Justice.

            The state is a brutal and vindictive organisation that will go to any ends to protect its claimed monopoly on power. It will create laws and punishments arbitrarily, in an attempt to crush any resistance to its  attempt to control the population and protect its wealth and power. The only road to freedom and true democracy is to resist and work towards the abolition of the whole state apparatus. Take a journey across the planet and you will come across in every so called country, similar cases of state brutality against groups and individuals who seek freedom from the control and shackles of the oppressive state apparatus, many pay with their life for persisting in their desire for freedom and justice.

             That is why all those lovers of freedom and justice should support the call for a day of action
            30th November: Day of action in solidarity with Alfredo and other comrades on hunger strike [Alfredo Cospito]

The following extract from Enough is Enough.

 

         Since 20 October, the anarchist Alfredo Cospito has been on hunger strike against his detention in total isolation and torture and against imprisonment without parole. Other detained comrades (Anna Beniamino, Ivan Alocco, Juan Sorroche and Toby Shone) as a sign of solidarity and to give strength to Alfredo’s struggle, have also started a hunger strike.

          Alfredo has been in prison uninterruptedly for ten years, spent in High Security sections until his transfer to 41 bis. The 41 bis is a prison regime of annihilation, as it is designed to cause physical and mental damage through the technique of sensory deprivation; it is a political and social death sentence, aimed at cutting off all contact with the outside world.
Our comrade was transferred to these torture chambers because, despite his imprisonment, he never stopped contributing to the international anarchist debate with articles, editorial projects and proposals.
         The re-examination of the 41 bis measure against Alfredo is set for 1 December. This hearing will be very important because it will have to pronounce on the legitimacy of the previous Justice Minister Marta Cartabia’s decision to apply the 41 bis prison regime against our comrade.
         Alfredo was convicted, along with Anna Beniamino and other anarchists, in the mega trial Scripta Manent, a trial aimed at criminalising anarchist ideas and hostile practices against all forms of authority and domination. Specifically, Alfredo and Anna were accused of being responsible for the double explosive attack against the Scuola Allievi Carabinieri in Fossano, on 2 June 2006, claimed by Rivolta Anonima and Tremenda / Federazione Anarchica Informale. For this attack, on 6 July, the Court of Cassation reformulated the sentence to ‘political massacre’. Life imprisonment is the only penalty the Italian penal code provides for political massacre. After reclassifying the crime, the Cassation sent the case back to the Court of Appeal to redetermine the convictions. The hearing that will decide the extent of these sentences is set for 5 December in Turin.
         The Italian state, which has always protected the fascist strategy of mass murder, now wants to convict two anarchists of massacre for an explosive attack that caused neither victims nor injuries.

Read the full article HERE. 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Fights On.

           Giannis Michailidis has served his full prison sentence and fulfilled all the conditions for his release, and despite this and the fact that he has been on hunger strike for 67 days in attempt to have his just release, the Greek state is callously refusing him justice and are willing to see him die a slow death, locked in solitary confinement. Giannis has stated that he has suspended his hunger strike for justice, but not abandoned the fight, for reasons he will explain at a later date.
 

 The following from Act For Freedom Now:

         I find myself in the unfortunate position to announce that I am suspending this difficult struggle without having won anything substantial. However, this struggle is not over yet nor do I intend to leave it unfinished. The suspension is temporary; some of the reasons are the obvious ones. Some are not. I apologise to those who have supported me that I cannot share the reasons publicly at this point. Should I need to continue I will explain publicly and in detail the reasons I chose the temporary suspension. I will continue to fight for what I deserve and hopefully will not need to continue.
       The justice system has been humiliated. So far, the only success of this hunger strike is that it has highlighted its contradictions. In terms of the barricades I have attempted to raise, there have been the statements of the lawyers, changing the mood of the “throw them inside and throw away the keys” logic. But my personal request remains in the air. And my commitment that I wouldn’t stop seems betrayed at this point. This weighs on me, of course, and despite knowing that my intention is – if necessary – to continue at a more fruitful time in the near future; but as I said before, not everything can be said at this moment and I hope it will not have to be said. Closing this announcement, I want to wholeheartedly thank those who have supported me in any way. Those who took a stand, those who transcended their social roles because empathy prevailed. But above all, those who fought tooth and nail to break the enforced silence, those who were beaten in the streets to express their solidarity, those who took risks and those who starved in prison. To the latter I owe my life. If all this had not happened, at this moment the conditions for this suspension wouldn’t exist. That’s all for now. I still look forward to my immediate release.

