mtlcounter-info

Shane: an Undercover Cop in Hamilton, ON

Comments Off

Sep 062018

Submitted anonymously to North Shore Counter-Info

He was here – on and off – for about 2 years, first appearing in the Summer of 2016.

His name is “Shane”.

That’s his undercover name, and his real name. “Shane Bond”, is what he told us – with “us” being the different communities and circles in Hamilton he tried to infiltrate.

Shane was just another dude when he showed up. To be honest most of us didn’t take notice – at least not at first. There were no leading or intrusive questions. He didn’t incite divisive arguments or spread gossip. He was quiet – maybe even boring. And while he did persistently harass some women in our community to grab a beer despite rejection it didn’t scream “cop” so much as misogyny – an experience that’s unfortunately still somewhat normal in our circles.

To those who engaged or paid attention, Shane presented himself as a bicycle riding part-time painter, complete with a shitty ‘supercycle’ bike and painting pants. He had an apartment at 20 Emerald Street North – a Hamilton Housing building for folks with low income – that was furnished with a leather couch, some photos, and some paintings. Shane had “a girlfriend” who “worked at a private day care” who no one met, and a muscular feminine presenting friend with below-shoulder length brown hair “from Dundas” who came to at least one event.

Shane’s arrival came after several years of dedicated anti-pipeline organizing and heightened anti-gentrification efforts. He was known to attend The Tower for events and socials, Hamilton 350 meetings, anti-pipeline events and a handful of public demos including an antiracist rally and a solidarity demo at barton jail.

Mostly, but not completely, Shane failed at his job.

For all the time he spent here trying to build relationships and ins he didn’t get far. It took some time to connect with people who interacted with Shane, verify their stories, and write this text but with some reflection we know that Shane didn’t have much more to offer his higher-ups than that which any casual observer could. He wasn’t successful in his intended infiltration. The only exception to this was that after having been around for two years, he was in the right place at the right time. Shane was shown a flyer for a demonstration against gentrification on Locke Street, which he attended, and he appears to be giving evidence against people charged in connection with it.

Ultimately Shane was best at was avoiding cameras – or at least ours. We had a hard time finding a picture of him. But as it turns out; back in 2011 Rick Mercer hung out with Hamilton Police and Shane – a then-yellow-jacketed ACTION cop – made a promo video with Mercer where you can see him shortly after minute 2:12. Since embarrassing shit never really disappears from the internet, we grace you all with his rat goof face anyway.

In His Words: Shane’s Backstory

Shane told folks he was from Saskatoon and BC. He seemed to know a good amount about both places, including detailed climate and geography. He said he painted part-time and sometimes attended events “right after work” in painter’s pants. His apartment was mostly-furnished, had art on the walls “painted by his mom” and what we understood to be personal photographs. He said he enjoyed loose-leaf tea – but almost always had shitty steeped tea with him.

At one point Shane went somewhere during his undercover operation here in Hamilton for approximately 6 months. Whether that was to actually be by his mom’s side in BC as she died, as he explained, or to infiltrate another community, we don’t know – but we strongly encourage those organizing around gentrification or pipelines to share his photo and any experiences they’ve had with him.

What we do know is that Shane isn’t the only undercover cop working throughout Turtle Island; if you’re doing anti-pipeline organizing or other rad organizing, then expect and plan for the possibility of this kind of infiltration and surveillance too. We know it can be tempting to dismiss or rationalize otherwise – but this isn’t just happening in the U.S. or abroad. This isn’t just happening in BC. And it’s not just happening in the lead up to summits. The state is throwing their resources towards effective organizing against industry and the state – period.

Flags

Shane’s political analysis was lacking and never really evolved despite attending workshops and events. He’d often try to relay ideas or sentiments using common terms or slang, but out of context. The result was abrupt, unsettling interactions like a sudden proclamation of “I’m so glad I’ve found someone else who hates the pigs!”

He was also seen more than once hovering around an area or group of folks listening in on conversations, and when he returned from his “trip to BC” Shane could recognize and recall people’s names perfectly, whether they’d previously conversed much or not.

Afternote

Recently the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN) released a great reflection on their experiences & reflections with an undercover in Toronto. It talks a bit more in depth about how some indicators may not be enough to warrant expulsion from a community, but certainly a good reason to get to know someone more. Importantly, it also talks about ways we might be able to identify and confirm undercover. It’s worth reading.

