The Tattoo Circus is a DIY organized festival against repression and imprisonment. The Tattoo Circus began 2007 in Rome and since then activists from all around Europe (Barcelona, London, Thessaloniki, Bern, Athens, Madrid, Basel, Berlin… etc) took on the concept for supporting those people who can’t be among us. We are happy that this event will take place in Amsterdam as well and are sure it´s going to be an inspiring festival.

The idea behind this solidarity event is to create a space where tattoo culture and political involvement come together. Several tattoo artists will provide their creativity, experience and as much ink as possible, in order to support the anti-prison struggle and to become a part of it. The principle of the Tattoo Circus is that nobody earns anything from this event, neither the tattooists, nor the piercers, the bands, performers or speakers, and the complete proceeds will go to those people who fight against the state and capitalism.

Every euro collected in Tattoo Circus goes directly to structures supporting prisoners and the Anti-Prison-Fight. Tattoo Circus won’t limit itself to the tattoo culture, therefore, a rich program is being prepared. It will include lectures, workshops, readings, info about prisoners, movies and so forth. We’ll also have an evening program with concerts, and there will be food and drinks.

As opposed to some established conventions, Tattoo Circus takes place in a non-competitive, non-commercial an non-hierarchical atmosphere and entrance is free for everyone.

We invite you to join, help and enrich this project. The full program will be published shortly.

Solidarity is a weapon. Until every prison is empty. For a society without prisons and repression!

Website: http://tattoocircusamsterdam.nl/

Ebba Olausson is a young Vegan Straight Edge woman that is currently under arrest in Skovde, Sweden, suspected for over twenty different attacks on fur farms and the fur industry as well as liberations of minks.  Ebba has tried to write me but I was not allowed her letter by the prison in which I am currently entombed.  Nor am I able to write to her since I am not allowed to write prisoners.

I request that you, my supporters, in America and abroad, flood Ebba with support mail so that she knows she is loved and we are all concerned for her well being and freedom.  The Vegan Straight Edge kids, Vegan Hardliners and Animal Rights Activists of Sweden have been so supportive of me over the years.  Now I want to support them back.

(Excerpt from a 2012 letter from Ebba)

“I found an interview you did on the internet and read your thoughts about Straight Edge. I’ve been Vegan Straight Edge for five years. You said “You must remain focused, ferocious, positive and resilient!” When I read that I got back the fighting spirit I had in the beginning of Straight Edge! Some Hardline kids from Sweden say hello, keep up the fighting spirit, Much Love -Ebba”

You keep that fighting spirit up as well Ebba and know that even though there are walls, prison bars and an ocean that separate us, you are my Vegan sister and you are in my heart, always. Animal Liberation, Whatever It May Take!

Please write to Ebba at:

Ebba Olausson
Box 194
551 13 JÖNKÖPING
SWEDEN

Regards,

Walter Bond
ALF POW

Ebba Olausson’s facebook support page is https://www.facebook.com/supportebba

Where: De Klinker, Van Broeckhuysenstraat 46, Nijmegen

Time: 21:00

It’s time to share information and ideas about the recent developments in the Dutch prison system en the necessity of abolitionist struggle. Lately news on prisons has been in the media a lot. News like the ridicule idea that inmates are going to have to pay to be incarcerated, but also a call for heavier punishments in general. The prison system is undergoing a process of far reaching privatization. The state intends to make the prisons financially self-sufficient. By outsourcing the building and exploitation to private companies even more parties and people will make profit from locking up people.

Are we heading in the direction of the US with an extensive prison industry, where private companies lobby for more and longer punishments to fill up the jails? And what does all of this has to do with the contemporary social tendencies? Where do we as anarchist position ourselves in this context? And more important, how does it influence the general anti-prison struggle?

Furthermore we would like to talk about the definition of criminality and the concept of punishment. And who is benefiting from the social structure as it exists?

Ten midden van verslechterende omstandigheden en harde maatregelen is de woede deze week overgekookt waarbij een gevangenisbewaarder en een gevangene werden vermoord in de gevagenis in Malandrino, Griekenland.