Everything continues…

Yiannis Michailidis

 A text by Giannis Michailidis, read out at the event in Athens for "Words for Remembrance of Political Prisoners."

THE HIDDEN STRENGTH OF AN INSURRECTION IS THAT IT AROUSES THE IMAGINATION

         It was late evening of December 5th, 2008 and I was reading the comic book ‘V for Vendetta’, when a phrase shook me: “Noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap.” The economic crisis hadn’t yet unsettled the dominant narrative of capitalism as a one-way road, and a spontaneous insurrection in a country of the west world seemed like a utopia. I stood on this phrase, which I felt very believable, but there weren’t any facts to support it and I wondered a lot inside me.. A day later, a bullet struck the heart of feisty comrade Alexandros Grigoropoulos. The bullet came from the weapon of a cop, for whom Vyronas Polydoras, 

Read the full article HERE: 

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

State Violence.

       Solidarity knows no borders, that doesn't just apply to those imaginary lines drawn by the various states across the planet. It must also apply to those borders between those under state incarceration and those on the other side who are still able to roam the streets. The prison population has been growing in most countries and most prisons are overcrowded, conditions are unhygienic and deteriorating, rules are vindictive and manipulated to repress and humiliate, they are cesspools of official callous violence. Added to this is the now constant threat of covid19 rampant in unhygienic, overcrowded conditions, with inadequate health care.
     Now more than ever those enmeshed in the states savage prison regime need and deserve our full solidarity until we finally bring down that border between incarceration and freedom. 

A poem by Eric King:

 

  

“If Tamir was named Andy from the Hamptons”

Every breath is an air of defiance
sparks flying I breathe fire
What happened in the Lorraine
happened in Ferguson & Batton Rouge
Police keeping cities safe
passing out freedom bullets
Black bodies not regarded as anything
more than click-bait and hot topics
If Tamir was named Andy
from the Hamptons
maybe it’d make a fucking difference?!
This isn’t gang violence, its state violence
its race violence, it shouldn’t exist but
so often does happen without outrage
from the privileged to well off
to be outspoken
This isn’t new it’s just finally on the news
cause people took to the streets
& when told to disperse they refused
So painful but its true
Blue Lives Murder

 

      The following open letter from Eric King anarchist prisoner in U$A and published in 325:

     This is my sixth year in prison and has easily been the hardest. After being accused of assaulting a lieutenant on August 17, 2018, I’ve been in the SHU since. The past two years have shown me a wide scope of state brutality: physical beatings and tortures, psychological games like being kept in bare rooms with no contact to the free world, and their legal power – bringing serious new charges that could carry 20 additional years. Resistance is not a game.
      During this time I’ve learned a lot; that A LOT of people get set up this way, that prison support is priceless, that they can always turn it up, and that WE can always turn it up also. Despite the harsh sanctions and restrictions, I’ve refused to be a wilting willow. Now has been the time to face them head on – whether legally with motions and pressure; casual bucking; hard bucking; leading protest for basic rights; having long talks about social, class, and prisoner consciousness; and organizing the other prisoners. Anarchists don’t hide.
     One thing I couldn’t have done this without has been the outpouring of support. Fiscal support to my canteen and legal fundraiser (keep it coming pls), the uptake in letters, those who sent magazines, books and articles after we won those rights. I let me supporters and Team know this wasn’t going to be a smooth ride, that resistance is in my blood, and they’ve stuck it out. People new and long lasting have shown up when needed most. We cannot fight on the inside, without you on the outside. We are fighting cases, fighting injustice, fighting the same battles happening in the streets, inside, in close quarters.
    Prisons need to be demolished, it’s a fight that can only be won on two fronts – unity inside and solidarity outside. We chop this dragon’s head off, relegate it to horror stories and museums of resistance. Together, it’s possible.
     Thank you to everyone who has helped in any way, whether being kind to my partner, donating funds, showing up to trail (August 10th, see you there!).

