Freedom.

 

         In conjunction with Call for International Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners 2023 // 23 – 30 August.

From Bloomington Anarchist Black Cross

[PDF for printing]

         Fire Ant is a quarterly publication focused on spreading the words of anarchist prisoners and generating material solidarity for our imprisoned friends. Begun as a collaboration between anarchist prisoners and anarchists in Maine, Fire Ant seeks to raise material aid for anarchist prisoners while fostering communication between anarchists on both sides of the walls.

        Issue #16 features art, poetry, letters, and essays by Sean Swain, Marius Mason, Michael Kimble, and Eric King; and an update on Thomas Meyer-Falk.

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The Lie.

 

                                                 Image courtesy of The Guardian.

           It's amazing how the propaganda machine for the state manages to convince most people in the UK that we live in an advanced democratic country, ahead of most other developed countries. Of course the intelligent and informed section of the population are aware that this is a load of bullshit. There is the lie that migrants flood here because of our wonderful social services and generous benefit schemes. When in fact or social services is in terminal decline, our retirement age is the oldest in the developed world, many people dying long before they reach the retirement age, and our pensions are the lowest in the developed world. Another aspect of of our so called democratic country is the number of people we lock up in prisons. Recently an Irish judge refused to allow the extradition of a prisoner to Scotland, stating that he could not guarantee the prisoner would be treated humanely, slating our prison system. In Scotland the number of the population held in our dilapidated and cruel prison system is 136 per 100,000 of the population, in England it is 132 per 100,000, where as the European average is 117 per 100,000 of the population. Another factor that tells us of the cruelty of our prison system is the suicide rates. In Scotland the suicide rate per 10,000 prisoners is 16, England and Wales it's 11, the European average is 9. Time and time again our prison system has been condemned as cruel, inhumane and over crowded. The state is not likely to spend money on doing anything about these inhumane statistics, as they see it as a means of helping to produce a submissive population, which they deem necessary for control. While prison walls stand democracy will die.

Image courtesy of The Times.

 

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Bulldozer.

 

          Spirit of Revolt for its April “Read of The Month” gives three for one, three copies of prison reform magazine Bulldozer. It is from our Bratach Dubh Collection, T SOR 5-1-20. The Copies are NO.s 2 & 4 & 5 from 1981-1983. Some wonderful images, excellent articles and lots of useful information. If you have any copies of Bulldozer and would like them placed in a safe archive, why not send them to Spirit of Revolt, details on our contact page. While there, delve into our Aladdin’s cave of anarchist and libertarian socialist history, history from below, your history.

READ ON LINE.

 

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Vindictive.

           There is no limit to the depth of callous vindictiveness that the state will not stoop to to crush any attempt to limit its power over the people. Those who fight hardest against the strangling shackles of the state's harsh power over the population, come in for the most brutal and vindictive of treatment from the paid dogs of the state. Usually those most determined fighters against the state's power, are anarchists, hence they come in for the full brutal force of the state's vindictive brutality. The following is just some of the savage treatment the state indulges in, but these cases can be found in state after state. All states share the same brutal determination to keep control of the population at any cost. Only our determination and solidarity will bring an end to this insane brutality, perpetrated in the name of power and wealth. 

The following from Enough is Enough.

Originally published by Terra Incognita.

