Isolation

Bristol, UK: Toby Shone speaks from the dungeons of Bristol prison, explaining his case. EN/ES/FR/DE/PO/RU/GR/IT

Posted on 2022/01/05 - 2022/01/06 by darknights

My name is Toby Shone, and I’m an imprisoned anarchist held in Bristol prison who was kidnapped at gunpoint by the anti-terrorist unit, as part of Operation Adream in the UK. The repression was aimed to target the anarchist group of critique and practice, 325 collective and the website 325.nostate.net. Operation Adream is an attack by the British State in conjunction with European partners against anarchist direct action groups, counter-information projects, prisoner solidarity initiatives and the new anarchist critique of the technological singularity and the fourth and fifth industrial revolution. Operation Adream is the first time that anti-terrorist legislation has been used against the anarchist movement in the UK.

I was taken hostage by the regime on the 18th of November 2020 by a team of tactical fire arms cops after a car chase through the remote Forest of Dean, which is on the border with South Wales, one hour north of Bristol. At the same time coordinated raids took place at five addresses in the Forest of Dean against collective living projects, hangouts and a storage unit. I was taken under armed guard to a nearby police station where I was held in incommunicado and interrogated many, many times. I refused to speak during the interrogations and I did not cooperate with the murderers in uniform.

I was charged with four counts of terrorism. One charge of Section 2, dissemination of terrorist publications as a suspected administrator 325.nostate.net. Two charges of section 58, possession of information useful for the purposes of terrorism. Those being two videos. One of which showed how to improvise an explosive shaped charge. And the other demonstrated how to burn down a mobile phone transmitter. I was charged with Section 15, funding terrorism, which was related to cryptocurrency wallets hosted on 325.nostate.net which were for the support of anarchist prisoners and publications. I denied all the charges.

I was also accused during the interrogations of membership of FAI/IRF, the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front. I was accused of writing five documents and carrying out several actions in the Bristol area, which were claimed by cells of the FAI as well as those of the Earth- and Animal Liberation Fronts. These included an incendiary attack against the police station, the burning down of a mobile phone transmitter and liberation of animals.

Bristol is an area of the UK where there has been countless anarchist sabotages and direct actions taking place over the last two decades and which remain unsolved by police, despite multi-million pound investigations and joint media witch hunts against anarchists in the city. Continue reading “Bristol, UK: Toby Shone speaks from the dungeons of Bristol prison, explaining his case. EN/ES/FR/DE/PO/RU/GR/IT” →

Spain: Elisa Di Bernardo – “We are winning battles for Gabriel Pombo’s freedom”.

Posted on 2021/09/11 - 2021/09/12 by darknights

“Never having approached drugs, being very clear about his ideas, and his physical and mental strength have helped him to survive in prison, despite the FIES. Almost all of his comrades have died. He survived a genocide” explains in Oviedo the companion of the anarchist prisoner.

Elisa di Bernardo went to Oviedo yesterday to tell the situation of her colleague Gabriel Pombo da Silva. Invited by the group Higinio Carrocera, in collaboration with the local Cambalache, taking advantage of her visit to Pombo to the prison of Mansilla de las Mulas in León, Elisa gave a very complete account of both the legal situation of the anarchist prisoner and his life and struggle in his more than 30 years in the prisons of the State. It was a talk that not only served to have information about Pombo but also to show how, inside the prison walls, “democracy” disappears and one enters a dark world, subjected to physical and psychological torture, to personal revenge by judges and jailers, to prisons inside the prison (FIES). In addition, Elisa gave us perspective and context on how inequality, misery, injustice and poverty consubstantial to the capitalist and statist system manufactures criminals.

Elisa began the talk by taking out of her backpack three important books to know the situation of prisoners and the world of the anti-prison struggle: “Extrema Indigencia, extrema violencia”, “Para que no me olvides” by Madres Unidas contra la Droga and the Informe sobre la Tortura en el Estado español that Elisa explained was censored by the police, as it tells the saddest time of the FIES regime (files of inmates of special monitoring).

After this bibliographical introduction Elisa di Bernardo spoke about Gabriel Pombo’s life trajectory. “They lived in Vigo in a shack until they emigrated to Germany to earn a living. There he discovers a new world and also begins to know the instinctive solidarity among the poor. The first political question Gabriel asked himself was: “If my father builds houses, why don’t we have a house? Continue reading “Spain: Elisa Di Bernardo – “We are winning battles for Gabriel Pombo’s freedom”.” →

Harm Reduction Guided by the Goal of the Abolition of Prisons and Capitalism: An interview with former Direct Action member and ex-prisoner Ann Hansen

Posted on 2021/09/01 - 2021/09/23 by darknights

(Above) The now closed P4W (Prison for Women) in Kingston, Ontario.

