Barcelona 4 update (17/3/08)

On the 4th of February 2006 in Barcelona, 9 people were arbitrarily and violently arrested by the police whilst on their way home. 3 people - Rodrigo Lanza Huidobro, Juan Pintos Garrido, Alex Cisternas Amestica - all of whom are of South American descent, have been held in custody for over two years and have now been sentenced. On the night of the arrests, police had been harassing a (non political) occupied house hosting commercial parties, and beat several people. In the chaos objects were thrown from the balconies of the house, severely injuring one of the policemen. Those that were arrested, however, had only just approached from the street and had not been in the house – two people even were arrested far from the area, at the hospital where they had been seeking treatment for bike accidents.
The arrests were all clearly motivated by racism and discrimination against the squatting culture in the city.The mistreatment continued in the cells, with beatings and injuries, including two broken arms. The official explanation for the arrests changed over time from injuring a policeman with a flowerpot to stone throwing. Despite an obvious lack of evidence and conflicting accounts from police, as well as criticisms from international human rights advocates, all defendants have now, after two years, been sentenced – Rodrigo received a sentence of 4.5 years, plus a 900.000 euro fine, Alex and Juan got sentences of 3.5 years each, and the remaining six received sentences of between 1 and 3 years. The headline from the Santiago news was '”Arbitrariness and Xenophobia Have Triumphed Over Justice". All are currently out of prison on provisional liberty, and are appealing the conviction. We urge anyone who can see the discrimination and harassment inherent in this trial to find out more and support these appeals.
Protest letters/emails can be written to:
Generalitat (gov't of Catalunya), 00 34 902 400 012President Jose Montilla, http://www10.gencat.net/president/AppJava/cat/contacte.jsp (web form)Vice President Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira, vicepresident@gencat.catMinister of the Interior (and police chief) Joan Saura, consellersaura@gencat.catMayor of Barcelona Jordi Hereu, http://www.bcn.es/alcalde/ca/contacte.htm (web form), 93 402 70 00
More info at: http://www.karcelona.revolt.org/

Inner Terrestrials, Kilnaboy, Rejected & Dirty Revolution

Funds from this gig will go to support people arrested for taking action against the state, corporations and the far right.
Cardiff Prisoner Support Group aims to support anarchist, class struggle, political and other prisoners in the south Wales area and beyond through campaigns, action and communication. We stand in solidarity with those oppressed by the state and actively seek to abolish the institutionalised slavery of the prison industrial complex.
As anarchists, we are opposed to all systems of oppression and repression and have concluded that prisons serve no function other than protecting the ruling class who profit off of them. As we support our locked up sisters and brothers, we offer alternatives to prisons in our own communities. This work is driven by solidarity, not charity.
We want the abolition of the prison system, not its reform.

Another death in custody

A prisoner who was recalled to prison after breaching his parole was found hanging in his cell in Swansea Jail this month. David King, 41, was discovered by staff at Swansea jail just after 11am on August 11th and he was pronounced dead at 12pm.
It was the 57th suicide in jails in England and Wales so far this year, compared with 41 at the same point last year. Almost one third of suicides occur within the first week of someone arriving in jail and one in seven occur within two days of admission. Many happen while people are on remand, and have not even been convicted of a crime yet.

Prison isn’t working, but more Welsh prisons being built

Plans are afoot to raise the number of prisoners at privately run Parc Prison in Bridgend by more than a third, and the government is calling for a new jail to be built in North Wales. Parc would have the capacity for more than 1,500 inmates if the new block is given the go-ahead, and the North Wales prison would house hundreds more people. These will go some way towards reaching the Home Office’s target of 10,000 new prison places in the next 2 years.
The Probation Service in Wales has expressed concern that the costs of expansion could divert resources from other areas and suggested there should be a debate about prison population.
No debate is needed. Prisons are failing, and have failed for years: They do nothing to address the number 1 cause of crime in this country: the massive inequality that exists between the rich and the poor; prison slavery is on the rise, where inmates are forced to work for peanuts for private companies who make mega-bucks out of bonded labour; there are re-offending rates of up to 70% for some categories; prison does not rehabilitate – despite the rhetoric the system’s just not built for this; overcrowding is huge, with too many prisoners and too few resources prisons can’t meet the medical, educational and welfare needs of their inmates; more than half of all prisoners have mental health problems, but few get proper treatment meaning suicide and self-harm are rife; many prisoners are illiterate or semi-literate; and there are hundreds – possibly up to 2,000 – innocent prisoners in our jails, all victims of miscarriages of justice.

Cardiff activist in court

Two people arrested at the first FITWATCH action will be on trial at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court on the 9th October 2007. All supporters welcome!

This trial will be the first test of whether Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) teams have a legal right to intimidate, harass, photograph and compile data on people attending political meetings.

One of the defendants, Cardiff anti-FIT activist Val Swain said "It is not acceptable for the police to be compiling data on people attending a political meeting.We are not supposed to be living in a totalitarian society where police can hold data on people just because of their political views. I believe that in acting the way that they do, the police are acting unlawfully. And this trial will attempt to hold them to account.”

The trial starts at 10am on the 9th Oct.
See the FIT watch webpage at: http://www.fitwatch.blogspot.com/

German antifascist imprisoned (02/08/07)

Christian S., an autonomous antifascist from Berlin is sitting again in prison since the 14th of July. Altogether, he has to serve 40 months. He has been sentenced for breaching the peace in relation to 1 of May 2004, and for the same paragraph for the incidents of the 12 March 2000. For this last offense he obtained a suspended sentenced, but he was called back into prison as soon as he was sentenced again in 2000. Both sentences relate to his active resistance against 2 big marches of neo-nazis through Berlin. He already served several months in jail because of 1 of May 2004, during which his health situation worsened.

Write Christian letters and postcards, send him reading material. Christian can read german, english and get along with spanish.

His current address:
Christian Sommermann, BNR: 727/07/7, JVA Tegel, Seidelstr. 39, 13507 Berlin, Germany

You can support him by sending money to this german account:
ssb e.v.
Kontonummer: 1591 9683 00
BLZ 1001 0111
Stichwort: Knastsolidaritat / Patenschaft Christian

Towards a society without prisons
Freedom for Christian-Freedom for all!

ABC Berlin
- e-mail: mail@abc-berlin.net
- Homepage: http://www.abc-berlin.net

Death in custody: HMP Cardiff

Karl Davies, 28, from Penlan, Swansea, was found hanged at HMP Cardiff on Sunday. He had only been in custody for three days

According to Home Office statistics, there were 76 deaths in custody in England and Wales between 1st July and 31st December last year, 32 of these being suicide.