           During the early hours of Monday 19/12 prison snitches/guards inform our comrade Th. Chantziangelou about his transfer from his cell to the 4th wing of the hellhole called the “penitentiary detention center” of Korydallos. After our comrade’s refusal to cooperate with them, the “well-known” hooded prison guards took over and tied him up and began his transfer to the prisons of Nigrita, after his declaration that from that moment on he would be on hunger and thirst strike until he was informed of the reason of his transfer and his immediate return to his cell in Korydallos prison. For hours our companion was unable to contact anyone, not even his lawyer. In the evening of the same day, he remains at the Sub-Directorate of Transfers in Thessaloniki and is now in the hellholes-prison of NigritaSerres. On 25/12, comrade Thanos was admitted to the Serres hospital where he is held under the suffocating presence of police in a room-cell, violating every human right.
          In the same way, on 22/12, the anarchist Kostas Dimalexis, prisoner of the 5th Wing of Korydallos, was transferred to the Trikala’s, another smaller city in central Greece,prison.
          We have become familiar with the scenarios of these stories and their director is famous for its trash behavior against prisoners. Of course, at a time when a fight against the new penal code has been taking place for two months now, the transfer of Th. Chatziangelou is clearly a vindictive response coming from all those who see in his face the unrepentant rage for freedom, as he was one of the prisoners who actively participated in the mobilizations to overturn this extreme resolution.at a time when a fight against the new penal code has been taking place for two months now, the transfer of Th. Chatziangelou is clearly a vindictive response of all those who see in his face the unrepentant rage for freedom, as he was one of the prisoners who actively participated in the mobilizations to overturn this extreme resolution.
          Our comrade still speaks of the intransigence of hostile actions against the rotten world of power and submission, and while they succeeded in throwing him into the cells of their democracy, he continues to speak of our greatest idea, Anarchy. In this struggle he finds us by his side, against every regime of exception, against every breath of any oppressor, against the violence exerted by the existence of their moldy system. Until the last breath, we are together and that cannot be defeated by any of them.
         Strength and solidarity to all the political prisoners who have gone on a hunger strike, demanding the return of the striking Th. Chatziangelou to the Korydallos’prisons.
         Solidarity with the anarchist Alfredo Cospito, on hunger strike since 20/10, as well as with the 11 Turkish fighters who are on hunger strike since 7/10.
           Immediate grant of the demands of our comrade, hunger and thirst striker Thanos Chatziangelou.

Listen carefully bodyguards, hands down from the fighters
Solidarity in the prisoners’ struggle against the new penal code
We call for international solidarity actions to support the struggle of our comrade and striker Th. Chatziangelou.

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Solidarity.

          When someone gets enmeshed in the state judicial system and are sentenced to a prison term, there is no guarantee that they will be released on that date. The state assumes the right to prolong that term on a bunch of arbitrary decisions.  You could find yourself held for years after the original term expires, because of a legal this or that. Prisons are the states citadel of repression and intimidation and they hold all the cards, make all the rules and change them as they see fit. All those entangled in this state repression system must have our full support and solidarity. No civilised society can exist while one prison still stands.

The following from Act for Freedom Now:

                                              POSTER PDF

         From January 7, 2022, a period of solidarity with anarchist comrade Claudio Lavazza will begin. Claudio was first imprisoned by the Spanish then by the French State, and has already served over 25 years in detention. Although the doors of prison should have already opened last December 11, the prosecutor of Mont de Marsan – the emissary of State vengeance that is following his case – continues to keep him behind bars.
       To raise awareness about the solidarity needed for our comrade, a poster with an international scope has been printed (at the moment in Italian, Spanish, English and French). Those who share it and wish to spread it, can request copies and more information at this email address:
inattuali (at) riseup (dot) net
         It is very important to not leave Claudio alone in this moment and to not make him look isolated to his captors. We here publish his new address, as we think it is essential that he receives letters:
Claudio Lavazza
n. ecrou 11818, CD 1 cellule 5, 1D
CP de Mont-de-Marsan
Chemin de Pémégnan
BP 90629
40000 Mont de Marsan (FRANCE)
 

        Solidarity and freedom for Claudio Lavazza!
Freedom for all!
Some anarchists in solidarity.

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Action.

              Those who call and struggle for a society where autonomy is the norm, where mutual aid is the accepted pattern, rather than profit, who call for the end of exploitation and authority over another individual, will always feel the wrath of the state. Anarchists openly make that demand and openly struggle for that eventuality. So anarchists are hounded and incarcerated in state after state, to survive the state needs control of the population and has developed an integrated apparatus to stifle, intimidate and eradicate those who would dare to challenge its drive for omnipotence. Those who find themselves enmeshed in the state's repression strategy, deserve our full unstinting support, they struggle and suffer for us all. A free society and the state can't live together, it has to be one or the other, there is no in-between arrangement, where you are half free, and half governed.  

The following from Act for Freedom Now:

Photo: Embassy of Chile in Montevideo-Uruguay
Medical attention to FRAN SOLAR Prisoners to the streets!

