Cages Are Cruelty.

      There can be no rationale for prisons in a civilised society, locking animals in cages is considered cruel, but we tolerate humans being lock up in cages.  Locking large numbers of people up in overcrowded, unhygienic conditions with poor or nonexistent medical facilities, more so during this coronavirus pandemic, must be considered a crime against humanity. Across the world we are talking about millions of individuals, a vast amount of them suffering from physical and/or psychological problems that should treated by the medical profession, but instead are lock up in what can only be described as state institutions of repression and torture. Recently the Turkish state stood callously by and watched two prisoners die, a week or so apart, from the results of a hunger strike, that is the way of states and prisons. Now the states across the world have turned society in to what it has always desired, a totally controlled environment a large open prison, where obedience and submission are seen as a duty. This is the true nature of any state. All those unfortunate enough to be enmeshed in the state's institutions of torture and repression deserve our fullest solidarity and support. 

    Freedom and justice cannot co-exist with prisons, such a situation is a contradiction, freedom and justice will only grow from the ashes of all prisons.

The following from ATHENS Indymedia:

SOLIDARITY WITH PRISONERS ALL OVER THE WORLD

CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL DAYS OF ACTION
         The existing health crisis and its management from governments until now, globally, has unmasked the real character of authority, which was hiding itself behind the democratic mask. This oppressive system imposed an ultimate control of life, forbidding everything. Now, all civil liberties have become senseless words. This extreme condition that we live in, reveals that the prison-model is the true capitalistic model of society.
       Prison is the most extreme form of bio-politics and extermination. Prisoners are under constant surveillance and control, something that, nowadays is happening to the whole society.
      In this period of time, prisoners in greek prisons are dying, one after another, from minor causes such as rotten teeth etc. Selim Zerolari and Azizel Demiroglou were two prisoners that we were informed about their deaths, this month. Mass media, of course, managed to conceal or distort these news. Furthermore, the state has grabbed the opportunity, due to the curfew, to move the most active prisoners, anarchists and others, into other prisons. Silence in the streets gives more power to the state to repress the voices of the imprisoned people.
      Incarceration has always been, and remains, a form of torture and a tool of submission for authority. If we don't resist to this modern totalitarianism, we will live in this prison-society, which states systematically impose.
     Throughout the planet, in the face of the corona virus threat, prisoners stacked in prisons and migrant concentration camps are shouting: We are prisoners, not death row convicts!

Korinthos migrant concentration camp, Greece: 1,200 migrants go on hunger strike, March ‘20

Italy, March ‘20: 27 prisons in revolt due to the corona virus, many prisoners killed in the clashes

Argentina, April ‘20: revolt in Concordia prison, guards respond with shootings

Palmasola, Bolivia, May ‘20: 2 prisoners left to die from the corona virus, prisoners revolt

Chile: stirke mobilization at high security prison in Santiago, May ‘20

Thebes prison, Greece: prisoners revolt after prisoner dies beause she was not taken to hospital, April ‘20

MEET ALL PRISONERS DEMANDS
FREEDOM TO ALL WHO ARE IN THE CELLS
PUBLIC HEALTH CARE FOR ALL – PRISONERS AND MIGRANTS
OPEN ALL CONCENTRATION CAMPS FOR MIGRANTS
AS LONG AS BORDERS AND PRISONS EXIST NOBODY IS FREE
CALL TO INTERNATIONAL DAYS OF ACTION IN SOLIDARITY WITH PRISONERS

29-30-31 MAY 2020

comrades, solidarians with prisoners’ struggles

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Savage State.

        The state has many ways of bludgeoning its enemies, from the subtle to the down right brutal. We should never fail to bring to public notice any of these repressive inhumanities, they should never be allowed to do their savagery away from the gaze of the public eye. Their brutality must become common knowledge, so that we can put an end to this authoritarian inhumane total disregard for human life and dignity.

 EU slams Greek prison system.

 

     The case posted below is from Greece, but around the globe these acts of callous brutal inhumanity are common place in state after state, part and parcel of this system of protecting the powerful and wealthy parasite class, and the inequality of the status-quo.

The following from Act For Freedom Now:

        Letter of Vasilis Dimakis, dated 27/4/2020, Grevena prison, Greece -Statement of hunger and thirst strike

