s privileged partners, Belgium, it will supply the latter with 450 armoured vehicles (382 Griffon troops transporters and 60 Jaguar recognition vehicles), which will be delivered from 2025. Another aspect of this agreement is the strengthening of ‘strategic partnership’ between French and Belgian ground troops, which takes form in particular with conjoint training. This might seem quite banal, were it not for the fact that the army decided to train not only in barracks and appointed centres [1] that reproduce cities in miniature… but directly among the civilian population by performing exercises on a real scale.That’s how more than 1,000 Belgian and French military will occupy the provinces of Namur (ten municipalities located in the triangle Walcourt-Hastière-Couvin) and Hainaut (triangle Beaumont-Chimay-Froidchapelle) from 18th to 25th September 2019.

         ‘The goal is to start a French-Belgian military cooperation by integrating units in both countries in a civilian environment. It will also allow us to exchange skills and improve our inter-operations action in many sectors, such as radio communication and weapons use’. Yes, you read right, the goal is that of operating on a large scale ‘in a civilian environment’ as happened after the 2015 attacks, but above all that of carrying out an operation meant to improve ‘weapons use’. More precisely, 150 vehicles and 600 soldiers (fifty fifty for each of the States involved) will be deployed in twenty villages, with over 300 taking care of assignment (personnel, examiners, logistics) and… and… and… 100 soldiers who will play the part of rural insurgents euphemistically called ‘opponents’, who hide among the population.

         This military training operation, called ‘Celtic uprise’ (a reference to Brexit), has ‘a fictitious country in crisis’ as its scenario, and the goal of the murderers in uniform is no longer simply hidden behind vague humanitarian pretexts to aid the population, as it was years ago, but this time it also officially includes ‘patrolling, making sensitive points secure’ and of course ‘antiterrorism actions’. It’s been known for some time that the army has been preparing for interventions within the European borders in case of urban insurrections or rural guerrillas, scenarios that even NATO projections took seriously. As for us, it’s time we took seriously the proposals that insist on the need to be involved in it now [2]; to map carefully industries and technological companies, but also everything that is sensitive to the correct operational functioning of domination: communication networks, transport routes, resources and energy networks, strategic supplies of raw material and food; to develop technical skills and precise knowledge in order to put them out of use; to think today of forms of informal coordination and develop anarchist projectualities, valid in times of peace as well as of war, because the distinction between the two is no longer appropriate…

          [1]. Such as the 12,000 hectares of CENTAC (combat training centre) in Mailly-le-camp (Aube) and the 6,000 hectares of CENZUB (urban action training centre) in Sissonne (Aisne).

Visit ann arky's home at: https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

True To Form.

       Belgium, like all states, continually is on the outlook for those who would try to change the shape of society to a egalitarian society of communities. Then they move in and try to intimidate, silence and repress such thoughts taking root. They will label those so minded as conspirators or terrorists and through their loaded "judicial system" attempt to subdue them by means of prison or some other form of restriction. It is the nature of the beast.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

      As has been explained various times already, between 2008 and 2014 the Belgian State conducted an extensive investigation aimed at the multiform struggles – with no concessions – which attacked detention centres, borders, prisons and this world based on authority and exploitation.
       Initially charged with “participation in a terrorist group”, it is now on charges of “criminal conspiracy” that the 12 comrades will be judged during the whole week beginning 29 April 2019.
        For those who would like to keep in touch, support comrades (accused and others), show their solidarity, be there in one way or another, an info point will be held every day of the week of the trial at 20.00 at the Acrata library.*
And as we are not Cathos the week will start on Sunday April 28 with a first encounter at 17.00 for a drink /bring-and-share snacks at the Acrata library.
For a world without exploitation and borders
Against all authority
On to the bitter end !
*Acrata – 32, rue de la grande île – 1000 Bruxelles

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

When Will We Abolish Slavery??

        Look around and what we see is blatant greed and corruption by the wealthy and powerful, with the people growing more and more aware of this looting and a realisation that the ballot box is just an illusion to fool the subservient. So protests grow, turmoil increases and the system cracks and starts to crumble. In the capitalist system protest and direct action is the only road to real change, justice and freedom. The states answer to this threat is to lock more people up in cages, believing this will solve the problem. However, people in cages are still people, and their resolve to be treated as such will always be there and grow.

