Wales

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!

Italy: È uscito “Bezmotivny”, quindicinale anarchico internazionalista, anno III, numero 11, 12 giugno 2023

Posted on 2023/06/25 by darknights

È uscito “Bezmotivny”, quindicinale anarchico internazionalista, anno III, numero 11, 12 giugno 2023

Sommario:

— L’uomo che cadde sulla terra, “Le vite degli altri”
— Rivoluzione, “Il rinvio”
— “Il vento dell’anarchia”
— “Appello all’azione internazionale in solidarietà con l’anarchico in sciopero della fame G. Michailidis”
— “Stop cop city. Appello internazionale alla solidarietà con gli anarchici ad Atlanta, USA”
— “Notizie dalla Sicilia. Nuovi progetti militari”
— Qualcun* dal territorio che non c’è, “Contro il militarismo. Per una vita fuori dagli Stati”
— “Vademecum per gli amici della lotta”
— “Strage di via dei Georgofili. Indagata un’anarchica”
— Alfredo M. Bonanno, “L’amore e la morte”
— Assemblea di solidarietà con Alfredo Cospito e i prigionieri rivoluzionari, “Uno più mille insuscettibili di ravvedimento. Contributo sulla mobilitazione in solidarietà con Alfredo Cospito”
— “Operazione Panico”
— “Arrestato Greg”
— un’anarchica, “Con l’acqua alla gola. Uno sguardo anarchico sull’alluvione in Romagna”
— Brígadas Anárquicas Luis Ramírez Olaechea, “Attacco esplosivo contro la Fundación Paz Ciudadana”
— “UK: rivolta a Cardiff”
— “Cardiff. Una notte di rivolta, vendetta, rabbia e sfida”
— “Patrasso. Raffica di attacchi alle banche”
— “Salonicco, Grecia. Incendiato un furgone della COSMOTE”
— “Roussillon, Francia. Sabotaggio della linea ad alta tensione che alimenta l’azienda Hexcel in solidarietà a Serge”
— “Tolosa, Francia. Né metro né lavoro”

“Bezmotivny”, quindicinale anarchico internazionalista, anno III, numero 11, 12 giugno 2023. Per ricevere copie e/o abbonarsi scrivere all’e-mail senzamotivo@riseup.net oppure alla seguente casella postale: Bezmotivny, c/o Casella postale 59, 54033 Carrara (MS).

Prezzo di copertina: 1,50 euro. Abbonamento annuo: 35 euro. Abbonamento sostenitore: 50 euro. Abbonamento distributore: contattatare la redazione.

[Ricevuto via e-mail e pubblicato in https://lanemesi.noblogs.org/post/2023/06/12/e-uscito-bezmotivny-quindicinale-anarchico-internazionalista-anno-iii-numero-11-12-giugno-2023/]

Dirty Squatters: The Story of 2000 DS

Posted on 2023/06/24 by darknights

Life and death on the road with the most anarchic punk band to ever come out of the Welsh valleys.
Kickstarter

Watch video here of 2000 DS trailer

The Jackanory is going to be told

Fuck the law – Squat the lot

Cardiff, Wales, UK: A riotous night of vengeance, rage and defiance

Posted on 2023/05/25 by darknights

Source: Act for freedom now!

Continue reading “Cardiff, Wales, UK: A riotous night of vengeance, rage and defiance” →

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.

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” →

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” →