De spanningen lopen hoog op in het Griekse gevangenissysteem na de dood van een gevangenisbewaker en de gevangene die hem vermoordde.
Eerder deze week werd Llia Kareli, vermoordde een 42-jarige gevangene gevangenisbewaarder Yiorgos Tsiranis in de gevangenis in Malandrino. Kareli, die een lange gevangenisstraf uit zat, had een verzoek ingediend zijn stervende moeder te bezoeken. Dit werd hem ontzegd. Met een scherp voorwerp heeft hij Tsiranis neergestoken die ter plaatse overleed. Kareli werd overgeplaatst naar de Nigrita gevangenis en werd daar in een isoleercel gehouden ter observatie. In deze cel is het later dood teruggevonden. Er is een onderzoek onderweg naar de doodsoorzaak maar het rapport van de lijkschouwer laat zien dat Kareli hevige verwondingen had die overeen lijken te komen met marteling van voor zijn dood.

De omstandigheden in Griekse gevangenissen zijn de afgelopen jaren ernstig verslechterd. De groei in de populatie in gevangenissen en een gelijktijdige korting op de budgetten hebben het gevangenissysteem, net als een groot deel van de Griekse staat, op de rand van instorten gebracht. Waarbij de beveiligingsinstanties nu in hoge staat van alertheid zijn, zeker ook na een aantal incidenten als gevolg van de dood van Kareli.

De huidige toestand in de gevangenissen werd in februari nog aangetoond toen er foto’s en video’s naar buiten kwamen via de pers waarin verschrikkelijke omstandigheden in de Korydallos-gevangenis zichtbaar waren. Deze gevangenis in een voorstad van Athene heeft het enige ziekenhuis in het gevangenissysteem van Griekenland. De patiënten in dit ziekenhuis zijn in hongerstaking gegaan uit onvrede over de massale overbevolking en onbehandelde ziektes. Deze omstandigheden zijn vergelijkbaar in heel Griekenland waar cellen vaak overbevolkt zijn waardoor gevangenen bijvoorbeeld op de grond moeten slapen. Net als de rapporten aantonen dat cellen in politiebureaus worden gebruikt om voor langere perioden gevangenen vast te houden. Griekenland heeft één van de grootste overpopulatie in gevangenissen in de Europese Unie en werd hiervoor al meerdere malen bekritiseerd door mensenrechten organisaties.

De enige verandering in het gevangenissysteem is dat de Griekse staat een voorstel heeft gemaakt voor de bouw van een nieuwe maximum-beveiligde gevangenis in Domokos in centraal Griekenland. Het plan is om in deze high-tech gevangenis de meest problematische gevangenen onder te brengen. Dit werd opgebracht na de ontsnapping van C. Xiros tijdens nieuwjaar. Xiros zat al jaren gevangen en is ontsnapt tijdens een verlof. Hij was lid van de gewapende organisatie 17 November, een Marxistisch-Leninistische urbane guerrilla groep. Zijn verdwijning en zijn volgende oproep om de wapens op te nemen hebben de Griekse staat ongerust gemaakt na een recente stijging in het aantal aanvallen door gewapende groepen. Anarchist Kostas Sakkas, die jaren vast zat zonder aanklacht en over de maximale voorarrest tijd, verdween ook niet veel later terwijl hij op borgtocht vrij was. Naast de bouw van de maximum-beveiligde gevangenis, zouden ook verloven worden afgeschaft in het nieuwe voorstel. Het was juist het afwijzen van een dergelijk verlof dat Kareli ertoe dreef om zijn bewaker aan te vallen.

Met meer mensen op elkaar gepropt en onder steeds slechtere omstandigheden is de situatie in de Griekse gevangenissen gevaarlijk en onberekenbaar. Het enige antwoord van de staat is dat ze de omstandigheden nog verder verzwaren. De kans is groot dat dit echter verdere gevolgen zal hebben.

Zie ook:
Gevangenen kondigen actiesmobilisatie aan in Griekse gevangenissen op 24 maart: http://en.contrainfo.espiv.net/2014/03/25/prisoners-announcing-protest-m…
Foto’s en video’s van binnen in het gevangenenhospitaal in Korydallos:
http://www.enetenglish.gr/?i=news.en.article&id=1801
http://abcnijmegen.wordpress.com

We have no other path worth walking except the one of resistance. The path of Lambros, the path of life.

HONOUR FOREVER TO LAMBROS FOUNDAS

Four years ago, the breath of a great fighter went out, my comrade of the Revolutionary Struggle, Lambros Foundas. He was killed during a shoot out, when members of the organization were attempting to expropriate a vehicle in Dafni.
Lambros politically came of age in the late part of the political transition after the junta and joined the anti-authoritarian movement. He participated in social clashes of the period characterized by that special spirit after the junta through which was arising the militant tradition, the collective memory of a population thirsty for freedom.