New Anarchist Publication! Entanglement: On Anarchism & Individualism

Comments Off

Sep 062018

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

We are excited to announce the release of a book-length writing project called “entanglement: on anarchism and individualism.”

From the introduction:

“What you hold in your hands is an experiment in collective analysis and writing. It is also a critical engagement with the place individualism does hold and/or should hold in anarchism.

Initially, one person asked some friends to come together and co-create a collection of texts against individualism. Whether the project is actually against individualism is still up for debate. We’ve done a lot of playing with language and some of us prefer “on individualism” or “critically engaging with individualism.” In reality, it is all of those things and also other things too – defenses of duty and futurity, critiques of some old philosophers, calls to reconsider oppression and social position, some explorations of the interdependence of all forms of life, and thoughts on our wider interstellar context.”

Entanglement is a collection of five pieces that critically engage with individualist politics in anarchism and anarchist communities. They are:

A defense of responsibility, duty, and sacrifice;

A critique of Nietzschean anti-morality and a reflection on anarchist ethics;

A story that weaves together many of the interdependent threads that make us up, and along the way looks at the feminist rejections and hypervalorizations of care, and what they have in common;

A critique of Stirner and egoism; and,

An exploration of what it means to understand our relationships as the basis of our freedom, rather than something which limits its possibilities.

To find it online check out entanglement.cc. For paper copies, write to us at info@entanglement.cc!

Info on the Laval Immigration Detention Centre

Comments Off

Sep 062018

From Stop the Prison

When is the Laval Immigration Detention Centre slated to be built?

The prison is supposed to be operational in 2021, though no official timeline has been made public.

Where will the prison be built?

The site for the prison is an approximately 23,700 square metre piece of land directly beside Leclerc prison, on Correctional Service of Canada grounds in Laval. The CBSA was reluctant to select this plot of land, noting that “the close proximity of the site to the existing high security institution is not ideal as IHC [Immigration Holding Centre: their euphemism for the prison] should not be perceived to be associated with a correctional institution.” This site was officially chosen in February 2017.

The settler-colonial states (Canada and Quebec, respectively) within whose borders the prison will be built are founded on the violent colonization and dispossession of Indigenous peoples and lands. Specifically, Leclerc is located on Kanien’keha:ka and Algonquin territory. Settler governance relies on both the illegitimate claim to these territories and the material basis of their control, enforced by the various arms of the carceral state: from detaining and deporting migrants to policing Indigenous communities. Supporting the project of Indigenous sovereignty means rejecting the legitimacy of Canadian and Quebecois settler governance, including the defining and policing of state borders.

How many people will the prison hold?

According to the government’s contract, the proposed prison will have the capacity to hold 133 migrants at one time (with an additional 25 overflow cots, bringing the total capacity to 158). This would increase the current maximum holding capacity of 144.

Who will be detained in this new prison?

Hundreds of thousands of people live in Canada without status, embedded in communities, families, and friendships. Every year close to ten thousand people are ripped away from these relationships, returned to situations that are violent or dangerous, to places they do not know, or where they have no opportunities to support themselves.

Under Canadian law, the CBSA can arrest and detain migrants – both those who are here without permission of the Canadian state and permanent residents – who are suspected of being a “threat” to public safety, who are deemed likely to skip upcoming hearings, or whose identity is in question. These migrants – and often their children – are taken to the CBSA-run prisons in Laval or Toronto, to the CBSA’s temporary detention centre in the Vancouver airport, or to maximum-security wings of provincial jails. Under current policy, there are no guidelines around whether or not children will be imprisoned along with their parents, and detention can be indefinite.

In reality, Canada’s immigration system makes it virtually impossible for all but the most privileged or affluent of migrants to obtain legal status to live and work here permanently. Migrants deemed a “threat” or at risk of non-compliance at the whims of the CBSA are often those with family ties in Canada, insufficient funds to leave, those facing violence if they are deported, or those with active social campaigns against their deportation. The risk of imprisonment is used to discipline all migrants, an instrument of coercion that normalizes other forms of control such as the human and electronic monitoring systems proposed as “improved” alternatives by the Liberal government. But the “choice” to comply and avoid incarceration is ultimately a false one, in which the end result is still likely deportation.

