Repression – Page 22

France: ‘La rage, partout’ Responses after the umpteenth police execution

Posted on 2023/06/30 by darknights

Rage, everywhere

~~Le Monde~~ / Thursday June 29, 2023

The night of Wednesday June 28 to Thursday June 29 was marked by major tension and damage in many Paris suburbs, with urban violence spreading to other French cities such as Toulouse and Lyon, following the death in Nanterre of Nahel M., a 17-year-old teenager killed by a police officer for refusing to obey orders.

Although calm in the early evening, the situation then became tense in the Hauts-de-Seine suburb, already the scene of clashes between residents and police during the night. More than a dozen cars and dumpsters were set on fire, and barriers were placed on the road, as Le Monde journalists observed. The walls of one building were tagged with the words “Justice for Nahel” and “Police kills”.

At 2 a.m., small, highly mobile groups were still clashing in the Pablo-Picasso district. Police forces had withdrawn and were no longer visible in a part of the housing estate that had come under the complete control of the rioters. The fire department has also retreated, according to our local reporter Luc Bronner.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had announced the mobilization of 2,000 police and gendarmes in Paris and its inner suburbs for Wednesday evening, 800 more than last night.

Incidents were also reported in several towns in the Hauts-de-Seine district. In Clamart, a tramway train was set on fire, according to a police source.

Around twenty communes in Seine-Saint-Denis reported incidents, according to a police source, sometimes in normally quiet towns such as Dugny. According to this source, each time there were groups of less than a hundred highly mobile people on the scene. The Préfecture de Police reported 35 arrests shortly before 2 a.m.

In Essonne, a group of people set fire to a bus at around 9 p.m. after removing the passengers in Viry-Châtillon, according to police sources. Clashes also broke out shortly after 8 p.m. in the Mirail district of Toulouse, where several vehicles were set on fire, with police and firefighters receiving projectiles, according to a police source.

In several areas of Dijon, the authorities reported the burning of rubbish dumpsters and the firing of fireworks. In Lyon and the surrounding area, as well as in Vénissieux, Bron and Villeurbanne, the police were targeted by firework mortars. A fire probably caused by pyrotechnic fireworks broke out in a building in Villeurbanne, leaving four people slightly injured, the fire department said. “Some apartments” were destroyed by the fire and ten households, or 35 people, were rehoused. Four people were also hospitalized with mild poisoning. In Vaulx-en-Velin, the police station was targeted before the police intervened.

Elsewhere, tensions were reported in Roubaix (Nord), Amiens and Nice, according to a police source. Some incidents, as in Saint-Etienne, Lille and Rennes, took place on the edges of rallies in support of Soulèvements de la Terre, the recently disbanded environmental movement.

The security post at the entrance to the Fresnes prison estate (Val-de-Marne) was attacked with fireworks by rioters on Wednesday night, Agence France-Presse (AFP) learnt from a police source.

Videos consulted by AFP show around twenty hooded youths attacking the guard post at the entrance to the estate with firework mortars and various projectiles.

Continue reading “France: ‘La rage, partout’ Responses after the umpteenth police execution” →

UK: ‘Human Beings’ By Kevan Thakrar

Posted on 2023/06/27 - 2023/06/27 by darknights

When the state imprisons people, they disappear us. The whole process of becoming a prisoner is designed to strip the person of their personal autonomy. Individuality is something that must be removed and replaced with complete conformity, implemented through the oppressive control and restrictions of the prison environment. From the prison issue clothing, the degrading, routine searching of the person, to the uniform design of the cells, people are transformed by this state dominance into products to be handled within the warehouses that are prisons.

When the prisons disappear people, they segregate us. The restrictions and conditions are so much more severe than anywhere else within the Segregation Units of the High Security Prisons of the men’s prison estate. Deliberately so: intended to break the spirit of the men who, for various reasons, find ourselves detained within these punishment blocks.

These environments inflict solitary confinement upon their victims, often for an indefinite period of time. It can mean more than 22-hours a day locked in a cell in isolation and kept separated from all other prisoners during the brieftime allowed to shower and/or get locked in a cage outside like an animal for ‘exercise’ – and, in my case, it has continued for 13-years so far. Remember how it felt to have to stay at home during the Covid lockdown? Imagine how many more restrictions you could have survived, yet we must endure within segregation daily.

