Collection of John Bowden’s writings on the prison regime published (UK)

ABC Hurricane are pleased to publish a compilation of some of the writings of John Bowden. They provide a rare insight and history of the prison regime and bring to light cases and stories that normally never see the light of day, but are unfortunately all too common behind prison walls.

Posing no threat to anyone inside or outside prison (according to the Parole Board),the Prison Service is keeping John behind bars due to his continuing work exposing the abuses of the prison system – not just to himself but throughout HMP wings and especially in the darkest, hushed up corners of UK gaols. He has never backed down in the face of all that the regime can throw.

This publication comes at a time when he is calling again for as much pressure to be imposed on the prison authorities in the fight for his release – please spread these texts far and wide. Please get in touch by  email if you would like printed copies.

PDF: Screen Version

PDF: Print Version A4

Solidarity with all those who resist!

ABC Hurricane

Prison governor suspended after detainee starves to death (Germany)

A short update from comrade Thomas Meyer-Falk about the inhuman conditions in German prisons.

Thomas was locked up for 11 and a half years in 1996 for a politically motivated bank-robbery and has spent most of his sentence in isolation. He had his sentence extended and remains incarcerated today.

On 18th May 2014 Koala Rosmane died after two years in Bruchsal Prison, Germany. A few days later the prison director, Mr M, was suspended.

  • The Details

In 2012 Mr Koala Rosmane was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to ten years in jail. Maybe because he had trouble with a prison officer, and/or maybe because Rosmane came from Burkina Faso in Africa, he was sentenced to another year and kept in solitary confinement for the past two years. It has been said that racist officers insulted the inmate often. For the past few months he refused prison food, maybe because he feared that the prison administration wanted to poison him.

  • The Death

The forensic doctor who carried out the post mortem examination said that the prisoner was extremely malnourished. Maybe he died of starvation.

  • The Suspension

It was the first time ever in Germany that a prison warden was suspended after an inmates death. Mr M was known for his special “character”. A couple of years ago, when he sent his Christmas greetings to inmates, he used a quotation from a song by a band which has been involved in racist attacks in the past. Inmates hang themselves, cut their veins, make hunger strikes. No one was interested in them. But it seems that now Mr M has gone too far! Continue reading “Prison governor suspended after detainee starves to death (Germany)”

Call for support for Devrimci Anarşist Faaliyet (DAF) and the people of Kobanê!! (Syria)

via Denver ABC:

For more than a year, thousands of volunteer fighters have been defending the autonomous revolution of Rojava (in Northern Syria) from the Islamic State (ISIS or Daesh). Since this past July the North Syrian city of Kobanê, in the central canton of the Autonomous territory of Rojava, has been under siege by Daesh. Daesh fighters, armed with modern U.S. manufactured tanks, artillery, and small arms have been held at bay by volunteer fighters affiliated with the militias of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) armed with dated small arms and improvised weapons.

Tens of thousands of residents of Kobanê, mostly ethnic Kurds, have been forced to flea to neighboring Turkey, made refugees in a country that has historically persecuted and oppressed them.

Hundreds of Kurdish volunteers have crossed the border from Turkey to help aid in the defense of Kobanê. Turkish soldiers and police have attacked those volunteers and observers, including international media, with teargas and batons, in attempts to seal off the border and prevent aid from reaching those struggling to hold the city against Daesh. Continue reading “Call for support for Devrimci Anarşist Faaliyet (DAF) and the people of Kobanê!! (Syria)”

Anarchist prisoner Antonis Stamboulos goes on hunger and thirst strike (Greece)

via contra info:

Following his arrest in Athens on the 1st of October 2014, Antonis Stamboulos is currently being held on remand facing terrorism charges.

On October 6th, with another open letter, the comrade announced a hunger and thirst strike denouncing the fact that he is now being held in the prisoner transfer centre of Athens. Furthermore, he protests the ongoing media construct fueled by anti-terrorism cops against him.