        Original: https://www.athens.indymedia.org/post/1604730/
     “As of today, Monday 27/04/2020 and, after officially six days of hunger strike, since I have not accepted food from the moment of my violent transfer-abduction from Korydallos prison, headed for Grevena prison on Thursday 16/4, and weighing 62kg, I am going on thirst strike, claiming and trying to protect what I have painstakingly achieved until today, that is my dignified presence and studentship in the EKPA higher education community, as a student of the Department for Political Science and Public Management of the University of Athens. And I have done this under grave conditions, since studying in incarceration is effectively a great feat.
     I am demanding from my wannabe executioners, who arbitrarily and provocatively ordered my transfer, and also enforced the cessation of my studies, to act in a humane way, not driven by base motives, as should be fitting to any democratic citizen, before it is too late, to order my transfer back to my cell in Korydallos prison where all my notes and books are, so that I complete, without any more tricks and obstacles, my so far dignified course in education, so that I can ‘meet’ my future once again.
       It is impossible for me to accept without question the order that came without cause or reason, by some responsible who decided this transfer, interrupting in this way the studies and future of a human being! I inform you, who decided for me without me, that my will to study is so powerful, that is first of all touches my heart and then my dignity, not allowing me to make any discounts on the part that concerns my education!
       For this reason I place my body as a trench, for the second time, and facing serious risk to my health, because for me dignity has more value than life itself!
Fully conscious of the risks involved for my health and my existence, I kindly ask the medical staff of Grevena prison, in case of any complications (fainting, cardiac episode), that they do not medicate me or try to resuscitate me, as this would mean an added violence against my life. I consider that with this statement I absolve the medical staff of the prison and of any other health provider, from any legal responsibilities in case of a deteriorating course to my health.
With regards, prisoner Dimakis Vasilis on hunger and thirst strike.”

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State Murders.

       These are difficult times and in some cases quite frightening. No matter how difficult our lives may be at the moment, we should never forget that lives of those entrapped in the various states' prison systems, conditions have always been so. Endemic violence, over crowding, unhygienic, and poor to non-existent health care, is the norm for most prisoners.
      The state has no interest in changing these conditions for the better, and will deal brutally with any prisoners that try to better these conditions.
      I recently posted an article about the death during a hunger strike of a musician in a Turkish prison. Not content with this death the Turkish state sits blindly steeped in its inhumanity while another prisoner is nearing death in the same prison. They will let the prisoner die, but there is a chance that if there is enough public outrage across the planet or even Europe, they might just do something to stop this cruel and totally unnecessary death, solidarity is our weapon. In most states, inhumanity reigns, but in Turkey and Greece, they have developed it to a much higher level. How much longer will we tolerate this inhumanity to fester in our society.

     Mustafa Kocak in Turkey- torture after torture- innocent imprisoned and fighting with death fast.
         Dear friends, human rights defenders! we can't stop to write these alarming information to you. Every day news of injustice are coming and we don't want to watch the family of Mustafa Kocak while facing this pain. Mustafa is in a terrible situation due to the arbitrariness and tyranny of the Turkish state. He is in Kiriklar prison. Above you will have shortly explained the whole case. We want to share with you the video of his sister, in front of prison for weeks with the family Kocak, waiting that he might leave and survive..
        He will die and European Human rights organisations yet didn't respond to our calls, a few deputies sent a letter or made a press statements.
       We need to push the Justice Ministry, also for musician of Grup Yorum brahim Gökcek, who could also die very soon..His friend, singer of the band Grup Yorum died on 288th day of hungerstrike, on 3rd April.
      Both cases explained below.
      Thanks for taking time. Please react with all possible means. Solidarity!

 All other infos and news on:

Free Grup Yorum Twitter and Facebook!
        MUSTAFA KOCAK'S SISTER TELLS IN TEARS THE ONGOING INJUSTICE. THIS FAMILY WILL LOSE THEIR YOUNG SON AND BROTHER IF YOU IF WE DON'T PUSH THE AKP GOVERNMENT TO STOP THIS TYRANNY-
https://www.facebook.com/359325444942815/videos/153370839425775/
         Hear this Voice. Its the elder sister of Mustafa Kocak. She explains that their lawyers are waiting in Izmir for 2 days to see Mustafa but still not allowed to visit him for weeks.
Yesterday the family had a telephone conversation with Mustafa, the prison interrupted the phone call after 6 minutes, while usually he should have right to speak 10 minutes. This was just in the moment the lawyer wanted to talk about his health issue and application for medical treatment.. Sister Mine Kocak says, all doors are closed to get justice, it's an order from above they say. Please help us!
       What is above! Justice ministry? We call again all deputies, politicians, responsible in the government's to intervene as far as they are defenders of democracy!
       This is the call of the sister of an innocent man who will die or better be killed by Turkish government maybe in the next few days.
Mustafa is on death fast for 290 days against a life sentence only for a fair trial that is rejected to him. Why do we continue to watch this??!
THESE ARE OUR CALLS FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY COMMITTEE FOR MUSTAFA KOCAK AND GRUP YORUM:

Please share on Twitter and Facebook:
#MustafaKocakMustLive
#MustafaKoçakYaşamalıdır
#FreeMustafaKocak
@abdulhamitgul

Make a call or write to the:
Ministry of Justice
06659 KIZILAY / ANKARA
telefon: +90 (0312) 417 77 70
Fax +90 (0312) 419 33 70
E-Mail: info@adalet.gov.tr

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     Greece: from the Greek Prisons Updates, by Solidarity translations

Urgent news from Domokos Prisons:
       Prisons, the black holes of totalitarianism and dictatorship in the universe of contemporary representative democracy. In D Wing of Domokos prisons, special police forces along with the exterior guard raided Nikos Maziotis’ cell by order of the ministry. They handcuffed him as they messed up his cell, and as we were informed they told him that he was going to be held in disciplinary cells. We have no other information so far except that another prisoners’ cell, whose name we don’t know, was also searched.
       Moreover we know that there has been a decision by Domokos prisoners that they would begin mobilizations demanding the de-congestion of the prisons as of today Friday 17th of April. The response of the state and its mechanisms to the demand for de-congestion NOW, is revenge and repression against anything that is moving in a fighting direction. Their purpose is to terrorize and to totally impose the dogma ‘law and order’, a fundamental tool of imposition inside and outside of prison. There will be further updates.