It would not be permissible to keep an animal in places like these, and there would be total outrage if a woman were to suffer such mistreatment, but men are seen culturally as tougher and much more deserving of this brutal inhumanity. From personal experience, I can confirm this differentiation of the sexes that comes through the bad politics of the chauvinistic and anti feminist approach – which portrays women as ‘damsels in distress’ in need of help, and men as warriors capable of toughness only seen in the ‘stronger sex’ – is absolute nonsense (and it is this concept that sets the foundation for the perpetuation of the culture of toxic masculinity and misogyny that this country is drowning in). No human could possibly survive such inhumanity undamaged. Continue reading “UK: ‘Human Beings’ By Kevan Thakrar” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the attack on a police patrol at Strefi Hill on 15/6

Posted on 2023/06/27 by darknights

We are at a juncture where, in the space of just a few months, we have counted two mass state capitalist murders, in Tempe and Pylos, which demonstrate in the most deafening way the very essence of capitalism. We are under no illusions and we know very well that in the face of the deadlock and bankruptcy of the state-capitalist system, the only answer that the state and capital have to propose is, on the one hand, to create new hotbeds of imperialist conflict and intervention in the capitalist regions, thus creating new hundreds of dead, both on the battlefields and in the debris left behind by war and the overexploitation of resources, and on the heavily guarded border lines, which have resulted in the Mediterranean becoming a vast graveyard of refugees.

On the other hand, in the capitalist centres of the West, capital and the state are looking for new areas of profitability through further class devaluation, impoverishment and death politics, which in turn create modern metropolitan guarded sweatshops in which we are forced to survive in conditions of misery with meagre wages as a result of the overvaluation of our labour power, with one worker murder after another, with the coverage of our basic material needs becoming more and more difficult, and the deterioration of the structures that cover basic social needs of transportation, health, education, etc. and with a state that is further entrenching itself by militarising its metropolises and increasing military budgets.

So at the same time as the state is generously spreading death, oppression, exploitation and destruction, it is inviting us to participate in the carnival of elections to choose which party will “save” us and which party will provide the best opposition. It invites us to entrust the management of our lives to saviours great and small, and once we have chosen we can proudly return to normality, where people are murdered at the borders, in police stations, on the streets, in the workers’ sweatshops. We can return to the normalcy of “passports” and starvation wages, of snitch journalists and exhausted and unpaid overtime, of evictions and home foreclosures. The normalcy we legitimize by voting consent and submission. In the face of their normalcy there is disobedience, resistance and rebellion. Against the vote of delegation there is collectivity, self-organization, faith in our strengths and in the potential of all the oppressed and exploited. The belief that this world will be changed by us, through collective struggles we will stand on our feet and attack the state, capital and their praetorian guard. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the attack on a police patrol at Strefi Hill on 15/6” →

Athens, Greece: For the attack and the damage to Pharaoh in Solomou, Exarchia by Comrades, Anarchists

Posted on 2023/06/27 by darknights

As the struggle between the classes becomes wilder and the ideologies of development pave the way for the plundering of human and natural resources, turning the seas, the trees, the air we breathe into fields of profit at any cost, the upper classes become stronger and increase their wealth. As long as the lives of those from below are nothing but numbers to be managed and percentages of losses, such as the hundreds of dead displaced off Pylos, the passengers and workers on the trains of Tempi and the murdered workers in the sweatshops of the big bosses, capital is contentedly entrenching itself and preparing for new rounds of accumulation, deepening the terms of the devaluation of our lives.

The proclamation of the centre of Athens and especially of Exarchia, as a new field of profitability to which small and big businessmen are turning, is well known. Tourism and consumption have turned every hole into an opportunity. Numerous apartments are being converted into Airbnb, pushing up the remaining rents even higher, displacing poorer residents. Every public and open space, from the Strefi and Exarchia Square, to the May Day Square and the Museum, has been fenced off and included in plans to redevelop it and turn it into a supervised space for tourists and consumers. The police terrorism, the evacuation of squats and political spaces, the bullying and harassment of passers-by and residents by the ELAS men, the sealing of the Polytechnic, the increasing placement of cameras, are central repressive moves and reveal the political sign of this aggressive epicism.

In other words, for the business of white and black capital to flourish in our regions, the resistance that has taken root over the years must be silenced. The blockades of those from above that have been happening over time in the region, with the intolerable presence of politicians, exploiters and bigwigs of all kinds, must stop. To stop the precepts of solidarity among the oppressed, self-organization and opposition to the skinners of our lives and dreams.

But what they all forget is that these neighborhoods are still ours. That their well-polished storefronts can come crashing down on their heads with a bang, no matter how well they are guarded by their all manner of cops. Our small contribution to this reminder was our recent trip to Pharaoh’s on Solomou. On Friday 9 June, in broad daylight and under the nose of the anchored forces of repression at arm’s length, we interfered with the restaurant, damaging its interior and destroying their cellar of very expensive wines.