Let’s take FTTP literal, shall we?

Until All Are Rubble,

EK
Fire Ant Collective
IWOC

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

Down Bristol Way.

Bristol Tattoo Circus 3rd + 4th November 2018 

 

  

         We are excited to say Bristol will be hosting it’s first ever Tattoo Circus this year! Open at 10 both days and stuff going on all day and till late.
 

What’s going down?
       It will be a weekend full of tattoos from local and international artists and will be a chance to bring together folk from tattoo, DIY and anarchist circles. There will also be workshops on prison abolition, stalls, tasty snacks and music throughout the weekend. The principle of a Tattoo Circus is that it is a non-hierarchical, non-competitive and non-commercial event where nobody makes a profit. Everyone involved will be donating their time for free and all money raised will go to Bristol Anarchist Black Cross, a group focused on supporting prisoners and furthering campaigns for prison abolition.
 

History of the Tattoo Circus:
       The first Tattoo Circus happened in Rome in 2007 as a solidarity event, to support the anti-prison struggle and to create a space where tattoo culture and political activism could merge. Since its birth 11 years ago, tattoo artists from all over Europe (Barcelona, London, Thessaloniki, Bern, Athens, Madrid, etc.) have come together to co-create events with the aim of supporting political struggle of various kinds and also celebrating tattoo and DIY culture.

 

More information and full program HERE: 

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

 

America, Land Of Slave Labour.

         Slave labour is alive and well in 21st century capitalism, captured in camps and forced to work for little or nothing is a way of life in that so called "leader of the free world" America. The country that marauds around the globe bombing other countries into oblivion while stating it is "liberating" them. It certainly is the world's leader in destruction abroad, and slavery at home. 

Wikipedia:

Incarceration in the United States is one of the main forms of punishment and rehabilitation for the commission of felony and other offenses. The United States has the largest prison population in the world, and the highest per-capita incarceration rate.^[3][4] In 2016 in the US, there were 655 people incarcerated per 100,000 population. This is the US incarceration rate or adults or people tried as adults.^[5][3]

        America accounts for approximately 25% of the world's prison population while accounting for only 5% of the world's population, and this gigantic prison population is milked by the American corporate world. Slavery on a massive scale, legitimised by the supposed leader of the "democratic" world. The word "democratic" sticks in your throat when mentioned in the same breath as capitalism. At the moment, approximately 2.3 million people are locked up in American prisons.

        Influenced by enormous corporate lobbying, the United States Congress enacted the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program in 1979 which permitted US companies to use prison labour. Coupled with the drastic increase in the prison population during this period, profits for participating companies and revenue for the government and its private contractors soared. The Federal Bureau of Prisons now runs a programme called Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR) that pays inmates under one dollar an hour. The programme generated $500m in sales in 2016 with little of that cash being passed down to prison workers. Stateside, where much of the US addiction to mass incarceration lies, is no different. California's prison labour programme is expected to produce some $232m in sales in 2017.
       These exploited labourers are disproportionately African American and Latino - a demographic status quo resulting from the draconian sentencing and other criminal justice policies ransacking minority communities across the United States. African Americans are incarcerated at a rate five times higher than that of whites. In states like Virginia and Oklahoma, one in every 14 or 15 African American men are put in prison.  

 
        “Militant actions in support of the prison strike will send a powerful message of defiance to the American state and solidarity to rebels inside prison walls.”