In a context where over 25,000 people have walked across the border from the US since 2016, in which the vast majority of these migrants are likely to be refused refugee status and will soon be facing deportation, and in which the racist and Islamophobic far-right is stoking anti-immigrant sentiments, we must understand the new migrant prison as part of a strategy of the Canadian state to heighten its repressive control over freedom of movement.

Despite the photo-ops and press releases on the state’s refugee resettlement efforts, Canada is far from a benevolent bystander; the Canadian state creates and exacerbates the conditions that force people to leave their homes. From imperialist wars to an economy massively reliant on colonial resource extraction both here and abroad. Trudeau’s recent purchase of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline indicates a future in which increased emissions will create new waves of climate refugees. From Canadian mining projects in Latin America to the outsourced production of cheap goods for Canadian markets, Canadian state and capitalist interests export the burden of production, and police the movements of those who inherit the costs. The proposed migrant prison is simply one piece of this international architecture, and the people who would be detained within it are simply a few of the many people dispossessed by the Canadian state and other imperialist powers.

Who is involved in the construction of the prison?

So far, two companies have been awarded contracts for the construction of this project: Lemay, an architecture firm based in Montréal and Groupe A, another architecture firm based in Québec City. For more information on these companies, see the “Companies” page. In the coming months we can expect to learn about more companies and contractors that will be involved in this project in various capacities.

Who is funding the construction of the project?

The federal government announced a new investment of $138 million into immigrant detention in 2016, of which $122 million is going towards the construction of two new prisons. One in Laval, Quebec and one in Surrey, British Columbia. To date, over $5 million in contracts have been awarded to Lemay and Groupe A towards the design of this prison in Laval.

Why should we oppose the construction of improved prison facilities?

From the beginning, the government has moved to position this project as an improvement: from the choice of a ‘socially and environmentally sustainable’ firm as the principal architect, to the emphasis on the “non-institutional” design of the centre and “alternatives” to detention. But the veneer of social responsibility doesn’t change the violence of prisons and deportation: there’s no such thing as a nice prison.

The contract for the prison seems more invested in concealing its carceral nature from those outside than creating a more habitable environment for those imprisoned within. Preliminary specs suggest that “fencing should be aesthetically covered by foliage or other materials to limit harshness of look and detract from overt identification of fence.” Iron bars over windows must “be as inconspicuous as possible to the outside public” while nevertheless maintaining their functionality. The one meter high fence surrounding the children’s yard is stressed to be “similar to a daycare setting”, though a six-foot high “visual barrier” must be built to prevent others from being able to see in, and children from being able to see out.

Regardless of aesthetics or energy-efficiency, a prison is a still a fortified building that people can’t leave, that separates those inside from community, loved ones and adequate health care, and that subjects prisoners to extreme psychological distress. Since 2000, at least sixteen people have died in immigration detention while in CBSA custody. The CBSA’s superficial response to the outcry over these deaths is evident in the project specs, which simply require that architecture should limit opportunities for self-harm, while unavoidably reproducing the inherent immiseration of incarceration.

Even for those spared the experience of pre-deportation incarceration, the threat of prison remains, compelling migrants to accept other kinds of repressive conditions. These institutions also normalize the legitimacy of the Canadian state to police who moves and stays within the territories it occupies.

Indeed, any account of the settler state’s control of territory should begin with the ongoing colonial occupation of Indigenous lands, on whose traditional territories the prison is intended to be built. Advancing Indigenous sovereignty requires challenging the legitimacy of Canadian and Quebecois settler governance, including the creation and enforcement of borders. The same colonial and imperial relationships that displace migrants elsewhere in the world are the very basis of the existence of the Canadian settler state.

The struggle to block construction of the Laval Migrant Detention Centre is thus embedded in broader struggles against colonialism and imperialism. It is part of a struggle to abolish all prisons and tear down every colonial border. We don’t just want to stop this prison, but close all those already in existence.

Isn’t the government turning towards funding alternatives to imprisonment and detention?

Of the $138 million dollars the Liberal government has allocated towards “immigration reform”, only $5 million are earmarked for “alternatives” to detention. What are these “alternatives”? They include “human and electronic monitoring systems” like bonds, electronic bracelets, and electronic reporting systems. These reporting systems are themselves another form of detention — for instance, practices like reporting twice a week often prevent migrants from holding stable jobs. These “alternatives” also include arrangements which put NGOs in charge of “community supervision”. While the Canadian government looks to cut costs by delegating the policing of migrants to invasive technology and complicit non-profits, the majority of their “new and improved” immigration plan still centers on detention, through the construction of two new prisons in Laval and Surrey.

