Police & Prisons

Call For Renewed Actions In Solidarity With The Prison Strike, October 15-22

Comments Off

Oct 012016

It hardly seems necessary to summarize what has gone down inside U.S. prisons since September 9th. Hunger strikes, work stoppages, and riots have spread throughout the country on a scale that we likely aren’t even fully aware of yet. Some uprisings appeared took us by surprise, such as in several Florida prisons, while others presumably grew from recent organizing endeavors on the inside, such as at Kinross in Michigan or Holman in Alabama. By rough estimates, over 20,000 prisoners were involved in some way. That’s huge.

On the outside, solidarity burned so brightly all over the world. Banner drops, graffiti slogans, noise demonstrations and more showed that we had the backs of all who would partake in the strike. It is worth noting however that the vast majority of this took place the first weekend of the strike. But this prison strike—and the struggle against prisons more broadly—is about more than a day or a week. It didn’t start on September 9th and it isn’t ending any time soon. Some prisoners may return to work while others decide to stop working for the first time. It’s easier when there is a definitive date to take action on, to build momentum towards, but that’s not going to be enough.

Therefore, we would like to offer a call for renewed actions in solidarity with the prison strike and the struggle against prison society. Right now many are organizing anti-repression campaigns for striking prisoners and that is of course very necessary and not nearly as exciting work. But it would be a mistake to conceive of this struggle in a linear fashion—that is to say, a single wave where we demonstrate as it crests and write letters as it crashes. How many prisoners hadn’t heard about the strike until after it had started? How many knew but didn’t think people would actually be there to support them? Three weeks after the start of the strike, inmates in Turbeville, South Carolina rebelled against a guard and took over their dorm. How can we stop while inmates are still risking their lives for freedom?

We propose the week of October 15th – 22nd for a concentration of actions to remind everyone locked up by the State that we will always have their back. Once again, it is important to take these dates with a grain of salt. No one’s going to judge you if you take action on October 23rd, or in November, or even in 2017. Neither should anyone sit on their hands waiting for the 15th to get going. New Year’s Eve should also be kept in mind, which has traditionally seen noise demonstrations outside of prisons every year, despite being an equally arbitrary date.

When times seem slow and uneventful we let ourselves stagnate, but imagination and revolt are like muscles: the less we use them the weaker they become. We can push back the boredom of less eventful times and point towards insurrection. Solidarity actions and struggling on our own timelines is a way we can create momentum and tension when there isn’t much.

– “Our Own Timelines” Anathema, Vol 2 Issue 6

It is undeniable that many comrades exist outside of realities where organizing a protest or noise demonstration is tenable. Many of us are still searching for a few like-minded comrades, let alone attempting to bring out a crowd. There are still opportunities to act, whether it is a one or two person team dropping a banner or putting up posters, or hosting a letter writing or informational event that can help connect future accomplices. It certainly can never be overstated how important writing letters of support and calling in to prisons is in and of itself, but why pass on an opportunity to build our capacity?

If nothing else, we should all feel ashamed that the most active city in terms of U.S. prison strike solidarity actions is Athens, Greece. They already have such a head start but we can at least give them a bit of challenge, can’t we?

– Some Restless Uncontrollables

Here are some posters for distribution. Oh, whoops, how did this wheatpaste recipe get here?

“Prison Strike” Tabloid Size

“Prison Strike” Letter Size

Letter of Support from Quebec Prisoners in Struggle

Comments Off

Sep 112016

From Prison Radio Show

A Letter in Support of Prisoners in the US who are striking against prison slavery

First, we want to tell you that you are not alone! We are keeping our eyes on your struggles. We support you!

In your call for a strike on September 9th you evoke the uprising in Attica that began on September 9, 1971. You write about ending prison slavery by ceasing to be slaves yourselves. We see you. We hear you. We support you.

We are a group of people, some in prison, some not in prison, and some who are in between. We are critical of the prison system and all its trappings. We would like to share with you some stories of our struggles.

