Aotearoa Anarchist Black Cross Newsletter Issue #1
Welcome to the Aotearoa Anarchist Black Cross Newsletter Issue #1
This occasional newsletter is intended to bring you stories and information about international and local solidarity with political prisoners, the prison-industrial complex, and prison abolition.
If you would like to get involved, submit an article, story or artwork for the newsletter or make a donation to the ABC, please email us at info@abcwellington.org.nz
Contents
1. EVENT: A World Without Prisons
2. RNC8 update.
3. Operation 8 update
4. Private prisons round 2
5. Gabriel Pombo da Silva – Until we are all free!
6. Lex Wotton Free at Last!
1. Wellington Event: A world without prisons public discussion
7pm, August 4th, Venue: Thistle Hall, 293 Cuba Street
You are warmly welcomed to join the Wellington Anarchist Black Cross and the Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement for a discussion about abolishing prisons. We invite you to bring along your ideas and experience to share... see the events listing on Indymedia for more information.
2. Defend the RNC 8
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, eight anarchist organizers have been awaiting trial on bogus conspiracy charges since the Republican National Convention in September 2008 (the convention was the nomination shindig for the right-wing presidential candidate in mainstream American politics). The RNC 8, as the organizers came to be known, were preemptively arrested in a series of raids by heavily armed police squads on the weekend before the convention.
The criminal complaints are based in part on the allegations of confidential reliable informants and an undercover Ramsey County Sheriff’s deputy who infiltrated the RNC Welcoming Committee (an anarchist/anti-authoritarian organizing body) and conducted surveillance on activists for about a year before the convention.
Much like those facing charges from the October 15th raids, the RNC 8 continue to put their life on hold as trial dates have been pushed back to almost two years after the fact. Initially, the defendants were charged with conspiracy to riot in the furtherance of terrorism. Later, the state added charges for conspiracy to commit criminal damage to property in the furtherance of terrorism as well as conspiracy charges for rioting and damage to property without the terrorism enhancements.
After a successful pressure campaign against the Ramsey County prosecutor, who was running for governor of Minnesota, the terrorism enhancements were dropped. Since then, the 8 defendants and their lawyers have been steadily preparing for the joint trial, which is scheduled to begin on October 25. They even put together a video about it: "We're Getting Ready (for Court)" (available at http://rnc8.org). The video is a spin off of the original "We're Getting Ready" video produced by the RNC Welcoming Committee, a satirical promotional video showing people in black bloc attire getting ready for the convention. The police used the video to substantiate the warrants for the raids and the conspiracy charges, claiming they viewed it as a serious threat rather than a piece of political satire.
Pre-trial hearings, dodgy evidence and even dodgier witnesses
The 8 finished a round of pre-trial hearings on June 8th, 2010. They won the right to have a probable cause hearing to determine if the state even has the justification needed to bring the cases to trial. During the oral arguments, police officers--including the undercover informants--testified that they had no evidence of any of the defendants agreeing to riot or damage property, despite year-long investigations.
But the defense was unable to force an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to testify, as he appeared to be evading the subpoena despite being required to keep his current address on file with his probation officer. The FBI has been and continues to pay him $1500 USD per month to be available for the trial. The pre-trial hearings also included hearings on motions to suppress evidence from raids on the convergence space and the houses of several of the defendants. There were oral arguments for the convergence space raid. The judge ended up denying the suppression, so this evidence can be used at trial. The judge also straight out denied the motions to suppress the evidence from the house raids, so that evidence can also be used at trial.
In brighter news, the prosecution declined to contest any of the motions that had been filed on Luce’s behalf regarding the suppression of evidence from unlawful searches and seizures she endured. The judge will take the remaining issues under advisement and rule at a later date. The next court hearing is in September, but the defendants and their supporters will be busy organizing political support for the trial in October, which could last between four and eight weeks.
Drop the Charges Against Scott DeMuth and Resist Grand Juries!
Not even two years after the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, state repression in our community struck again when Scott DeMuth and Carrie Feldman, activists from Minneapolis, were subpoenaed to a grand jury in Iowa in November 2009. The grand jury subpoenas were part of a fishing expedition in an investigation into an Animal Liberation Front (ALF) action at the University of Iowa in 2004, during which time neither Scott nor Carrie were even considered "legal" adults by U.S. standards. They both refused to cooperate with the grand jury and were put in jail for their resistance.