            Last Saturday October 30 comrades and friends of Francisco Solar gathered in front of the $hilean embassy to express our hatred for the Chilean state and our unconditional solidarity with our comrade.
The state and the capitalist enterprise that profits from the business of prison in a perverse alliance of negligence and annihilation are currently denying Francisco essential medical attention with the clear purpose of breaking him.
          With this gesture we salute our comrade and send him strength and resistance.
          May the gestures of solidarity expand through the internationalist call for the prisoners in struggle.
AGAINST PRISON SOCIETY!
DEATH TO THE STATE AND LONG LIVE ANARCHY! 

Chile: ‘The risks of multiformity’ – Words of anarchist prisoner Francisco Solar EN/ES

 

 

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Gaolers

 

 

      It is a thought that has always puzzled me, why does somebody want to become a prison guard, a gaoler of other humans. It seems the most deranged or deluded mind that would wish to earn their living by locking up individuals in cages. I know a lot of us take shit jobs for survival, but surely a spark of humanity in anybody would make them draw back from earning their living by treating members of their community like animals or worse. However history teaches us different, there are those people who for whatever reason will pick up the baton and the gaolers keys, we have still a long way to go before we can call ourselves a civilised species. However, I think it is right and proper that we make our opinions known regards those who would choose to earn their living as the state's skivvy and become a gaoler of people.

The following from Act For Freedom Now:

      We receive and spread:
       The national recruiting competition for the selection of prison guards took place on13th January in Paris, and the walls of the Parc des Expos exhibition centre and the Porte de Versailles metro station served for us to blow our top.
What can make a person lock up another up by force, deprive them of their freedom, personal initiative, identity, responsibility and loves? The lure of gain, no matter how derisory? Blind infinite obedience to an omnipotent authority that orders them “do this for me”? Sadistic delusion masquerading as benevolence, telling oneself “I’ll do it better than anyone else”? A torturer’s dubious ambition? Pressure from the job centre adviser?
      All these reasons disgust us, that’s why we made sure to organize a welcoming committee from the bottom of our hearts for all the adrift and human crap who turned up to the recruitment competition for prison guards on 13th January 2021, 12:30, at Parc des Expos and Porte de Versailles, Paris. The walls of the exhibition park along the route of Tram 1 and those of the metro station corridors served for us to blow our top and were copiously covered in what we think of people who spend three hours competing to become jailers, as well as the world they defend:
Against confinement revolts and freedom
Fire to the prisons
Here we recruit prison guards
Rather unemployed than screw
Screw, watch out
Rather do nothing than be a torturer
Screw, choke on your exam certificate
Fire to the jails and your cars
ACAB
      In the hope that they give up, or at least have some nightmares, but also because we will not passively let individuals become lockers-up. There is no such thing as a “kind screw” a “nice prison guard” or a “caring jailer”. The screws who’d have you believe they are there to help you back into society or to get through your sentence, are and remain the people who lock you up, who have chosen what side they are on: that of authority, oppression, control, prison, the State. Everything we hate.
       Let’s not forget that competitive exams are often run to hire the various servants of power, all of whom deserve our contempt. By the way, the next session of this exam will take place in March.
A word to the wise…
        P.S.: to have an idea of what this exam is: DesDetenus

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

Vindictive Minions.

       Those who manage the prison system for their wealthy powerful state masters, follow the state's dictate with a gay abandon, handing out vindictive actions on a daily bases, no doubt getting a feeling of satisfaction and a power rush, which encourages them to continue down that inhumane road.
      Once again, political prisoner, Eric King, has been at the receiving end of this savage brutality. Savage and brutal treatment doesn't need to be physical, there are a myriad of methods the prison managing minions can inflict this treatment on the prisoners. 

       The following from the Support Eric King Group.