In some respects, the alternatives proposed are preferable to prison. But, they are far from “humane”. On the one hand, the threat of indefinite incarceration in one of the CBSA’s prisons justifies increasingly invasive control mechanisms outside of the prison – as though anything short of imprisonment is an act of compassion. On the other hand, these “alternatives” normalize the continued brutality of imprisonment as a form of punishment for those unable or unwilling to comply with the conditions of state control. Either way, both prison and “alternatives” end in deportation, while one actual alternative to deportation – a pathway to regularized status for all – remains unattainable.

Isn’t Montreal a sanctuary city?

In February 2017, Montreal declared itself a “Sanctuary City”. Unfortunately, this declaration has turned out to be little more than empty words. The SPVM continues to actively colloborate with the CBSA, meaning that even routine traffic stops could result in CBSA intervention, and undocumented migrants are offered little respite from the threat of detention and deportation. In fact, since the Sanctuary City declaration, SPVM calls to CBSA have increased, making Montréal the Canadian city with the highest rate of contact between local police and the CBSA. In March 2018, CBSA agents violently arrested Lucy Francineth Granados at her home in Montréal. Lucy was subsequently deported from a city whose new ‘progressive’ administration had campaigned on the promise to implement a “real” sanctuary city.

How can the construction of this prison be stopped?

To stop the construction of this prison, we’re going to need a multifaceted struggle. We’ll need concerted research efforts, public information campaigns, broad-based mobiizations, direct disruptions of supply chains and construction sites, and whatever it takes to make construction of this project impossible.

To do this we need to think strategically about which pressure points we can target and leverage, and how to build alliances with related movements against prisons, borders, and white supremacy; no struggle exists in isolation. From flyering your neighbours to organizing demonstrations and actions in opposition, there are endless ways for people to autonomously organize against this project.

The Materials page of stopponslaprison.info contains some resources for those looking for a place to start.

Where can I learn more about this project?

Stopponslaprison.info is an information clearinghouse for news, analysis, and materials related to the struggle against the Laval Immigration Detention Centre. You can download and consult the documents and research related to this project on the Documents sub-page.

Abstentionist Posters and Anarcho-syndicalist Perspectives on Elections

Comments Off

Sep 042018

From the CEDAS-ASCED

The electoral circus has begun in Quebec.

As anarcho-syndicalists, we believe necessary to promote a systematic abstaining stance. This is why we share here two posters as an answer to statist propaganda and electoralist brainwashing.

The fact that we don’t vote is the logical result of our revolutionary project.

It’s delusional to think that our emancipation will come from parliament. We’ll only be able to realize anarchist communism (only economical and political system that insures our individual and collective emancipation) by organising our struggles in a horizontal, egalitarian fashion… and far away from political parties.

For us, « leftist » parties place social movement’s and well intentioned activists’ energy in an electoralist dead end that offers only disappointment, treason, instrumentalisation, manipulation, lies, illusions, etc. While the electoral machine of the « leftist » parties are being built, minds and thoughts of social movement activist are pushed toward statist alienation and electoral wait-and-see attitude. If there is no capitalism with a human face and if the state is the wheel of our exploitation, then we’ll have to abolish both to be free.

In the end, we stay convinced that we have nothing to expect from the state, it doesn’t matter who’s in power. Both « right » and « left » parties reproduce and support state and capitalism that lean on oppressions and systematic exploitation. Elections contribute to the alienation of our lives.

Download the posters by clicking the links below

Elections everywhere – Text

Elections everywhere – plain poster

CBSA Offices Shut Down by Migrant Justice Activists in honour of Mr. Bolante Idowu Alo and our Deported Friends and Neighbours

Comments Off

Sep 022018

From Solidarity Across Borders

Montreal CBSA offices were shut down on August 30th in honour of Mr. Bolante Idowu Alo and of our friends, family members and neighbours who have been deported. Migrant justice activists blocked and chained all doors to the building and employees were not able to enter the building to carry on their work for two hours.

We want to ensure that business could not go on as usual. Mr. Bolante Idowu Alo died violently at the hands of the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA): we cannot let them carry on as though nothing has happened. We call on our communities to not only condemn this outrageous violence but take action to stop it from happening again.