        Across the system those locked up are also turning to direct action as much as they can within the confines of the brutal state incarceration. Prisoners direct action is growing, in Greece there is a constant battle within the prison system in America across several states prisoners are on strike, and the latest in Europe is in Belgium, where several prisons have prisoners roiting, to the extent that the Belgian government has sent in the troops. Slavery is not dead as long as we have prisons and those locked up used as productive units to make profit for large corporations, as happens in every country in Europe. In America, prisons are nothing more than large production units useing the inmates as slave labour. All those who are protesting, striking, taking direct action, within the prison system must be able to call on the support and solidarity of all those outside the cages, we are all fighting the same system, exploitation,injustice and corruption.

      A small chronology of the riots spreading the Belgian prisons, where guards are on strike for more than two weeks now…

On Monday 25th of April, the prison guards of all prisons in the French speaking parts of Belgium went on strike, in total 21 prisons. The prisoners are confined in their cells. All activities, like the walk, shower, visit, legal counsel, are cancelled. The police took over the control of the prisons to assure security.

After one week of guards on strike, and with conditions rapidly deteriorating inside, incidents start to spread in many prisons. In some prisons, the situation could be called catastrophic. Prisoners only receive food once a day, didn’t go out of their cells in more than ten days, hygienic conditions are terrible with infections and diseases spreading.---------

Read the full article HERE:

And in America, prisoners strikes are growing.

      Alabama prisoners who have been on strike for 10 days over unpaid labor and prison conditions are accusing officials of retaliating against their protest by starving them. The coordinated strike started on May 1, International Workers’ Day, when prisoners at the Holman and Elmore facilities refused to report to their prison jobs and has since expanded to Staton, St. Clair, and Donaldson’s facilities, according to organizers with the Free Alabama Movement, a network of prison activists.

      Prison officials responded by putting the facilities on lockdown, partially to allow guards to perform jobs normally carried out by prisoners. But prisoners told The Intercept that officials also punished them by serving meals that are significantly smaller than usual, a practice they have referred to as “bird feeding.”----------

Texas.

       Claiming that they are treated like slaves, inmates from up to five Texas prisons have orchestrated a historic workers’ strike. A lack of access to quality food and water, low wages, overcrowding, and poor working conditions were among their complaints.

Striking inmates are refusing to leave their cells for work assigned by Texas Corrections Industries (TCI), a publicly traded company.

        Established in 1963 under the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, TCI uses prison labor to make a variety of products “from hand soap to bed sheets, from raising livestock to making iron toilets and portable buildings,” all of which are sold to local, state, and federal government agencies, as well as public schools, and hospitals ‒ and prisoners receive none of the profits, according to a letter outlining the reasons for the strike.--------

     PRISON INMATES around the country have called for a series of strikes against forced labor, demanding reforms of parole systems and prison policies, as well as more humane living conditions, a reduced use of solitary confinement, and better health care.

       Inmates at up to five Texas prisons pledged to refuse to leave their cells today. The strike’s organizers remain anonymous but have circulated fliers listing a series of grievances and demands, and a letter articulating the reasons for the strike. The Texas strikers’ demands range from the specific, such as a “good-time” credit toward sentence reduction and an end to $100 medical co-pays, to the systemic, namely a drastic downsizing of the state’s incarcerated population.

       “Texas’s prisoners are the slaves of today, and that slavery affects our society economically, morally and politically,” reads the five-page letter announcing the strike. “Beginning on April 4, 2016, all inmates around Texas will stop all labor in order to get the attention from politicians and Texas’s community alike.”---------

Well worth reading these articles in full.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

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

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Reflect,Discuss and Act.

    From a flier distributed in Belgium and published in the periodical Machete and translated into English on Anarchy in Italy:

Memory is short. Day after day, we are bombarded with information. Screens tell us the topic of the day, and tomorrow it is necessary to talk about the next topic. There is no more time for discussing and reflecting. And when there is no time, the possibility that our ideas might transform into action is destroyed. In fact, we must seize the time forcefully, taking hold of it with all the violence that our will to think for ourselves breathes. Let's take the necessary time to think and act, outside of the deadlines those in power and their media dictate. Not in the presence of the institutions, not before the media centers. Because we are speaking directly, without mediation. And we can only address ourselves to the institutions, to all institutions, through the language of attack.-- 

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