From Revolutionary Abolition:

        On August 21st, people locked up in prisons throughout the United States are set to go on strike, calling attention not only to heinous abuses and inhumane conditions, but also to the ongoing enslavement of millions of people inside American prisons. After the Civil War, slavery remained institutionalized in American society through the constitution’s 13th amendment, which allows slavery to remain as punishment for a crime. In America, black people’s criminalization is enforced by police who frequently shoot black people with impunity and by judges who sentence black people to draconian sentences, ensuring their enslavement in modern-day plantations.
        Facing a situation meant to stifle any glimmer of joy and humanity, people in prisons across the United States are calling attention to the “lack of respect for human life that is embedded in our nation’s penal ideology” by courageously going on strike from August 21st to September 9th.
       The dates, chosen by prison organizers, signify the strike’s continuation with the legacies of Nat Turner, who began his rebellion on August 21, 1831, and the Attica Uprising, which began September 9, 1971. Nat Turner, who was born into slavery, took part in a major insurrection, freeing slaves from plantations and executing slave owners. The Attica Uprising, an important milestone for prison resistance in the United States, took place following the shooting of black revolutionary George Jackson by a prison guard during an escape attempt. Like Nat Turner and the Attica rebels before them, prison strikers today are fighting for black liberation and the abolition of slavery.
       Revolutionaries around the world should be aware of the struggle against slavery in America’s prisons. The Trump presidency is one of the most barbaric regimes in the world today, continuing a long legacy of racism, exploitation and genocide engrained in the American state. People in prisons rising up to regain their humanity are providing some of the most inspiring resistance of the Trump era to the horrifying, dehumanizing policies of America’s judicial system.
        We call on comrades around the world to join in solidarity actions with the prison strike in the United States. The American state and corporations that benefit from prison slave labor must be held accountable for their atrocities by revolutionaries through direct action in locations around the world. Actions targeting American consulates and companies benefiting from slave labor, and destroying symbols of American prison slavery will draw the world’s attention to the struggle taking place within the prisons.
        Militant actions in support of the prison strike will send a powerful message of defiance to the American state and solidarity to rebels inside prison walls.

Burn the prisons!
Support the prison strike!
Long live international solidarity!

revolutionaryabolition.

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

Let The Prisoners Speak.

 

          Anyone with half a brain cell knows that the prison system is a state tool of repression and control, and has nothing to do with "rehabilitation". Prisons are also a place where people with learning difficulties, mental health problems and addiction problems and various other problems, are stored out of public view. They are places of violence and brutality where the human spirit can be ground down, where people are caged, and in most cases, in grossly overcrowded conditions. 

    The only humane approach to prisons is to demolish them completely, removing this scar from the face of our society. 

   There is a call out for all prisoners and ex-prisoners to let the world hear their stories, their experiences, their points of view. Bring the prison experience to the public at large, open their eyes and awaken their sense of humanity to the brutal savagery of the state prison system.

A call for contributions for a new publication.

       The Empty Cages Collective and the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) in Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England is calling out to prisoners and ex-prisoners worldwide to contribute their writing to a new publication: Prisoner Writings on Prison Abolition.

         This publication will share prisoner voices in the prison abolition conversation. It will centre the experiences of people in prison and their ideas on questioning, resisting and dismantling the prison industrial complex – as well as building a world without prisons.

It will be published during the International Week of Solidarity of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners at the end of August 2018.

           Material received before the 1st June will be published in an interim publication distributed at the International Conference on Prison Abolition (ICOPA) that is taking place in London, England from 15-18th June 2018. It will also be distributed online, be posted to prisoners and shared with radical distributors across the planet.

Prisoners are invited to send letters, articles and artwork to:

Empty Cages Collective, c/o BASE Social Centre, 14 Robertson Road, Bristol BS5 6JY, UK

Or supporters can email typed-up contributions to: info@prisonabolition.org

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

 

We Need To Empty The Cages.

