It’s January 2021 and time to open up the 2021 Certain Days calendar and check out our inside editor Xinachtli’s artwork commemorating our 20 year anniversary!

What’s that? You don’t have one yet? Be sure to pick up copies from these distributors!

https://burningbooks.com/…/certain-days-2021-calendar-a-gen…https://www.leftwingbooks.net/certain-days-2021
https://www.akpress.org/certaindays2021.html
https://www.activedistributionshop.org/shop/diaries/5097-2021-certain-days-2021.html

About Xinachtli
Xinachtli (Nahuatl, meaning “seed”) is a community organizer and Chicano movement
revolutionary, currently imprisoned in Texas. Formerly known as Alvaro Luna Hernandez, he
worked diligently in the barrio on civil and human rights issues, and is known widely for his legal skills.

Xinachtli gained international recognition as the national coordinator of the Ricardo Aldape Guerra Defense Committee, where he was instrumental in helping to free Mexican national Aldape Guerra from Texas’ death row, where he had been framed for the murder of a police officer.

In July 1996 Xinachtli was arrested after disarming a sheriff who was attempting to shoot him. After defending himself at trial, Xinachtli was sentenced to 50 years in prison for aggravated assault, a charge he vehemently denies. While imprisoned, Xinachtli continues to write frequently, has helped to organize multiple prison strikes, and has been held in solitary confinement for the last 20 years and counting.

Xinachtli is a prolific jailhouse lawyer, as referenced by Mumia Abu Jamal in his book Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v the USA. Folksinger David Rovics has produced a ballad in his honor, and he is in discussion to produce a documentary about his life and freedom struggles. Xinachtli assists many prisoners in seeking new trials, and filing suits against the repressive, inhumane Texas prison system. He has been a frequent contributor to the Certain Days calendar for many years, and joined as an inside collective member in 2018.

Xinachtli* #255735
James V. Allred Unit
2101 FM 369 North
Iowa Park, TX 76367
*Address envelope to Alvaro Luna Hernandez.

by Susie Day in Gay City News

Clare Grady is going to prison. On February 10, this nice Irish Catholic lady of 62, who lives with her family in upstate Ithaca, will enter Alderson Prison in West Virginia, to begin a one-year-and-one-day sentence. That’s because on April 4, 2018, Clare and six cohorts, also white and Catholic, broke into the world’s largest nuclear submarine base at Kings Bay, Georgia, and defaced government property to call attention to the increasing danger of nuclear war.

Because the group — Plowshares 7 – believes that nuclear weapons aren’t created in isolation from a system that also creates climate change, murders people like George Floyd, and brutally detains immigrants, the group read out a statement, repenting of the sin of white supremacy. They condemned “racism, militarism, and extreme materialism,” the triple evils of the US profit imperative once called out by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Unsurprisingly, Clare and her comrades were arrested, charged with federal crimes, and convicted on all counts. By now, all but one have been sentenced to terms similar in length to Clare’s, which, compared to those served by most people convicted of felonies, seem almost tiny.

Read more at https://www.gaycitynews.com/covid-prison-and-another-pandemic-clare-grady-made-me-remember/

More on Clare’s codefendants from the Kings Bay Plowshares at https://kingsbayplowshares7.org

Here’s the latest compilation of every other week updates from NYC ABC
https://nycabc.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/updates-29-dec-2020.pdf

NYC ABC, along with several other individuals and prisoner support
crews, now send hard copies to all political prisoners and prisoners of
war we support.

If you consistently mail the latest updates to a specific prisoner,
please let us know so we can insure there’s no overlap. The goal is to
have copies sent to all of the prisoners we list.

