The State Only Survives By Tightening Its Grip.

 

      It is universal, states across the globe will always grasp any opportunity to tighten control over the citizens. They will seize every possibility to stifle protest, to silence dissent, total control is their aim. Any excuse that offers itself will be snatched at as a reason to increase surveillance. It is the nature of the beast, it is its only means of survival. A call for solidarity from Poland.

Dear Friends,

       We have been waiting for over a year for the trial of the Warsaw 3. Today, we send this call out for solidarity actions on the first court sitting – the 31st of May 2017.
     There is also a demonstration ‘WE ARE ALL TERRORISTS’ planned for that day in front of the court in Warsaw (adress: Marszałkowska 82).
    The Polish government follows the international trend to see terrorist threat everywhere. There is no better reason to fuel war economy, enhance policing tools and prepare the ground for autocracy than the figure of the enemy. Either external threat – migrants (including kids ready to commit acts of terror), or the inside threat in the form of the domestic terrorism category is at this point commonly used in the whole EU to scare the population into obedience.
      As it is for other countries in the EU, terrorist attacks have been the justification to introduce new security regulations that grant states greater powers and significantly limit those of the peoples. Polish authorities also want to seize their chance to secure their own position riding on the European anti-terror wave. In the wake of the introduction of the new anti-terrorist law in Poland, mainstream media were first reporting the wave of false bomb alarms across the country, when finally they have got what they were waiting for. In the night of the 23rd three anarchists were caught on a parking lot of a police station in an attempt to set a police car on fire.
      For the authorities and their media the arrest posed a long awaited proof that there actually is a terrorist threat in Poland! The arrested three, after being beaten and tortured were thrown into the isolation cells for the most dangerous criminals to be held there for the next 4 months.
    Media theatre had begun and the introduction of the new anti-terrorist law was presented to the public as justified.
     The word ‘terrorist’ was abused by the media to the point of ridiculousness. Since this category is so vague that two individuals labeled as ‘terrorists’ can have almost nothing in common, the authorities have quickly understood it’s usefulness in eliminating potential threat to the their power.
      The Polish state has imprisoned the Warsaw 3, but it wasn’t enough. It has passed 3 new anti-freedom bills, but it wasn’t enough. Then it’s thugs brutally deported a PhD student who didn’t agree to spy for them – we all remember Ameer – but that still was not enough. They also feel the need to keep blackmailing activists, deporting foreigners and criminalize anyone who dares to resist.

We are calling you to take solidarity action on that day.

We are calling you to come to your nearest polish embassy, and show the republic of Poland what you think of it!

Fire to prisons, courts and copshops!

For a more detailed account of this case and other related events download the leaflet HERE: 

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

The State Is The Antithesis Of Freedom.

          Cry "Freedom" and the state will take a dislike to you, act on that cry, and the state will try to crush you. It's the same story the world over, you are free to be obedient and subservient. You are given World Cups, Olympic Games, shopping malls, limitless TV channels of trivia, bubble-gum and candy floss, what more could you want?  Break that mould, and you face the wrath of the state, with its many tentacles it can reach into your life and slowly strangle you. Our history is a litany of names who sought freedom and who have perished at the hands of the state and its binding laws, all there to protect the powers that be. So the sad tale goes on, yesterday, today and tomorrow, unless enough stand up and cry "Freedom" and as one body in solidarity, start to act on that cry.

From Insurrection News:

      17.03.17: Erdoğan Çakır, imprisoned in France for membership of the DHKP-C (Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front), has been on an indefinite hunger strike since February 15, 2017. The reason for this is that he began a one week hunger strike in solidarity with revolutionary prisoners in Turkey on February 13 and was attacked two days later by the guards at Villenauxe prison.
       In a report from the revolutionary press, it stated that on February 15, dozens of guards entered his cell and attempted to subject him to a degrading body search. Erdoğan Çakır, who resisted the search, was stripped naked under duress and locked in an isolation cell. He then extended his hunger strike indefinitely following this incident.
       On March 4, his daughter Gülcan Çakır went on a solidarity hunger strike which she carried out in her home. There have also been protests in front of Villenauxe prison.
Erdoğan Çakır N ° d’écrou: 10255 EA 2BC B209 CD de Villenauxe Route de Sezanne 10371-Villenauxe la Grande France

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

Prisons, The Anthithesis Of Justice.

          It is difficult for people on the "outside" to grasp the full extent of the harsh brutality within the prison system. It is not just the removal of your freedom to move about, but the total surveillance, the arbitrary and vindictive rules in an attempt to have total control over you, to keep you in a state of submissiveness, the violence it breeds, and the isolation from friends and family. Despite these inhuman conditions, because humans are what they are, the desire to be free still burns within, and manifests itself in many ways. Not a new article, but still well worth reading again. Michael Kimble has spent 31 years in prison, and is still fighting against the savage oppression that is the state's way of handling those it deems unmanageable and/or a threat, the prison system. All prisoners are suffering an injustice, prisons are the antithesis of justice, freedom and justice will only blossom when the last prison has been bulldozed and given birth to a meadow of wild flowers.