Where we are, there is a traditional work stoppage inside federal prisons on August 10th. Though stronger in years past, Prisoners Justice Day is a day when prisoners here refuse to eat, refuse to work, refuse to leave our cells. We commemorate those who have died in prison. When the tradition started in 1974, prison officials would punish us for it, write us up, lock us up, dock our pay. One day in Collins Bay Penitentiary, a federal prison in Ontario, the kitchen decided to not cook breakfast on August 10th. They knew we were not planning to eat, but we knew that this day is about more than fasting. We lined up in their kitchen demanding breakfast and one by one disposed of it in the garbage.

Federal prisoners in Canada pay room and board. In 2013, our pay was docked and half of that was justified by an increase in room and board payments. In February of 2016, we wrote a list of demands to the federal government. We excerpt the section on work and pay here:

“We protest the cuts to our wages. We should have access to real wages, not pennies. CorCan (Corrections Canada Industries) is a separate entity of Correctional Services Canada (CSC). Its mission was to provide meaningful employment and skills. It was a way for long term prisoners to keep their families together and short-termers to build some money for release. In fall 2013, prisoners’ pay was cut. The bonuses/incentives that prisoners used to receive for working at CorCan were taken away… Currently, the maximum wage we make in 10 days is $69. Of that sum, we must pay $15.18 to kitchen services, $5.52 to telephone services and maintenance, $11 to television fees and maintenance, and $3.73 to savings. Only $33.57 remains. Our pay rates have not been indexed to inflation since 1982.”

We went on to demand access to the provincial minimum wage, access to the Canadian Pension Plan, and real workplace insurance. We demanded access to trades and training while in prison that have an accreditation that is recognized on the outside. We have, thus far, received no concrete response to our demands.

The complete list of demands to the federal government is included with this letter. (As this is an email, here is a link to the entire list of demands: www.demandprisonschange.wordpress.com).

If you want to write to us, for whatever reason, you can reach us here:

PO Box 55051

CP Mackay
Montreal, Quebec
H3G2W5

or at demandprisonschange@riseup.net

In commemoration of all those who have died inside, including the prisoners who died in the uprising at Attica, when state troopers stormed the prison with shotguns and teargas, we connect our struggle to yours. We will be watching.

In solidarity,

the Termite Collective

Banners in Solidarity with Striking Prisoners

Comments Off

Sep 102016

A Challenge: Spread the Strike to Every Jail, Juvie, and Prison, in Canada too!

Comments Off

Aug 212016

From La Solide, adapted from IGD

This is a challenge to anyone who is supportive of the September 9th prisoners’ strike but who has remained on the sidelines until now.

In order for this strike to not be snuffed out by a handful of prison censors and violent guards, it needs to spread uncontrollably beyond their reach. And because prisons strictly forbid communication between prisoners, it is our responsibility on the outside to facilitate this contagion. Spreading the call to prisons in Canada will further this contagion, and give an opportunity to link our struggle against prison and the world that needs it, through prison walls and across borders.

The first obvious step is to begin sending in word of the strike, immediately. If people on the inside are to be able to meaningfully act, they are going to need some time to begin spreading the word to their friends and formulating a plan. To that end, we are suggesting that outside accomplices begin printing the strike announcements (below) and mailing them inside en masse.

Mail to whom you ask? To anyone! To your old high school friend stuck in county jail, your friend’s little sister in juvie, to Black Liberation prisoners who have inspired you, your neighbor’s relative in an immigrant detention center, or to that person on the local news who robbed four (!) banks before she finally got caught last year.

If you’re not able to provide ongoing support to the people you mail or if you give a fake return address, please be clear about that in your letter. People on the inside need to know if people on the outside will have their backs or not. If you do maintain communication with people you contact, however, be opaque and creative in the ways that you talk about these things. Use different return addresses to confuse prison censors, or find clever new ways to get information inside without it being attached to your legal name. And don’t forget to act as a signal booster for their actions; for instance, if the strike has taken hold, and/or the prison is retaliating against them, post that info to sites like lasolide.info, itsgoingdown.org or supportprisonerresistance.noblogs.org so that people can organize call-in’s or other solidarity actions to target the prison administration.

“Right away, one shouldn’t be able to start a university course, a theater performance or a scientific conference without someone directly intervening or letting loose a rain of flyers that pose the questions, ‘What has become of the prisoners on strike?’ and, ‘When will the authorities give in to their demands?’ No one should be able to walk down any street in the U.S. without seeing news of the prisoners’ struggle on the walls. And the songs that are sung about them must be heard by all.”