This shop, borrowing its concept from various other examples in western metropolises, jumped on the chariot of gentrification, selling alternativeism in an expensive wrapper. Pharaoh’s four entrepreneurs, Maidan columnists, TV chefs, troubadour foodies and others, gave rise to the arrival of socialites of all kinds in the area. Amidst the homeless and pissed-up sidewalks, with their expensive cars often guarded by their inflatable escorts, mob bosses, businessmen, and half the government’s cabinet have dined at this establishment. We should note here, of course, that Mitsotakis’ recent visit to this place was not as carefree as he expected, thanks to some angry residents. The clientele of this shop, therefore, validates by their presence the predestined targeting of the rotten world they represent. The opening of the field of profitability of local and foreign capital around the axis of Patision and the repression of anyone who resists it.

The war they have declared against us is sharpening and so must our struggles. Through dynamic responses and persistence, we can impose significant costs on all these would-be entrepreneurs, raising mounds to the touristization of everything and the conversion of our neighborhoods into commodities.

So that ministers, prime ministers, mayors and greasy mafiosi have no illusions that they will dine undisturbed in our parts.

To put smaller and larger cracks in their well-polished windows.

To move from questioning to conflict.

POVERTY, EXPLOITATION AND EXCLUSION
THAT’S WHAT GENTRIFICATION MEANS

SOLIDARITY WITH REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS

Comrades, Anarchists

Source: athens.indymedia

Italy: Statements of Alfredo Cospito & Anna Beniamino at the hearing on June 19, 2023 at the Turin Court of Appeals

Posted on 2023/06/25 by darknights

We are circulating Alfredo Cospito’s statement at the June 19 hearing in the court of appeals in Turin on the calculation of sentences against Alfredo himself and Anna Beniamino as part of the Scripta Manent trial. The comrade was connected via video-conference from the Bancali prison in Sassari (as known, the regulations do not require in-person presence). Replications and sentencing against the comrades are postponed to a later hearing scheduled for Monday, June 26, at 12 noon, also at the Turin court.

Alfredo Cospito: Statement at the June 19, 2023 hearing at the Turin Court of Appeal

This statement of mine is closely related to the trial because it goes into the merits of the sanctioning treatment you imposed on me. Sanctioning treatment that is unconstitutional and contradicts your own laws. Sanctioning treatment, 41 bis, that distorts the very meaning of my imprisonment, imposing on me a senseless censure that limits my right to defense.

It is obvious to all how my trial affair has been used as a sort of cudgel by one political party, “the government,” against another political party, the so-called “opposition.” My last-minute transfer from one section to another in anticipation of the arrival of PD parliamentarians is a striking example. Which shows how the DAP and 41 bis have been exploited for political purposes.

These facts are closely related to this trial because they are the product of past political dynamics that led to our disproportionate prosecution and conviction for political slaughter. To shut my mouth now, at the only time I can defend myself would mean endorsing this dangerous and totalitarian drift. Before talking about Fossano and the so-called “massacre” (although there is little to say, it would be enough to look at the images of the damage of the tremendous explosion) for just two minutes I will have to mention three deaths, two of which I am somehow responsible for, the third death that of Cosimo occurred at the clinical center of Opera, ward 41 bis. Continue reading “Italy: Statements of Alfredo Cospito & Anna Beniamino at the hearing on June 19, 2023 at the Turin Court of Appeals” →

France: All fire, all flame. Interviews with former members of the Revolutionary Cells (RZ) Germany, 1973-1993 FR/EN

Posted on 2023/06/25 - 2023/06/25 by darknights

Tout feu, tout flamme. Entretiens avec des anciens des Cellules Révolutionnaires (RZ) Allemagne, 1973-1993

Tout feu, tout flamme
Entretiens sur la résistance armée avec des anciens des Cellules Révolutionnaires (RZ)
Allemagne, 1973-1993

En 1973, deux attentats à la bombe contre une multinationale des télécommunications en République Fédérale d’Allemagne marquent les débuts de ce qui allait devenir les Revolutionäre Zellen (RZ, « Cellules Révolutionnaires »). Inspirées par les mouvements de libération armés dans le dit tiers-monde et portées par l’agitation subversive qui secoue les métropoles occidentales, les RZ réalisent des dizaines d’attaques, ciblant plus particulièrement le complexe militaro-industriel. Au début des années 1980, elles définissent un angle plus social-révolutionnaire avec le foisonnement d’importantes luttes offensives contre la construction de centrales nucléaires et d’autres nuisances industrielles, de conflits contre l’OTAN et le militarisme, de combats contre le patriarcat et les nouvelles technologies, ou encore de révoltes d’une jeunesse enragée. Dotées d’une solide logistique souterraine décentralisée, les RZ revendiquent près de 200 attentats, principalement explosifs et incendiaires, jusqu’en 1993.