Solidarity Assembly to the members of Revolutionary Struggle
17/4/2020
original post: https://www.athens.indymedia.org/post/1604515/
       Urgent news from Malandrino Prisons
       Last night a bunch of guards invaded the ward where Giannis Michalidis is held in Z wing in Malandrino prisons. After making a mess of the ward, they departed without any findings. It should be stressed that the search was clearly targeting the comrade, since this was the only ward of the whole prison that a search took place. It is not a coincidence that this is taking place when many prisoners are claiming the de-congestion of prisons, as the ministry is turning the blind eye and mocking them.
        Also, last night special police forces raided and took prisoner Vasilis Dimakis from his cell in D Wing of Korydallos prisons. A prisoner who is struggling for many years with all his might against the incarceration conditions in greek prisons. Moreover, searches were made in Korydallos prison.
        It is evident that the new far right leadership of the ministry of Justice in total collaboration with the ministry of Citizens Protection are going on an orgy of revenge and repression against any form of resistance that springs out from the detention centers. They are fooling the prisoners with false hopes at a time when the situation inside the prisons is more dangerous than ever. Let them know that prisoners are not alone and that their JUST demands are paving the way…
IMMEDIATELY MEET PRISONERS DEMANDS
IMMEDIATE DE-CONGESTION IN THE PRISONS NOW
original post: https://www.athens.indymedia.org/post/1604511/
      Statement of prisoners in D2 Wing in Domokos Prisons:
        As of today 17/4 the prisoners of Domokos prisons are beginning mobilizations demanding the de-congestion of the prisons as a preventative health measure in the face of the corona virus pandemic. We begin by refusing lock-down during lunch hours (12-3pm) and work and meals strike beginning from Tuesday 22/4. We agree and support the demands made by women prisoners in Korydallos as well as in the women prisons in Eleonas, where the prisoners revolted on 9/4, after the death of prisoner Azize Deniroglu. As a response to the announced mobilizations, the ministry of Citizen Protection proceeded to make searches in the cells of D2 wing last night (the cells of Varelas and Maziotis), with the obvious purpose of intimidating us. At the same time, they made a punitive transfer of our fellow prisoner Dimakis from the D wing of Korydallos to Grevena prison as a reaction to the Korydallos prisoners mobilizations who are on work strike since 13/4.
       It is clear that repression is the only answer of the ministry of Citizen Protection to the mobilizations of prisoners in Domokos, Korydallos, Eleonas, Chania and their spreading to Malandrino, Corfu. Repression began from the Korydallos women prisons, where the response to the lock-down refusal on 20/3 was to transfer Pola Roupa. Then there was the preventative transfer of Maziotis on 24/3 to Domokos prisons, followed by the riot police raid to stifle the revolt in Eleonas prisons after the death of prisoner Azize Deniroglu and it continues with the cell searches in Domokos and the transfer of Dimakis to Grevena prisons. The ministry, despite the announcements of the secretary of counter-crime policy Sofia Nikolaou who, during meetings with prisoners, promised to proceed to immediate de-congestion measures, proves that they have no intention to go ahead with this until prisoners start dying from the corona virus in prisons.
Prisoners of D2 Wing in Domokos Prisons 17/4

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Anarchists First!!

 

       Prisons, by themselves, are barbaric institutions of state repression, no matter the treatment the inmates receive. However it is within these institutions that the state sinks to the lowest level of depravity, callous cruelty and inhumanity. Those incarcerated in these swamps of inhumanity, see their very basic human rights abandoned at the whim of the state's mercenaries. Inside these state repression units, the normal rules of humanity no longer apply, you are there to be made an example of, you are used to deter you and others from any form of resistance to the state's control. Anyone who finds themselves enmeshed in this vicious inhuman system deserves all the solidarity and support that we can muster. At the moment it seems that, in many countries, anarchists are at the sharp end of this savage state treatment. "First they came for the anarchists---". Freedom can only rise when prisons crumble.