        The following is an extract from an interview with Michael Kimble in 2015:

Could you talk a bit about why you got locked up in the late ’80s?

          I got locked up in 1986 for the murder of a white guy that wanted to do harm to me and a friend who was out one night walking. We had our arms around each other and this guy started fucking with us, calling us fags, niggers, and all kinds of disrespectful, homophobic and racist shit. When he attacked after confronting him, I pulled a pistol I had on me and shot him. The media tried to turn it into a racially motivated murder and all kinds of things. I really didn’t know any of this until I had a chance to view my Pre-sentence Investigation Report (PSI) and this was after I had already been in prison awhile. I took the case to trial and received a life sentence and here I am 29 years later, still in prison because of a homophobic racist. I have no regrets about it.

You’ve talked before about your political development while in prison – from communism to anarchy. Could you tell us about how that happened? Were there experiences, events, relationships, or writings that pushed you in the direction of anti-authoritarian action?

         Yeah, I became a communist in my early years as I’ve said before, because it spoke to the oppression of Black, gay, poor people and of course prisoners, and espoused the idea of creating a world free of these oppressions. I became a part of the New Afrikan Independence Movement (NAIM) which was very vocal at the time and it seemed that all the warriors from the Black Liberation Movement was part of the NAIM. And they were active in the prisons as far as legal (lawsuits, letter, phone campaigns, education) support and visiting prisoners. And of course, they participated in cultural programs as well in the prisons here in Alabama. Also around this time the ABCs had begun to be visible through their support of “political prisoners/prisoners of war” from the previous decades’ movements (BLA, BPP, UFF, anti-imperialists, WUO, etc)1 , so I started receiving literature and newspapers (The Blast, Love & Rage, Bulldozer, Fifth Estate, etc.) and started to learn about anarchism and it resonated with me. Shit, I was against authority, against oppression and started to see the contradictions between statehood (government) and freedom. Anarchism was/is talking about doing away with all this, and putting into practice now and not waiting on the future. And I’ve been a staunch anarchist since.

Read the full interview HERE: 

From Anarchy Live, an extract from the latest writings of Michael Kimble:

        A new year, same shit! I’m not really a writer and don’t really like writing, and don’t have anything in particular to write about, so I’ll just put things down as it pops in my head.
          Lately, my mind has been troubled about a lot of things and I do feel compelled to write something. One is how we keep going for the same old stuff that power be putting down. It’s really depressing when I see that even some anarchists, who should know better, decry the election/selection of Donald Trump instead of Hillary Clinton. Don’t we realize that Clinton is just another piece in the power matrix and that she would only continue that status quo of power’s domination?
Right now as I write I’m sitting in a single person cell freezing. It’s in the low 30s tonight and there is no heat. I’ve been doing exercise to stay warm. Now I’m tired and decided to attempt to write something coherent and meaningful. I’ve been in this cell since January 4, 2017, allegedly for discussing actions planned for January 20, 2017 with a comrade on the east coast in a letter. They are calling it a conspiracy. Then, a cell phone was found in my property by the riot squad, who has been deployed here at Holman for the last couple of months in an attempt to regain control and restore order to a population that has proven to be tired of order. But since I’m an outlaw, I’m not tripping.

Read the full article HERE

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

Silent When I Should Be Screaming.

      Paper Chained is a journal of writings and artistic expressions from individuals affected by incarceration. We are currently seeking contributions from prisoners, ex-prisoners and family members of prisoners for our first journal publication. Please circulate this callout throughout your networks.
       If you are currently in prison, have experienced time in prison or have a loved one in prison, we welcome your contributions to this journal! If you know somebody who might be interested in contributing, please pass this information on to them.
        Attached is an information sheet that can be printed and mailed to prisoners and a poster you are welcome to print and display in your neighbourhood, workplaces, schools and other community hubs.
        Details about the journal and how to send in contributions can be found at our website: Runningwild (anarchist collective)

PAPER CHAINED JOURNAL – INFO FOR CONTRIBUTORS (PDF)

       The full horror of conditions within the prison system is not widely known by the general public, nor is the reasoning behind how people end up there. Books like this can help to get the true picture across, and perhaps we can then turn these hell-hole cages of injustice and brutality into piles of rubble.

      The following poem is from another similar book, "Silent When I should Be Screaming" and was dedicated to those unfortunate women who committed suicide in Scotland's Corntonvale Prison for Women.