The terror-frenzy scenarios leaked to the Press have no end, to make it easier for the anti-terrorism unit to exterminate him. The captive comrade has been portrayed, among other things, as a leading member of the Revolutionary Struggle urban guerrilla group, as co-perpetrator of a bank robbery in Kleitoria (Achaea, Greece) and as alleged successor of slain comrade Lambros Foundas, while the mouthpieces of Power have spread that the wanted anarchist Pola Roupa along with her child was supposedly seen on the steps to his apartment in Kallifrona street in Kypseli (which was deemed a “safehouse”). Meanwhile, wannabe informants and other ridiculous snitches have been all too willing to testify against him (e.g. a neighbour to his parents’ house claimed he had heard explosions from the basement of their home). Continue reading “Anarchist prisoner Antonis Stamboulos goes on hunger and thirst strike (Greece)”

Political statement of anarchist comrade Andreas-Dimitris Bourzoukos, in the trial for the Velvento double bank robbery case (Greece)

via actforfree and 325:

Background: Text by the 4 arrested anarchists concerning the double robbery in Velvento, Kozani + Anarchists sentenced for the double bank robbery in Velvento + Letter from Argyris Ntalios & Fivos Harisis

Comrade A.D. Bourzoukos made his political statement today (31/7/14). Comrades D.Politis, G.Mihailidis, F.Harisis and A.Dalios were also present in the court room.

To begin, I would like to clarify the reason I am here today, by taking advantage of the procedure of statements. What will follow therefore, will in no way have an apologetic character, since my acts and choices are included in the wider anarchist struggle, the struggle for life and freedom. Consequently, they are acts that I support with every aspect of my being and I will continue to do so as long as this world remains as it is.

So, no, I am not apologizing, I have to nothing to say and analyse on a procedural level about my actions. I refuse the charges exactly because I refuse civil legality. I refuse to legitimize your role and your justice which is driven and instructed by those governing.

I therefore do not hope for your leniency, I will not bend before the threat of your laws and the many years of prison that await me, even in the worst of conditions that your state reserves for those who refuse to bow their head. These new prisons called “C- Type prisons”. I am here to highlight the characteristics of my choices and exacerbate the dispute between us. You, a part of the judicial authority, and me, a part of the anarchist struggle. And when I say “you”, I do not mean just you specifically, but all the people who hold positions of authority. It is a dispute that escapes the narrow frames of a inter-personal clash, it is a class and social war that spreads in the space-time continuum, it finds its roots in the initial forms of capitalism and the relations of exploitation and authority which for centuries now have defined the human race. Continue reading “Political statement of anarchist comrade Andreas-Dimitris Bourzoukos, in the trial for the Velvento double bank robbery case (Greece)”

Update on the health situation of the 4 anarchist comrades on hunger strike (Mexico)

translated by actforfree:

“If you asked me what prison is, I would answer without a doubt that it is a wasteland of defined social-economic plans, where they throw all those individuals that bother them within society: this is why prison mainly houses mainly poor people” Xose Tarrio

“A movement that forgets its hostages is condemned to fail” Harold Tobson

As of October 1st, comrades Mario Gonzalez, Carlos Lopez ‘El Chivo’, Fernando Barcenas and Abraham Cortez, imprisoned in different prisons in Mexico City, are carrying out a hunger strike indefinitely.

Four days in to the hunger strike, we make a call for solidarity to the struggle that the comrades are carrying out, fighting the society of incarceration in its heart. Continue reading “Update on the health situation of the 4 anarchist comrades on hunger strike (Mexico)”

PDF: Phoenix Project- Demolishing the Walls That Keep Us Apart (Greece)

A new pamphlet concerning the Phoenix Project has been released by the comrades of the Circle of Individualist Anarchists which includes transcriptions of the four events held nationwide in solidarity with the persecuted comrades for the actions of the Project which took place recently in Greece.

This is the first of a series of pamphlets regarding the ‘New Anarchy’ which will be released over the coming months which will ‘aim to disseminate our imprisoned comrades speech to as many anarchist comrades in Greece and the rest of the world as possible. This material is available to everyone for translation in any language, a procedure in which we will contribute ourselves, in collaboration with any comrade who wishes for it, in the context of partnership with individuals and groups/collectives with which we are politically associated.’

