Toby Shone – Page 5 – Dark Nights

UK: Declaration of Solidarity with Alfredo Cospito from anarchist comrade Toby Shone

Posted on 2022/11/12 - 2022/11/12 by darknights

“By observing the force of the rainfall, one can know the size of the dragon, and by observing the flourishing of the blossoms, one can know the depths of the pond.” Traditional saying

News has reached me of the isolation torture inflicted on Alfredo Cospito who has been hit with the 41bis regime of the Italian State and placed into the hell of the White Cells.

My heart aches to hear of the conditions he is suffering and I am in solidarity with his indefinite hunger strike.

After listening to the advice of my comrades due to my health status, I will refuse to eat every Wednesday and Sunday as my participation in the campaign. If I choose to extend my strike I will do so. Also since the G4S corporation is attempting to force me to provide slave labour for the workshops of despicable capitalists who contract such exploitative services at the expense of their workers, I refuse to comply. I dedicate these efforts, however small, to our dear Alfredo.

An embrace to everyone, inside and outside…

With the deer, the boar, the owl, and the jaguar…

A BLACK DECEMBER APPROACHES

Toby Shone
G4S Parc, UK
9 November 2022

PS A little greeting to the comrades who lit up Parc with their fireworks on 20/10. Likewise to all those who attended the demo in Bristol for my case on 30/10.

UK: Imprisoned Anarchist Toby Shone Fights New Battle Against Fascist UK State

Posted on 2022/10/28 - 2022/10/28 by darknights

Imprisoned anarchist Toby Shone is fighting a new battle as he counts down the weeks to his halfway release on December 28th 2022.

As the UK collapses into something resembling a tin-pot dictatorship and a Victorian poorhouse, Toby continues to be targeted by the Probation Service and their colleagues in the Counter-Terror National Security Division and MAPPA (Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements) for his ‘thought crimes ‘, ‘anarchism’ and ‘alternative lifestyle’.

In September, Toby was informed that Cardiff-based probation officer Paul Smith had booked a series of interviews for him (without communicating these to his lawyers as instructed) with forensic psychologist Dr Harriet Chapman from the Centre for Forensic and Criminological Psychology, University of Birmingham. Dr Chapman’s intention was to interrogate Toby under the Extremism Risk Guidelines formulation tool, ERG22+. This assessment which is “intended for use with people who have been convicted of any extremist or extremist-related offence” (which he hasn’t been) considers at least 22 factors by which an individual can be regarded as an extremist and thus be subject to de-radicalisation measures. We could find no public paper detailing these 22 factors or the format of the interview.

These largely experimental and deeply authoritarian de-radicalisation measures, which appear to be rolled out on a one-to-one basis, include the Healthy Identity Intervention, Desist and Disengagement Programme, Motivational and Engagement Intervention and Developing Dialogues. All of these are highly invasive, intensive programmes designed to investigate and dismantle a targeted individual’s personal narrative, childhood and influences, to attempt to undermine their critique of the existent, to isolate them from their relationships and affinities and to re-mould them into the perfect citizen under conditions of duress. Think re-education camps and political indoctrination. In effect they are seeking to “pathologise” the holding of anarchist beliefs: anarchism as a psychological illness. This tactic of “punitive psychiatry” has been used by other authoritarian states, most notably Soviet Russia, China and the USA. Continue reading “UK: Imprisoned Anarchist Toby Shone Fights New Battle Against Fascist UK State” →

Barcelona, Spain: Responsibility Claim for the Placement of Two Explosive Devices EN/ES

Posted on 2022/09/25 by darknights

Responsibility Claim for the Placement of Two Explosive Devices

One September night we decided to illuminate the darkness placing two incendiary devices on a 5G relay antenna in Barcelona in the vicinity of Montjuïc park.

This action is one more contribution to the struggle against domination.

We send a warm hug to Toby Shone, Boris, Ivan and everyone who keeps anarchy alive.

Some Anarchists

————

BARCELONA, ESPAÑA: REIVINDICACIÓN DE LA COLOCACIÓN DE DOS ARTEFACTOS EXPLOSIVOS.

Una noche de septiembre nos decidimos a iluminar la oscuridad colocando dos artefactos incendiarios en un repetidor 5G de Barcelona en las inmediaciones al parque de Montjuïc.

Esta acción es un aporte mas a la lucha contra la dominacion

Mandamos un caluroso abrazo para Toby Shone, Boris, Ivan y todxs lxs que mantienen viva la anarquia.

Algunxs Anarquistas

Source: Anarquía

Via: Act for freedom now!

