Read the latest PP/POW Updates and Announcements by NYCABC here.
WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, April 20th, 2021 WHERE: your home (or wherever you happen to be) COST: Free
NYC ABC is an anarchist collective that supports political prisoners captured in liberation and anti-oppression struggles from a wide range of political or spiritual traditions. In other words, though we subscribe to anti-authoritarian principles, we don’t only support anarchists behind bars. But the May Day season is one in which we focus on those who struggle for a world without borders or bosses.
So, in remembrance of the Haymarket Martyrs—in whose honor May Day became known as an international workers’ day—we focus this week’s letter-writing on anarchists imprisoned for their beliefs and actions. Instead of getting together to sign and send May Day cards as we have in previous years, this week NYC ABC and Page One Collective are asking folks to to write letters or send books to one or more of the anarchist political prisoners we currently support, including Bill Dunne, Casey Brezik, and Gage Halupowski.
Unfortunately, anarchist political prisoner Eric King is currently on mail ban, so can’t receive letters. But he can receive book and magazines! Here is the link to Eric’s book wish list: tiny.cc/EK_Books
Casey Brezik #1154765 Jefferson City Correctional Center 8200 No More Victims Road Jefferson City, MO 65101
Bill Dunne #10916-086 FCI Victorville Medium I PO Box 3725 Adelanto, CA 92301
Gage Halupowski #21894460 Snake River Correctional Institution 777 Stanton Boulevard Ontario, OR 97914-8335
“As Indigenous justice advocates, we stand with Loren Reed…”, said Morning Star Gali of the Pit River Tribe. Prosecuting Loren Reed is a clear example of the State’s attempts to chill BIPOC voices of dissent. #FreeLorenReed
Have you read Eric King’s detailed account of life in solitary confinement in the Bureau of Prisons? Its called Flipping the Script and you can read it on the Solitary Watch link below.
Eric has now been in segregation over 600 days and is going to trial in October 2021and is represented by lawyers from Civil Liberties Defense Center. You can buy books for him off his wishlist at tiny.cc/EK_Books
FREEDOM!!!! After three years in jails and prisons (in Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma, Nevada and Washington) following the April 2018 Kings Bay Plowshares action, Fr. Steve Kelly, S.J. was given time served this morning in the Tacoma federal courthouse for a 2017 probation violation that he had an outstanding warrant for (from a Bangor Trident base line crossing). As Steve says, “The nukes are not going to go away by themselves” – so onward, everyone, in continuing to work for a nuclear-free world!Photos by Dennis Apel.
BRUNSWICK, GA—More than three years after he and six other anti-nuclear activists entered Kings Bay Naval Base, home to six Trident nuclear submarines, a federal judge sentenced Mark Colville to 21 months in prison.
Over a video conference, Judge Lisa Godbey Wood sentenced Mark to the minimum of the recommended guidelines provided by prosecutors. Mark is the last of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 to be sentenced. Five are now in prison. Prior to the trial Mark had already served about 15 months of his sentence, which will count towards his 21 months.
Mark told the court that its refusal to recognize the right of his family and community “to live without a nuclear gun on hair trigger alert held perpetually to our heads… (has) placed it firmly in a posture of criminality.”
During our Festival of Hope earlier in the week, Mark announced that he had withdrawn six of his seven motions to the court arguing for vacating his sentence. He told supporters then that he saw no use in allowing the judge to act as if she seriously considered them.
“This government, in its lawlessness, has hidden first strike weapons with enough firepower to kill six billion people,” he read from his sentencing statement today. The court has a responsibility to “to allow the law to be applied beyond the fence at Kings Bay… a fence that I and my loved ones, with much fear and trembling, freely answered the call of faith, the call of conscience, and the call of generations yet unborn, to breach.
“In a very real sense, then, this hearing today is itself irrelevant. The court has already pronounced a sentence on me, on my family, and on my neighborhood. We are hereby condemned to live as members of a rogue state, which, in the face of a global consensus that outlaws nuclear weapons, has budgeted what amounts to $100,000 per minute over the next ten years to upgrade its stockpile of these useless, poisonous idols.”