He came of age politically at the dawn of the new century, there where the radical movement was gasping to find a connecting link with the past through the ruins of the post junta era in order to imprint its own way of walk in the new era of privatization and consumerism. Then when -like now- we struggle to understand the impressive changes in greek society, changes which compared to the present, were proven painless. Later he was integrated into the Revolutionary Struggle where from its lines gave the last battle of his life.

Lambros left together with a whole era. These four years of his absence, the land is experiencing a double bankruptcy, political and economic. The two-party system of authority which was the pillar of the state after the junta has collapsed together with whatever reliability of its political staff. Simultaneously, collapsed the whole economic structure founded with the entry of the country in the EC. The land is now in a procedure of colonization by the monetary-credit elite of the european north and the production wealth is sold out by its local cooperators. Today, fascism is not at the gates, it is already here. In the hungry children, the unemployed, in the desperation, in the raiding squads, in state terrorism….

Today, four years after the death of Lambros Foundas, the battle of the Revolutionary Struggle, the battle of the radical movement for freedom and social justice is more just than ever because we made sure we were where we were suppose to be before the storm broke out, before we entered the darkness, the lines of the struggle against the neo-liberal fascism.

And all that remains, Lambros, is to answer the eternal question, your last words, “And now what do we do?”. And I leave your deafening answer to root in the present and future, in the scared souls and teenager rooms. We have no other path worth walking except the one of resistance. The path of Lambros, the path of life.

*
From the introduction of Nikos Kazantzakis in “Captain Michalis”.

“…Many who read Captain Michalis think that such kids -such little men, as we say in Crete- never existed, neither men so physically and mentally strong, who love life so much and look at death with such contempt. How can the unfaithful believe what miracles faith can create? They forget that a person’s soul becomes omnipotent when swept away by a grand idea. Its scary when, after bitter trials, you realize that inside us is a force that can overcome the strength of a human. You’re scared, because from the moment you realize that this force exists you cannot find excuses any more for your meaningless or cowardly acts, about your lost life, putting the blame on others. You know now that you, not luck, not fate, not the people around you, only you have, no matter what you do, no matter what you become, the responsibility. And then you are embarrassed to laugh, you are embarrassed to mock if a flaming soul asks you for the impossible.

You realize very well now that this is the value of the human, to ask and to know that its asking for the impossible and be sure that it will reach it, because it knows that if it gives it all, if it does not listen to what logic commands, but holds its soul with its teeth and continues in faith, in stubbornness to chase the impossible, then the miracle will happen, which the wingless common mind could not guess: The impossible becomes possible.”

March 10th 2014

Kostas Gournas
Koridallos prisons

On the evening of January 5, I was arrested with my comrades Fallon and Carlos for allegedly attacking the office of the Federal Secretary of Communications and Transportation of Mexico, and also a Nissan dealership. Windows were broken and molotov cocktails were thrown inside the ministry, (according to what the evidence says) and inside the new cars of the dealership. Damages are evaluated to more than 70 000 pesos at the ministry and 100 000 pesos at Nissan.

Indeed, I’m an anarchist and live in Montreal, Canada. I was traveling in Mexico, and now my trip is being prolonged some time.

After being arrested, they locked us up for 96 hours, and then transfered us at the Federal Centre of Arraigo – without prior having seen a judge. We were held captive for 40 days. In a cell, 23 hours per day, a cigarette a day, smoked in 10 minutes; 3 meals per day, but with only 10 minutes to eat each time, without talking; not allowed to have a pencil; 9 minutes of phone per day… In short, it was a long wait, and there was nothing more than Mexican “telenovelas” playing on tv all day. Luckily our friends sent us some books! Thanks, I don’t know how I could have survived without.

On day 40, the General Prosecutor of the Republic (PGR – federal) transfered our files to the PGJ (state police) because they have no evidence to charge us of a federal crime. Thus, since February 17, Fallon and I are at “Santa Martha” State penitentiary for women in Mexico City, where we were transfered, and Carlos is at “Oriente” State penitentiary for men 20 minutes from us. Here, it’s a micro-society surrounded by cement and barbed-wire, but where you can do as you wish inside.