From Coast to Coast: Open Letter by Anarchist Prisoner Toby Shone

Posted on 2022/09/11 by darknights

I’ve previously written about the need to recreate an Atlantic bridge, based on international revolutionary solidarity and reciprocal knowledge, that moves towards affinity and direct action in support of our imprisoned comrades. Since then, I was recently visited by a comrade from Anarchist Black Cross Philadelphia here at the G4S facility in which I’m held. G4S is originally an American company, Wackenhut, which has pioneered the private prison and security industry all over the world. As part of our discussion between the comrade from ABC Philadelphia and myself, we spoke of the need to prevent our groups and commons becoming inward-looking and closing in on themselves in microscopic scenes and myopia. The anglophone world is particularly susceptible to this trend, although it is not solely confined to English-speaking territories. How can we translate rhetoric into practical activity? Words and deeds must coincide, and that is what?

For too long, a kind of one-way discourse has been in effect, breached by too few valiant individuals and groups. We can speak of a loss of solidarity flowing across the Atlantic between north and south, east and west. Without wanting to advocate any kind of anarcho-tourism or the colonial approach of the wholesale export-import political programs of the activist left, I’m in favor of strengthening our international networks in the face of an increased technocratic authoritarianism. To remain locked up in our local areas without considering the struggles elsewhere is self-defeating, as repressive operations seek to confine us and stem our anarchic contagion specifically to promote sterility. Can we renew an Atlantic bridge that connects our tendencies, that connects the uprisings in the North American metropolises to those in Europe, Latin America and Asia? Can we join together the struggles of the long-term COINTELPRO prisoners with those elsewhere in the global prison industrial complex? Continue reading “From Coast to Coast: Open Letter by Anarchist Prisoner Toby Shone” →

Athens, Greece: Incendiary attack on a mobile phone antenna in Paleo Psychiko by ‘Anti-civilizational cell of total chaos and destruction – FAI/ELF’

Posted on 2022/08/30 by darknights

I’m going into the dark.

The green lights of the security vehicles watch the streets and corners.

They spy, they guard, bringing security to the neighborhood of the rich.

They don’t know what’s happening to them.

Under their noses, I’m getting to my target.

An antenna that pollutes the sky with radio signals.

A cursed place, my howling at the moon, my fire, my curse (in the form of an incendiary device)

I say:

I bring this curse to spread in all six directions.

East, west, north, south, the underworld and the overworld.

I curse all cops and prison guards.

I curse all people who act like cops. (Parents, family, teachers, social workers, guidance counselors, all kinds of preachers, bosses and snitches)

May all of you and your attitudes be extinguished by fire.

I curse all prisons. (Whether they imprison people with two, four, six or many legs, or whether they imprison people with roots and leaves)

May the fire consume all prisons forever.

I curse the job and the whole industry.

I curse all the rich. (The true sickness of this world)

May all this be consumed by fire.

I curse the city.

I curse civilization itself. (The corpse of Leviathan rotting and feeding on men and earth)

May it all be reduced to rubble by fire.

May this curse spread everywhere.

I light the fuse.

I come out of the darkness.

I look back from a distance.

I see the cloud of smoke in the sky. I smile.

For a brief moment the chaos cancels out the order.

Anything can happen…

Silence spreads…

Radio silence…

This act was done in solidarity with:

Giannis Michailidis and Pola Roupa.

Alfredo Cospito and Toby Shone.

Marius Mason, Leonard Peltier and Ladislav Kuc.

The Mapuche warriors of Ellicora 8.

In solidarity with all indigenous people fighting against civilization and colonialism.

In solidarity with the struggles at the Strefi Hill and Exarcheia Square.

FAI/ELF

Anti-civilizational cell of total chaos and destruction.

Source: athens.indymedia

France: “I know that there, somewhere, other comrades continue the struggle.” Letter from Ivan, anarchist comrade arrested in Paris

Posted on 2022/08/30 - 2022/08/30 by darknights

“I know that there, somewhere, other comrades continue the struggle.”

Letter from Ivan, anarchist comrade arrested on June 11 on the outskirts of Paris

15 VI 22

My name is Ivan, I am an anarchist.

I was arrested by the Sous-diréction anti-térrorisme [SDAT] of the French police on Saturday, June 11, around 3:30 a.m., near my home (suburbs of Paris), on my way home.

I am accused of six vehicle fires, in Paris and Montreuil, between January and June, often in solidarity with anarchist prisoners (the last one, an embassy car, was set on fire in the 17th arrondissement of Paris on the night of my arrest).

The cops followed me for months, listened to my phone calls, installed a camera in the entrance of the building where I live, intercepted my mail (especially letters from imprisoned anarchists) and looked at my bank account.

Another person (we know each other only by sight, but to him all my esteem) has been followed, listened to, etc., but has not been challenged. Courage friend!