Mr. Alo lived in Canada for 13 years. He repeatedly told Canadian officials that his life was in danger in Nigeria. CBSA nevertheless proceeded with his deportation on 7 August; Mr. Alo died shortly after he was taken off the plane that was supposed to deport him.

We took this action to challenge the normalization of CBSA violence, and of deportations and detentions of migrants and refugees. We want to hold the CBSA accountable. Mr. Alo is not the first person to die in CBSA custody. And he should never have been threatened with deportation in the first place.

We are also remembering other friends, family members, and neighbours who have been detained and forcibly deported from Canada by the CBSA, like Lucy Francineth Granados, who was deported on 13 April 2018, leaving holes in our lives and communities.

In 2016, Canada issued 11,733 removal orders: some left “voluntarily”, others were deported, still others remained to become undocumented migrants. Of the migrants who crossed irregularly into Canada to flee the Trump regime, whose cases have been heard, less than 50% have been accepted as refugees; this figure drops to 10% in the case of Haitians. People whose refugee claims are refused are ordered to return to their countries of citizenship – including to Haiti, despite the fact that Canada issued a warning against travel to Haiti.

In support of the shut down, people gathered outside CBSA offices for a public mourning of Mr. Alo and their deported friends and neighbours. A coffin was placed in front of the building. Black silhouettes with the names of friends who had been deported were lined up against the wall. The rally demanded the abolition of the new Ministry of Border Security, a moratorium on deportations to Haiti, and an end to the deportations of refugees and migrants.

#StopDeportations
#shutdownCBSA
#PortesClosesASFC

IWW K’jipuktuk GMB Stands in Solidarity with Striking Prisoners

Comments Off

Aug 292018

From It’s Going Down

K’jipuktuk GMB of the IWW issues statement in solidarity with prison strike.

K’jipuktuk, Unceded and Unsurrendered Mi’kmaq Territory

Whereas Prisoners at Burnside Jail have begun a peaceful protest in pursuit of 10 reasonable demands, and have expressed support for and solidarity with the “National Prison Strike” in the United States,

Whereas the protest organizers “call upon all people with a conscience beyond the bars” to support their statement and demands,

Whereas the Incarcerated Worker’s Organizing Committee of the IWW “strongly encourage[s] all outside branches and members-at-large to take on the support work to the utmost of their capacity and according to their best judgement,”

Whereas we find the demands, goals, actions, and assessments expressed by the prisoners in their statement to be completely in line with our work and mission,

The General Membership Branch of the IWW – K’jipuktuk unanimously resolves to express our solidarity with the prisoners and support for their strike and demands.

We call upon the Nova Scotia Department of Justice to immediately implement all of the prisoners’ demands, and to prioritize prisoner rights and voices in all future planning and development.

We encourage all individuals and organizations who profess to stand with workers and the marginalized against exploitation and oppression to publicly voice their unequivocal support for the statement and demands of the prisoners, and to provide any and all material assistance possible.

Materially, we offer all of the resources and connections at our disposal to support the prisoners in their cause, including our voices, time, energy, and platforms;

In words and thought we offer our strongest solidarity, our deepest admiration, and our assertion that you do not stand alone.

In solidarity,

Toward a world without bosses and without prisons,

IWW K’jipuktuk GMB

Good Morning Racists!

Comments Off

Aug 282018

From the Emma Goldman Collective

This past August 25th, the racist group La Meute organized a “visibility action” with all its clans. No doubt sick of demonstrating while trapped in parking lots, this time Clan 02 decided to focus on its strengths: cars, and organized a float parade. From Chicoutimi to Saint-Félicien, passing though Jonquière, Saint-Bruno and Roberval along the way, the wolf cubs traveled in the comfort of their convoy of cars, decorated with spray paint and painter’s tape.

Their plan was to stop in front of the MNAs offices for a little under half an hour in order to chant “fuck Couillard” and distribute flyers demanding even more discriminatory policies from the new government. Alex Maltais even showed us his artistic side, graffitying a little wolf paw on the sidewalk.

In Chicoutimi, in the morning, they were ten. Not a huge demonstration, but since the info had leaked, a group of anti-racist activists were also there to wish them good morning. Racist groups shouldn’t be able to take to the streets without an anti-racist counter-presence. The open presence of a group organized around hatred and xenophobia, as La Meute is, shouldn’t be tolerated, however laughable their actions may be. What would have happened if, Saturday morning, a person from one of the cultural communities hated by La Meute had found themself on Racine street?