This from 325: 

Urgent news about comrade Ilya Romanov (Russia)

March 8th, 2020

IT/FR

       On February 18 and 19, there were rallies in Moscow in solidarity with Ilya Romanov, who, at the moment, is locked up in a penal colony in Mordovia [Eastern European Russia, near Nizhny Novgorod; NdAtt.]. In October 2019, Ilya had a stroke. Since then, he has been locked up in the penal colony hospital, a facility which is not suitable for treating his condition, which is still very critical. Indeed, the comrade is partially paralyzed (apparently half of his body is paralyzed). Ilya still has difficulty speaking, eating and being independent, even in the smallest gestures of everyday life. Ilya’s family and his lawyers were made aware of the stroke days after it happened, and the neurologist’s visit took place only two and a half weeks afterwards. He is not in any rehabilitation process and all the lawyers’ requests to have him transferred to a suitable hospital have been rejected; for weeks neither his family nor his lawyers were able to meet him or understand the gravity of his situation. It was not until November 28 that one of his lawyers was able to meet Ilya; The lawyer said that Ilya is paralyzed down one half of his body and cannot speak. He urgently needs the help of a speech therapist, as well as other doctors, but he is not allowed any specialist. Ilya is left to himself in a bed on a ward where he is locked up and he has been fed porridge for months. His neighbors on his ward in adjacent beds said that even the nurses in the ward never take care of him, but the inmates working there do it. On December 4, the medical commission of the penal colony again gave a negative opinion regarding Ilya’s transfer to a suitable hospital, because his condition did not seem serious enough to be incompatible with detention (!!!). The lawyers continue to use the legal channels and apparently his family has called to the European Commission of Human Rights.

     For those who do not know Ilya, some words on his journey: Ilya has participated in anarchist actions and demonstrations since the end of the 1980s. In 2002, he was arrested in Ukraine, accused of arms trafficking and of terrorism, as well as the preparation of an explosive device which was to be placed in front of a building of the Ukrainian secret services, to protest against the violent expulsion of a rally, Place Maidan, carried out by the police in October 2002. For this, Ilya was sentenced to 10 years in jail. On his release in 2013, he returned to Russia and had an accident during the manufacture of a firecracker [according to other sources, the device exploded while he placed it in front of a recruitment office of the army, in Nizhny Novgorod, October 26, 2013 ; NdAtt.]. Because of this accident, he had his left hand amputated and was condemned to another 10 years in prison, for terrorism, the sentence of which was transformed into nine years in a penal colony. He still has six years to serve. The way Ilya was treated is just one more sign of the brutality the Russian state has been using lately against anarchists. Ilya is a comrade who has never compromised with power, and that’s why they want to silence him.

Those who would like to help him and his relatives will find below the account number of his ex-wife and companion Larisa Romanova, as well as the Paypal account open for Ilya. Letters, postcards, expressions of affection are appreciated (when Ilya cannot read, there are bed neighbors in his ward who can help him. For obvious reasons, however, he will not be able to answer letters).

       For economic support: account n. 5368 2900 5608 4546 (holder Larisa Valerievna Romanova, bank: VTB)
Paypal account address: abc-msk @ riseup.net

To write to him:

FKU LPU num 21 UFSIN Rossii po Respublike Mordovija,
431200, Respublika Mordovija, Ten’gushevskij rajon, p. Barashevo,
Ul. Shtabnaja, d. 1,
Romanovu Il’e Eduardovicu (Bol’nica N. 2)
Russia

The address in Cyrillic letters:

ФКУ ЛПУ № 21 УФСИН России по Республике Мордовия,
431200, Республика Мордовия, Теньгушевский район, п. Барашево,
ул. Штабная, д. 1,
Романову Илье Эдуардовичу (Больница № 2)
Российская федерация.

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Slave Labour In The UK.

        How many products do you buy or services you use, here in the UK that are produced by slave labour? Workers here in the UK that are paid as little as 30p to 50p an hour, and it is all perfectly legal and encouraged by the government. In fact it couldn't happen without the government organising and delivering this bonus to the corporate world.

       A host of well known and little known companies benefit from this government produced bonanza, right here under our eyes. I am of course referring to prisoners being used as cheap labour for the business world. This in turn allows companies to pay off workers who have to be paid the minimum wage, who get sick pay, who get paid holidays and can take action against an unjust action by their employer. None of these conditions are allowed while being employed in prison. You are a captive slave labour force with no workers rights and you are being more or less forced to feed the rich and powerful, at the expense of your fellow workers on the outside.

This from Another Angry Voice:

        In August 2016 the US department of Justice announced that they are going to set about phasing out their use of private prisons, which triggered a spate of moral high-horsing from British people who tried to claim that our private prison riddled system is still superior to the US system because at least here in the UK we don't use prisoners as a cheap source of labour.
       The map in the article header proves how wrongheaded this attitude is. Just because they haven't heard of Britain's prison labour management company One3One, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, or that it isn't farming out prison labour to ever increasing numbers of private companies that are queuing up to take advantage of prison labour for as little as 30p an hour.
        Prisoners in England and Wales are being used as a cheap source of labour in all kinds of industries including printing, textiles, engineering, woodwork, laundry and even assembling plastic poppies for the Royal British Legion.
        The idea of training prisoners up with skills so that they are less likely to reoffend when they get out of jail is a vary good idea in principle, but the problem with farming prison labour out to the private sector is absolutely obvious. If scores of companies all over the UK are taking advantage of prison labour for as little as 30p an hour, then this availability of extremely cheap labour has an obvious downwards effect on wages and employment rates in whichever business sectors they become involved in.
      Since the Lib-Dems enabled the Tories back into power in 2010, British workers have suffered the longest sustained period of long-term wage deflation in recorded history. The real terms value of British wages has slumped 10.4% since the economic crisis, a wage decline only matched in severity by Greece out of all of the most developed economies in the world.
        The Tories have been doing everything they can to reduce wages and the disposable incomes of ordinary people: They've reduced public sector wages in real terms by imposing below inflation 1% pay rises (whilst accepting an 11% pay raise for themselves), they've overseen an exponential rise in people employed on exploitative Zero Hours Contracts, they've repeatedly slashed in-work benefits like Tax Credits and Housing Benefit, they've massively increased the amounts charged for university education and the interest rates charged on this appalling form of Aspiration Tax, they've unlawfully used unemployed people as a massive pool of free labour to distribute to their corporate mates and they've massively expanded the number of prisoners working for private companies too.
       The economic effect of prison labour driving down the wages of ordinary workers is bad enough in itself, but there is evidence that the availability of prison labour is actually resulting in real job losses as unscrupulous companies lay off their paid workforces and replace them with prison labour.