 

        On January 5th, 2021, Eric was once again placed on a 6- month communication restriction in response to a New Year’s Eve noise demo that was held outside of FCI Englewood by various groups in Denver, a demo that happens every single year at prisons worldwide. After being accused of organizing the demo, the BOP finally admitted that they are aware that Eric had nothing to do with the noise demo. Despite this fact, the BOP North Central Regional office instructed Englewood to restrict Eric’s communication.
       Apparently, in the BOP prisoners will be held responsible for anything anyone may do. It is interesting though that in 2017 when the right-wing Bundy family attempted to force their way into the prison to visit a prisoner they stood in solidarity with, driving around the parking lot, evading guards, blasting music… there were no disciplinary actions or restrictions enforced on the prisoner. This must be another special BOP rule that only applies to anti-fascists.
         Eric can no longer correspond with anyone outside his family and lawyer. He is again cut off from communication from anyone that might offer him support and strength and solidarity during a global pandemic. He is again isolated from all contact with friends that matter deeply to him.
          If folks want to help, he can receive books. These can be a great distraction for him and all of the prisoners he passes them onto, especially during this next level federal lock-down.
Eric’s Booklist
       Donations to the bad ass lawfirm who has stepped up for him in a real way can be made, to help ensure they have the resources to continue to stand behind folks who are fighting oppression in real ways.
Donate to the Civil Liberties Defense Center

 

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Ocalan.

       We all know that Turkey is ruled by a ruthless dictator with visions of a new Ottoman Empire and he doesn't tolerate any form of opposition to that grand illusion. One of those who has suffered for years in one of Turkey's prisons is Abdullal Ocalan, arrested and imprisoned 1999, still languishes in the iron grasp of blood dripping Tayyip Erdogan.
        The following is an appeal for Abdullah Ocalan to be freed from the clutches of Tayyip Erdogan's prison.

Freedom for Abdullah Ocalan.

 Dear friend,
         Kidnapped in Kenya in 1999, Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan has been jailed in Turkey ever since. Öcalan is the Kurdish Mandela: The parallels are striking. As the one leader who possesses the confidence of the Kurdish people, and as the advocate of a peaceful solution, Öcalan is indispensable to resolving the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. But he cannot fulfil this role from prison, due to the onerous conditions and the extremely restricted communication — he is at present entirely cut off from the outside world. To end this isolation is the first, urgent step. And it needs your support.
         Millions have been rallying for his freedom for many years now. Between 2013 and 2015, over 10 million people worldwide signed the demand to free him and start serious peace negotiations. We need you to add your voice too!
        Please endorse the sign-on statement. If you have already endorsed the statement perhaps you can encourage others to do the same.
         The campaign now has its own website and campaign news and activities will be posted there. You can contact us at info@freedomforocalan.org.au.
In solidarity,

John Tully
Honorary Professor
Victoria University
(in a personal capacity)Dear

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State Savagery.

         There are still those members of the general public think that prisons are place where the state puts "bad" people, and it puts them there to protect the general public. This is a gross distortion of the truth, prison are there to protect the powers that be from the general public. They are state institutions of repression, places to put those who would dare to challenge the present structure of power, wealth and privilege for the few. They are built to intimidate those who might consider following those who challenge the status-quo. The other misconception is that they are places of reform, to prepare you for a better life once back out of their clutches, the fact is that they hope by the time you leave their repression cages, you will be a broken, submissive, "law" abiding subservient citizen.   

          Prison are relics for a bye-gone age of barbarity, they are state instigated and funded dens of savagery, barbarity, inhumanity and human degradation. However it takes an army of deluded/deranged people to take the job of locking their fellow humans in cages at somebody else's bidding. Within those walls the prison population has as high as 80% with substance addiction, mental health problems and learning difficulties, a whole section of vulnerable people who should be receiving some form of social and welfare care. Instead they are subject to arbitrary violence, degradation and lack of any decent medical facilities. We can't have a civilised society as long as one prison cell remains. Freedom and justice can only arise from the dust of the last prison.
The following is an extract of an article from It's Going Down:

 

      An interview with anarchist political-prisoner Eric King with the Seattle-Tacoma chapter of Black and Pink.
        In this time when authorities refuse to keep people safe from COVID-19, when rebellion is a fresh on our minds, and when the abolition of police and prisons is becoming a clear necessity to more and more people, we’ve got something to learn from an anarchist political prisoner like Eric King. Eric vandalized the office of a government official in Kansas City, MO, in solidarity with the Ferguson uprising, was arrested in September 2014, and then was sentenced to ten years for the window he broke in June 2016. Such a sentence is horrible, but not shocking. Prisons, after all, do more to keep hierarchies safe than people. 