On November 19, Scott’s civil contempt charge was dropped and he was indicted for conspiracy under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA). Scott was released on November 30 pending trial, which is currently scheduled for September 13 of this year.
Carrie was held in jail for over four months on civil contempt of court until her release on March 19 after the U.S. attorney decided her testimony was no longer needed to prosecute Scott and others (who are yet to be identified). Similar to bogus Aotearoa terrorism laws, the AETA in the U.S. is a 2006 piece of legislation that serves to protect the state and its most powerful stakeholder: the corporation.
The AETA makes interference with and protest of animal enterprises, including First Amendment-protected activities such as free speech, be legally classified as terrorism. The AETA is a frightening expansion of an already outrageous piece of legislation that was written by and for animal exploitation industries, the Animal Enterprise Protection Act. To date, only a handful of people in the U.S. have actually been prosecuted under the AETA. In addition to Scott, they are: Joseph Buddenburg, Maryam Khajavi, Nathan Pope, and Adriana Stumpo (the “AETA 4″), Alex Hall, and B.J. Viehl.
In March 2010, the Utah house of well-known animal rights activist and former political prisoner Peter Young was raided on a federal search warrant from the Southern District of Iowa, the district in which Scott is being brought to trial. The raid, which happened only days before Carrie's release, is related to the investigation of the 2004 ALF incident and lists Scott, amongst others, by name. No new indictments have been issued and it is unclear how the raid may affect the case at this time.
Disrupt the Grand Jury inquisitions!
Another aspect of the rampant abuse of the US legal system in these cases is the use of the grand jury. Federal grand juries can be used to investigate “possible” organized criminal activity in the U.S. rather than a specific crime. They abuse the rights of the people established by the U.S. (in)justice system and throw their constitutional rights on the ground.
The purpose of the grand jury is not to determine guilt or innocence, but to make a rational decision as to whether or not there is probable cause to prosecute someone for a felony crime. The grand jury operates in secrecy and the normal rules of evidence do not apply. The prosecutor runs the proceedings and no judge is present. The prosecutor doesn't even have to tell the person who has been subpoenaed what the investigation is about or if they are a target of the investigation. Defense lawyers are not allowed to be present in the grand jury room and cannot present evidence, but may be available outside the room to consult with the person who has been subpoenaed.
The prosecutor and the grand jury members may not reveal what occurred in the grand jury room and person giving testimony cannot obtain a transcript of their testimony. The secrecy of these proceedings have made grand juries a favored form of state repression over the last several decades.
As such, many activists have taken a stand similar to Scott's and Carrie's by refusing to cooperate with the grand jury and be complicit in their own repression. Scott and Carrie have been targeted because they are committed radical activists who refuse to be intimidated into cooperating in the repression of dissent, not because the U.S. government believes they actually had anything to do with the 2004 University of Iowa incident.
Despite the empty nature of the case, the government has enormous power to pursue it and, without our financial, personal, and political support at every step of this process, Scott faces the possibility of years in prison for an action he had nothing to do with.
This is one of countless examples of the ways the state utilizes the court system to subvert and disrupt movements for social change, and we owe it to our friends and our movement to fight this battle.
3. Operation 8 Legal Update
For anyone not familiar with Operation 8, it is the police’s name for the nation-wide State Terror Raids of October 15th, 2007 when 17 people were arrested and imprisoned while the police attempted to charge those people under the Terrorism Suppression Act. Those charges were dropped, but 18 accused in the case face a variety of firearms charges and five people face an additional charge of ‘participation in a criminal group’.
In June 2010, the defendants in the case took an appeal to the NZ Court of Appeal. While specific details of that hearing are subject to severe suppression orders, the appeal was in relation to the admissibility of police evidence in the case. The three judges will issue a decision anytime within the next 3-6 months and if the appeal is successful, it is unlikely that the case will go ahead. If the appeal is unsuccessful, it is likely the defendants will take the same matter up in the Supreme Court.