Here are some specific examples:

DHL According to the One3One website the global distribution company employs over 800 UK based prisoners to receive orders, pick, pack and ship. Meanwhile they have been shutting distribution centres, laying off hundreds of paid staff across the country (including 330 jobs in Droitwich, 200 job losses in Swindon and further job losses in Scunthorpe and Corby), and slashing wages across their distribution network prompting strike action. This is how Chris Taylor, DHL General Account Manager described the scheme on the One3One Solutions website: "Once you are through the prison door we like to create an environment identical to any DHL workplace". 

Going Green
A Cardiff based loft insulation and solar panel instillation company that laid off 17 workers at their call centre and replaced them with prisoners from Prescoed prison at an hourly rate of just 40p an hour. 

Speedy Hire A tool hire company that sacked 800 workers and shut down 75 depots in 2010. Since then they have massively increased the size of their prison contract to service and repair the tools they hire out, paying Erlestoke, Garth and Pentonville prisons £114,012 for the services of around 100 prisoners during the 2010-11 financial year. 

Timson Ltd
The boss James Timson is happy to act as a propaganda mouthpiece for the government's prison labour scheme, but what he fails to mention in his praise for the programme is that his company's increased use of prison labour coincided with a wave of redundancies that wiped out some 30% of the paid workforce at the company.

Cisco Cisco is mentioned by the Tory MP Andrew Selous as being a big player in the government's prison labour scheme. In August 2016 the company announced that it plans to lay off 5,500 workers worldwide. Perhaps they could prevent a few job losses in the UK by bringing the services they've outsourced to prison labour schemes back in-house?

Read the full article HERE: 

         An extract from an excellent article on prison slave labour by IWW Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee.

Workplaces of the future?

Prison Labour

Overview

        During every moment of a prison sentence, someone somewhere is profiting from that person being caged. The UK has the most privatised prison system in Europe, and since the early 1990s, when the first private prisons were built, prisons are increasingly being used to line the pockets of companies and individuals. Prisons have always benefited those in power; a longstanding tool of social control and repression used against working class communities.
            Prisoner that work in prisons have no rights to organise, no contracts, no pensions, no right to to choose what they do – they have no use of the gains that workers have fought and died for over centuries. If prisoners refuse to work they are punished via the IEP (Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme), and can have visits, association (time outside in a courtyard or out of cell) and other ‘privileges’ take away from them. They are the ultimate captive workforce for capitalist industries and have been used to break strikes, while simultaneously taking jobs out of communities and into prisons. Prison labour has been used as a tool for conquest and domination for centuries, from using convict labour to colonise countries, to putting prisoners to work in making goods for armies and war.
        IWOC are working on a report about Prison Labour and Prisoner Exploitation in England, Wales and Scotland that will hopefully be available by Summer 2016. These key facts and statistics paint a brief overview of prison labour here:
           One3One Solutions is the trading arm of the Ministry of Justice founded in 2012. Over 9,700 prisoners were employed in their profit-making partnerships with private companies, with a total of 13.1 million prisoner working hours being recorded (1).

Read the full article HERE: 

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The Whole Barrel.

        Prisons, those large buildings planted firmly midst the population and sometimes in the countryside, though unwelcoming in appearance they sit quietly as part of the landscape. People walk and drive by and in most cases don't give them a second thought. Though in fact these edifices to state authority and control, house inhumanity in an organised and brutal fashion. Prison after prison in country after country, torment, cruelty, sadistic and deliberate violence and even death are part and parcel of their routine. All those who find themselves entangled in this state repression machine are damaged by it, some physically some psychologically, some both. This is not by accident, these institutions are doing the job of the state control and repression, suppressing dissent, attempting to create a subservient, passive population.
        The case below is not one of those isolated unfortunate happenings, it is part and parcel of a deliberate program of state control, carried out by the paid minions of the state, and those responsible do so with impunity, all under regimes that fly a false flag of "democracy". Like the article says "Not Rotten Apples" it is simply a rotten system and the whole barrel has to be destroyed. There is no place in a civilised society for prisons, in any shape or form.