Therefore, groups of anti-racists enthusiastically removed several posters and flags that the racists had so skillfully taped to their cars. An activist even risked grabbing a flag attached to Marie-José Dufour’s car – (alias Marie Louve), Clan 02 chief – while she was inside, thus attracting her wrath. Infuriated, Dufour contacted authorities to lodge an official complaint about the material damages.

Nothing remains from La Meute’s stop in Chicoutimi, and that’s good. There’s no place for racism in our neighbourhoods. Concrete responses to every demonstration organized by hateful and intolerant groups is the only answer.

After the wolf cubs had departed, the anti-racists returned in order to clean up the logo left on the sidewalk by Alex Maltais. To their great surprise the graffiti had already vanished, leaving behind a puddle of water. What could have happened? Did Alex, knowing that the police were on the way, erase his work of art? Or did the police force him to do it? Or maybe other citizens decided to erase the racist group’s logo? The mystery remains.

Resisting Slavery: From Marie-Joseph Angélique 1734 to Prison Strike 2018

Comments Off

Aug 272018

From It’s Going Down

Some anarchists came together on the night of August 23rd to cover Montréal’s Vieux Port (Old Port) in posters that read in both French and English:

Resisting Slavery: From Marie-Joseph Angélique 1734 to Prison Strike 2018

August 21 – September 9th

More Info: twitter.com/JailLawSpeak

We postered along the same streets that Angélique was paraded down moments before she was hung, and then burned. Angélique, we remember. Slavery, stolen land, and attempted genocide define the contours of the ever-forming settler states of Turtle Island (North America). In solidarity with prisoners currently fighting slavery inside all US prisons, we wanted to (re)tell the story of Marie-Joseph Angélique. Angélique was a Black woman enslaved in Montréal during the 18th Century who was sentenced to torture and death for allegedly setting fire to her slave owner’s domicile, which resulted in the majority of the city of Montréal burning. We offer Angélique’s story as a reminder that Québec and Canada were engaged in the practice of slavery for over 200 years. We chose Angélique’s story because it connects the city we live in to the ongoing story of resistance to slavery on this continent.

US prisoners have used this strike to reference a long history of resistance to slavery. August 21, 1831 marked the start of Nat Turner’s Rebellion, a significant moment of resistance by enslaved people. August 21, 1971 also marks the day the state killed George Jackson, a Black revolutionary prisoner deeply involved in struggles for the liberation of Black peoples. Jackson’s death ignited an intense period of prison organizing. September 9, 1971 marks the start of the Attica Uprising, one of the most significant moments of resistance inside US prisons. Prisoners at Attica released a list of comprehensive demands to improve their living conditions. Those demands were never met but have clearly influenced the prisoners on strike today.

Resistance to slavery is an ongoing struggle for those facing incarceration in the United States. The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution states:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Slavery actively continues within US prisons. The 13th Amendment legally justifies the violent, brutal conditions that define this carceral system. These conditions are what prisoners across the States will be striking against over the next two weeks. And while Canada does not have a similar constitutional amendment, we view prisons not only as an apparatus of domination, but also as an extension of Canada’s settler colonial project. The primary aim for the settler colonial project is to control land for settlement and for the extraction of “natural resources”. It is through these capitalist relationships to land that the colonial system secures its wealth and future existence. However, First Nations, Inuit and Métis Nations are viewed by the political and economic elite as an obstacle to this settler future. The settler state and society have employed tactics and strategies such as: racialized and class-motivated surveillance, policing, military repression, and incarceration. Containment and control are not only central to the settler colonial project, but prisons and incarceration are a strategic part of keeping Indigenous people off the land, and thus less able to challenge state power.

Slavery, stolen land, and attempted genocide are the founding stories of the settler states occupying this continent, and they are the foundations of the systems we seek to abolish. We weave together these aforementioned moments in history to illustrate how they belong to a longer, more global context of colonial expansion, exploitation for profit, and great wealth for some humans at the expense of the objectification of so many forms of life.

Solidarity with the prisoners on strike, in memory of Angélique.

Against prisons, against slavery, against colonialism!

URL link to poster pdf files: https://archive.org/details/PrisonStrike2018posters

Statement from Protesting Inmates at Burnside Jail, Nova Scotia

Comments Off

Aug 222018

Re-posted from the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee

We, the prisoners of Burnside, have united to fight for change. We are unified across the population in non-violent, peaceful protest.