The SDAT investigation began in late February 2022 on the orders of prosecutor Louise-Anne Belanger of the Bobigny prosecutor’s office. They also pulled from their drawers another archived investigation, which had been done by other cops, into some 50 arson attacks against vehicles, all in and around Paris, between 2017 and 2021. SDAT “merged” the two investigations, but the judge (Stéphanie Labarge [?], of the Bobigny court) retained only the last six attacks. For the others, I am an “assisted witness” [the equivalent of “person informed about the facts”].

In addition to “destruction by dangerous means,” there is also the charge of endangering the lives of others, refusal to give my DNA, refusal to have my photograph taken, refusal to give fingerprints, refusal to give passwords to computers and phones.

Right now, I am in pre-trial detention at Villepinte Prison. I am fit, I am fine, although I miss my loved ones very much.

Normal, it’s prison, and you have to put it on the line when you are an enemy of this society.

Here, the hardest time is when we come back from the walk. The door closes and we stay here until the next day. But I turn to the window and look out. I know that there, somewhere, other comrades continue the struggle.

As soon as I get more information on this story, I will write more (I don’t have much else to do!).

My thoughts go out to the anarchists in prison everywhere in the world: to Damien (in prison in Draguignan), to Alfredo, to Anna, to Juan, to Toby, to Giannis Michailidis on hunger strike… to all/all of you out there!

Solidarity is the attack!

Long live anarchy!

Ivan

Source: Il Rovescio

UK: Letter for the International Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners August 23rd – 30th by Imprisoned Anarchist Toby Shone

Posted on 2022/08/03 - 2022/08/03 by darknights

Letter for the International Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners August 23rd – 30th by Imprisoned Anarchist Toby Shone, UK

“Does this rising generation know that those who inaugurated the 8 hour day were put to death at the command of Capital?”
Lucy Parsons, The Haymarket Martyrs, November 1926

“Although we are not reformists, the struggle to obtain improvements in one’s immediate situation (wages, housing, health, education, occupations etc) sees the anarchists present, but they do not see these struggles as ends in themselves. They push the exploited towards this form of struggle so that they can develop the elements of self-organisation and refusal of the delegate which are indispensable in order to develop direct action at all other levels.”
Alfredo M. Bonanno, What are Anarchists?

Despite being in prison, news occasionally reaches me of the many repressive operations and terrible circumstances that our comrades are confronting. That’s why I am in agreement with the proposal once again put forward by the Anarchist Black Cross for a week of solidarity at the end of August. This date is chosen to mark the State murder of anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. We cannot give in to resignation or become complacent in these times. It is more important than ever to explain and make accessible the anarchist analysis and to put it into practice immediately.

Anarchism is internationalism, self-management, mutual aid, solidarity, and direct action: incisive, voracious and alive. That’s why our spaces are raided and evicted, our publications seized, our communities hunted, beaten, imprisoned and killed around the world.

During my interrogations, the Counter-Terror cops at one point focussed on the International Week of Solidarity with anarchist prisoners, accusing this event of supporting terrorism, glorifying terrorism. That’s because part of their strategy is to try to illegalise the Anarchist Black Cross. Their aim is to destroy all solidarity and counter-information structures which spread information about and provide material support for the legal cases of anarchist comrades who are locked up. Continue reading “UK: Letter for the International Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners August 23rd – 30th by Imprisoned Anarchist Toby Shone” →

UK: Communication with anarchist comrade Toby Shone cut off by scum prison authorities G4S

Posted on 2022/06/28 by darknights

Imprisoned Anarchist Toby Shone who is being held at the private G4S prison HMP/YOI Parc in Bridgend, South Wales, is now unable to communicate by phone with his solidarity group and closest loved ones after the Security Team at Parc, headed by Daniel Hayman, removed these contacts from his permitted phone pin numbers list on Friday 24th June 2022 at 6pm. This together with interference with his post and emails is an attempt to hold him incommunicado in the jail.

He was formally notified of this decision on Saturday 25th June with the following reasons given: giving interviews over the phone, giving detailed information about staff at the prison which has then been published online, and hate speech against some prison staff.

Neither Toby nor his comrades are surprised by this action and Toby remains strong and defiant. The weak and pitiful lackeys that work in the prison camps of capital, locking other human beings up in exchange for a little piece of silver and a small dimension of power over others, are no match at all for the revolutionary spirit and they know it. Neither Toby nor any of us will ever shut up.

Write to the prison to complain and show your solidarity by contacting the Director of HMP Parc:

Janet Wallsgrove
HM Prison Parc
Heol Hobcyn John
Coity, Bridgend, CF35 6AP
South Wales.

Tel: 01656 300200
General Fax: 01656 300316

Email: janet.wallsgrove@uk.g4s.com

or send your messages of solidarity to Toby:

Toby Shone
A7645EP
HM Prison Parc
Heol Hobcyn John
Coity, Bridgend, CF35 6AP
South Wales.

