Bristol Anarchist Black Cross – Prisoner Support

Via Anarchy Live

(A statement for the June 11th International Day of Solidarity with Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners)

First, I’d like to give warm revolutionary greetings to all those who have shown solidarity and supported me. Without that solidarity and support, I don’t know how I would have survived for so long.

As one who has spent 30 years in U.S. prisons, I’ve become intimately acquainted with control units, whether we call them Security Management Units, Special Housing Units, or Administrative Segregation – all euphemisms of penological sophistication in an attempt to disguise the true purpose and intent of such sinister tools of control and torture. Let’s be clear: they are torture chambers.

Former director of the Bureau of Prisons and now shareholder in the private prison firm GEO, Norman A. Carlson, stated that Marion’s control unit’s purpose is to “control revolutionary attitudes in prison and society” as well. Marion Federal Penitentiary is considered to be the first control unit in the U.S.

Now, across the globe, from Alabama to Colorado to Greece and beyond, control units are being established for those who refuse to conform to the regimen in prison and the normalcy of every life outside of prison, and most definitely for those who carry out revolutionary activities. Like the C-type prisons in Greece, designed explicitly for anarchist guerrillas. The design and intent is to minimize human contact through isolation and to exact an immense cost in human suffering.

In most control units, prisoners live in almost total isolation, far away from family and friends. It means restrictions on communications; censorship of incoming and outgoing mail and visits; constant harassment; and sadistic brutality from prison guards.

A few years ago it was reported that almost 36,000 human beings were housed in solitary confinement prisons in the U.S.

A study by the National Immigrant Justice Center and Physicians for Human Rights stated in their report that conditions of immigrant detainees placed in isolation not only endangered their health and safety, but also pressured them “to abandon their options for legal relief, their families, their communities, and often the only country they have ever known.” The study cites multiple examples of immigrant detainees who were placed in isolation solely because they belonged to “vulnerable populations,” such as being gay, bisexual, transgender, or mentally ill. Here in Alabama’s Holman prison segregation unit, three prisoners have committed suicide in the last eight months, and there have been numerous other attempts to commit suicide that were unsuccessful.

Most control units consist of cells without windows, to cause sensory deprivation and reduce visual stimulation, and those with windows are not able to be opened, causing stifling heat in the cells during the summer months.

On February 19, 2016, Albert “Shaka” Woodfox was released from prison after 44 years in solitary confinement. Woodfox was a prisoner who joined and co-established a chapter of the Black Panther Party at the notorious Angola prison in Louisiana in the 1970s and was charged with the murder of a prison guard. Woodfox is now 69 years old.

Hugo “Yogi Bear” Pinell was confined in California’s inhumane solitary confinement units for 43 years. He was recently murdered by white supremacists in collusion with prison guards after being released to general population on August 12, 2015. He had been a leader and prison rebel and a prime organizer of the Prison Movement in the 1960s and 1970s.

Whatever name they are called, control units’ primary purpose is control, to break the will and sanity of those who rebel and refuse to conform to an oppressive social order in or out of prison.

What we have to do is get angry and bring ourselves into direct confrontation with this most sinister aspect of the Prison Industrial Slave Komplex that is destroying human beings and suppressing revolutionary movements. We have to continue to do the million things we already do to attack the state, but we also have to be creative and create new ways of attacking the state and its institutions. Again, these institutions of the state are torture chambers designed to break and destroy the human will to rebel against that which oppresses them.

Shoutouts to all prison rebels and anarchists of action. Keep up the good fight!
Special shout to the Plateau Crew!

Fire to the prisons!

Michael Kimble
Dragon Cell
(Watch My Smoke)

From croceneranarchica. Translated by act for freedom now.

On 28^th April 2015 the carabinieri R.O.S. dei carabinieri , on order of prosecutor Federico Manotti, searched a comrade from Genoa and put him under investigation for ‘publicly instigating to commit acts of terrorism and publicly defending a crime of terrorism […]’, referring to a piece of writing, ‘To those who don’t dissociate themselves’, published on various sites of the movement and signed by a comrade, a piece in response to ‘The dot on the i’, a text that circulated in the internet shortly after the kneecapping of the managing director of Ansaldo Nucleare Adinolfi.

(via contra-info)

A small chronology of the riots spreading the Belgian prisons, where guards are on strike for more than two weeks now…

On Monday 25th of April, the prison guards of all prisons in the French speaking parts of Belgium went on strike, in total 21 prisons. The prisoners are confined in their cells. All activities, like the walk, shower, visit, legal counsel, are cancelled. The police took over the control of the prisons to assure security.

After one week of guards on strike, and with conditions rapidly deteriorating inside, incidents start to spread in many prisons. In some prisons, the situation could be called catastrophic. Prisoners only receive food once a day, didn’t go out of their cells in more than ten days, hygienic conditions are terrible with infections and diseases spreading.

May 3. In the prison of Tournai, tensions rise and prisoners start to destroy cells.

May 3, during the night. Prisoners of Huy burned mattresses and destroyed some cells. Federal police intervenes in the prison to restore order.

May 4. Prisoners of Huy light fires all over the prison, break the doors of their cells, destroy parts of the prison infrastructure and flood a whole section of the prison. Federal police invades the prison during the night.

May 4. Prisoners of Nivelles destroy cells and throw burning objects out of the cells. More than 40 prisoners of Nivelles go on collective hunger strike.

May 4, during the night. Prisoners in Arlon light fires. The firemen, protected by Federal Police, have to intervene two times during the night.

May 5. Prisoners in Jamioulx start to riot. They break down cells, attack some security personnel still working the prison and light fires. Outside of the prison, tens of persons gather in solidarity with the prisoners.

May 7. In the prison of Merksplas (in the Flemish speaking part of Belgium, where guards are not on strike), a huge revolt takes places. 200 prisoners refuse to go back to their cells after the walk and rise up. They smash everything they can, some guards are locked in by the fighting prisoners. Walls are teared down, fences destroyed, infrastructure broken, about 150 cells are totally destroyed. Important fires are lit at several points of the prison. One prisoner manages to escape in the chaos, but is arrested a bit later in the surroundings of the prison. Police intervenes with huge forces, but prisoners fight back for hours during the night. Only in the early morning, around 6 ‘o clock, the police manages to break the uprising. More than 100 prisoners are transferred to other prisons. Testimonies speak of the largest uprising in a Belgian prison.

May 8, during the night. Prisoners who were transferred from the partly destroyed prison of Merksplas, start to make troubles in the prison of Antwerp.

May 8. In the prison of Lantin, prisoners break open their cells and start to destroy several wings. Fires are lit. Troubles continue also the days after

May 8. In the prison of Andenne, chaos spreads with prisoners breaking out of their cells, destroying what they can and lighting fires, screaming “Freedom, freedom!”. The troubles continue also the next day and night. A short video is publishing online.

May 8. In the prison of Ittre, prisoners got an exceptional walk but refused to go back to their cells after and fought with some guards. Inside of the prison blocks, prison infrastructure gets destroyed by rioting prisoners.

May 9. In the newly built prison of Leuze, prisoners who got an exceptional walk refuse to go back and stay out the whole night. Police then intervenes in the morning to drive them back to their cells.

May 9. The government decides to deploy the army in the prisons. Soldiers, armed with pepper spray and sticks, are deployed in the prisons of Brussels (Forest and Saint-Gilles) and in the prison of Lantin. The prison guards decide to continue their strike. News from inside the walls is getting more and more rare with the State intervening now to block off any communication with the outside.