Prison Struggle – Page 9

Cardiff, UK: Demo at Probation Office For Toby Shone

Posted on 2024/03/21 by darknights

DEMO AT CARDIFF PROBATION OFFICE FOR TOBY SHONE

On March 6th 2024, anarchists demonstrated outside Cardiff Probation Office to show their solidarity with Toby Shone as his parole pre-hearing meeting approaches. For the last 3 and a half years, probation officers including Lewis Thomas, Ashley Fussell, Gillian O’Brien, and Paul Smith amongst others at Cardiff probation office have collaborated with police such as Philip Gay at the National Security Division (NSD) and SouthWest Counter Terror Police (SWCTP) to target Toby for his anarchist beliefs and his alternative lifestyle. The UK police state is trying to criminalise such beliefs.

Toby was initially arrested on terrorism charges related to the 325.nostate.net website. This case fell apart the day before the trial in 2021. The Crown Prosecution Service had no evidence to offer the court. He was instead sentenced to three years and nine months in prison for a minor drugs charge. Released on licence in December 2022, Toby was recalled to prison on 19th September 2023 after attending a prisoner letter-writing night and dinner at the anarchist social centre BASE in Bristol. This meeting was being watched by two Counter Terror Officers. Toby’s licence conditions prevented him from contributing to or organising events at places like BASE. They also included a gagging order to prevent him speaking out about his case and his licence conditions. His attendance at this event was not a breach of his conditions but was used by his probation team, the National Security Division (NSD) and Southwest Counter Terror Police (SWCTP) to justify his renewed incarceration in a long-term high security prison 170 miles away from his home. Isolating him from his community and loved ones by sending him out of his area and by censoring his mail is a stated aim in police and probation paperwork and Toby’s treatment is apparently being signed off personally by the Secretary of State for Justice Alex Chalk.

Red and black smokies were set off, flyers were distributed inside the probation offices and to people in the street and comrades spoke in support of Toby and demanded his freedom from this revenge recall and from the whole rotten prison industrial complex including the probation service.

Soldarity with Toby

Solidarity with all imprisoned comrades

FUCK HMP!

The Final Straw Radio Podcast Interview With Imprisoned Anarchist Toby Shone + A Request By Solidarity Group For Toby Shone

Posted on 2024/03/05 by darknights

The Final Straw Radio Podcast Interview With Imprisoned Anarchist Toby Shone

US web-based The Final Straw Radio Podcast has a new interview with imprisoned anarchist Toby Shone in which he gives a background to Operation Adream, his arrest and trial and his recent recall to prisons plus the involvement of the security services in his case and the ongoing harrassment that he has suffered in HMP Garth.

https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/2024/03/03/…

A Request By Solidarity Group For Toby Shone

The solidarity group for Toby Shone would like to ask that anyone writing to him could also take a moment to let us know that you have sent him a letter by dropping an email to forestcase@riseup.net

HMP Garth are telling him – as have other prisons he has been in – that he has no mail. The State and the pigs are desperate to isolate Toby and to make him believe that he has no support. This is stated in his probation paperwork as a goal of his probation team and the National Security Division.

Let’s not let them win! We have no control over whether the prison gives Toby his mail and books. We do however have control over writing to him and letting his support group know that you have so that even if he doesn’t receive it, he knows it was sent to him. A letter sent by recorded delivery so that we can tell Toby that yes, this letter arrived on such and such a date is even better.

Toby is very resilient and is always in good spirits. However, he has been very unwell, has lost a considerable amount of weight as a result of the lack of food and calorie count typical of Britain’s jails and now faces a month of no visits due to confusion over bookings. So now would be a really really good time to send Toby a postcard, a letter or an email (and then let us know that you have).

Thanks a million.
The State is the Terrorist.
No one is Alone!