Dans ces entretiens, trois anciens des RZ donnent leur vision du parcours historique de cette organisation de résistance armée. Avec une disponibilité au débat encourageante, ils dressent des bilans critiques, s’interrogent sur l’action offensive, réfléchissent sur les difficultés qu’implique une structure organisationnelle décentralisée mais permanente, questionnent les rapports au sein des groupes d’action souterrains et reviennent sur les péripéties de vies ayant une dimension de combat clandestin.

« Notre objectif est et a toujours été la diffusion de la résistance armée, était et reste le soutien d’un réseau de groupes autonomes qui, en tant que tendance armée au sein du mouvement, sont capables d’agir par eux-mêmes dans leurs villes et régions, qui y poussent plus loin les contradictions. »
(RZ, 1981) Continue reading “France: All fire, all flame. Interviews with former members of the Revolutionary Cells (RZ) Germany, 1973-1993 FR/EN” →

$hile: In response to the repressive onslaught of the state against the comrades imprisoned in Santiago 1 and San Miguel. Words from Monica, Joaquin, Marcelo, Juan and Francisco.

Posted on 2023/06/24 by darknights

Prison reality is constituted by a permanent tension where our convictions and the certainty of our position at all times come into play, inevitably.

This reality implies always bearing in mind that the jailer can dispose of our lives at any moment and that our strength lies precisely in having the certainty that we will face each of these adverse situations always with dignity.

Increased restrictions, transfers and sanctions are part of these impositions that today affect our comrades locked up in the prison-company Santiago 1 and comrade Itamar in the CPF of San Miguel.

The comrade today in the punishment zone is faced with threats of transfer and the crafty tricks of a jailer with pretensions of making a name for herself. It is necessary to emphasize that this situation is due to the fact that the comrade, together with other prisoners in Tower 5, has spread the word about the abusive practices of the jailers during the raids, in a clear attitude of struggle and confrontation.

The comrades, for their part, are fighting for their regrouping after they were removed from Module 1 with the excuse of dismantling it and were distributed among different units, and today several of them are in Module 88 of punishment. Continue reading “$hile: In response to the repressive onslaught of the state against the comrades imprisoned in Santiago 1 and San Miguel. Words from Monica, Joaquin, Marcelo, Juan and Francisco.” →

Thessaloniki, Greece: Responsibility claim for arson attack on COSMOTE van in solidarity with Giannis Michailidis & anarchist prisoners

Posted on 2023/06/04 - 2023/06/04 by darknights

VICTORY IN THE HUNGER STRIKE OF GIANNIS MICHAILIDIS

Once again dystopia is dangerously close to us. The state is constantly inventing new ways to undermine more and more our living conditions. Labour rights are now a thing of the past as partial employment contracts, the daily dismissal of trade unionists, often fatal work accidents, wage cuts, and the repayment or non-payment of bonuses under extortionate conditions are the status quo. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly shamelessly obvious how expendable our lives are to the state apparatus. The 57 murders in Tempe, the daily deportations and repatriations of migrant women on equally murderous terms, and the more ‘indirect’ method of the state’s death policy by raising the prices of everyday products, electricity and gas, as well as rents. Of course, even if you have to pay for all this, no one can guarantee that the next day you will still have a house to live in, since there is no longer any protection of the first home and the cops and prosecutors may appear one day in your living room and literally throw you out on the street within a few hours with all the things you have managed to collect.

To enable this condition to be established, a lot of money was spent on hiring cops from every service and buying official vehicles, placing them in ‘key’ places like squares, universities, hills and playgrounds. Apart from their physical presence, the state is more present than ever before through the installation of cameras on every corner, illegally or legally placed, and through the microphones and cameras on our mobile phones. No longer is the ‘big brother’ a fictional character from a novel, but the terrifying everyday life in which we live and grow up, where social control is brutal and universal.