This from Act For Freedom Now: 

Solidarity poster for anarchist comrade Pierloreto Fallanca (Paska)

 NOT ROTTEN APPLES

       September 17 saw the start of the trial against our comrade Paska, accused of resistance and grievous bodily harm towards some of his jailers during a transfer.
        A couple of pushes against a few of the escort screws was the least he could do after the treatment they had reserved for him on various occasions: the latest being the rally driving of the paddy wagon that caused him a strong blow to his head and ribs during the transfer of October 18, 2018.
      On the other hand, since his arrival at La Spezia the prison management had decided to arbitrarily reserve even more restrictive measures for him such as delaying mail, bans on meeting others, isolation up to the 14bis isolation regime level as well as being forbidden to go to the yard with the other prisoners.
       That doesn’t surprise us. In the year 2018-2019 alone La Spezia prison boasts no less than 5 deaths out of about 230 prisoners, added to the acts of self-harm and beatings as a daily occurrence: the normality of a prison considered to be among the most progressive in Italy. It is, therefore, within the normal execution of their functions that escort guards Luigi Viziello and Stefano Cenderelli covered our comrade in insults, kicks and punches.
      In a climate of constant fear and threats many prisoners avoid talking about their daily harassment for fear of repercussions. And when someone does decide not to stick to the rules of the game the medical staff take care of it – as in the case of Paska, Gouba Abdelatif and Giuseppe Landini – to complete the work of the thugs by liquidating what happened.
      When asked to report the signs of beatings and ascertain the physical consequences, the doctors deny the evidence and dish out psychotropic drugs: yet another weapon to bow the will of those who rebel.
      Unfortunately our comrade’s story is the normality of prison, a story of ordinary detention. The guards appearing as the injured party in this trial are not an exception, they are the most coherent and sincere representatives of every prison and its reason for being.

SOLIDARITY WITH PASKA

FIRE TO THE PRISONS

EVERYBODY FREE

Anarchists

Source: RoundRobin

via: Inferno Urbano

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The Kite, Anti-prison Paper.

        A new month, and a new document for our "Read of the Month". For this months Spirit of Revolt’s “Read of the Month” we have gone back to 1979. It is from our Bratach Dubh Collection, an anti-prison news journal, The Kite, summer issue, 1979. It was distributed in several countries, and makes for interesting reading, with ideas that apply equally well today as they did in 1979. Enjoy.

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Do The Peple Of Scotland Deserve This??

 

        The UK as a whole has the highest prison population per head of population in the whole of Western Europe. However Scotland takes pride of place as the leader in incarcerating its population with the highest per head of population. We're a wee country but we're very good at locking our people up in cages.

      This from Scottish Legal News:

      Scotland has the highest prison population rate per head in Western Europe, with 150 people held in prison for every 100,000 of the population, according to a new report.
       Meanwhile, in England and Wales there were more than 140,000 admissions into prison in 2017—the highest number in western Europe, according to report Prison: the facts, which reveals that, despite the number falling in recent years, England and Wales still have over 40,000 more admissions to prison than Germany, the second-highest—which has a significantly larger national population.
     The comparative figures are taken from the latest available Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics.
       The rate of prison admissions, which accounts for the effects of differences in national populations, shows that England and Wales have a rate approximately three times that of Italy and Spain, and almost twice as high as Germany, with 238 prison admissions for every 100,000 people.
       The UK as a whole continues to be an outlier in western Europe in its use of custody, with significantly higher prison populations than other countries. Scotland’s prison population rate per head, 150 per 100,000 of the population, is closely followed by England and Wales, with 139 per 100,000. Northern Ireland by contrast imprisons 76 per 100,000.
      Scotland also has the highest proportion of probationers under supervision for “offences against persons” in all of Europe.

     While the UK and Scottish government continue to believe that we are somehow, a more criminal population than the rest of Western Europe and proceed with this ancient and barbaric practice of caging people, they refuse to consider the conditions in which they are incarcerated.  

From The Guardian: 

    Europe’s anti-torture watchdog has described conditions in Scotland’s overcrowded prisons as an emergency situation, in a damning report that highlights a rise in drug-related violence, the overuse of segregation, and inmates confined to their cells for lengthy periods of time, sometimes in less than 3m2 of living space.
    Julia Kozma, who led the delegation of the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) when they visited five Scottish prisons last October, described witnessing an influx of new arrivals at HMP Grampian. She said it was “like an emergency situation” as staff searched frantically for spare mattresses.
     “We don’t see the numbers going down so the emergency is becoming more and more the norm,” she added.

CCTV shows moment prison officers laugh as they drag prison inmate down a prison corridor.

 

     The blame for this inhumane and barbaric situation lies squarely at the feet of the state and its loaded judicial system. The state oversees a system of intolerable inequalities and continues to pass legislation that ensures that this system of exploitation and inequality persists. Though its priority is to unsure that the wealth and power of the predatory class is preserved, by caging those who dare to transgress its loaded legalities that are legislated to protect that class, they in no way provide for the humane treatment of those so accused and caged.

         The report reserves its greatest criticisms for the treatment of inmates at the Cornton Vale women’s prison, where the delegation found “women who clearly were in need of urgent care and treatment in a psychiatric facility, and [who] should not have been in a prison environment”. They included one woman who had bitten through the skin and muscle of her arm down to the bone and another who set fire to her hair in her cell. Since the delegation’s visit it is understood these women have been transferred to a medium secure psychiatric facility.