The pamphlet is currently only available in Greek, although a translation  into English is currently in progress and will be available shortly.

It contains: Continue reading “PDF: Phoenix Project- Demolishing the Walls That Keep Us Apart (Greece)”

Filaki- Prison World (english subs)

panopticon

Documentary from Greece about the prison society, its role in social control and the ongoing rebellion against it…

The film focuses on the prison uprisings against the political repression and social war against the comrades in Greece as well as the hunger strikes against the Type-F prisons in Turkey which soon spread to engulf many of the prisons in Greece. These prisons are similar to the Type-C prisons in Greece, the FIES in Spain, the CSC in the UK and other punitive isolation torture regimes around the world.

During the afternoon R.Z. escapes again, for the last time. A detainee shouts to him, ‘How did you do it?’. R.Z answers: ‘From there at the top… you can’t find a way to escape from those walls, because there are other walls beyond… another prison. You must escape from the roof, and head towards the sun. They will never be able to build a wall between the sun and the earth’.

Our passion for freedom is stronger than all prisons!!!

Vimeo link- https://vimeo.com/108159482

PDF: Filaki- Prison World– zine about the prison uprisings in Greece 2007

This is a DVD rip. Contact abc-hurricane [at] riseup [dot] net if you would like an original DVD copy.

Os Cangaceiros- A Crime Called Freedom

PDF: Os Cangaceiros: A Crime Called Freedom– by Wolfi Landstreicher (2006)

“At the dawn of Industrialism, factories were modeled after prisons. In its twilight, prisons are now modeled after factories.”

We speak a lot about the violence on the outskirts of the cities. However, there is no need to think that this is the only place that anything is going on. It’s just that many people who share our conditions live there, as we do ourselves at times. We speak of nothing but violence. It is our element, and we could even say, our daily destiny. Violence is first of all the conditions that are imposed on us. Then there is the violence of the police who defend these conditions. And, unfortunately more rarely, there is the violence that we throw back in their faces.

We don’t know all of our enemies, but we know what they defend. Our allies are not all obliged to be our accomplices, but at times it happens that some of them are. We do not have relations with all of our allies. The unemployed who fight against poverty are our allies, as are the workers who rebel against work and escape the control of the unions. We don’t think that we possess a universal truth, but we intend to communicate what we think. Universal truths are the ones that are communicated, not the ones that are possessed. We tell those who ask if we are assemblyists or councilists that we are interested in knowing how people establish and organize dialogue.

We are not “terrorists” because we support underground activity: it was once said that the old mole digs. In our times, people who affirm revolutionary demands pass for dreamers. But the human being is made of the same material that his dreams are made from.

We are revolutionaries. “Os Cangaceiros” means “Everything is possible”, “We are at war”, “Nothing is true, everything is permitted”. There are many of us relative to the reigning atomization, and we have allies everywhere. Continue reading “Os Cangaceiros- A Crime Called Freedom”

Alexei Sutugu Sentenced to 3 Years 1 Month (Russia)

via abc brighton and avtonom:

On September 30, 2014 Russian anti-fascist Alexei Sutugu was sentenced by Zamoskvoretskiy Court in Moscow to three years and one month in prison for his alleged involvement in a fight. A day earlier, the prosecutor had asked for it four years and two months in prison.

Sutuga was accused of assault and hooliganism. According to the investigation, in January this year, he and four other young men attacked a group of six people in the Sbarro restaurant near the October metro station. The prosecution argued that Sutuga had assaulted the group with weapons that included a homemade hammer.

However, none of the victims suffered any injuries.
Alexei Sutuga pleaded not guilty, arguing that he was not involved in the fight and that the case was brought against him for political reasons.

Alexei had previously stood trial for his involvement in an incident in the Moscow club “Vozdukh” in December 2011 when he other anti-fascists were attacked by fascist members of the club’s security. In January of this year, all of the defendants in the case were pardoned under an amnesty in honour of the 20th anniversary of the Constitution.