The timeline for a trial is going ahead in spite of this appeal and another week of pre-trial hearings is set down for 23 August in the High Court in Auckland. The judge will consider applications for ‘no case to answer’ (e..g no evidence to even continue to a trial) and applications for ‘severance’ and ‘change of venue’ – e.g. dividing the case up and moving it to a more appropriate court (e.g. one closer to the alleged place of offending).
Supporters are welcome at this High Court appearance. As it stands now, a trial date is set down for 30 May 2011 but it is expected that may be changed depending on the outcomes of the issues already mentioned.
4. Private Prisons Round 2
Prisons are like roads. Perhaps you remember the construction of the inner-city bypass through Te Aro, Wellington? In order to “save” a few seconds on commuters travel in and out of town, a whole neighborhood was destroyed. Although there was a vigorous struggle that lasted some 35 years, the road was built in the end. Within a few days, the roads were 'chocker' and no one talked about saving time anymore. More roads lead to more cars, lead to more roads, lead to more cars. It is as simple as that. And that's how prison work too.
A new prison in South Auckland
A new prison has been proposed for South Auckland by the government. Over 1000 beds in a privately-run male prison in Wiri is the National Party's answer to “crime”. Construction on the prison is starting in 2012 and should be fully operational by 2014. The government says “there is continued pressure as the number of prisoners is growing and an extra 2,270 beds are needed by 2019.” The proposed means of building and running this prison is a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in which the government pays a corporation (or a group of corporations called a ‘consortium’) to build and run the prisons on behalf of Corrections. This model differs greatly from current practice by which prisons have been built and run by the Department of Corrections.
The rhetoric for the change of model to a PPP is that it will save money and deliver ‘private sector innovations’ in prison management. “A custodial PPP is an opportunity to inject new ideas and new innovations into the corrections sector to enhance public safety, improve rehabilitation and lower costs” says the current Corrections Minister Judith Collins. It is not clear to us what “new ideas and innovations” Collins is talking about. However, lowering costs in prisons usually means less staff, and less staff means more time in the cells for prisoners. That's not a new idea nor is it innovative. The justification for PPPs applies not only to prisons, but to a whole host of services that the government wants to sell off such as water, healthcare and insurance (e.g. ACC). In short, a PPP means that the taxpayers pay to build the infrastructure in order that a company can come extract a profit from running it.
Typically, the taxpayers continue to have to pay to take care of the infrastructure while the corporation simply provides the service afforded by the infrastructure while making a profit. The question here is not whether we think the state or businesses do a better job at locking people up. We are opposed to prisons—full stop. We see prisons as a form of social control. However, given that capitalist-colonial-patriarchy relies on locking up thousands of people behind bars for years and years, we have to take a position that advocates for the well-being of prisoners – if a 'well-being' in prison is actually possible.
Given that less money spent on prisons means more time for prisoners spent in their individual or shared cells, we state our opposition to the privatisation of prisons. That does not change our overall positions on prisons nor the state. As revolutionary anarchists, our goal is a class-less and state-less society and we fight towards the destruction of the state.
Moreover, private prisons turn human beings into commodities and are nothing short of modern day slavery. People are bought and sold to the lowest bidder: the one who can provide accommodation at the lowest price and still make a profit. This represents a step even beyond forced labour in prisons; it is the body itself which becomes the source of profit not the labour produced by it. The beds in the new Wiri prison will not be for the capitalists, who steal money off the workers every minute. Nor are these cells they for politicians who send soldiers overseas to murder innocent people. No this prison will be like all the others: full of poor and working class people. Prisons are designed that way because prisons are not a way to reduce crime, or rehabilitate people or anything like that. They are simply a way for the rich and powerful in our society to keep the poor and working class in line.
Give me $91,000 and I won't have to live in poverty
The government is arguing that a PPP would save the taxpayer a lot of money. Infrastructure Minister Bill English says at present, “it costs an average of $91,000 to keep a prisoner for a year and the government needs to look at ways of getting that cost down.” Prison is full of poor people. And very few prisoners would have ever earnt $91,000 a year – unless they had a successful bank robbing spree.