Forest Case Folks
forestcase@riseup.net

Toby Shone A7645EP
HMP Garth
Ulnes Walton Lane
Leyland
Preston
PR26 8NE

Source: Brighton Anarchist Black Cross

Greece: A few words about the ‘witch hunt’ of the Counterterrorism by anarchist comrade Fotis Tziotizis

Posted on 2024/03/05 - 2024/03/05 by darknights

I no longer cease to be amazed and wonder what the police and journalists come up with for cases that disrupt their peace. I have seen and read a lot these days about the alleged major operation of the DAEEV (Directorate for Dealing with Special Violent Crimes ΔΑΕΕΒ, Anti Terrorist) and the dismantling of a dangerous terrorist organization.

Vile absurdities were uttered, scenarios of science fiction. They even went so far as to talk about payments between those involved in order to create the narrative of organized crime and dangerous individuals. False information was published concerning the 6 detainees, using previous conversations from people who had absolutely no connection with each other, thus creating an atmosphere of confusion and misdirection.

I have been portrayed as an obsessive, dangerous person who teeters between two worlds: the political and the criminal, as they call it, with the sole objective of seeking revenge against the prosecuting authorities. What I want to say to all the Pretenderis and Evangelatos of this world is that, besides being ridiculous, you are also foolish because you are trying to convince the world of the profile of a person that serves you and at the same time how well your government, which has been feeding you all these years, is doing its job. You are the very same garbage that covers up state murders like in Tempi and you try to shield all the responsible friends of yours and primarily the then Minister Karamanlis with every ridiculous means available. You didn’t care for even a second about the children who were murdered because of you, and provocatively you shift the blame right and left, while we all know about the friendly appointments without a public examination authority, the bribery in Serres, and so on. The henchmen of your then Minister. We all remember the minister saying that it is a shame to talk about security issues on the railway, and 8 days later we become witnesses to capitalist-state crime in Tempi.

You are the same ones who remain silent when the police evict poor people from their homes for debts to your bosses, the bankers. You are the same ones who dine with golden spoons next to the real mafia of this country – politicians and businessmen – laughing at the suffering of the oppressed.

Therefore, I am happy and content that I don’t resemble you in the slightest. I have learned to look the world in the eye and not deceive them, to care for people and take a stance on whatever happens. I am proud to have grown up with values that you don’t even know.

I may be a captive in your prisons, but my soul and mind are and will remain free. So continue your witch hunt, create scenarios that serve you, and label whatever and however you want.

You were born cowards, and you will live as thugs.

‘I want to go on my way,

bypassing the hesitant

and the slow-walkers’

P.S: The above text is just a few words about the restoration of truth and a critique of the current condition. I will provide a more detailed explanation once I am called for the interrogative procedure and have the indictment in my hands.

Fotis Tziotzis

Domokos Prison
4/3/2024

Source: athens.indymedia

Chile: Words more than 2 years after the attack against the National Directorate of Gendarmerie and 13 months after the imprisonment of the anarchist comrades Aldo and Lucas Hernandez.

Posted on 2024/02/05 by darknights

Words more than 2 years after the attack against the National Directorate of Gendarmeria of $hile and 13 months of imprisonment of the anarchist comrades Aldo and Lucas Hernandez.

During these days the nostalgia assaults, missing that air of the street envelops when waking up in these cells. It has been 12 months since the GOPE arrived bursting different doors of different spaces in which we transited or stepped on at some time.

We regret in the depths of our hearts that the bastard police exposed these beautiful little beings to so much violence, and that their eyes saw their despicable uniforms and weapons that were ready to meet and capture Aldo, so far the only one charged for the explosive attack against the National Directorate of Gendarmeria of Chile, and Lucas, charged for possession of various weapons and explosives.

The police did not care in the least about violating the basic rights of the children present in the different spaces raided.

We have lived the consequences and ups and downs of the prison world, where our convictions remain unyielding and more eager than yesterday to see this society collapse after an accurate blow to the heart of the repugnant social peace. During this year we have been separated as brothers and we have lived different prison processes. Aldo is in a highly dangerous module in the La Gonzalina Prison-Extermination Center, where he is the only political prisoner in the module. Lucas has been in different modules of the Santiago One Prison-Company. Being linked to the street, to the illegality and the cause that besieges us at present has influenced how we develop and position ourselves in our journey as prisoners, where he has had to face different prison situations.