      Most people are aware of the horrendous conditions in prisons in other countries around the world, as our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, will always highlight the horrors in foreign countries’ prison systems, creating the impression that we here in the UK are much, much more civilised, and we do things in a more humane way.
       Of course that is bullshit, yes there are prisons around the world that are far more brutal and have more disgusting conditions, but here in the UK our prisons are at bursting point. That in turn causes a rapid deterioration in already difficult conditions. Violence in prisons is rising, but then what do you expect if you throw people with substance addictions, mental health problems, learning difficulties, and a host of other problems, into under staffed over crowded and often brutal conditions.
        Prisons are not an answer to any of society’s problems, they are garbage cans where the nuisance, inconvenient, people are dumped by the state, a place to intimidate those who would dare to oppose and challenge the injustices of the present exploitative capitalist system we live under. Prisons and a civilised society are on opposite sides of a wide chasm. 

This from Anarchist News:

       The Empty Cages Collective are excited to announce a Tour of Northern England this September.
       Where: Hull, Leeds, Sheffield, Durham, Manchester and Lancaster. Full details of locations and times to be announced. Please note if you live in a northern city or town and have capacity to organise a date – please get in touch.

When: 25th – 30th September 2016

        British prisons are currently recognised as undergoing one of the most serious deteriorations of conditions in living memory, recently exposed as being the most violent ever recorded.
       In November 2015 the British government announced plans to build 9 new mega-prisons across England and Wales. These massive, minimally staffed facilities, far from resolving any of the prison estate’s serious underlying structural issues, are only going to subject greater numbers of people to their abusive conditions.
       This September, the Empty Cages Collective and Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee are going to be speaking throughout the North on the impacts of these developments, and the emerging network to resist them.

For more info: info@prisonabolition.org 

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

No Freedom While One Prison Stands.

       Remembering the fact that America imprisons more people per head of population than any other country on the planet, almost 1 in 200 American citizens are behind bars, then it is not surprising that those caged humans do not take it in a submissive manner. Another fact about the American prison system is, on the whole, it is a corporate business and profit is God. This is also a trend that is increasing here in the UK. There has been a growing trend in America, of prison protests, and there are plenty, linking up and co-ordinating their efforts in an attempt to alleviate their brutal treatment and suffering. Demanding change can turn these inhumane cage factories into non profitable entities for the corporate world, and they will walk away. At present they are only making a profit because of the appalling conditions and the government subsides, a staggering $39 billion-a-year to fund America’s prisons with the total budget for incarceration being $60.3 billion. By 2020, the Department of Justice reckons it will be spending 30 percent of its budgets on federal prisons.

      There is no doubt what so ever, that prisons are factories, turning out merchandise and the labour is forced and extremely low paid, if at all. By any definition, that is slavery.

       The thirteenth amendment to the US constitution does not abolish slavery. It states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” (my emphasis). All prison systems in the US rely on prisoner labor to maintain the facilities. It is prisoners who mop floors, fix plumbing, handle paperwork, and do the many other tasks necessary to keeping the prison running. Prisoners are also farmed out to private corporations seeking cheap labor. All this labor is grossly underpaid (if paid at all) and compulsory; as many prisoners have explained to me, it is a modern form of slavery.

      There can be no place in a civilised society for prisons, prisons don't solve any problems, they only store individuals with problems, and in the process, creating greater problems for them and society in general. The dark shadow of the death penalty also hangs over the American prison system. No individual, institution or group, has the right to condemn another human to death. This barbaric tool of repression from a by-gone era, is a blot on the face of humanity. It also is an expense weapon of repression costing the American tax payer dear,  New Jersey spent $253 million-a-year at $11 million for each inmate. At the start of 2013, 3,125 inmates were on death row. Many prisoners spend many years in this appalling state, most spend at least a decade there, some more than 20 years, the longest time between a conviction and execution was 36 years. There can be no freedom while one prison still stands.

        US prisons may not be able to handle these changes; the current administrators almost certainly won’t. That is not our problem. If prisons cannot run without slavery and torture, then they should not run. Mass work stoppages and hunger strikes, with outside direct action support will make prison financially untenable. We will shut the prisons down. If the increasingly unequal and largely illusory class peace of American capitalism cannot survive without its prisons, then it too should and will end. We can and will abolish slavery and torture in US prisons, along with them we will bring down whatever institutions depend on these intolerable practices.

Read the full article HERE:

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