There’s no denying that this is a historical moment, a rare opportunity that simply cannot missed. There are no sidelines in a world without leaders. Everyone has a role to play so let’s get going!

Flyer, 8.5″x11″(Text to be printed and sent into prisons)

Here is the content:

Things are heating up in the prisons!

The letter that follows was written by inmates of American prisons involved with the IWOC (Incarcerated Workers Organising Commitee). They wrote it to inform you of a massive struggle that will rock many American prisons this September 9th. There will be a coordinated prison strike, with the goal of putting an end to prison slavery. In the US, private businesses have inmates work in federal and state prisons, in exchange for abysmal salaries. The use of their work force is an integral part of the economy of the country. All this in a context of institutionalized racism where the majority of inmates are black and latino; where slavery never ended.

In Canada, imprisonment is no less unbearable; society itself produces the crimes of those it imprisons, especially by keeping them in precarious living conditions. By no accident, the majority of people who find themselves in prison are there for these “crimes” caused by the absence of possibility offered by this society to those who its marginalizes. Colonial violence and white supremacy are perpetuated here as well: indigenous and racialized people, in particular the women in these communities, are massively overrepresented in Canadian prisons. Although the act of working can help to pass the time and is perceived as a privilege, businesses (like CORCAN) exploit prisoners in exchange for ridiculous salaries. These businesses profit from the vulnerability of inmates who are still considered sub-humans, and exploit their labour and their time.

For instance, diverse struggles have taken place in the last years against prisons in Canada. At this moment, around sixty detainees are on hunger strike at the immigrant detention centre in Lindsay, Ontario, to demand a maximum time limit to detention without charge for people who don’t have status. As well, in 2015 and 2016 there were two hunger strikes in the maximum correctional centre in Regina, Saskatchewan to demand more hours of yard time, and in 2013, there was a strike against the salary cuts in federal prisons. Organizing in prison is never easy, and yet here are concrete examples.

We wish to transmit this call for solidarity, firstly to keep you in the loop. We are aware of the difficulty of communicating between inmates in different establishments. If you are interested in contributing in any way, if you would like to write a letter of solidarity to prisoners on strike, or if you would like to communicate with people who wrote this introduction, you can get in touch with

lasolide@riseup.net

or write as at
PRS c/o CKUT,
3647 rue University, Montréal, Québec, H3A 2B3

…until we are all free
La Solide

Announcement of Nationally Coordinated Prisoner Workstoppage for Sept 9, 2016

September 9th Prisoner Strike across the US

Comments Off

Aug 082016

From Anti-State STL, modified for distribution in Canada

“We are not beasts and we do not intend to be beaten or driven as such… What has happened here is but the sound before the fury of those who are oppressed.”
– L. D. Barkley, participant in Attica rebellion

On September 9, 1971, the inmates of Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York seized control of the prison. The Attica uprising, which lasted for five days, was not the first and certainly not the last prison rebellion. And yet its importance is indelibly marked within the history of the struggle against white supremacy and the prison society we still inhabit today.

In the forty-five years since Attica, prisons have swelled to bursting with the tragedies of disrupted lives, fractured families, and broken communities. In the last decade, resistance movements have steadily grown behind the prison walls. From the statewide work stoppage in Georgia prisons of 2010 to the hunger strike that spread throughout the California prison system in 2013; from fires lit in I.C.E. detention centers in Texas to riots and prison takeovers in Nebraska and Alabama, prisoners across the US are wide awake and on the move. Revolt against prisons is also present on this side of the border; in Lindsay, Ontario, detainees held by CBSA in the Central East Correctional Centre have been on strike for two years demanding an end to immigration detention.

This September, prisoners, their families, and supporters on the outside are coordinating a prisoner strike across the US to take place on the 45th anniversary of the Attica rebellion. This historic effort holds within it the potential to expand and embolden the movement against the horrific conditions of confinement, the prisons themselves and the society that creates them.