        Eric is now facing a bogus charge of assaulting an officer that could land him another 20 years inside. At the time of writing this, he has been hit with a mail restriction and can’t receive letters of support. But we can make ourselves aware of his case and learn from his words.
        The following is an interview with Eric conducted through snail mail by the Seattle-Tacoma chapter of Black and Pink, a queer/trans abolitionist group that focuses on building community across prison walls.
       Black and Pink Seattle-Tacoma: How would you characterize FCI-Englewood’s response to COVID-19?
         Eric King: Dreadful! At least in the SHU. People were brought in without being tested, staff was never tested. Our tiers were not cleaned more than once a week, we were only given 3 showers a week. No bleach was used anywhere. We were given masks, but staff/admin was so slack with their usage. Now we have a massive outbreak. The entire SHU was ill and staff refused to acknowledge or test us, until on Thanksgiving when things were so bad a med officer had no choice but to test 3 of us… all positive. A few days later they test everyone else, ALL positives. Then, AFTER we all are very sick, they institute a SHU lockdown, they start bleaching the showers between use, etc. Warden Greilick failed. None of us have been given anything for it, not even info about symptoms and how to make it less. Greilick failed, 600+ cases, all preventable.
       B&P: What’s something about being in prison that you feel like people outside don’t understand, and need to know? Were there expectations you had about prison that shifted once you were incarcerated?
        EK: I’m not sure people realize or care about the amount of psych games these people play. It is violent. Withholding mail for weeks or months claiming you don’t have any, searching your cell and vandalizing your family photos. Placing you intentionally around people who wish to harm you. I’ve seen cops lie and tell a group a certain person is a rat just to get that person fucked up. Happens all the time and isn’t limited just to unit cops. Medical will see you on your death bed and say you just need more water. People die because of this gaslighting. You file your grievances as you’re supposed to and get told they never got filed, that YOU are lying. It’s a miracle there aren’t staff murders every day. Instead people internalize this bullshit and give up, or turn anger on fellow convicts instead of toward the system baring down on them. It’s an effective spirit breaker. I honestly thought in prison it’d be “us vs. them” … it isn’t… it’s us vs. us while they laugh and manipulate us. Devastating.
     B&P: What do you notice about how different populations in the prison are treated? How has your position affected your treatment?
      EK: Different groups get treated different for sure, usually to stir resentment and violence. Gay and transgender people get treated abysmally by all races/gangs AND staff. They are demonized and treated as less than scum, often left vulnerable to attack or staff harassment.
     My position as an anti-racist / anti-fascist person has been used to create divisions and separation. At USP-McCreary while in the SHU, staff mocked my “Antifa” face tattoo and assured me they were going to get me jumped… and they did. Mail is ALWAYS horribly delayed and often arbitrarily rejected, email has to be read and approved before being sent out – which can take days. I’ve been denied phone calls for 2 years after a website posted about me and my wife was denied visiting access due to her “ideology.” Staff talks big shit trying to instigate violence, subject you to a large amount of searches and property confiscation… you get targeted.
      B&P: What sustains you while you’re inside? What support are you getting that is really making you feel supported?
      EK: The support that feels the “most,” is when people/groups do things outside of me, on their own. Things like banner drops, fundraising, getting writings or info published to various sources. Being kept relevant and alive. In the near future it will be trial support: either showing up, posting about it, encouraging others to come, things like that. I have an amazing family who is outlandishly loving and supportive, I am very present in their lives. I have great friends and supporters who look out for me super tough. These things sustain me. Also, I am very secure in myself. My ethics and my belief in myself, in my future. These things carry me throughout the day. They won’t beat me.

Read the full article HERE 

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Keelie 14.

     The Glasgow Keelie jumps into 2021 with its latest issue, No.14, and as usual it carries a punch and variety of subject matter. This pocket rocket of criticism and information is a must read, read it and spread the word, it's your paper Glasgwegians. However it might be a local paper but the info is of interest to all who wish to see through the smoke and mirrors of this society.

Read the latest issue HERE

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Obvious.

         I have always maintained that those who believe we can "fix" capitalism, are idiots. They are trying to fix something that isn't broken, capitalism is working just fine, and doing what it was intended to do, make a few people very rich at the expense of the many. Once you grasp this truth, you realise that the only answer for justice and equality for all, is the total destruction of capitalism and all its attendant institutions. We are sold lies and illusions, and dwell in a land of smoke and mirrors. A world woven by the massive corporate advertising beast and its companion, state propaganda. Nowhere in the world of these two servants of capitalism is there a shred of reality, nothing related to the world we the ordinary people inhabit. 