We’ve also been told that some prisoners are not receiving the copies
sent in, yet we aren’t getting rejection notices. If you are in steady
contact with a prisoner, please ask them whether or not they are
receiving the updates and let us know at nycabc@riseup.net

Download the archive of updates at https://nycabc.wordpress.com/pppow-updates-announcements/

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing
WHEN: 7pm, Tuesday, December 29th, 2020
WHERE: YOUR HOME
COST: Free

It’s our final every-other-week political prisoner letter-writing event of 2020 and we can’t believe it. Our last public event was on March 10th and when we decided to temporarily suspend in-person events we couldn’t envision it lasting the entire calendar year let alone the foreseeable future. Yet, here we are continuing to raise awareness and asking folks to write letters in the comfort and safety of their own homes so that we can keep the tradition alive as we collectively move through this dystopian reality. For this final event of the year, NYC ABC and Page One Collective are asking folks to write to one of the most well-known u.s.-held political prisoners–Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is an African-American writer and journalist, author of six books and hundreds of columns and articles, who has spent the last 30 years on Pennsylvania’s death row and now general population. Mumia was wrongfully convicted and sentenced for the murder of a Philadelphia cop. The demand for a new trial and freedom is supported by heads of state, Nobel laureates, distinguished human rights organizations, scholars, religious leaders, artists, scientists and, as important, millions of folks like you and us. For more information, be sure to visit bringmumiahome.com.

Please take the time to write a letter to Mumia Abu-Jamal (and share a photo of your completed envelopes with us online):

Smart Communications/PA DOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM8335
SCI Mahanoy
PO Box 33028
St Petersburg, Fl 33733

LA ABCF member and former political prisoner Daniel McGowan will be presenting on Eric King’s case tomorow (12.28) at a Philly ABC letter writing event.

Happy solstice everyone! As 2020 draws to a close and we celebrate the days getting longer, join us next Monday at 6:30pm to show anarchist political prisoner Eric King some solidarity and send new year’s cards to comrades behind bars! We’ll be joined by someone from Eric’s support crew to provide the most updated info and answer questions. This event will be held on Jitsi – we’ll post the meet link on social media the day of. You can also message us to get the link beforehand.

Thankfully the mail ban against King has been lifted for the time being, so we’re taking this opportunity to send him some love. 2020 has been a rough year for many, particularly people whose lives are in danger inside prisons and folks like Eric who are facing additional repression such as communication restrictions and solitary confinement. Eric’s account of life in solitary confinement in the Bureau of Prisons (Flipping the Script) was featured in Solitary Watch earlier this year. Read his take on the Kafkaesque existence of over 10,000 people being housed in segregation for at least 23 hours a day.

If you can’t make the event, please drop him a line without mentioning his current case, Covid, or anything about the mail ban.

Eric King #27090-045
FCI Englewood
9595 West Quincy Avenue
Littleton, CO 80123

We will also send birthday cards to political prisoners with birthdays in January: Fran Thompson (the 4th), Abdul Azeez (the 9th), Sundiata Acoli (the 14th), Joe-Joe Bowen (the 15th), and Marius Mason (the 26th).

Virtual Benefit Concert Featuring: Bilal Sunni-Ali, Ngoma Hill, Sabu Adeyola, Warren Smith, Camille Thurman, Sara Elizabeth Charles, Shy’An G, Danielle Ponder, Clay Jenkins, Caroline Davis, Rob Garcia. Invited Guests: Nkechi Taifa, Esq., Dr. Ray Winbush.

A Night of Music, Culture & Education to Raise Funds to Support our Work to FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!!!

Donate at https://www.paypal.com/donate/?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=PQ24QKMHK7TSS

Watch concert stream online.

By Victoria Law, Truthout.org

“Some of us wear masks even in our beds, but it feels futile,” said Sarah Jo Pender, incarcerated at the Rockville Correctional Facility, one of Indiana’s three women’s prisons. “There is little to do except watch the infection spread and wait my turn to suffer.” These measures did not prevent Pender and six of the 14 women in her cell from contracting COVID-19. They were not alone: As of December 18, the prison had tested 1,050 women; 302 (nearly 29 percent) tested positive.