Governments invest money in all sorts of things, but the poor rarely get anything. We have money taken off us in the form of taxes and GST and are then told that through taxation it gets redistributed to some degree from the rich to the poor. However, at the same time the state puts all sorts of mechanisms in place to ensure the smooth running of the daily theft of workers’ labour that creates huge profits for the capitalist class. State funds are then invested in the army and police to make sure that any attempts of rebellion get squashed. Why do you think that police always show up and get heavy-handed on picket lines during industrial disputes?
If by this poverty, you are driven into crime, the state is prepared to spend a lot of money on you to make sure you can't do anything but kill time in a 6m2 cell. Once you get out, you get nothing again. We recognise that some prisoners are convicted of violence and abuse. However, we think that we don't need the State to lock people away. Instead, things can be worked out on a community level through restorative justice
A road to somewhere
When, in the 1800s, the colonial project was thriving, and Auckland was growing and growing, a new road was planned going southwards. The 'Great South Road' was to make its way through southern Auckland and eventually open up the Waikato for settlement. It comes as no surprise that Māori opposed the road and fought against it. The road to Wiri seems a lot less bumpy. The only people opposed to a new prison, it seems, would be the prisoners themselves. And they are locked away in tiny cells, where no one can hear or see them.
4. Gabriel Pombo da Silva – Until we are all free!
Gabriel is an anarchist who along with another, Jose Fernandez Delgado, escaped from the brutal F.I.E.S prison system of the Spanish State in 2004. Gabriel and Jose are now residing in the jails of Germany, after a gun battle with German cops at a checkpoint following their escape. Gabriel is sentenced to 13 years and Jose to 14.
Gabriel has been imprisoned for over 24 years, 14 of which were spent in isolation (he is only 40). What follows is just some of his writing.
A boy’s story
I know the story of a boy born under the fascist dictatorship. He was the son of a very poor family who spent his days surrounded by animals, he was always dirty because he liked to climb trees, explore caves (where he thought he would find treasures from ancient kings or pirates) and play at being a red Indian.
One day the artless boy fell from a roof while chasing a coloured butterfly. When he tried to catch it, he forgot where he was and…ended up in hospital with a broken jaw. At school the teachers beat him because he spoke a native language and the dictator did not like that. Also, whenever he could the boy escaped into the forest where he was filled with wonder about everything.
One day his parents decided to go away to another country where the men, women and children were whiter. A country where (his parents said) they would be able to live more freely, where they could earn money and get out of poverty, buy a big house and be happy. The parents said to the boy “there is something called snow in this country, that is white and cold and falls from the sky for your birthday” The boy could not understand why he should leave his woods, the sunshine, the rain, the sea, the rivers, his land…He didn’t understand what poverty was, perhaps because he didn’t need material things and he didn’t care about wearing reprises clothes. And he didn’t understand freedom because he was already free.
At first he was happy to leave his country because he wanted to see the “snow that falls from the sky for your birthday” as his mother said. And also because he had never seen “white men and women, very white with blond hair like gold”… and because he wouldn’t have to go to school where he had been beaten because he spoke the native language. This is how the boy went away to the land of the white people with blond hair like gold and where the snow fell from the sky.
It was true….the snow fell from the sky for his birthday, the people were very white, many of them had blond hair like gold and red like tomatoes, orange like carrots and brown like chestnuts. They spoke a language that was more difficult than that of the dictator. It was a dry, cutting military language. The people were cold and sad like the snow. Very soon the boy, the colour of autumn leaves, wanted to go back to his country…He didn’t like this place where he didn’t understand the other children, where the people didn’t look with gentleness in their eyes, where no smile brightened up this faces.
But he stayed there and learned the language of the people with the light hair and skin and with no smile on their lips.
The boy grew up and learned the story of his country through the tales of the political exiles…that is how he knew that his land didn’t belong to the dictator and his friends but that they had won a war, that they had suppressed the revolution and filled this country with blood and misery…and for that the natives like us were condemned to flee from one country to another.