      Nothing is as it is painted, "the economy" dressed as necessary and benevolent to all, reality, a label for the continuation of exploitation of the mass of people. Bearing in mind that the richest 1% have massively increased their wealth while the bottom 50% have become poorer.  "Prison", a place to put dangerous people, reality, a dustbin to dump those who would hinder the exploitation of the people. Bearing in mind that approximately 80% of those in prison suffer learning difficulties, substance addiction and/or mental health issues, and should be somewhere in the social care system and not prison. "Advertising" bringing the latest information to assist you to make choices to enhance your life, reality, devious and duplicitous manipulation of desires and reality to increase consumption and profit. Bearing in mind that the corporate world spends billions of pounds annually on advertising, so it must work. "Democracy", hailed as a way for you to be involved in the running of your country, reality, an illusion created to try to stop you from taking control of your own lives and communities. Bearing in mind that practically all those in government have connections and investments in the corporate world and they decide the shape of your world and how your tax money will be spent.

        So the answer seems to be straight forward, to live our lives in a world we recognise and relate to, we must screw the "economy", abolish "prisons", scrap "advertising", and get rid of their so called "democracy" and take control of our communities and workplaces in co-operation with all other communities scrapping the profit motive. Well, what are we waiting for?

 

 

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Covid19 Cages.

        As covid19 permeates through our communities like a toxic fog, and cries of loneliness and isolation increase among our communities, without minimising the suffering of those individuals, we should all spare a thought for those who by state dictate find themselves locked up in insanitary, overcrowded, conditions with inadequate medical facilities, over which they have no control what so ever. Prisoners across the world live in conditions that inhumane as normal, during this pandemic they seldom make the news but they are suffering from this covid19 disaster more than the public at large. In prison after prison the incarcerated have taken the only path left open to them, to riot, in an attempt to get some sort of protection from this virus that is ravishing prisons across the world.
        This report is from America, that extremely rich imperialist power that goes around the world bombing and decimating countries, while killing and maiming the populations to give them democracy. The American prison system is no more or less that slavery, a large profit making corporate controlled inhuman institution. The corona virus has added immensely to the suffering of that slave population. However, no country is blameless in this incarceration, dignity denying cruel procedure, we are all culpably, human dignity and true democracy are impossible while prisons exist. 

The following from Truthout:

                                        Lauren Walker / Truthout

By Ella Fassler, Truthout

        U.S jails and prisons, already death traps, have been completely ravaged by COVID-19. Crowded quarters, a lack of PPE, inadequate medical care, an aging population, and unsanitary conditions have contributed to an infection rate 5.5 times higher than the already ballooned average in the U.S. As of this writing, over 252,000 people in jails and prisons have been infected and at least 1,450 incarcerated people and officers have died from the novel coronavirus. Evidence suggests these figures are underreported, however. (The entire state of Wisconsin, for example, isn’t releasing any information to the public.)
     In response, incarcerated people have shown strong solidarity, coming together to demand baseline safety measures and advocating for their release, only to be met with brutal repression and punishment.
     According to a new report released by the archival group Perilous: A Chronicle of Prisoner Unrest on November 13, incarcerated people in the U.S. collectively organized at least 106 COVID-19 related rebellions from March 17 to June 15. Perilous, a volunteer collective project that tracks information on all prison uprisings, riots, protests, strikes and other unrest within carceral facilities, described this activity as “clearly one of the most massive waves of prisoner resistance in the past decade.”

Read the full article HERE: 

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Man's Inhumanity.

       This pandemic has brought misery and fear to millions across the planet, but none more so than those incarcerated in the various state's prisons. The conditions in these institutions of state repression are at best brutal and deplorable, added to these conditions has been the covid19 outbreak. This combination of inhumane conditions linked to the spread of the covid19 virus within the prison system has lead to riots in countries across the world, though not always reported. Sometimes the determination for human justice within these state hellholes takes the form of hunger strikes. Recently in Turkey we witnessed the Turkish state let two young prisoners die from the results of hunger strikes, that is not exactly unknown elsewhere. This report from the state of California in America is just another one of those cases where we search for words to describe this unacceptable and inhumane state function. The words from a 1784 dirge by Robert Burns,  "Man was made to mourn", spring to mind, "Man's inhumanity to man".