     There is no democracy or justice in a society that cages humans and then heaps humiliation, degrading and often violent conditions on them. If we want a better society then we have to treat all our people as human beings. Our present economic system does not allow for that.

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Rotating Hunger Strike.

 

       Spending money on prisoners conditions is not a vote winner, so our political ballerinas shy away from such activities. Therefore the conditions in almost all prisons are atrocious. Overcrowding is a major problem, leading to psychological and physical health problems, aggravated by the treatment from the cage keepers. Obviously the abolition of the prison system is the only humane direction we should be taking, but in the meantime we have to stand up for the humane treatment of those who find themselves entangled in the loaded judicial system.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

         Madrid, Spain: Rotating hungerstrike info + letter from Toni Chavero, anarchist prisoner

         Hi everywhere, we want to spread this info about the actual rotating hungerstrike in spanish prisons. The horrible situation in spanish prisons, tortures, deads, the basicly nonexistent medical attention,terrible food, bad communication inside/outside, aislation confinement for rebellious prisoners etc. etc. There are thousands of denouncements of this situation in the offices of the European Union Tribunals at least from the last 20 years. No one there cares about this nonexistent human rights in spanish prisons! So the prisoners, with the support of solidarious groups from outside, try to continue the long tradition of struggles against this fascist prisoner system in Spain. So from last September 1st a small group of prisoners started this rotative hungerstrike and Toni Chavero, anarchist comrade actually encaged in the prison of Estremera (Madr.i.p.) wrote this letter:

          [Madrid, Spain] Letter from anarchist prisoner Toni Chavero about the rotating hunger strike in spanish prisons
         Bunker of Estremera (Prison Madrid VII)
5th September, 2019
         Cheers, comrades, I am Toni Chavero. I hope that on the arrival of these letters you will find yourself with strength and courage. We need strength, determination and a firm position. I want to thank you, first of all, for joining these rotating hunger strikes. I have been on strike for five days today, but I didn’t even have to start it, the reprisals came earlier, I have been cut off from communications with three companions, for “reasons of security and good order of the establishment”. Since they lack the arguments or connections that lead to this intervention, they continue to violate our rights and freedoms through the nose, we will see what the court says. Although I know this goes on for a long time, I have set out to recover communications with my colleagues.
The dentist and the oculist don’t even call me. Reprisals or a Hippocratic oath? Or hypocrite?
          The objective of this strike is obvious and necessary: to demand the application of Articles 104.4 and 196 RP to the companions with chronic diseases, their release without the fascist requirement of having to be in terminal phase, I mean, dead, we’re not gonna stand for this. At least they won’t shut us up. That’s clear to us.
        On the other hand, we call for the repeal of the permanent prison that can be reviewed and, of course, for the disappearance of the hidden life sentences. Here I highlight the case of Antoine or Enrique del Valle, because right now I don’t remember any other name; it would be necessary to make a list of all the people subjected to similar situations.Comrade Antoine (Antonio Nieto Galindo), after 40 years, 4 months and 16 days of effective fulfillment, they want to kidnap him to France, these sociopaths, devoid of heart, unaware of the humanitarian spirit. Who are the killers here? All that remains is for them to claim article 100 of the old penal code of 1973: redemption of penalties for works, studies, cultural, artistic, creative activities, etc., etc., etc. We have no choice but to continue sending the writings about it to the incompetent, national and international bodies, you know the addresses by the compañerx out there.
After the end of the first 10 days, I think we should continue to send letters to these individuals, bodies, institutions In solidarity with the comrades who carry out the rotating hunger strikes. After the end of these first 10 days of September, begins the Peque companion (Courage, Angel!) and so, successively, continue, as I know today, ten more people. I know that they will enter, after finishing the comrade Peque, Aroca Lisón, Doblado, Hermenegildo, Tinoco, Marían Tapia… and I do not know who you are the others. Encouragement and many forces! We will reach the end of 2019 and beyond with these rotating demands, because we deserve it and because we can do it. Determination and iron positioning, I have no doubt. And thanks, inside and out.
          I want to thank the colleagues of Tokata and Grupo Pro Presxs of Madrid, for being the ones who have more contact with me, the fact of taking care of us despite the adversities. Thanks is to say little. To all the individual people, to all the Presxs Support Groups that I know you are there, to the Families, to the Solidarity Solidarity Groups all, thank you very much, much strength for the gatherings in the cave of the jailers (SGIP), the concentrations in Navalcarnero, in Albocásser. Thanks to the friends of Alcalá de Xivert (Castellón) for their “Desde dentro” (From inside), the voice of the prisoners and everything they do. Thankfulxs, compañerxs. Come on, add there the informative tables in Anarchist Book Fairs, Tatoo Cirkus, concerts, etc. You are the fucking rod! We feel you strong in here and we are grateful.
       A terrible fraternal and libertarian embrace. May the struggle for a society without cages not cease!
Rebellion and friendship! Also in memory of our compañero Xosé Tarrío and his nai Pastora.
We don’t forget you! Cheers to everyone.
Toni  

      Thanx a lot for the difusión of this letter-document of Toni Chavero. We animate to everyone to support this struggle with solidarity-actions!  You can also write to Toni directly; his address is:

Toni Chavero,
Centro Penitenciario Madrid VII, Estremera
Ctra. M-241, km 5.750,
28595 ESTREMERA (MD)
Spain

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Fire Ant, Solidarity With Anarchist Prisoners.