Choices.

there's a man

in my bed

who wants

to kill me

this is not paranoia

I know this because

he drags me naked

from my bed

kicks me in the kidneys

twists my flesh

drags me over 

broken glass

he's always saying

he's going to do it

especially if I ever leave

oh yes especially then

or if I have another man

he'll kill us both

I'm afraid most of the time

but more than that

I am numbed by his

ranting accusations

fuelled by drink

and the past

I never know

exactly what

I have done

that warrants all this

Jan Coleman.

     

     "Silent When I Should Be Screaming" was published by Smeddum Press, printed by Clydeside Press, 1997, ISBN 0 9523868 2 8 

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

Greek State's Six Year Old Hostage Released To Relatives.

       An update on the Greek state's treatment of Pola Roupa's six year old child, who was being held in a psychiatric hospital under police guard, after the arrest of the child's parents. It seems that the Greek state has been forced to relent and bring a modicum of humanity into its treatment of this child. You can rest assured that this action was not brought about by the state's compassion, but by the strength of protest, and the fact that the eyes of the world were watching. Of course the state hasn't taken its foul teeth out of the child just yet, the state's henchmen will decide the innocent child's future within six months. We cannot let any state's acts of repression to slip past unnoticed, we must always be vigilant and resist.

This from Contra Info:

 Banner hung by the anarchist squat Utopia A.D. in Komotini, northern Greece: “Six-year-old captive; the hatred is growing; cops–judges–media filth, murderers”

         Today, Sunday January 8th 2017, after a new prosecutor’s order, temporary custody of Lambros-Viktoras Maziotis Roupas was given to the grandmother on his mother’s side, so his captivity in the psychiatric unit(!) of the children’s hospital in Athens was finally terminated. The six-year-old child left the hospital escorted by his first-degree relatives.
        Meanwhile, there were protests by inmates at Koridallos men’s and women’s prisons, Elaionas women’s prison in Thebes, and Trikala prison.
       Revolutionary Struggle members Nikos Maziotis, Pola Roupa and Kostantina Athanasopoulou have interrupted their thirst and hunger strike.
            A court will decide on the final custody of the child within six months.

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

State Induced Suicides And Self-harm,

         Anyone with a grain of humanity knows that prisons are a barbaric relic from a brutal past and have no place in a civilised society. In our not so distant past children at school could receive physical punishment for any misdemeanour, it was eventually recognised that harsh punishment doesn’t have the desired effect and was in fact damaging to the child. Prisons are much the same, as a punishment it doesn’t work, as a reforming process is doesn’t work, most of those individuals who enter the prison system do so again and again. However, the state will hold on to the prison system as a tool of repression, something to hold up as a warning to its citizens that it still has the power to remove you from society should you cease to be subservient.
       One measure of the barbarity of the prison system can be seen in the number of suicides. Over the last five years, 2011/2016, suicides have steadily risen, from 58 to 107, (England & Wales). Any system that sees an almost 100% increase in suicides has to be seen as inhumane and fatally flawed. Another barometer of the barbarity of the whole prison system is the amount of self harm among prisoners, this has seen a 50% rise in the last four years. Our prisons are dark places of injustice and despair, where the human individual is crushed.
        This quote from a BBC article highlights the anguish and desperation that fills the lives of those trapped within our prison system, none of which is of any benefit to the individual or the quality of our society.

       Danny Weatherson was 19 years old when he was given a 13-month IPP for robbery. More than nine years later, he is still in prison. In February, a parole board said his re-offending risk had reduced sufficiently to be moved to an open prison.
      But he cut his own throat last month and the move has been postponed. He is currently recovering in the prison's hospital wing.
       His solicitor, Shirley Noble, says self-harming has become his way of coping with not having a release date. But she is worried it could also hurt his chances of ever being let out.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Phoney Justice And The Illusion Of Democracy.

         Name your country and people end up in cages on trumped up charges. The so called "rule of law" will be used to excuse violence, corruption, intimidation and repression. Phoney charges, planted evidence, false statements by the lackeys of the "judiciary", are all tools the system will use to silence opposition to its exploitation, prolong the illusion of democracy and protect the parasites who gorge on the sweat and blood of the people. Their control can only survive by these techniques, without them their whole stinking system would drown in a tidal wave of justice. That tidal wave of justice is rising, how high that tide will be, how soon will it arrive, that's up to us all. We are the waves that will wash the festering system to the sewers, where it belongs.

This from A-Radio Berlin, in English:   

       In May of 2016, two of our comrades in Azerbaijan, Qiyas Ibrahimov and Bayram Mammadov, were arrested for spray painting the monument of the former dictator Haydar Aliev. It was on the night before the so-called "Flower holiday“, a day made up in conmemoration of Haydar, the father of the current President of Azerbaijan. Nonetheless, as the charges for spray painting would not have been very high, more than 1 kilogram of heroin was planted in each of our comrades‘ homes.
      They were processed on different trials. Qiyas has already been sentenced to 10 years of prison, his friend Bayram Mammadov is still on trial.
       From Azerbaijani comrades we received the text of Qiyas‘ speech in front of the jury, him being interrupted regularly by the judge. In support of his case, we made an audio version of this speech and the judge’s comments.
You can find the speech in the attached document.

