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Posts Tagged ‘Prison Labour Strike’

Petr Mikolas on hungerstrike in solidarity to striking prisoners in United States (Czech Republic)

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2016

Petr Mikoláš is so called social prisoner who had shared a cell with Lukáš Borl before the director of Litoměřice prison separated them into different cells. Petr and Lukáš became to be friends and Petr started to see similarities in between his and other stories of imprisoned ones pretty quickly. Petr Mikoláš after separation from Lukáš decided to go on hunger strike.

One of his reasons to start a hunger strike is to be in solidarity with striking prisoners in the US. We support Petr’s struggle as we would support any imprisoned being fighting against their oppressor.

Statement on the hunger strike of Petr Mikoláš

Hey all friends, my name is Petr Mikoláš. The failure of the state and basically state robbery led me to understand and recognize anarchistic values and therefore the need of revolution. I was deprived of all my property, social relations and family ties. And all of that only by a fictional and manipulated accusation by the police!

I was put in custody in September 2015 and I’m still here, totally isolated.

I understood that the representative democracy is manipulated and non-functional. I don’t want my children to grow up in such a totally sick system.

If repression is inflicted upon us, including physical attacks or captivity, we have incontestable right to defend ourselves. The impulse to self-defense is an instinctive human trait that is taken from us by every system. Therefore I agree with all the anarchistic values!
I start the hunger strike in the custody jail on the 1st of November 2016 and I want to:

-support all the prisoners on strike in USA
-demand a full vegan diet in the jail, acknowledging a tradition of not eating products coming from abused animals
-be reunited in a cell with Lukáš Borl from whom the authorities have separated me, right after the captors learned about our will to support others by the hunger strike. We want to have a chance to be in contact again!

Who wants to support us, write, call, or fax to the Litoměřice prison.

Petr Mikoláš 24.1.1972
Vazební věznice Litoměřice
Veitova 1
412 81 Litoměřice
Czech Republic

Source

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Posted in Prison Struggle

A writing by CCF members for the US prison mobilization and anarchist prisoners in Italy (Greece)

Sunday, October 30th, 2016

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. (more…)

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Letter from imprisoned anarchist comrade Lukas Borl in solidarity to the prison uprising in the United States (Czech Republic)

Sunday, October 30th, 2016

Hello. My name is Lukáš Borl. I am 34 years old and recently I am held in custody prison in Czech republic – Europe. I am an anarchist and I express my solidarity with all oppressed and exploited people around the World regardless their origin, sexual orientation or gender. From this perspective I decided to send few words of solidarity to the prisoners in USA where, according to the information available to me, a general strike of working prisoners began on 9.9.2016. Regardless what they’ve done, regardless how the Criminal Procedure is categorizing it, I want to express my support to every striking person in prisons around USA.

Every person without exception has a right to respect and human dignity. All prisons trample this right in different ways. For example, a person whose dignity was taken away by prison is additionally exposed to exploitation by working there. As prisoners, you labor hard under hard conditions and often in danger to your own health. Time spent at work is managed by bosses, and the products of this work are taken by capitalists. On one side, there is the growing wealth of corporations, and on the other, you: the humiliated and exploited people who create the profit produced by their work. The implacable antagonism of these two worlds is obvious. If you decided to go on strike, then, it is a legitimate form of a struggle for ending exploitation. I understand this struggle and I support it. I want to let you know that your struggle is also mine. We share the same reality as human beings suffering under the control of the capital and state. (more…)

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Posted in Prison Struggle

A statement in support of the US prison mobilization by CCF-FAI/FRI Urban Guerrilla Cell (Greece)

Sunday, October 30th, 2016

Soledad Brothers (from left to right): John Clutchette, George L. Jackson (September 23, 1941 — August 21, 1971) and Fleeta Drumgo

“Gentlemen, the Dragon Will Fly Out”
In Support of September 9th Mobilization in US Prisons

“Gentlemen, the dragon will fly out” is a saying attributed to prisoner George Jackson. On August 21st 1971, holding a pistol, he opened all the cells in an adjustment unit, taking jailers hostage. George Jackson was killed in his attempt to escape…

Since September 9th, prisoners in the United States have called for action against slavery.