At the moment of writing this text, its 7:30 am. I’m in the yard and I’m looking at the sun rising behind the watchtower occupying the scenery. Actually, I almost feel like I’m in the yard of an apartment block when i look at the building with clothes hanging from windows without bars. There’s plenty of pigeons, garbagecans, yellowed grass, and barbed-wire. There’s also plenty of people with their own stories.

Prisons are necessary for maintaining social peace, as are cops. It is the domination and control that permits this sickening world to persist. Prison means fear, the unknown, shame, solitude, isolation. Society is the domestication of individuals into “good citizens”. Thus, my strength as individual takes root in the refusal of fear being a limit in my life. For sure I’m afraid, like everyone, of many things, but my desires of freedom are stronger. Fear is often constructed, and is deconstructed when we face it. What’s important is to see further, beyond the boundaries and borders, beyond the walls, mountains, rivers and oceans.

I don’t know how long I’m here for, but i don’t feel sorry for myself. I’m confident that outside the struggle goes on, and people meet, love each other, hate each other, live, dammit. In fact I’m not comfortable with people focusing on our case without engaging their own struggles in their own contexts. I believe that the best solidarity is built in the sharing of individual and collective strengths. The worst thing for me would be that nothing goes on outside while were held captive, but I know my friends continue despite the difficulties we must face. My reality as an anarchist in prison is a fact among others with which we have to adapt. The most difficult is often to maintain and protect bonds of trust with comrades whom we have affinity with, for long term thinking. When it is possible, unimaginable possibilities emerge.

In that sense, my ideas and analyses remain the same as outside. That’s why I don’t feel like changing my discourse to get peoples support. I greatly appreciate the efforts of solidarity that have been done till now, although, I distance myself from certain initiatives that have been taken in solidarity with us. In Montreal: during a demo that took place in front of the Mexican consulate, the speech denounced torture and human rights violations by the Mexican State. The UN was mentioned in a reformist and progressive tone. Honestly, I appreciate that many people feel concerned with our case, but I refuse to use that illusory reformist discourse. As I see it, injustice, torture and human rights violations are integral parts of the world as it is. Rights are regulated by the State and are suspended at any moment as needed. Furthermore, it promotes democratic ideology (rights for citizens), the biggest of illusions. And most of all, to support our ideas with references to instances of power like the UN cannot build a strong anti-authoritarian struggle. It’s not by trying to influence public opinion with reformist discourse that we will build strong foundations for an struggle impossible to recuperate.

I must say I honestly have nothing to do with student and worker unions, and that even in the “syndicalisme de combat” [transl. combat unionism] very fashionable back home, in Montreal. Those organizations are formal and bureaucratic. They reproduce “direct democracy”. Those are the same structures I want to destroy, which impose distance between individuals, and the way they relate to the world and to the living. Formality, bureaucracy, law, and institutionalization transform the relationship between people. They immobilize the constant possibilities of transformation, exactly as political parties do. They try to organize and lead the “formless masses”

Therefore, there is an obvious contradiction: we’ve received support from student associations in Quebec. For my part, I have no problems with accepting money which will without doubt help us out of prison. But I must say that these organizations have nothing revolutionary about them. They’re rotten to the core. They’re based on Maoist organizational structures and are totally formal, with their politicians procedural code. This language is incomprehensible. Charismatic speakers manipulate the votes of the masses by expressing what the majority wants to hear rather than speaking from the heart. Crowds of 100 000 people march like zombies, sing and repeat the same reformist slogans and then return home, to their daily routine.

In the situation in which I find myself, waiting for my sentence or my release, to express openly that I am an anarchist can put me in a precarious situation. I chose to do so anyway. Many times, I felt the need to communicate with other anarchists who have experienced similar situations. When confronting State repression, there are several ways to react. I think that using a moderate discourse provides privileges, such as getting out of jail faster, obtaining financing or social acceptance. But I think as long as the words and deeds will be moderate, it will be difficult to spread insurrectional and anti-authoritarian practices. That is why it is important to communicate my ideas openly and knowingly.