This from Act For Feedom Now:

     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 #4 includes writings by anarchist prisoners Michael Kimble (on the state of Alabama prisons), Noah “Kado” Coffin (on racial segregation & summer survival techniques), Thomas Meyer-Falk (in memory of his friend Willi), Sean Swain (on cannibalism), and Eric King (three poems). Additionally: a piece honoring Willem Van Spronsen, a rundown of this year’s June 11th Day of Solidarity with Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners, and a call for August’s International Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners. Plus original art by Noah Coffin, Marius Mason, Sean Swain, and Michael Kimble. 

Download Free PDF:
 

 BULK COPIES OF FIRE ANT.

      Do you run a distro, space, or project that would like copies of Fire Ant? Bloomington ABC will send bulk copies for free to anyone who wishes to distribute it . Please email us at bloomingtonanarchistblackcross (at) riseup (dot) net. (Note: United States only, for now. It may take a few weeks to ship out orders.) 

The Fire Ant collective can be contacted at
Fire Ant
PO Box 164
Harmony, ME 04942 

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The "Untouchables".

          Simple questions for today's society, who polices the police? How do you get redress against police "misdemeanors"?

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With Sickening Regularity, Another Anarchist Beaten By Prison Guards.

 

      States across the world, day in and day out, use their rigged judicial system to heap harsh repression on those who would dare to speak out against their legislated injustices. What they bring to law, no matter how barbaric, unjust or cruel that legislation may be, they will enforce with the full force of their tools of repression, carried out by duped fools who see it as their duty to do so.

      Anarchist who stand on the principles of justice, equality and freedom, are usually the most vocal in their criticism of these injustices built into our society. So it is no surprise that anarchists will continually be the target of the repressive and authoritarian states, that today, cover the globe. We could fill a library with the names of anarchists who have suffered brutal violence, and on many occasions, death at the hands of the various states across the planet.

         The forms of repression may vary from state to state, some more barbaric than others, but the aim is the same, to silence dissent, to create subservience. Conditions totally unacceptable to any freethinking mind, and it is with that band of humanity that anarchist will always stand. Each and every one that makes that stand demands our full support and solidarity.

        The following case is just one, in one country, but we all know this can be repeated, many times over, in varying degrees, in any country on the planet. 

This from Freedom News:

Iranian anarchist prisoner Soheil Arabi severely beaten by prison guards

World, May 8th
       Anarchist political prisoner Soheil Arabi, who is detained in Fashafoyeh (the Greater Tehran Prison), was sent to Firoozabadi Hospital after being injured from beatings by prison guards.
       Soheil Arabi was arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) agents at his home in Tehran in November 2013 and charged with insulting the Prophet Mohammad in his postings on social media about Atena Daemi: a human rights activist and a political prisoner in Iran. In August 2014, Arabi was sentenced to death.
        Soheil had experienced prison torture in the past. Most recently, he was summoned, interrogated and severely beaten for his connection with the letter he wrote from the Greater Tehran Prison about the condition of the prisoners in Fashafoyeh “Greater Tehran” Prison. In result, he has suffered an injury to his testicular area. Following the hospital visit, he was returned to prison without treatment. He was also denied access to a telephone and visitors.
         In November 2018, Soheil Arabi sent a message from prison on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women:

“Humanity deserves the best.

        Speak of fighting violence against women! Of women’s struggle against oppression, discrimination, and violence by society; Of violence in Evin and Qarchak to the Varamin hunger strike; Of the abuse and threats interrogators make against women; Of tears shed at meetings; combating violence against women is, without a doubt, one of the most important demands of the liberation movement and we are all fighting against gender discrimination.
         The discrimination that systems have taught us where women are men’s property and tools to serve them. This was the thought that had me ashamed of silence.
        Silence against violence is betrayal. Rise up and shout: Shout, “my mother does not deserve violence, my sister and I do not deserve misogyny”.
          Stand up and tear down the barriers, you warrior! I bow down to all those who stood up against gender discrimination and violence, particularly violence against women, and paid the price of cold, damp prison cells, at the foot of the gallows and under the lash of whips.
        I bow down to the mothers who raised freedom fighters; those who saw violence and stood against it.
         The word “violence” needs to be erased and efforts to eliminate it require a humane society. Now is the time to stand up against the clenched fists raised at women and liberators. So I stand up too with mighty women liberators shouting to eliminate violence against women, and not to be silent against violence.

Rise up so that our children may learn humanity deserves the best.

Soheil Arabi November, 2018 Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary”
Sources: The Anarchist Union of Afghanistan and Iran, Prameń

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