[please be aware that his mail is being interfered with and the prison may not allow him you communication but they WILL know the strength of the solidarity we can show him.]

Down with the prisons, down with capital.

UK: Text from Anarchist prisoner Toby Shone June 11th

Posted on 2022/06/13 by darknights

Text from Toby Shone June 11th

War in the Heavens

J 11. Open Letter in solidarity with Juan Sorroche
Hi, Juan. I’m writing this letter to express my solidarity and send you a big flaming hug of anarchy for the date of June 11th. This date, which is the date of the sentencing demands from the prosecutor, and also is the date for the International Mobilization for Anarchist Prisoners, is one more day in our intransigent lives.

Most likely, you may not remember me, but we met approximately 15 years ago, in Carcelona (i.e. Barcelona, a play on words which mixes the word “Barcelona” with “carcel” or prison in Spanish – translator’s note). I recall your broad smile, your laugh, and your warm and strong heart.

I saw your letter in Respiro number two with a collage of sunflower
seeds and a zen squirrel! Comrades from the Anti-repression fund of the Western Alps sent it to me while I was in the prison of Bristol, which I’m now banned from. When I see the artwork letters of my comrades, it gives me strength. I want to share this vitality with you and all the other comrades through this letter.

Anarchist direct action has precise objectives – it advances towards
those responsible for tyranny and the structures they administer. Our struggle is irrevocable, empirical and international. It is the state which carries out the massacres. It is the state which terrorizes. All the piles of corpses at the borders of Fortress Europe and drowned in the Mediterranean are mass murders. The results of the failed military interventions in Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, just to mention a few, are mass murders in the service of Western interests. Multimillion dead from poverty, malnutrition, and economic adventurism, are mass murders. The killings by police on the streets or in custody, the deaths in prison and at the hands of nationalist fascist gangs are mass murderers. And those responsible where are they? With power. We may be imprisoned but our hearts are free. As anarchists we have nothing to explain to the enemy nor apologize for. It is the state which must justify itself and it is the state which is on trial.

It is said that “mountains and rivers differ in each region. But the
wind and the moon are the same throughout the skies we look upon.”

This is the love of the comrades and the compassion which navigates.
Five continents of fire. Five arrows. Five Fingers form a fist.
A fist of solidarity.

We’ll escape beyond the sun.
And nothing can stop us.
04/06/2022
G4S Park, UK
Toby Shone

Source: Act for freedom now!

UK: “Like Mercury” Open Letter for Dan Baker, aka Alishare – from Toby Shone

Posted on 2022/06/01 by darknights

Open Letter for Dan Baker, aka Alishare – from Toby Shone

Alishare, I heard your message of solidarity, thank you, it gave me strength. I would turn the energy with this open letter, and I hope to kick a brick from the walls. One more time. In a flurry of black feathers and lunar wisdom, a murder of crows delivered your statement and those wily crows told me about your situation in FCI Memphis.

I want to add on to this dialogue and talk about three anarchist comrades imprisoned in Italy. The first is Anna Beniamino who is serving a 17 year sentence for the Scripta Manent case in a high security regime in Rebibbia prison (Rome). The Scripta Manent case involved the arrest of 7 anarchists accused of subversive association with terrorist intent and a series of direct actions claimed by the Informal Anarchist Organization. An absurd farce with obscene conclusions. The second comrade I want to mention is Alfredo Cospito who has been locked up since 2012 for the Adinolfi case for which he was sentenced for nearly 11 years and is now waiting for the confirmation of another sentence of 20 years for the Scripta Manent case. Alfredo was recently struck with the legislature 41 bis, special security regime. Each month, he can only receive either one phone call (10 minutes) or one visit strictly with family members with glass and recorded; he can only walk in the yard with maximum 3 other prisoners previously approved by prison security; he cannot receive books, censorship is applied to his correspondence (number of letters per month is extremely limited), and he has a very limited amount of items which he can keep in his cell. Several international agencies have continuously condemned the 41bis prison regime as torture. The third comrade I want to mention is Juan Sorroche. On the date of the international day of with long-term anarchist prisoners, June the 11th , Juan will face a court hearing in Treviso. Juan is on trial accused of an attack against an office of the Lega Nord political party claimed by the “Cell Haris Hatzimihelakis/Black International (1881/2018)” that happened in August 2018. Juan who was already serving time for other judgements, is now facing a long sentence in this other political trial. Like all the imprisoned anarchists around the world, these three comrades deserve the support and solidarity that the international anarchist movement can give them. Continue reading “UK: “Like Mercury” Open Letter for Dan Baker, aka Alishare – from Toby Shone” →