A multitude of “invisible” slaves (there are about 2.5 million prisoners in the United States) are condemned to forced labor, or as jailers of their own selves (internal work in prisons, cleaning, repairs, technical operations), or as cheap meat in the service of corporate behemoths (Honda, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Victoria’s Secret, Starbucks, and many others). Besides, the 13th amendment to the US constitution clearly states: “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, EXCEPT as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted…” To put it simply, detainees are considered slaves as part of their punishment.

Prisons in America—and not just there–aren’t only bars, walls, surveillance cameras or lockdowns. They’re also an enormous lucrative business. Prisons are a dirty dealing for continuously supplied shackled labor force without name and without voice. They represent a modern slave trade, making billion-dollar profit, that not only supplies the companies-caretakers but also the industry of lawyers, judges, cops, corrections officers, private prisons. (more…)

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Posted in Prison Struggle

(A-Radio) Presentation: The Prison Strike in the USA 2016

Tuesday, October 25th, 2016

Dear all,

As Anarchist Radio Berlin, we recorded a presentation about the ongoing prison strike in the United States of America, its backgrounds as well as the methods of support and solidarity that are used in- and outside of prisons. The presentation was held in October 2016 in Berlin.

You’ll find the audio (to listen online or download in different sizes) here.

Length: 57:47 min

You can find other English and Spanish language audios here:
http://aradio.blogsport.de/englishcastellano/.

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Athens: Protest outside of the American embassy in solidarity to the prison labour strike (Greece)

Wednesday, October 5th, 2016

Inside the framework of the international day of solidarity to the struggle of the US prisoners that was called by the Anarchist Black Cross-Solidarity Cell, a protest outside of the American embassy took place.

ABC solidarity cell, Assembly for solidarity to political prisoners, Assembly for solidarity to the prisoners’ struggle against slavery, A.S.M.P.A., Assembly of anarchists communists for the class counter attack against the European union as well as other comrades participated in the protest. During the protest, slogans were shouted, flyers were spread, texts were given out and banners were hanged.

Anarchist Black Cross – Solidarity Cell

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Posted in Prison Struggle

1/10/16 – International Day of Solidarity with the Prison Struggle in USA

Saturday, September 24th, 2016

Prisons in the USA – The dark side of slavery in American society

In order to be in the position to understand the importance and necessity of the us prisoners’ struggle, we first need to analyze the role of slavery in the foundation and evolution of the american state and its historical and integral ,until today, link with the capital.

Slavery in its many forms was actually the foundation on which the omnipotence of american overlordship was gradually built. The root of this phenomenon can be traced back in the era when the christian empires of europe started a race to conquest unknown lands, founding colonialism regimes, in the era of brutal genocides of the indigenous populations and the slave trade of the non-white african population. Since then and until today, the social and political circumstances have rapidly changed, mainly because of a heavy blood tax that has been paid from beneath, towards the direction of the total shaking off of slavery as an institution. However, it continues up until today, more or less covered.

Today’s prisoners’ class and racial composition, the spreading of private prisons, the institutionalization of enforced labor as a form of criminal sanction, the exploitation of prisoners by big companies highlight the fundamental connection between state-capitalism-slavery and prison. (more…)

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Bristol: Vandalism of various prison workers property by Eco-anarchist vandals – FAI/IRF (UK)

Tuesday, September 13th, 2016

This is dedicated to all the very young ones, youths with no direction yet, the kids that punch out at everything. Those that hate being told what to do and hate authority, who’ve fell foul of the law, who don’t even consider anarchy. Rebels without a cause. A prison gate is a border, it is a part of the class system, crime, scarcity and resource war. They need people to control and use in private prison labour. The prisons are exploding.

HMP Bristol, Horfield – 2 cars of screws are scratched up and tyres punctured, one a black sportscar – P6 SHT.