We are calling for support from the outside in solidarity with us. We believe that it is only through collective action that change will be made.

We recognize that the staff in the jail are workers who are also facing injustice. We are asking for a more productive rehabilitative environment that supports the wellbeing of everyone in the system. These policy changes will also benefit the workers in the jail.

Our voices should be considered in the programming and policies for this jail. The changes we are demanding to our conditions are reasonable, and must happen to support our human rights.

The organizers of this protest assert that we are being warehoused as inmates, not treated as human beings. We have tried through other means including complaint, conversation, negotiation, petitions, and other official and non-official means to improve our conditions. We now call upon our supporters outside these walls to stand with us in protesting our treatment.

We join in this protest in solidarity with our brothers in prison in the United States who are calling for a prison strike from August 21st to September 9th. We support the demands of our comrades in the United States, and we join their call for justice.

Our demands in Nova Scotia are different, and we note that they are comparatively more modest. We are part of an international call for justice and we recognize the roots of this struggle in a common history of struggle and liberation.

We are not the first, and we will not be the last.

We recognize that the injustices we face in prison are rooted in colonialism, racism and capitalism. August is a month rich with the history of Black struggle in the Americas.

In 1619, the first ship carrying forcibly enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia. More than two hundred years ago, the first successful slave revolt created the first independent Black nation, Haiti. In the early nineteenth century, Gabriel Prosser and Nat Turner launched their rebellions, and in 1850, after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, Harriet Tubman began an Underground Railroad to Canada. A century later, the March on Washington, the Watts uprising, and the police bombing of MOVE have marked August as a time of great possibility and great pain.

In Canada, we recognize Prisoner Justice Day on August 10th as a time to remember all those who have died in custody in this country.

We also acknowledge the sacrifices made by our forebears, those who have fought to end the inhumane, racist treatment accorded prisoners. George Jackson, one of America’s prominent prisoner activists, was assassinated in San Quentin in August 1971, and his name is joined by others — Jonathan Jackson, William Christmas, James McClain, WL Nolen, and others.

In August 1978 in San Quentin, activist Khatari Gaulden died after being refused adequate health care for an injury suffered under mysterious circumstances. To honour his name and to fight for prison justice, a coalition of activists, inside and outside the prison walls, formed the Black August Organizing Committee. Starting in the “concentration camps” of California, Black August strikes swept through prisons across America.

In this tradition and together with those imprisoned south of the border, we, the prisoners of Burnside continue this legacy. We are not violent, we are standing up for simple issues of human justice.

We are organized together because conditions must change. Our demands are as follows:

1. Better Health Care

The province has a duty to provide adequate and ethical health care to everyone. Some of the issues we are facing in our health care include: having medication cut off or delays in providing necessary medication; long waits for x-rays and other medical services; lack of care for chronic and serious illnesses; access to specialist appointments; having our medical complaints dismissed; not enough medical staff; not receiving compassionate care.

Many prisoners face serious mental health issues, addictions, and chronic illnesses caused by poverty. We also know the prison environment causes many health problems. Medical treatment is a right: being deprived of health care is not part of our sentences.

2. Rehabilitation Programs

We are told that the purpose of jail is to rehabilitate us. We want to ask: How are we being rehabilitated if there are little to no programs helping us to get the work, education, and life skills we need to become productive members of society?

We need programs that address mental health and addiction problems; that teach us employable skills; that help us to learn financial management and other life skills; that help us build healthy relationships with our families; that help us reintegrate into society.

What is the point of jail if we are coming out with nothing changed or worse from when we went in?

3. Exercise Equipment

Exercise is necessary for our physical and mental health. We remind the province that we live in a province with winter. We require equipment so we can work out indoors. Exercise helps reduce stress, keeps us occupied in healthy ways, and helps us deal with the prison environment.

We often do not receive the yard time we are entitled to under the Corrections Act. This is a violation of the rights we already have. We call for adequate time for fresh air, exercise, and sunlight.

4. Contact Visits

If we are being scanned for drugs and other contraband, we want to ask the province: Why are we prevented from having contact visits with our families? If the body scanners eliminate contraband from entering the prison, then there is no safety or security reason why we can’t receive contact visits with our families and friends.

Many of us are parents. We call for contact visits that allow our children to see us not behind glass.