As with all six of his co-defendants, Mark was also ordered to share payment of restitution of $33,503.51. He was also sentenced to three years of supervised probation.
Mark called on teacher and activist Stephen Kobasa as his sole character witness.
“Mark Colville doesn’t need me here,” Stephen said. “His consistency, his passion, his fierce commitment to hope are completely apparent to anyone who has encountered him.
“There is nothing in the world of more seriousness than what Mark and his companions in the Kings Bay Plowshares demand that we face. The weapons at Kings Bay condemn us to living each and every moment in fear of losing everything we believe matters, everything we have, in a single flash of unbearable light.
“At this very moment there are a number of courtrooms in this country where cases of the most overwhelming importance are being decided. But even George Floyd’s murder in all its horror cannot compare to the truth… about nuclear weapons.
“For, you see, if Mark is right – and he is – then most of the rest of us have failed to tell the truth, even to ourselves about nuclear weapons, because if we did we would have no choice but to do what he and his companions did, and be standing alongside him here.”
Spring the Elders – Caravan of Love to Free Maroon – Sunday, May 2, 2021 On Sunday, May 2, 2021 we will gather together for a peaceful gathering of prayers and libations in Mt. Wolf, PA to celebrate and honor our beloved elder and black liberation freedom fighter, Russell “Maroon” Shoatz. Time persists that we demand the compassionate release of Maroon from prison.
Please bring signs, car banners, instruments, flowers, a letter to the governor in support of the release of Maroon, etc. Wear white.
1:00PM Meet at Conewago Creek Recreation Area in Mt. Wolf, PA – 1098 Wago Road, Mt. Wolf, PA 17347 2:00PM Organized caravan to second location 3:00PM Park and assemble (social distanced) on sidewalk for speaking and celebration 4:00PM Heading home
In episode 27 of our #InjusticeAtHome webinar series, we will be speaking with former Black Panther Jalil Muntatim, recently released from prison after nearly 50 years behind bars, Mauri’ Saalakhan of The Aafia Foundation, and attorney Steve Downs, about how the FBI used COINTELPRO to systematically attack the Black Panther Party through informants, frame-ups, and assassination, and what we can learn from this today, as we are trying to free prisoners preemptively prosecuted and essentially framed by the government as part of the War on Terror.
Here is an excerpt: “Spring is here, the sun is shining a bit longer, prison guards are refusing the vaccine, judges are mandating video surveillance to combat guard abuse of prisoners with disabilities, and prison mail companies are expanding their surveillance. It’s a strange and cruel world we’re in the process of dismantling. We continue to see glimmers of light; Virginia—the state with the second most executions—has finally abolished the death penalty.
We are still mourning the loss of Chip Fitzgerald who died last week due to the neglect of the California prison system. But as the saying goes, “mourn the dead, but fight like hell for the living”. And so we must continue the struggle as Chip was not and is not the only elder still locked up, punished only for their fight for liberation. In that spirit, this week we encourage folx at home to write to Ruchell “Cinque” Magee, who is currently serving his 58th year in prison.
Ruchell Magee was unjustly captured in 1962 and given trumped-up charges. He is now 82 years old, forced to suffer mentally and physically due to the poor conditions inside California’s prison camps. With the COVID-19 crisis raging on, Ruchell needs your support and action so that he can be released, spend time with his loved ones, and better his community. After 58 years of injustice, enough is enough. Free Ruchell Magee now! More information here: https://www.freeruchellmagee.org/
Please take the time to write a letter to Cinque (and share a photo of your completed envelopes with us online):
Ruchell Magee #A92051 #T 115 California Medical Facility P.O. Box 2000 Vacaville, CA 95696-2000
NYCABC has released their brand-new Illustrated Guide to Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War (v 14.2)
“We’ve finished the latest version of the NYC ABC “Illustrated Guide to Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War” and it’s available for viewing (and download) by clicking on the tab at the top of https://nycabc.wordpress.com
This update includes updated mini-bios, photos, and address changes for several prisoners. Unfortunately, we are removing Chip Fitzgerald (deceased, REST IN POWER!).