We consider that in these situations it is extremely important to defend our position against society and prison, against prison and society: against prison society.

In spite of everything, we have learned to be attentive to different codes and frequencies, here, where blades and spears speak for themselves. Always with the intention that the metals are aimed at the jailers and not between prisoners.

We continue with our integrity intact, our illegal steps stepped hard on the streets, always intending more, never staying in the lesser evil or in the brute comfort, we broke with it and that is how we ventured into the boldness of the facts.

At present they are still investigating us, trying to find more and more, they will try to condemn us with the highest sentences they can, according to our different crimes, exemplary sentences as happened recently with our compañero Francisco Solar.

For us the only example is the coherence of continuing to take a stand against domination from the very house of the jailers.

Be clear that the ideas and revolutionary action is bulletproof and shackle-proof. These are the consequences of our anarchic and free existence, we assume the costs without fear, no prosecutor or court will make us feel the despair, much less bend us. They are the ones who fear us, not us.

They are the cowards, not those of us who, determined, walk with our dead by our side and with the death that, many times, accompanies us in every illegal movement and in every action.

Hundreds of personal-political projects were put on hold, even so, from these dungeons, we remain clear and willing to continue contributing to the anarchist struggle that walks firm and determined for the destruction of power, its servants and all the existing prison society.

Life is fragile and none is the exception.

A fraternal greeting to the different comrades who worthily face their days in the different prisons of the world.

Fire to the prison and its jailers!

Death to the dominant lie!

With clear and sharper ideas nothing is over, the war continues.

Long live anarchy.

Aldo Hernández Valdés – La Gonzalina Extermination Center

Lucas Hernández Valdés – Prison-Company Santiago one.

Anarchist prisoners.

Source: Informativo Anarquista

Italy: Cassation sentence in the trial on the action against the Villorba League headquarters: upheld the sentence issued by the court of appeals against Juan Sorroche

Posted on 2024/02/05 by darknights

Cassation sentence in the trial on the action against the Villorba League headquarters: upheld the sentence issued by the court of appeals against Juan Sorroche (Jan. 26, 2024)

We report below a brief update taken from the internet site “Il Rovescio” regarding the ruling of the court of cassation
of Jan. 26 as part of the trial against fellow anarchist Juan Sorroche, currently imprisoned in the AS2 section of the prison in Terni, for the action against the League’s headquarters in Villorba (in the province of Treviso) on August 12, 2018 (two devices, the first deflagrated, the second unexploded and defused by police forces). Recently, shortly before the hearing, the comrade published a
text, for the time being disclosed only as a downloadable attachment (“Small background analysis of my latest sentence in the appeal of 14 years and 7 months during the period of solidarity struggle with Alfredo”), which we will publish as soon as possible on this website.

Comrade’s address:

Juan Antonio Sorroche Fernandez

C. C. di Terni
strada delle Campore 32
05100 Terni

* * *

On Jan. 26, the Court of Cassation rejected both the defense appeal and that of the prosecutor, upholding the sentence of 14 years and 7 months in prison imposed on Juan in the appeal trial for the action against the League’s Villorba (Treviso) headquarters. Love and rage for Juan and all the imprisoned comrades!

Source: La Nemesi

Nancy, France: Anarchist comrade Boris convicted on appeal for the fire of two relay antennas

Posted on 2024/02/05 by darknights

Nancy,Boris convicted on appeal for the fire of two relay antennas

sent to Lille Indymedia 01/22/24 by abc
translated by others a little later

On September 25, 2023, the Nancy Court of Appeal tried again the anarchist comrade Boris (transl. as is customary the word companion is used in the French, which highlights more the sense that everyone is fighting their own struggle), for having burned the relay antenna of the four telecoms operators, as well as that of the cops and gendarmes, in April 2020 on the Mont Poupet (Jura).