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

Non Serviam - I Will Not Serve.

 

         Still the brutal struggle for justice continues, since September 9th. the slaves encapsulated within the American corporate prison system, have been in open struggle with their slave masters. There heroic effort demands our solidarity. Prisons on the one hand are the states refuse tips, where they dump individuals that are a nuisance factor to their system, where the dump those surplus to the requirements of the system, but in recent times they have morphed into something even more sinister, they have become large profit making corporate entities, slave camps to be utilised by capital. There is no place for prisons in a free and democratic society.

Warming the heart of freedom.

       A statement of support to all rebelling prison strikers from CCF in Greek prisons.
 

NON SERVIAM – I WILL NOT SERVE YOU
“Worse than enslavement is getting used to it…” 

       Life in the modern civilized world comprises false representations, false patterns, and false formalities. Formalities that determine our upbringing within a family, our education, our professional career, our relationships, our emotions, our smiles or tears. Patterns that castrate the scope of our perception so that our thoughts are directed onto a moving walkway going only one direction. Representations that disguise the system’s functions and pathogenies so that we see life unfold only on stage, and never wonder what’s hidden backstage. So, the thousands of suicides of desperate debtors is just another statistic among the unpleasant consequences of the economic crisis, the impoverishment of the so-called third world is just an unfortunate fact, and its wounds will heal by charity organizations, the countless dead of modern crusades, the unfortunate victims of the absurdity of war, and the convict slaves in American prisons are simply antisocial elements that provide social services to Democracy.
      Prison itself is exile from life; a non-place and non-time behind the screen of a decent society, to make the ugliness that bothers the eyes of reputable citizens unseeable. Prisons are a proof of the perverse intelligence of authoritarian minds. They’re built onto walls echoing the screaming and weeping of thousands of people who’ve learned to sleep with anguish and despair. Prison is the country of captivity, the country where one learns to kneel before the “Forbidden”, a landfill for the disposal of human waste, an industrial dump where the social machine’s hazardous waste ends up. For most people, however, for all those who never learned to doubt, to question, to look beyond the obvious, prison is a security wall necessary to protect their peaceful and quiet life.
      It’s certainly hypocritical on the part of a society to display the supremacy of its democratic civilization, its humanitarian values and social sensitivities so vulgarly, when those deemed unfit to exist within the same society are piled up in souls’ warehouses. But it’s infinitely more hypocritical, and infuriating at the same time, to turn these imprisoned existences, these living dead, into a marketable value through a modern and sophisticated slave trade.
      Yet this is the reality for nearly 2.5 million inmates in US prisons, whom the modern Empire has turned into slaves. These prisoners-slaves are the lowest caste of social margins. They don’t only experience the cruelty of captivity, but are condemned to lose their human beingness altogether; to become slaves in the modern galleys of American hellholes to the financial benefit of privatized prisons and multinationals that, using part of this dirty money, support election campaigns of various politicians who promise order and security to their voters. In turn, the voters—predefined coefficients in a rigged equation—fulfill their role, and the solution is always obedience. That’s exactly why the happiest slaves are the greatest enemies of freedom.
      But there are other slaves who aren’t so happy. They are the “fallen angels” in a society whose authoritarian perversion treats humans as cogs. But these human cogs are slowly turning against this very society. Throughout the US and the prisons in that territory, an increasingly growing whisper starts to spread. On September 9th, this whisper is transformed into an angry cry of freedom, screaming in the face of the almighty corrections system the ancient cry of rebellion: “Non serviam – I will not serve.”

Continue reading:

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

Slave Labour And Xenophobia, Diseases Of Capitalism.

        Weekdays are workdays at the Perry Correctional Institution in Pelzer, South Carolina, where Dee, a forty-two-year-old native of Georgia, has spent a decade serving time for a robbery. On typical mornings, he “commutes” from his cell to an on-site furniture factory, where he and other inmates assemble wooden tables and chairs for a private company. But when Dee’s cell door opened on September 9th, the forty-fifth anniversary of the Attica prison uprising, he did not respond as usual to the call to attention. Dee was on strike. “I quit,” he told me a few days ago, speaking via a contraband cell phone. “That was my last day of work.” Dee grew up poor and began committing crimes as a young man, but he had educated himself in prison and joined a group of “jailhouse lawyers” who assist other inmates with legal issues. More recently, Dee had begun to think of himself not just as a prison activist but as a worker. “We’re not compensated for our labor,” he told me. At Perry, inmates earn less than a dollar per hour in the furniture shop. “Slavery is inhumane, no matter its disguise.”