On December 10, nearly nine months after the virus exploded across the United States, prisons reported 276,235 confirmed COVID cases, a rate more than four times as high as that among the general public. One in five prisoners has had COVID-19. Prisons have had at least 1,738 deaths from COVID. (These figures only include state and federal prisons, not jails, immigration prisons or juvenile detention.) Prisons have had at least 1,647 deaths from COVID.

Read more at https://truthout.org/articles/states-say-theyre-decarcerating-yet-1-in-5-prisoners-has-had-covid/

WHAT: Noise Demo Against the PIC, for the Liberation of PPs + POWs
WHEN: 9:00pm, Thursday, December 31st
WHERE: Metropolitan Correction Center (MCC, the federal prison in downtown Manhattan); Pearl Street, between Cardinal Hayes Place and Park Row (J to Chambers Street or 4/5/6/ to City Hall; NOTE: we are not encouraging folks to take public transit or other risks. Please recognize your comfort level with attending this event)
BRING: Noisemakers, air horns, drums, anything that is loud, but does not require mask removal!

On the noisiest night of the year in New York City, come help us remind folks locked up that they are not alone. NYC Anarchist Black Cross, in response to an international call for noise demonstrations outside of prisons, is asking folks to join us outside of the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in lower Manhattan. Come, not to appeal to authority, speak truth to power, or any other contrivance, but rather to stand with comrades, at a safe distance, and show direct solidarity to those on the other side of the wall.

The state, writ large, is targeting anarchists all across the United States and abroad. This will be both protest and celebration.

via NYC Anarchist Black Cross

We are launching a holiday campaign to booster the ABCF Warchest this holiday season. The funds donated goes right to political prisoners. We give monthly stipends of $50 to 20 political prisoners and donate generously to release funds for political prisoners. e.g. like Jay Chase , David Campbell, Zolo Azania and Red Fawn Fallis.

The Anarchist Black Cross Federation (ABCF) initiated the Warchest program in November 1994 to send monthly checks to Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War who have been receiving insufficient, little, or no financial support during their imprisonment. Its purpose is to collect funds from groups and individual supporters and send that money directly to commissary accounts of vetted Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War (PP/POW) via monthly checks. Since its inception, we have distributed over $130,000 in funds.

Other ways to donate:

The current batch of political prisoners who receive the ABCF Warchest:

• Xinachtli (Alvaro Hernandez)
• Jalil Muntaqim
• Joe-Joe Bowen
• Jaan Laaman
• Oso Blanco
• Malik Bey
• Hanif Shabazz Bey
• Sundiata Acoli
• Ruchell Cinque Magee
• Chip Fitzgerald
• Veronza Bowers
• Mutulu Shakur
• Eric King
• Abdul Azeez
• Ed Poindexter
• Kamau Sadiki
• Ronald Reed
• Leonard Peltier
• Doug Wright
  
  

Happy solstice everyone! As 2020 draws to a close and we celebrate the days getting longer, join us next Monday at 6:30pm to show anarchist political prisoner Eric King some solidarity and send new year’s cards to comrades behind bars! We’ll be joined by someone from Eric’s support crew to provide the most updated info and answer questions. This event will be held on Jitsi – we’ll post the meet link on social media the day of. You can also message us to get the link beforehand.

Thankfully the mail ban against King has been lifted for the time being, so we’re taking this opportunity to send him some love. 2020 has been a rough year for many, particularly people whose lives are in danger inside prisons and folks like Eric who are facing additional repression such as communication restrictions and solitary confinement. Eric’s account of life in solitary confinement in the Bureau of Prisons (Flipping the Script) was featured in Solitary Watch earlier this year. Read his take on the Kafkaesque existence of over 10,000 people being housed in segregation for at least 23 hours a day.

If you can’t make the event, please drop him a line without mentioning his current case, Covid, or anything about the mail ban.

Eric King #27090-045
FCI Englewood
9595 West Quincy Avenue
Littleton, CO 80123

via https://phillyabc.org/post/2020-12-21-letter-writing-eric-king/