Following this attack which had mobilized in full capacity technicians of the Ministry of the Interior until the bottom of the Jura valley to try to restore their communications as soon as possible, the DNA of the comrade had been found on the spot. After months of eavesdropping and surveillance conducted by the Anti-Terrorist Group (GAT) of Dijon and members of the GIGN specially come from Versailles (transl. equiv. to SAS or Special Ops), and as part of an investigation entrusted to the Specialized Inter-regional Jurisdiction (JIRS) of Nancy, Boris had been arrested in Besançon on September 22, 2020.

Incarcerated on remand at the Nancy-Maxéville prison, he will be sentenced at first instance on May 19, 2021 to 4 years in prison, being two years definitely served with a recallable probation of two years (with the obligation to work, to reimburse the civil parties and prohibition on carrying a weapon). Tried without a lawyer and in a court guarded by riot police to prohibit access to all the solidarity companions present on the spot (under the pretext of restrictions related to covid-19), Boris appeals within the following days. He also releases a public letter from behind bars in June, in which he will defend the reasons for this double attack (https://sansnom.noblogs.org/archives/7006)

On August 7, 2021, and while the appeal date had been set for the end of September, a fire in the cell he was locked in seriously hurt him (most notably leaving him paralysed from the neck down). Plunged several months into a coma and prognosed as struggling for his life, his room was guarded by two gendarmes until the lifting of these conditions by the Court of Appeal of Nancy on September 20, 2021. The rest is a long medical journey of the comrade in different hospitals, where he had to continue to fight both against medical authority and other judicial bodies (notably against an attempt to put him under custodianship at the request of the chief physician of the palliative service of Besançon). On the side of the Court of Appeal of Nancy, while the fixing of a date of hearing for the fire of the antennas remained suspended sine die for two years in view of the state of health of Boris, it was in the middle of July of this year 2023 that they suddenly decided to reconvene. For this, they used the vile pretext that the comrade had managed to express himself in video from the hospital before another jurisdiction, in March 2023, in order to successfully inform a judge that he opposed any custodianship (of the State as well as of the family)! Continue reading “Nancy, France: Anarchist comrade Boris convicted on appeal for the fire of two relay antennas” →

Greece: Solidarity Day on February 9, 2024, for the final release of comrade Pola Roupa & the immediate release of comrade Nikos Maziotis EN/ FR / GR / DE / IT

Posted on 2024/02/05 by darknights

We call comrades in Greece and around the world to be vigilant and act in solidarity:

9/2| SOLIDARITY DAY FOR THE FINAL RELEASE OF
COMRADE POLA ROUPA & THE
IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF COMRADE NIKOS MAZIOTIS

Comrade Pola Roupa and Comrade Nikos Maziotis were sentenced to several years in prison for their participation and action in the guerilla organization Revolutionary Struggle.

They were imprisoned and served the combined 20-year prison sentence to which they were finally sentenced (after the “breaking” of their life sentence for the bombing attack on the Bank of Greece-branch of the European Central Bank-office of the International Monetary Fund in Greece, by Revolutionary Struggle Commando Lambros Fountas).

Comrade Pola Roupa served 8.5 years of real prison (13.5 years mixed), while her partner Nikos Maziotis has already served 11 years of “closed” prison and a total of 14 years mixed. That is, 3/5 of their sentence as state laws dictate.

Comrade Pola Roupa was released from prison with restrictive conditions on November 17, 2023, and a few days later, on November 28, 2023, the deputy prosecutor of Evia filed an appeal against her release, requesting that she be taken back to prison. This unprecedented event led comrade Pola Roupa before a new judicial council at the court of Chalkida on January 10, 2024, in order to judge from scratch whether she will remain free or continue to be a prisoner in the cells of the republic.