Originally published at Kersplebedeb

Ann Hansen was imprisoned in 1983 for her involvement in the urban guerilla group Direct Action. She is the author of Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guerilla and Taking the Rap: Women Doing Time for Society’s Crimes. She wrote the introduction for Margrit Schiller’s Remembering the Armed Struggle: My Time with the Red Army Faction. This interview was conducted in the summer of 2021.

How would you like to introduce yourself?

I am a 67 year old white cis gender female anarchist on parole for life after being convicted of a number of actions in 1984 along with some members of the urban guerrilla group, Direct Action. Since being released from prison, I have been living for almost 25 years now on a small farm that I own near Odessa just west of Kingston, Ontario. I am active with the Prison for Women (P4W) Memorial Collective which has been fighting for a Memorial Garden at the site of the now closed Prison for Women, and a Gallery where the women’s art and writing can be seen in order to give some context to their lives and deaths.We also agitate to improve prison and parole conditions as a harm reduction tactic in order to alleviate some of the suffering, but always within the context of the abolition of prisons and capitalism as the goal, the light that guides us through the darkness

I should also add that my parole conditions have a direct impact on my political activism. In 2012, my parole was suspended for allegedly not telling my parole officer about a Prisoners Justice Day (PJD) film I screened at the Kingston public library in conjunction with a lawyer who outlined our civil rights in the context of large civil disobedience actions. My parole was reinstated by the Parole Board but only after adding this new parole condition in which I must “notify” my parole officer about any political activity in which I am engaged, such as attending events, public speaking, writing, etc. Even though the word is “notify” as opposed to “approve,” they could revoke me for anything. This seems shocking to activists, but any prisoner who has been on parole knows that you can be revoked for anything, anytime. It is very common to be suspended for obscure things like “deteriorating behavior” or “having a bad attitude,” especially if you are not a politicized prisoner. Politicized prisoners usually have some community support and a radical lawyer, so parole suspensions are more likely in the public eye and thus parole officers and the Parole Board are more accountable. “Social prisoners” on the other hand are usually invisible and are less likely to have legal representation so parole officers feel less constrained in terms of suspending them for ridiculous reasons. Continue reading “Harm Reduction Guided by the Goal of the Abolition of Prisons and Capitalism: An interview with former Direct Action member and ex-prisoner Ann Hansen” →

Italy: Update on the situation of anarchist Alfredo Cospito in Terni prison

Posted on 2021/07/15 by darknights

Update as of July 15:

As the isolation situation in which he is being held in Terni continues, Alfredo began a protest this morning. During the phone call he communicated that he will later refuse to return to the cell.

We remind you of the solidarity gathering on Sunday morning, July 18, at 10 a.m. outside Terni prison to support his struggle. Break the isolation!

* * *

Break the isolation!
Solidarity gathering for Alfredo at Terni prison

Anarchist comrade Alfredo Cospito has been in prison since September 2012, following the repressive operation that led to his arrest and that of another comrade, both accused of shooting Roberto Adinolfi, the CEO of Ansaldo Nucleare, who was wounded on May 7 of that year in Genoa. The action, claimed by Nucleo Olga of Federazione Anarchica Informale – Fronte Rivoluzionario Internazionale [“Informal Anarchist Federation – International Revolutionary Front”], was then claimed individually by the two comrades also during the first degree trial held in Genoa. In addition to the 9 years and 5 months sentence he received in the trial for the action against Adinolfi, he was sentenced to 20 years in first and second instance in the Scripta Manent trial held in Turin starting in 2017 and derived from the arrests of September 6 of the previous year. Following the Scripta Manent sentences, in addition to Alfredo, Anna is currently imprisoned (in Messina prison), sentenced to 16 years and 6 months.

At the end of June, Alfredo was transferred from the High Security 2 section of the Ferrara prison, where he had been held since 2013, to that of Terni prison. However, he is still kept in the “transit” section, despite the fact that the isolation period imposed by the Covid-19 emergency regulations has been over for several days. We do not know why Alfredo is still in solitary confinement, we do not know or care about the plans of the DAP [“Department of Penitentiary Administration”]. What we do know is that the provocations and pretexts of the guards can not erase a historical fact: the existence over the years of an anarchism of action, an anarchism that has acted with determination, hitting structures and people of the state and capital.

The story of Alfredo, the practices of which he is accused, this is the contagion they fear. But that story can not be erased by the convictions of a court or the pretexts of the jailers; those practices can not be isolated, there is no bubble that holds: they are heritage of the revolutionary anarchist movement.

Sunday, July 18, 2021, 10:00 a.m.
Solidarity gathering under the prison of Terni, strada delle Campore 32

PDF: Rompere l’isolamento! Saluto solidale per Alfredo al carcere di Terni (18.07.2021).

From & Translated by Malacoda