The boy listened with sadness to the stories of tears, blood and oppression of the exiled. He knew that they didn’t believe in themselves and drank l’eau de feu to forget and began to sing the songs of the republic, the popular front and the revolution. One day the boy spoke with one of the old combatants defeated by the eau feu and said to him very seriously, “Don Antonio, I’m going to fight for the revolution, I will never forget the songs of the revolution, I am going to make my life an example of courage and avenge our dead, the tortured and defeated people…I swear to God, Don Antonio.
Don Antonio started to cry with emotion and the boy didn’t understand why this old man was crying like this, the old man who sang the revolutionary songs.
The boy went off alone singing in his native language his fist clenched, an old revolutionary song..
De noirs tourments agitent l’air
des nuages obscures nous empechent de voir et
meme si on attend la douler et
la mort le devoir nous appelle contre l’ennemi.
Le bien le plus precieux es le Liberte on doit le defender
avec foi et valeur levant le drapeu revolutionnarie pour le triomphe de l’emancipation sur la barricade.
Sur la barricade pour le triomphe de l’emancipation
That is how the adult-child went back to his country to fight for the revolution. After many battles, the adult-child became a boy-man and was forced to survive twenty years torture without Sunshine, Water, Trees and Animals. One day he managed to escape and continued to struggle and talk of life, love, revolution, and dreams. Locked up once again, this child-man continues to smile; and his eyes are two black olives with the sun for pupils. And all the (white) men are scared of him because he doesn’t cry or tremble, he doesn’t want anything of them. He only wants his smile to be contagious and that his heart give strength to those children who have forgotten that laughing recompose choices and that a new world exists for those who look at the rose des vents with love. And Colorin Colorato this tale is far from finished….
The Revolt
The anarchic revolt is already a deed, a reality, a projectuality and a ongoing project… by a few of us in some areas; united by projectual affinity, informally and diffusely organised over the territory…
We are the anarchists and social rebels in motion; the ones who had got tired and rebelled over the state-of-things that constitutes the Existent in all its orders…We are nothing’s “vanguard”; We only represent ourselves and live our Desires and Passions with full intensity…We assume our responsibilities with dignity and value; Neither the trials nor the sentences will finish the revolt… as long as rebellion and rebels against all Authority and Authoritarianism do exist, there will be tension and conflict over / within the Existent…
The revolt will not stop when the rebel is “unjustly” imprisoned by a bourgeois Tribunal… Instead the rebel grows before adversity, and it is within it that the rebel gets his / her character reinforced and where supposed doubts that may exist get converted in irrefutable certainties; it is here where he understands the murderous and merciless nature of the State and its screws; it is inside the prison where the rebel gets decisively self-determined. We sharpen our lives…
Anarchy is inevitable. Gabriel Pombo da Silva, Krefelder Str. 251, 52070 Aachen, Germany
6. Lex Wotton Free at Last!
Lex Wotton palm islander (Australia) and respected community leader, that was sentenced to six years in jail . He was convicted of “Rioting with Destruction” for his role in community actions on Palm Island a week after Mulrunji Doomadgee was murdered in 2004 by the hands of the arresting officers. has been released with harsh parol conditions not having any media contact for 4 years this is a breach of human rights and is crimalizing of freedom of speech.i.e, freedom of speech act
Freedom of speech Australians are free, within the bounds of the law, to say or write what we think privately or publicly, about the government, or about any topic. We do not censor the media and may criticise the government without fear of arrest. Free speech comes from facts, not rumours, and the intention must be constructive, not to do harm. There are laws to protect a person's good name and integrity against false information. There are laws against saying or writing things to incite hatred against others because of their culture, ethnicity or background.
Freedom of speech is not an excuse to harm others **THE JAILS ARE THE REAL CRIME!!**
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Who is the Anarchist Black Cross?
The Aotearoa Anarchist Black Cross is a revolutionary prisoner support group, and fights for the abolition of prisons. As anarchists, we fight against all forms of oppression: the patriarchy, capitalism, colonisation, racism, homophobia and others. We oppose the state and all its institutions.
Our Principles: *Anti state, anti prison. Pro prison abolition. * Unconditional support for those people who we are supporting. * Against all hierarchy/forms of domination. * Against capitalism and exploitation.
Find out more: www.abcwellington.org.nz or email us: info@abcwellington.org.nz
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