The definitive release of comrade P. Roupa from state hostage-taking is the immediate political issue as they seek to put her back in prison. The regime itself questions its jurisprudence and retracts itself: it initially “allows” the release of comrade P. Roupa, while subsequently attempting to reverse its decision. The aforementioned mandated minion of the political and judicial power – vice-prosecutor of Evia – with his move proves the extreme vindictive way of dealing with the political enemies of the state and capital, and especially the armed combatants.
Comrade N. Maziotis has received 4 parole denials in two years, because he remains unrepentant. This “special” treatment of exception does not stop, even after the many years of persecution and captivity imposed on them. Continue reading “Greece: Solidarity Day on February 9, 2024, for the final release of comrade Pola Roupa & the immediate release of comrade Nikos Maziotis EN/ FR / GR / DE / IT” →

Greece: Thanos Chatziangelou|…firm steps to the end

Posted on 2024/01/25 - 2024/01/25 by darknights

Don’t stop me. I’m dreaming.

We’ve lived bent over centuries of injustice.

Centuries of loneliness.

Now don’t. Don’t stop me.

Now and here and forever and ever and everywhere.

I dream of freedom…

I dream because I love.

Big dreams in the sky

Don’t ask. Don’t stop me.

It’s now to restore

the supreme act of moral right.

To make a poem of Life.

And Life into action.

It’s a dream that I can I can I can

I LOVE YOU

And you don’t stop me I don’t dream. I’m living.

I’m waiting! I’m waiting for those looks, those looks, those looks, those looks, those looks, those looks, those looks. Fearful faces behind the robes of blind justice. Sons and daughters – the genetic children of Themis – critics of justice, who steel their filth with the law of silence. And in their path, the fates of men dragging against the earth like a ragged rag.

I wait! I expect the spectators to be ashamed, when they are silent while they suffer. They build the principality of submission with empty denials and conventions. With prayers and pleas, with begging and misery. Political misery. And they weave their slavery, one knot at a time. One knot at a time. Till all the light is hidden.

I’m waiting! I go back and wait. Among men forgotten and excommunicated. Carrying a heavy burden, for my ego, for the us. For the we to exist. For the cold not to become an unbearable totality. So every morning, in the mirror of my cell, I see a human face. Tired, yes, but human.

With an inert conscience and rigid pride, I serve the denial and wait. This day and the thousands of nights in its wake. Without spotless moons and fixed sunsets, without dry rains and untouched winds.

As many times as it takes and from the beginning.

I am defending ANARCHY.

Thanos Chatziangelou, imprisoned member of the Anarchist Action Organization

C’ Wing, Larissa Prison

24/1/2024

Source: athens.indymedia

DN Note

On January 24, the second application for suspension of the sentence of comrade Thanos has begun to be examined by the five-member Criminal Court of Appeal in Larissa. It has already been rejected 1st September 2023 and his request for a short leave.

Greece: Nikos Maziotis on his 4th rejection of parole

Posted on 2024/01/25 by darknights

Nikos Maziotis on his 4th rejection of parole

The last board of misdemeanors of Lamia (29/9/2023) rejected my request (for the 4th time) for parole on the same grounds as the 3 previous ones, i.e. the disciplinary records for which I have been punished in the past have been deleted and should not normally count under the penal code for parole. But this time the board of misdemeanors of Lamia, in the reasoning of the rejection, went a step further than the previous boards by proving that it has the same logic that the institutions of the bribe-taking state, the post-conflict state and the junta used to have, when they asked for statements of repentance and renunciation from fighters as it also proves to have the same logic of the Inquisition.

I am quoting the contested passage of the decision verbatim:

[…] “However, the repeated commission of serious misdemeanors that also constitute criminal offences demonstrates the applicant’s lack of self-discipline and compliance with the basic rules of the penal system, his constant tendency to commit criminal acts and therefore his insufficient imprisonment and the his lack of moral improvement, for the purpose of his conversion and the possibility of his smooth reintegration into society in the event of his release from the detention centre. In addition, during the applicant’s personal appearance at the council remotely, through technological means, the latter showed particularly aggressive behaviour towards the council, as well as complete disrespect for justice and the penal system, and stated that he considers himself a political prisoner, while at the same time, he did not show that he had realized particular disrespect for the criminal acts he had committed.