This from IWW member:

           As you might have come across, the IWW's Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee has been involved in an an ongoing prisoners' strike since the 9th of September in the United States (https://www.facebook.com/ incarceratedworkers/) . Companies profiting from the forced labor of prisoner include household names such as McDonald's and Victoria's Secret. I think that there is room for some solidarity actions that are not very time consuming or difficult to organise (such as picketing a central McDonalds and handing out leaflets) but which will nevertheless be effective in raising awareness of the strike and thereby actively aiding the struggle of IWOC and the prisoners. Even a small action, even if it has next to no impact, will be important for the morale of the persons involved in the strike and in the general picture of solidarity actions (that being said, obviously we should hope to have as big an impact as possible). A branch of IWOC exists for England and Wales which will I am sure give us lots of support -http://incarceratedworkers. noflag.org.uk/category/news/( leaflets, newsletters etc.).
            Additionally, a migrant strike is being organised under the title 'one day without us'- more information here https://www.theguardian. com/uk-news/2016/oct/10/ migrant-workers-plan-labour- boycott-to-protest-racism- highlight-contribution-to- britain
           Not much is known about this, but it is scheduled for the 20th of February, which gives lots of time for organising.

   Migrant workers picking daffodils in Linconshire. many people are alarmed by xenophobic attitudes to foreigners. Photograph: Alamy 

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

To Struggle For Justice, Means You Will Be Attacked.

        The state, is the state, is the state, no matter where it's ugly head appears. The format is much the same across the world, the rich and powerful control society, and the state apparatus defends them against any change to that set-up. Methods may differ from state to state, some more brutal than others, but all will go to what ever lengths it feels are required, to make sure nothing alters that format. So if you are among those who see this arrangement as unjust and based on corruption and exploitation, and you decide to challenge that position, beware. They have ways and means of trying to silence you, from demonising you through their propaganda arm, the babbling brook of bullshit, that goes under the banner of the mainstream media, and where that fails they have their strong armed minders the police and secret services, who are backed up by that loaded dice, the judiciary. The judiciary, of course, work from a set of rules made up by the rich and powerful to protect their privileged position. The state and freedom are divided by an unbridgeable chasm, just as, justice and capitalism are likewise incompatible. 

This from Contra Info:

Rome, Italy: Communique from Daniele from Regina Coeli prison
“Between these four increasingly narrow walls, I cultivate my hatred of the system. “
       If you are an anarchist get it into your head, if you have not done so already, that it could be your turn to end up in prison sooner or later, and that the paths that could lead you there are many.
       If you are an anarchist, first, you have to be careful about what you keep at home: simple things, trivial or almost, become components of devices or explosives in the cops’ reports, a story we have also seen recently in Bologna with a comrade ending up in AS2 in Ferrara. Even books, pamphlets and leaflets, so-called “paperwork”, become proof of affiliation with terrorist organizations.
     And then there are the classic conspiracy charges, usually 270a, that allow the guards to throw you inside without even bothering to provide “concrete evidence”.
     In short, the roads are many, but the reason is one: being irreducibly aligned against power.
       If I say this it is certainly not to complain about the iniquity of democratic justice, but to point out how easy it is for an anarchist to end up in prison, no matter how careful one is. Awareness of this risk should not scare us, just keep us ready.
       So “Scripta Manent” was not at all unexpected but is a repressive attack whose only uncertainty was “when”, not “if.” An attack by the democratic regime against those who, within it, still refuse to submit to the values and morals of dominion by getting into in a conciliatory perspective of dialogue and compromise, but remain in open confrontation with power.
     “The State is not thinkable without lordship and servitude … For the State it is indispensable that nobody have an own will; if one had, the State would have to exclude this one; if all had, they would do away with the State.”
      After all, whether you end up there or not, prison is still in the path of an anarchist. Because it is a spectre that hangs over you, because it has taken friends or loved ones, or just because it is the foundation of this society that we hate (“repression is civilization”).
      But the constant threat of imprisonment is not enough to stifle the rage we feel in front of the hundreds of thousands of animals killed and tortured every day, in front of entire ecosystems wiped out by the greed of technological society, in front of the millions of individuals forced into alienation at the workplace, held in vile prisons or concentration camps for migrants, and all the people killed by hunger and wars. And how can you bow your head resigned in the face of the continuous interference of the State in our lives?
       This society where everything has its price like in a shopping mall, where anything can be bought and sold as long as you have the money, this society based on profit no matter what the cost will always have an extreme enemy in who is not willing to trade their life and their dignity. Money is the only driving force of this system of death and misery. The State legitimates it, the police defend it, the newspapers give voice to its lies. Anarchists reject it and attack it.
      Solidarity with those arrested, those under investigation and those raided in operation “Scripta Manent”.
       Solidarity with those who are paying the price for opposing this system of domination in this world.
      With those who under a leaden sky choose to bring about the storm. For a world built on the ruins of this one. “Charges upon charges, sentences upon sentences, what counts is the hour of capitulation.”