I do not know how long I will be locked up here, but one thing is certain: it will not be for a lifetime. I am fortunate to have great friends and comrades in struggles, and I do not feel alone. The strength and courage are found first in oneself. There is a universe of possibilities, here as elsewhere. All forms of domination are to be fought, those that create the structures and institutions as much as those who interfere in our relationships. There is no heaven or perfect world. Freedom is the permanent movement and conflict, in confrontation with the world of images, symbols and appearances. Freedom is the destruction of the structures of domination over our lives. In Mexico, Montreal, France, Vancouver, United States, Spain, Greece, Chile, Egypt, Belgium, Italy, Germany, England, Holland, I greet my friends and comrades of struggle. For total freedom, I wish for links to be forged in the struggle.

In solidarity with Carlos “Chivo” and Fallon

With love, down with all the prison walls

Amélie

To write to Amélie and Fallon:

Centro Feminil de Reinsercion social Santa Martha Acatilla
Amélie Trudeau / Fallon Rouiller
Calzada Ermita
Iztapalapa No 4037
Colonia Santa Martha Acatitla
Delagation Iztalpalapa
C.P. 09560
Mexico

http://www.blackmail3.org

“Welcome to the support group for the Blackmail3, who are facing prison as part of an ongoing attempt by the UK authorities to stop people campaigning against animal testing. Browse the site to learn more about the case, what laws are being used and how you can help support the defendants. With the increasing repression of UK animal rights activism it’s important for us to stand in solidarity and resistance – with the animals inside laboratories and those who fight to save them.”

From the prison of Lenzburg, Marco Camenisch informs us that he has been notified of yet another rejection of his conditional release, to which he should have had access long ago, as he has already served two thirds of the sentence imposed by the Swiss courts. We spread an excerpt from his letter:

“This time the denial came from the TAR (administrative review court). To tell the truth, I’m sick and tired of dealing with the usual long-winded repressive crap, in which also the TAR simply ‘approves’ everything that has already been expressed by their worthy cronies, only adding even more meanness and maliciousness. I was surely expecting a confirmation of the denial but, to tell the truth, at least a hint of seriousness in the treatment of the ‘defense arguments’. In practice an a posteriori internment, by the end of the prison sentence, is most likely what lies ahead of me. That’s the only point worth noting…”

Always beside Marco! Against all prisons!

Anti-repression solidarity fund of western Alps

Statement from the Cleveland 4 Support Committee on the Sentencing of Joshua (‘Skelly’) Stafford:

You don’t offer a dangerous terrorist a plea deal for three years.

That was the deal the government offered Joshua Stafford, the deal that he left on the table when he chose a trial where he hoped to present evidence of his innocence against charges that carried a minimum of thirty years. It takes a great deal of courage to stand up against a prosecution that badly wishes you and your case would just go away quietly. Most people would be bullied by the threat of the long decades ahead, and go on to take the deal. Whatever his sentence today, Josh will have already served nearly a year and a half of it.

Whatever his sentence today, Josh will have had an insufficient chance to present his side of the case. Those who witnessed his trial are already aware that it played out as a farce, in which he was derailed from every attempt to explain the circumstances and the events that led up to his arrest on April 30, 2012. Those in the courtroom may not have been aware that they were witnessing the height of hypocrisy. A prosecution that would have been happy to settle for a three year sentence just the day before trial presented the scant evidence they had of his involvement while painting him as a person far too dangerous to let back out on the streets.

Thus, the jury convicted him without a chance to understand why a young man whose fast metabolism gave him his nickname ‘Skelly’ got in a car with his friends and their boss: an empty stomach and the offer of dinner at Applebee’s. They only saw Josh stumbling as best he could through the legal system as his prosecution laid every well-crafted brick stacked against him neatly. They never heard that they were deciding the fate of a young man who has never had much in his life but has always been willing to share what he had; a young man who never hesitated to help a friend.

For the Cleveland 4 Support Committee and for all those who support political prisoners an important question remains: What are WE going to do? It is time to shine a very bright light on the methods used by FBI agents and prosecutors in an attempt to justify continued funding and personal advancement by entrapping the most vulnerable members of our society. We will continue to expose the use of paid informants with extensive criminal rap sheets as they are routinely misrepresented as accidental witnesses rather than amoral leaders highly motivated to create simulated crimes.

We will continue to support those incarcerated simply for others’ political and personal gain.

http://www.cleveland4solidarity.org/

A more in-depth article on Josh ‘Skelly’ can be found here

Want to show some solidarity to Josh? Send him a card!:

Joshua Stafford
#57976-060
USP Canaan
P.O Box 300
Waymart Pennsylvania 18472
United States