The House Of The Dead.

       No matter what label they stick on it, prison is torture, call it reforming, rehabilitation, restraining, it matters not, it is still torture of the human spirit. In such unnatural conditions, the human spirit becomes deformed, relationships often descend to a lower level, a more brutal level, and survival takes on a different shape under the ever present shadow of violence. 

Tasos Theofilou is an anarchist, imprisoned by the Greek state in 2013 and who subsequently went on hunger strike.

Extract from the recent publication of Tasos Theofilou book:
32 Steps or reports from the house of the dead:

Introduction note:

Prison is not only incarceration, pan optic surveillance, sensory
deprivation and the always present violence from above or from bellow.
Prison is not only the constant addiction to the sound of a heavy door
locking and unlocking. It is not only the endless rock of the yard. It
not only the use of smack to oppress any intention of revolting against
the brutality. It is not only the extreme poverty of the lumpen
proletariat, as well as the ostentatious wealth of illegal capitalism,
which exist to remind that class stratification is not absent even from
the basements of society.

Prison is also an entire civilization which emerges from the depths of
the soul of the damned. It is the dark matter of crime that is
transmuted into life: “And among the dead walls life develops and wild
weeds grow drenched in sorrow and intensity and injustice and waiting.
But they emerge, they grow out of cement. People try to remain alive,
and some succeed. An entire civilization is developed, a brutal
reflection and condensation of society, brutal without pretexts.
However, an entire civilization in the fringes of society and under the
most sharp corner of the heel of authority”.

Tasos Theofilou describes sides of this small universe, the underground
culture of the prisoners, which might begin from the improvised
practical art and reaches the humorous, self-sarcasm and imaginative
word moulding. He himself experiences not only the brutality of
incarceration, but also the arbitrariness of an entire
journalist-police-judicial complex which used even his pulp short
stories as “unshakeable” proof of guilt for bank expropriation. He found
himself in the surreal position of being an anarchist-communist and
being accused as a member of a nihilist organization, the conspiracy
cells of fire. His own political identity was considered an unshakeable
presumption of guilt…

The literary and political stylus of Tasos Theofilou does not only
observe the life in prison, it does not only describe the Kafkaesque
universe of oppression, but dissects the contemporary dystopia of the
state of emergency. The literary and political stylus of Tasos Theofilou
fulfills a higher political duty, beyond the analysis and interpretation
of modern brutality. The resistance of human dignity until the
definitive end of this brutality.

Tasos Theofilou texts can also found on the blog Postscripts of a
Fabrication (astop.espivblogs.net). The books Paranoir and Goodbye
Batman are also published (in greek), by Asymmetric Threat publications.

From:halastor.blogspot.gr

Translated by BoubourAs /Act for freedom now!

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

MORE AN THAT,- LAND OF THE FREE!!!.

       The following information was gleaned from an article on DISSIDENT VOICE, the full article is well worth a read, very detailed and informative.

       While it is becoming more widely know that the US imprisons a greater proportion of its citizens than any other country in the world, it should also be noted that the US, that Land of the Free has seen an increase in the number of peaceful protesters being arrested since Obama came to office. Since the Obama inauguration there have been over 2,600 arrests of activists protesting in the US. Recent research shows that since the start of 2011 over 670 individuals have been arrested at protests in the US. More than 1290 during 2010 and 665 arrested during 2009.

       There has been a steady increase in the number of people arrested at protests since 2009 and these protests have covered a wide range of campaigns. They have been protests against US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Guantanamo, strip mining, home foreclosures, Nuclear weapons, immigration policies, mistreatment of hotel workers, police brutality budget cut backs, the mistreatment of Bradley Manning, Blackwater, attempts to cut back on collective bargaining.

      What is also happening in the US is that there is a steady increase in the number of Americans willing to risk arrest and imprisonment for acts of civil disobedience. That itself is a healthy sign that the American people are becoming more aware of the total lack of democracy in their country.

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