Daniele Eccheccazzo
[Whatthefuck]

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

Solidarity In Struggle Is A Winning Weapon.

 

       We should never forget those in struggle, more so those confined to the state's prisons, repression cages, or in America, Incarcerated Labour Corporation, facilities, solidarity is the winning weapon. Since September 9th. the prisoners in America have been on strike, making a stand against the blatant corruption, corporate greed, slave labour and brutality that permeates the entire prison system. They need all the support that we can muster, these are workers without conditions, locked away from the prying eyes of the public and used and savagely exploited by the state and greedy corporations. The vicious treatment that is handed out to them is all cloaked in secrecy, behind high walls and armed guards, so therefore can be more savage than might happen out on the public streets. We need to allow those inside to know, that they have the support of those on the outside, we need the facts to come out, we need to keep the pressure on the authorities.

       Louisiana State Penitentiary, otherwise known as ‘Angola Prison’, to this day compels prisoners to plant and pick cotton by hand, for as little as 4 cents an hour. Eighty percent of its prisoners are African-American.
       Long rows of men, mostly African-American, till the fields under the hot Louisiana sun while armed guards, mostly white, ride up and down the rows on horseback, keeping watch. It is the largest maximum security prison in America, bigger than Manhattan, sprawling over 18,000 acres of farmland dotted with barbed-wire enclosures, gun towers and concrete dormitories.
A History of Slavery
      The land on which the prison sits is a composite of several slave plantations -it is called Angola, after the homeland of the slaves who first worked its soil - bought up in the decades following the Civil War. From when it was converted from plantations, prisoners have worked the land in much the same way as slaves did, under conditions so brutal, prisoners resorting to cutting their own Achilles’s tendons in protest in the 50′s.
      After the plantation was converted to a prison, former plantation overseers and their descendants kept their general roles, becoming prison officials and guards. This white overseer community, is located on the farm’s grounds, both close to the prisoners and completely separate from them. In addition to their prison labour, Angola’s inmates do free work for these residents, from cutting their grass to trimming their hair to cleaning up Prison View Golf Course, the only course in the country where players can watch prisoners labouring as they golf.    Continue reading:

This appeal from IWW Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee:
URGENT!! Help Needed NOW to Stop Retaliation Against Prisoners. 

       Current stats based on the strike tracking that we have done so far:
-Number of prisoners on lockdown at least 1 day since 9/8: 23,849 minimum
-Number of prisoners on lockdown in facilities where we know organizing was happening or where strikes are confirmed: 15,310
-Number of prisoners on lockdown in facilities where we’re not sure about organizing: 8,484
        There are two things we really need help with. The first one is really easy. The second one is a bit more complex. Both involve calling prisons. Here is a great "how to" video for calling prisons if you are feeling nervous https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=251DPVDQ17A
       1. Very Easy Task: As we hear of individual prisoners or facilities that are being specifically targeted, we will add them to this phone zap list https://goo.gl/forms/ s4gBzsgvz6W9LQoN2 Please call all the numbers on this list as many times as you can and ask all your friends to do the same. Print the list and take it with you everywhere and call every time you can spare a minute. You can call day or night, weekdays or weekends, talk to a person or leave a voicemail, just call now and keep calling. The prisoners are on the front line and it is critical that we do everything we can to keep the administrators from torturing and killing them.
        2. Moderately Easy Task: The second thing you can do to help is call all the prisons in your state and ask if they are on lockdown:

Notes about the State by State Tracking:
- They aren't likely to divulge answers to all these questions, but you can try, anyway.
- If they ask, you can either say you're a concerned citizen, or that you want to schedule a visit, or that you're a student doing research. These things might not help.
- You can either give your name, or make up a name. It is probably not a good idea to give first and last name, or any other personal info of yourself or anyone else, especially not of prisoners.
       1. Look up the facilities' info. Make sure we know what state you're working on, so two people don't end up doing the same state at the same time. Every DOC has a different website, but most list basic info about the prisons.
- take note of whether or not they list current population on the website, if they do, you won't need to ask those questions.
- check and see if they have press releases or recent news or anything like that. Some DOCs will publicly announce lockdowns on their websites.
        2. call the prison, here's a script:
"Hello, are you on lockdown right now?"
If "yes" - "why?"
- "how many people are locked down"
- "how long have they been?"
- "what is your current population, are they all locked down?"
If "no" - "have you been on lock down at all in the last week?"
- "have there been any disturbances or trouble makers sent to the hole in the last month?"
        3. Write down any info you get on places that are / were locked down. Try and research info that wasn't available on the site (Wikipedia has entries for most prisons, which includes their capacities) a google search might bring up reports with more accurate info about current population levels, etc.
- Email anything you find to iwoc@riseup.net
Here's where it's getting posted:

https://docs.google.com/docume nt/d/1kyq-sEN5RRjWd9xDYp8Tq0U2 zwquqTYHkGptnL-ZNbw

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

There Is No Freedom While A Prison Stands.