Moreover, according to his statement before the council, confinement is only a punishment and cannot serve any other purpose, such as the imprisonment of prisoners. From the above it follows that the conduct of the applicant during the serving of his sentence makes it necessary to continue his detention in order to prevent him from committing new criminal acts. In particular, the above-mentioned prisoner has repeatedly committed disciplinary offences which he does not seem to recognize as wrong, which suggests that any good behaviour he has been showing lately while serving his sentence is pretentious and only apparently good, apparently awaiting his conditional release, and it testifies to his inability to comply with the rules of the prison and, by extension, social coexistence, as an element of his character, but also a constant tendency towards delinquent behaviour.With this behaviour, the applicant demonstrated that the purpose of the legislator was not fulfilled in his case by introducing him to the institution of conditional release, which is nothing more than a strong psychological motivation for the convict for his intended moral improvement , because for the time of his stay in prison, he has an interest in living according to the law, expecting his conditional release, and during the time of probation, he also has an interest in living according to the law, fearing his re-incarceration in prison. This is how his moral conformity and improvement is achieved, as he becomes addicted to the philanthropic life and becomes the creator of his own honest life. All the above objectives were not fulfilled in the case of the present convict, that is to say, he proved, with his behaviour detailed above, that he has not been sufficiently punished, a fact that he himself admitted before the council, and does not present the guarantees that he will lead an honest life as a dismissed person and will not commit new criminal acts. The repeated commission of disciplinary offences during the time of his detention demonstrates a lack of penal improvement and a real desire for law-abiding living and his lack of integration, despite his many years of stay in detention facilities…”, concluding that for all these reasons the my request for parole to prevent the alleged commission of further criminal acts. What exactly does this “monument” of inquisitive argumentation say? I am not being released on parole because:

I declare – after their own question – that I am a political prisoner.
I do not perceive the particular iniquity of the criminal acts that I have committed, meaning of course the action of the Revolutionary Struggle, which I do not consider to be either criminal or “terrorism”.
I think as I stated to the board that imprisonment is purely a punishment and that it does not ‘rehabilitate’, adding something which they do not state in the reasoning of the decision, that they should be satisfied that I have served the greater part of my sentence and that I will not change character and be “imprisoned” not in a million years. Continue reading “Greece: Nikos Maziotis on his 4th rejection of parole” →

UK: Civilization is a cancer. Letter by imprisoned anarchist comrade Toby Shone

Posted on 2024/01/22 - 2024/01/22 by darknights

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”

– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Some matters should be denounced in the strongest terms, one of these is the way prisoners health is addressed. Neglect and mistreatment are endemic, if not malice, institutionalised. I was scheduled an MRI scan and blood tests for tumour markers in late October 2023 at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. I should have been put on medical hold and provided that treatment, but I was transferred to the long term High Security Estate where I did not receive the blood test by the prison medical team until late December. The results of those blood tests have never been disclosed to me by the prison medical authorities. In fact, I only got the results after a comrade called my Bristol NHS Oncology Unit. Twice the prison team have failed to facilitate a telephone consultation with my doctor to receive the blood test outcome. The prison medical system has totally failed in every way to provide continuity in my oncology pathway. My scheduled MRI scan, which I have not been given any information about, is not being declared to me for fear I will use the opportunity to make an escape. The last time, the despicable cowards of the prison service zip tied my hands before I was placed in the coffin of the MRI scanner, an indignity that I will not accept again even at risk of my health. Prisoners die each day chained to their hospice beds watched by bastards with keys and batons. Prison is an abomination and the only future we are fighting for is one in which it is destroyed forever. I will live and die in the way I choose.

Death to the state!

Toby, 18th of January 2024, HMP Garth