Horfield, Bristol – 12 Oak Road, house of screw has ‘bars’ sprayed on the windows and “screw” scrawled on the house in spraypaint.

Done in the International Week of Solidarity to Anarchist Prisoners, 23-30 August.
Solidarity to the anarchists in Italy arrested in Operation Scripta Manent and to all those in the prison uprising in America, 9 September.

Eco-anarchist vandals – FAI/IRF

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Posted in Direct Action

Video of prison strike solidarity demo – Melbourne (Australia)

Monday, September 12th, 2016

Received:

video of prison strike solidarity noise demo, fireworks, flares. smoke bombs at juvenile ‘detention centre’ in Narrm (so-called ‘Melbourne’) Wurundjeri land

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Korydallos Prison: Text from anarchist prisoners from D wing in solidarity to the struggle of the prisoners in USA (Greece)

Saturday, September 10th, 2016

The 9/9/71 marked one of the most important dates for the struggle against prisons. The uprising in Attica would still be a major event, even without the subsequent massacre committed by the cops who acted in compliance with the mandates of the Law and Order doctrine, which has found various diversified applications in the western world until today.

Back then, the liberation movements (black liberation, anti-war movement, feminist movement etc.) that were active outside prisons influenced a substantial number of US prisoners, who chose to position the prison -as a space and institution- in the core of struggle for change in the status quo.

Prisons constitute a fundamental tool in the hands of the state and its pursuit to get rid of all those who are deemed superfluous or dangerous to the deathly hush it seeks to impose.

The more capitalism evolves and reaches its limits, swallowing down human beings, natural resources and entire ecosystems in its destructive course of action, the bigger profits it demands, resulting in millions of people being turned into slaves.

The Pan-American strike which is due on 9/9 means to convey a straightforward message: “We refuse to be slaves any longer”.

Forced labor in public or private, federal or state prisons turns nearly 2.500.000 prisoners in the US into slaves to international corporations.

“This is a call to end slavery in America. This call goes directly to the slaves themselves”, as we read in the prisoners’ announcement.

We know how hard it is to fight capitalism where it’s the most powerful, namely the US; and we also know that depriving it from part of its profits is the only way to inflict a severe damage.

That’s why the upcoming strike is of utmost importance.

That’s why we stand in solidarity and salute the subversive dignity of the prisoners in the US.

VICTORY FOR THE PRISONERS’ FIGHT IN THE US

SOCIAL REVOLUTION TO ABOLISH STATES AND CAPITALISM

Some anarchist prisoners from Greece
Korydallos Prison Block D

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Bloomington, Indiana: Democratic Party campaign headquarters disrupted in solidarity with 9/9 prison strike (USA)

Saturday, September 10th, 2016

On September 8th, in solidarity with prisoners taking action for the 9/9 prisoner strike, about a dozen people disrupted activities at the local Democratic Party campaign headquarters. Standing outside the building, people held a large banner announcing the prisoner strike while a statement was read and others passed out handbills. Additionally, a group of people went inside the headquarters to yell chants, clog sinks, tear down campaign posters, and scatter handbills. An American flag in the office found its way into a toilet. People walked away from the building tossing handbills in the air.

From the handbill scattered at the action:

As the ruling party, the Democrats and their Bureau of Prisons are responsible for the conditions in federal prisons and everyone being held hostage inside of them.
They profit from the labor of prisoners and contract with countless companies and industries that do the same, while prisoners earn as little as a few cents per hour.

They are responsible for the exorbitant prices of phone calls, commissary foods, and other basic necessities in prison. For the mailroom censorship, both institutionalized and arbitrary, of political and other materials. They are responsible for the poor quality of water and food that some must endure for decades, or even the rest of their lives. And for the dismal or nonexistent health care for prisoners when these conditions start to take their toll.
(more…)

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Posted in Direct Action

Fernando Bárcenas, Mexican Anarchist Prisoner, Calls for Solidarity with US Prison Strike (Mexico)

Wednesday, August 31st, 2016

Via Actforfree:

Open letter to compañerxs.