 

      The latest from Stimulator TV has information on the Dakota pipeline resistance which has been gaining momentum and force, and the American prison slave labour system. You get the names of some of those large corporations that see the prison system as another branch of their business, probably the most lucrative section, as it is devoid of any workers representation, pays less than third world wages and no workers days off, no holidays, no insurance, no need for health and safety regulations, and punishment if you are seen to be slacking off.

      There is information on how to support the people on the inside, who are at present involved in what is probably, the biggest prisoners strike in American history. They need and deserve the support of all of us if we are to bring an end to this inhumane system of slave labour incarceration.

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

Prisoners Strike.

         Three days since the start of the American prisoners work-stoppage, and there has been actions across the American prison/slave system. Some starting days before the assigned date, such is the anger and disgust at the corruption, within the prison system, and the treatment and conditions of those incarcerated in these slave labour camps in the so called "Land of the Free".

 This from Anarchist News:

National Prisoner Work Stoppage

Background and Inside Resistance
      As many of you are probably aware, Friday September 9th kicked off the largest and most coordinated prisoner work stoppage in the US in all history, on the 45th anniversary of the Attica Prison uprising. Organized in conjunction with incarcerated members of the Free Alabama Movement (FAM) and the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), this work stoppage is turning a bright spotlight on the continuing condition of slavery in the United States, a slavery upon which this country's economy is cripplingly dependant. Prisoners are also forced to be responsible for running the actual prisons themselves, working in the laundry, cafeteria, and so on, pretty much in any non-administrative capacity you can think of. I don't think it should go without saying that much of this labor goes unwaged, though the on average 13 cents an hour that inmates get paid is nothing compared to the exorbitant costs of goods in prison stores.

      Friday kicked off the actual strike, but resistance from within prison got started well before then with fires being set at Lincoln Correctional Center in Lincoln, Nebraska on September 6th, a 4 dormitory wide riot at Holmes prison in Bonifay, Florida on the 7th which hopped from dorm to dorm in the facility keeping just ahead of the CO's attemts to quell the rebellion, creating a Whak-A-Mole type situation that I'm sure the prison officials just loved. Also on the 7th inmates at the infamous military detention center Guantanamo Bay remain on hunger strike to protest their indefinite detentions, many of whom were captured as part of the xenophobic and racist governmental response to September 11th, 2001, 15 years ago today.

       September 9th at noon saw a complete work stoppage at Holman Correctional in Atmore, Alabama where our comrade Michael Kimble is held captive. There is no incidents yet from prison officials, and guards and COs were forced to perform all tasks. Sit down strikes and work stoppages were also held in Bonifay, FL in the aforementioned Holmes Prison, amid the ashes of the fires set only two days prior. In Troy VA, there was a work stoppage at a women's facility, and all across this state of North Carolina prisoners refused to report to their jobs. At a women's facility in California 10 or so brave souls refused to work and effectively shut the whole prison down because of fear of a riot. Disturbances were reported at Gulf and Mayo prisons in Florida, and three guards were injured in scuffles at Tecumseh Prison in Nebraska.

    Yesterday saw a continuation of resistance in Nebraska at a women's facility, from all over South Carolina, and continuing resistance in Atmore. Solidarity from overseas has been flying in fast and furious, with statements from prisoners in Greece, Australia, Lithuania, and Sweden among many others.

     Repression of those who are striking has mostly consisted of prison lockdowns and targeting of people who have been designated the "ringleaders". It will be very important for people to recieve solidarity from those on the outside in order for this resistance to continue. Keep your eyes on itsgoingdown.org and the live updates at maskmagazine.com for current info and calls for backup. You can visit the IWOC at iwoc.org for a list of concrete anti-repression tactics to share with those who are incarcerated and otherwise.

Read the full article HERE:

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

September 9th. Prison Strike.

 

        It is well documented, but little publicised, that the American prison system is nothing more than continuation of the slave labour system that existed prior to the 13th. amendment, that supposedly abolished slavery. American prisons are profit making corporations, where human rights are non-existent, a vast slave empire hidden from public scrutiny. It is also a model that is being replicated here in the UK and else where. A society that cages its people is a society that must be abolished, and remade in the interest of all its people. Modifying prison regulations and prison reform, still leave you with the barbarity of humans in cages, an unacceptable situation.
       The coming September 9th. American prison strike demands support across all borders, solidarity knows no borders.