The following from It's Going Down:

       Perilous Chronicle reports on the ongoing hunger strike at Corcoran prison in Central California. 

 

 photo: Alfaz Sayed

By Ryan Fatica
          In the southern part of California’s Central Valley, about halfway between Bakersfield and Fresno, sits Corcoran, California—a small farming town surrounded on all sides by acres of cotton and tomato fields. Perched at the town’s southern tip are two of the state’s largest prisons. Together, their denizens make up about 33% of the population of Corcoran. One of the facilities, the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility (CSATF), is the state’s single largest, housing 4,481 prisoners, about 130% of its intended capacity.
        At the end of October, in the midst of a rapidly spreading COVID-19 epidemic at the facility, a small group of prisoners in D yard have announced a work stoppage and hunger strike in protest of what they consider to be institution’s “failure to protect” them from the spread of a virus from which they have no means to protect themselves. “I have lost all hope in humanity because of how California and CDCR [California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation] has Failed to Protect individuals like myself,” wrote David S. Cauthen, Jr., 32, a prisoner at CSATF who says he is currently on day 14 of his hunger strike.
        In an email to Perilous, Cauthen explained that the purpose of the protest is to draw attention to the spread of COVID-19 at the facility and to protest staff misconduct. “The primary goal is to set a constitutional standard on CDCR and all of its officers, staff members and medical personnel,” Cauthen wrote. “California and CDCR cannot expect inmates to follow the law as it relates to correctional officers giving orders, while all the while officers are breaking the rules that say CDCR must protect prisoners against any harm to life of themselves.”
        The Corcoran treatment facility is home to the California prison system’s largest active COVID-19 outbreak, with 502 active cases and counting. On Wednesday, the number of positive cases at the facility jumped by almost a hundred in a single day. Of the total number of COVID-19 cases at the facility, 482 have been diagnosed in the last 14 days, according to statistics maintained by the California Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (CDCR).
        There is reason to fear that the true magnitude of the prison’s outbreak is not reflected in these statistics. Estimates of false negatives produced by PCR testing range from 20%-67%, depending on the stage of illness at which patients are tested. In one study, researchers called the rates of false negatives they found “shockingly high.” Given this reality, it is statistically likely that at least 764, or 20%, of the 3,823 prisoners at CSATF tested in the last 14 days were given false negatives. If so, it’s likely that at least 28% of prisoners at the facility are currently infected with COVID-19 and the true number could be much higher.
        Late last week, the strikers released their list of demands through the prisoner support group Oakland Abolition and Solidarity. Their demands include:
Universal and voluntary testing available to everyone in the facility with results provided immediately. Restore safe programing and basic necessities namely law library, access to telephones, showers, dormitory cleaning supplies, hot meals, and canteen. Create mechanisms of accountability by which independent family and supporters on the outside have visibility on CDCR’s plans and actions during and after an outbreak like this. According to Cauthen, officials at CSATF have visited the strikers in order to resolve their demands but have refused to officially recognize the strike. Officials at CDCR did not promptly respond to requests for comment.
       As the strike enters its third week, the safety and health of the strikers may be in jeopardy in the absence of serious efforts toward resolution on the part of prison staff. “The hunger strike will last until we notice our physical health taking a turn for the worse,” Cauthen wrote. “But even once we do begin eating, our work strike will continue and members will fail to perform work for corrections.”
      Linda Osby, Cauthen’s mother, receives only sporadic updates on the hunger strike from her home in Texas. While she appreciates that Cauthen is doing something to improve conditions at the prison for everyone, she views the hunger strike with some trepidation. “He’s been in there 18 years,” said Osby, “I’m just ready to have him home.” She’s nervous to see her son taking these risks, but she is also praying for him. In the end, she has faith that he will get through it: “God has him covered in everything he does.”
        For updates on the hunger strike and other struggles in California prisons and beyond, follow Oakland Abolition and Solidarity on their website and on Twitter: @OaklandAboSol

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