Note: The use of the word prison in this text refers to all artificial environments that domesticate us so as to insert us by force into the capitalist system of production; this is a contribution to deepen the reflection of all living beings in the hands of economic powers and the technological project…

Compas, I greet you with insurrectionary love, that these words of war may reach you; greeting as well the coming days of insurrection, as ideas bloom in the fields like flowers we should not stop tending. We do not know if there will be a victory, but what we do know is that they will not occupy our dreams and our lives…

The only truly free moment is when we fight for freedom, because we prefer to die rather than accept this way of life, and without realizing it we are already free, because nothing occupies our minds except the sole desire to set fire to reality…

But what hides behind this destructive war, behind the somber darkness of the human spirit? Is it not perhaps the reflection and poetic manifestation of beings taking back their lives and actively influencing the organization of the daily life? (more…)

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Call for International Anarchist Action in Solidarity with US Prison Strike

Friday, August 26th, 2016

On September 9th, 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. (more…)

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Against Prison Slavery – September 9th Prisoner Strike Poster (USA)

Tuesday, August 9th, 2016

Here is a poster (11×17) for the upcoming nationwide prisoner strike on September 9th. Download, print and put it up around your city if you feel it. There is a grayscale version here too.

For more information about the strike and the ongoing wave of prison rebellions across the country, check out these articles: Strike Against White Supremacy | Incarcerated Workers Take the Lead | Call To End Prison Slavery

Text from the poster:

“We are not beasts and we do not intend to be beaten or driven as such… What has happened here is but the sound before the fury of those who are oppressed.”
– L. D. Barkley, participant in Attica rebellion

On September 9, 1971, the inmates of Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York seized control of the prison. The Attica uprising, which lasted for five days, was not the first and certainly not the last prison rebellion. And yet its importance is indelibly marked within the history of the struggle against white supremacy and the prison society we still inhabit today.

In the forty years since Attica, prisons have swelled to bursting with the tragedies of disrupted lives, fractured families, and broken communities. In the last decade, resistance movements have steadily grown behind the prison walls. From the statewide work stoppage in Georgia prisons of 2010 to the hunger strike that spread throughout the California prison system in 2013; from fires lit in I.C.E. detention centers in Texas to riots and prison takeovers in Nebraska and Alabama, prisoners across the country are wide awake and on the move.

This September, prisoners, their families, and supporters on the outside are coordinating a nationwide prisoner strike to take place on the 45th anniversary of the Attica rebellion. This historic effort holds within it the potential to expand and embolden the movement against the horrific conditions of confinement, the prisons themselves and the society that creates them.

Towards the destruction of all prisons and the creation of a free and genuine human community!

Support Prisoner Resistance | IWW Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee | Anti-State STL | IT’S GOING DOWN

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Sept 9th – International Call to Action against Slavery (USA)

Tuesday, July 5th, 2016

Hello comrades abroad!,

We are getting in touch with you today to inform you about a historical day of action happening in the United States and to make a call for international solidarity actions, both inside and outside prisons across the world!

On September 9th, 2016, prisoners across the United States will be conducting work stoppages, hunger strikes and other forms of action in a call to end prison slavery. The call was originated by organizers from the Free Alabama Movement. A national coalition of community groups associated with the IWW’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, Anarchist Black Cross chapters and others throughout the country have come together to build a national support network to push for a final end to prison slavery.

To achieve this goal, we need support from the international community.

We hope that prisoner support groups in the across the globe will hold solidarity demos and inform prisoners they are in contact with about the September 9th day of action. This spring and summer will be seasons of organizing, spreading the word, building networks of solidarity and showing that we’re serious and what we’re capable of. We ask that you organize some sort of solidarity action and help spread the word to prisoners in your area. We hope that the fires of prison rebellion spread from the United States to prisons across the globe! With one unified voice of rebellion we can send a strong message to captors across the globe that the iron bars of their cage cannot contain our thirst for freedom! (more…)

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