 This from Contr Info:

Call for International Anarchist Action
in Solidarity with US Prison Strike

 

        On September 9th [the 45th anniversary of the Attica prison rebellion], prisoners across the United States will begin a strike that will be a general work stoppage against prison slavery. In short, prisoners will refuse to work; they will refuse to keep the prisons running by their own labors. Prisoners are striking not just for better conditions or changes in parole rules, but against prison slavery. Prisoners state that under the 13th Amendment which abolished racial slavery, at the same time it allowed human beings to be worked for free or next to nothing as long as they were prisoners. Prisoners see the current system of prison slavery to thus be a continuation of racial slavery, which is a system that generates billions of dollars in profits each year for major corporations in key industries such as fossil fuels, fast food, banking, and the US military.
      Soon after the passing of the 13th Amendment, many former slaves were soon locked up in prisons on petty offenses, quickly returned to their former roles as slaves. Over a century later, the Drug War sought to deal with the growing unemployment rate brought on by changes in the economy (outsourcing, financialization, deregulation, etc.), as well as the threat of black insurrection which grew in the 1960s and 70s, by throwing more and more people in prison. At the same time, the state and corporations continued to look towards prison labor as a source to generate massive profits.
       Due to all of these factors, at the present time round 1 in 100 American adults is locked behind bars, and many more are on probation, parole, house arrest, or in immigrant detention facilities. While African-Americans, Native, Latino, and poor whites make up the bulk of the prison population, black, brown, and red convicts make up much a higher percentage of inmates than their white counter-parts. For instance, there are currently more African-American people locked within the prison industrial complex than were held in racialized slavery prior to the American civil war in the 1860s. It is in this climate that prison rebels have organized themselves to carry out the strike.

Read the full article HERE:

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

The Violence Of The State's Minders.

       How can a person who is known to the authorities, and who under their instructions, presents himself to the local police station, end up dead during this visit and classified and buried as an unknown person.This is just another case of callous police brutality. The minders of state power know that the establishment will protect them, as they do their bosses dirty work. From America to Greece, from UK to France, police violence is well documented, but never prosecuted. However we should never forget that brutality, nor where they stand in relation to the ordinary people.

       This horrifying case of alleged defenestration is not the first in police history, and, sadly it will not be the last. 

(defenestration: While the act of defenestration connotes the forcible or peremptory removal of an adversary, and the term is sometimes used in just that sense,^[6] it also suggests breaking the windows in the process (de- also means removal). Although defenestrations can be fatal depending on the height of the window through which a person is thrown or throws oneself or due to lacerations from broken glass, the act of defenestration need not carry the intent of, or result in, death.) Wikipedia.

This from Contra Info:

      Open letter from the prisoners of Greek prisons to the jointly responsible ministers of public order and justice:
      On the 3rd of August 2016, the recently released—and former co-prisoner of ours—Pëllumb Marnikollaj goes to Patisia Police Station [Athens] to present himself before the relative authorities in fulfilment of the conditional terms of his release. Under up-until-now unexplained circumstances, he is transferred to Red Cross Hospital and, eventually, to the morgue. Shortly before being buried as of unknown identity—and despite the fact that his identity was known to the authorities—his relatives collect his corpse and allude to torture and defenestration.
       We are not the ones in charge of judging on what really happened. However, the number of reasons, which we have, not to believe the version of the Greek Police equals to the thousands of prisoners found in Greek prisons. It’s not merely the clumsiness in the way police attempted to cover the incident up; neither the fact that their explanations go against any common sense. (Come on, misters of the Greek Police. Who would believe that not only a prisoner, but even a citizen that visits a station to have his ID card issued would ever be allowed to roam around police offices, opening and closing windows undisturbed?)
     We have every reason to believe the family’s version of the needless death of our co-prisoner because every single one of us has endured the atrocities that take place inside the interrogation offices of police stations. We might not have had a first-hand defenestration experience; however, plenty of us have been under its threat as form of a not at all uncommon method of interrogation. We have, also, all been surprised by the fact that the windows of police stations are adorned with “flower boxes”.
      That we draw up this letter and make it public does not at all mean that we have the slightest hope for an investigation or that those responsible will eventually be held accountable. It’s already straightforward that we, the poor, the unemployed, the immigrants, all those who fill up your prisons are obliged to pay the price of our deeds. In contrast, those who brought us here by means of sweeps, batons and automatic guns will always enjoy the immunity that you open-handedly offer them, since double standards apply when it comes to decisions upon what is regarded as crime and what is not.
      Finally, we make it clear to all that we, as prisoners of the Greek prisons, do not intend to take sides in the game that the Greek and Albanian embassies play. We only want a reply. Even if we take the provocatively untrue version of the police seriously, Messrs. Ministers, is it the capacity of former prisoner or that of immigrant that allows a human being’s death to be dealt with such worthlessness that not even objects deserve?

PS: As an action of protest, we will be delaying our night return to our cells by one hour for three days.

Prisoners of Greek prisons

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