5. Personal Clothing and Shoes

If we are being scanned for drugs and other contraband, then we should be able to wear clothing from outside the institution.

The clothing and shoes provided by the jail is often inadequate. We have been provided with shoes of different sizes, shoes that do not fit, and we are not provided with winter clothing like gloves that allow us to go outside.

Wearing our own clothing helps prevent institutionalization, allows us to have appropriate clothing, and helps us feel like human beings.

6. Same Quality Food As Every Other Jail

We call for nutritious food in every jail that meets the needs of prisoners from all religious and cultural backgrounds. We do not understand why menu items can be provided in one institution but not in others. If menu items can be provided in other provinces, or in other facilities in this province, there should be no reason why they cannot be provided here.

We call for the province to respect the dietary needs of prisoners from different cultures. We have struggled in getting menus for religious prisoners. Prisoners have become ill including suffering serious nutritional deficits, and health damage. This is unacceptable and a violation of our religious rights.

7. Air Circulation

We call upon the province to improve the conditions in the jail. In the recent heat wave, the health of prisoners was endangered, particularly prisoners with existing or chronic health issues.

8. Healthier Canteen

We call for healthy items to be added to the canteen. Prisoners supplement the meals provided by the prison with these items that we purchase using our own money or money given us by our families. We do not believe that providing us only with items filled with sugar and chemicals helps promote our health. Junk food is being eliminated from schools, hospitals, and other institutions, so why are people in prison limited to these unhealthy options?

9. No Limits to Visits

Visits with our families and friends help promote our reintegration into society and keep us connected to our support systems. Our families are called upon to put resources into the system through paying for phones and canteen. If the jail can profit off our families, why do we face limitations in seeing them?

10. Access To Library

We call upon the province to immediately allow us to access the library. Legal materials in the library are necessary for us to access our legal rights in court.

We should not be limited in our attempts to educate ourselves.

***

Let us restate. All of these demands are reasonable, and promote our basic well-being. We recognize that the prison industrial complex is intended to divide us. We are unified in our purpose. They cannot segregate us all.

We call upon all people with a conscience beyond the bars to join us in sharing this statement, in writing the Minister of Justice, your MLA, and the Department of Justice to support our demands, to commit to learning more about the conditions in this province’s jails, and in taking actions in solidarity with our struggle.

We send a message of hope to our comrades in prisons all across this country and the world.

“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”
—Nelson Mandela

John A. Macdonald Monument Vandalized (Again) in Montreal

Comments Off

Aug 182018

From No Borders Media

Anti-colonial action made in support of removal of John A. Macdonald statue in Victoria, BC

Earlier this morning, a group of unnamed anti-colonial vandals targeted the John A. Macdonald Monument in Montreal. The statue, at Place du Canada, was sprayed with red paint. The area around the statue was also postered with an explanatory text.

We claim this action in support of the recent removal of the John A. Macdonald statue in Victoria (BC), and in continued opposition to the far-right groups and politicians who actively defend a legacy of white supremacy and racism. We also undertake this action in solidarity with previous actions against the John A. Macdonald statue in Montreal and elsewhere in Canada. We demand that City authorities in Montreal take measures, similar to the City of Victoria, to remove the Macdonald Monument. Montreal is already undertaking the long overdue process of re-naming Amherst Street (which named after another colonial racist who advocated the extermination of Indigenous peoples).

Here is the text of the poster accompanying the recent vandalism, providing concise context about why Macdonald statues and monuments should be removed:

John A. Macdonald was a colonial racist!
Take down his statues across Canada, and put them in museums.

John A. Macdonald was a white supremacist. He directly contributed to the genocide of Indigenous peoples with the creation of the brutal residential schools system, as well as other measures meant to destroy native cultures and traditions. He was racist and hostile towards non-white minority groups in Canada, openly promoting the preservation of a so-called “Aryan” Canada. He passed laws to exclude people of Chinese origin. He was responsible for the hanging of Métis martyr Louis Riel.

Macdonald statues should be removed from public space and instead placed in archives or museums, where they belong as historical artifacts. Public space should celebrate collective struggles for justice and liberation, not white supremacy and genocide.

– Some anti-colonial vandals in Montreal.

info: johnamacdonaldmontreal@protonmail.com

(Note: Video and photos were shared anonymously with No Borders Media. No Borders Media is not responsible for the action against the Macdonald Monument.)

Older Entries Newer Entries