The context of modern totalitarianism could not fail to include the further “upgrading” of the prison system and prisons. The state and those in power, known for their fetishism in punishing and torturing anyone who opposes them, are constantly reinforcing the dungeons of democracy, aiming at the complete annihilation of the imprisoned militants. Thus, in the winter of 2022, in a more comprehensive attempt to fortify the state against the social upheaval that prevailed, the new penal code is passed. According to it, type C prisons were reintroduced under the name of ”maximum security prisons”, disciplinary procedures were tightened, the conditions for granting leave and for the temporary dismissal of those prosecuted under 187A or accused of robbery and drug offences were changed, thus discrediting the position of political prisoners. It also introduces a ban on the transfer of certain categories of prisoners to rural prisons. Continue reading “Thessaloniki, Greece: Responsibility claim for arson attack on COSMOTE van in solidarity with Giannis Michailidis & anarchist prisoners” →

U$A: 2023 Statement from Marius Mason for June 11 EN/ES

Posted on 2023/06/04 - 2023/06/04 by darknights

Dear Community, Family and Friends,

Thank you for the work you are doing to make the change we need to make into the world for our collective survival. Your dedication, support and love are a constant source of inspiration and motivation for me; and I am betting for other prisoners, as well.

This has been as eventful year and a half here at FCI Danbury. My transfer to a male facility had been viewed with great trepidation both by those supportive of trans people and by those who are adamantly opposed to our existence. I’ve had many memorable experiences; some humiliating, some merely annoying and awkward. But, also several that have been rewarding and deeply affirming.

There has definitely been a sense of working things out as we go—the way strip searches have been conducted has been all over the board. Sometimes they have been done by one male staff person, sometimes by one female staff person and several times by several male staff people. Strip searches occur before and after visits, before and after medical trips out, and also when going into the SHU (I had to go there before a medical procedure to fast).

I missed one that was conducted down at the Rec when a fight between inmates was suspected. For the most part, as embarrassing as strip searches can be (they definitely trigger my dysphoria), most staff have been professional about them. There have been some unprofessional remarks made on occasion, though, that have been dehumanizing and dispiriting, but actually have happened a lot less often than I was expecting. A nice surprise. Continue reading “U$A: 2023 Statement from Marius Mason for June 11 EN/ES” →

U$A: Eric King Statement for June 11, 2023 EN/ES

Posted on 2023/06/04 by darknights

Greetings comrades. Let me tell you about this prison, the federal supermax ADX [in Florence, Colorado]. In this joint there are different levels and units with varying levels of physical isolation and communication, but there are things we all experience. Everyone is locked down at least 21 hours a day, at max 24. When you have inside rec you are by yourself in a room without a pull up bar. Outside rec cages are 8 x 10 foot dog kennels surrounded by concrete walls and a chain link roof — a cage within a cage. Unless you are in the pre-release unit (K-A) or long-term elder unit (K-B), you will never be in the same room as another person. And even in those units you only come around your ‘group’ — which is one to four other people — for inside rec. The other 22 ½ hours are in your cell by yourself. I have been in C-unit, the discipline unit and K-A; there is one other person in my group.

The cells are sparse. Concrete walls and double doors make any communication between convicts very difficult. Cells feature a low concrete beed, an oddly shitty mattress, a concrete desk, concrete stool, and in some units, a shelf above the desk. You never have solo interactions with staff — you are always double-manned with one of them carrying a steel baton, and you’re always cuffed behind your back. Depending on the unit, you can get 4–10 calls per month. I’ve made two ‘live-monitored’ calls in the past 10 months, but I’m being told that by participating in psychology programs I’ll earn a few calls per month. Time will tell. We’re allowed five visits per month, all non-contact in a concrete booth over the phone. All visits have to be scheduled in advance, which can be difficult with such restricted communication. I’m the only Anarchist here, but I’m definitely not the only political prisoner. Within this prison there is a group of prisoners the US government has attempted to bury. The general abolitionist community has consented to this, and it’s devastating.

The most restrictive unit in the most restrictive prison in America is H-Unit, which is for people on SAMS (Special Administrative Measures). These restrictions are placed by the Attorney General, and they are sickening. SAMS vary per captive, but all entail only being allowed to write to direct blood family and your lawyer. The FBI must read and approve all letters, magazines, and books. Calls are severely limited, live-monitored by the FBI, and reviewed by magistrate judges. These convicts get three showers per week. The vast majority of people on SAMS are Muslim and foreign born. Because their families are in Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, or in Africa, it is nearly impossible to get visits, calls, or mail. These people will never see their families or home countries again. Their children will get married, have kids, grow old, and they will never know it. If that doesn’t make you sick, I don’t even know what we’re doing here. Continue reading “U$A: Eric King Statement for June 11, 2023 EN/ES” →