Towards the destruction of all prisons and the creation of a free and genuine human community!

supportprisonerresistance.noblogs.org
iwoc.noblogs.org
itsgoingdown.org

For more information about the strike and the ongoing wave of prison rebellions across the US, check out these articles:

Strike Against White Supremacy

Incarcerated Workers Take the Lead

Call To End Prison Slavery

11 x 17″ | PDF

For the end of prisons

Comments Off

Jul 222016

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Friday, March 18, 2016

a few individuals crossed the fences surrounding Leclerc penitentiary to make an action in solidarity with the prisoners who had just been transferred to Tanguay.

The eastern facade of the old prison was redecorated with yellow, blue and pink paint eggs and the inscription «Feu aux prisons, Fin aux systèmes d’oppressions!» (Fire to the prisons, end to the systems of oppression!) was written with spray cans.

The action was a call to multiply actions of vandalism and sabotage against the infrastructures of oppression and to show solidarity with people undergoing them.

«In modern republics, the function of prison is said to be correction. When individuals break laws that uphold the common good, the conventional wisdom goes, they need to be punished or otherwise taught to be more socially cooperative and generous. In my experience with incarceration, however, the only thing that prison teaches is obedience. A “corrected” citizen is one who internalizes prison bars even on the streets.» -Gelderloos-

Legal fees for attacking cops

Comments Off

Jul 082016

On June 13, 2016 in Montreal, a judge sentenced me to 3 years of probation and 125 hours of community service for a memorable event that took place during the 2015 May Day in Montreal. I also have $600 of judicial fees to pay in 45 days. For this, I need your help. But in addition, I’ll offer you the delicious testimony of the cop who got beat while arresting me!

Your contribution can be deposited in the La Solide Solidarity fund Paypal account.

First, here’s an introduction of the facts. During the 2015 May Day demonstration, several among us were masked in black bloc. When the demonstration which left from Hochelaga reached downtown, we turned off towards the parking lot of the general headquarters of the SPVM to smash the cop cars parked there. Caught in a blatant crime, a large cop of 6 feet and four inches ran and jumped on me from behind to arrest me. The other comrades attempted to liberate me from his grip. Two other cops came to join him, and all three were violently attacked. The declaration from the first cop in the court document is hilarious, here’s an excerpt:

« (…) While I was still running in the direction of the cars that were being broken, other ”black bloc” joined this initial group of vandals. I fixated on a completely masked individual who was dressed in black who I saw break a window of a Laval cop car, and I didn’t let them out of my sight from then on. My decision was taken to physically subdue this person and proceed to their arrest (…)

When I reached this person who didn’t see me running at them, I firstly grabbed them by their backpack and I tried to bring them to the ground to subdue them. It was in trying to subdue them that I realized that this person is a woman, because I felt that she was less physically strong than me, and gradually, I saw that her outline corresponded to that of a woman’s. She tried to liberate herself and physically resisted her arrest by struggling and trying to flee. In just a few seconds, the black bloc demonstrators who accompanied her and who ran away with my arrival came back to help the accused liberate herself from my grip, as well as several others who came from the crowd. Some grabbed her by the hands to pull her towards them so that she could “slide” from my grasp, while the others attacked me in all the ways that they could. All those who I saw attacking me were completely masked and dressed in black.

I watched as these demonstrators try to smash my face with their six feet batons, tried to throw projectiles at my face with all their force just several feet from me. From this point, my goal was to protect my head and above all my face from serious injury. I particularly feared for my eyes due to not having any protective equipment and because the demonstrators tried to hit me in the face with the ends of their batons. However, I received several blows to the head and the back from the assailants who were behind me and whose blows I couldn`t see coming. With each blow I received, I saw a black thunderbolt pass in my vision. I know that I fell to the ground at one point, and I remember having avoided several blows that were directly aimed at my face by moving my face right to left, like a boxer.

Finally, after several seconds, other police in uniform came to my aid. The demonstrator who I held in arrest from the start was finally subdued by the officers in uniform and I. The police in uniform lowered the mask of the arrested demonstrator at this moment (…) When the police reinforcement arrived, all the black bloc demonstrators who assaulted me escaped and none were arrested. Several police came to see me immediately after the aggression and told me that there were at least twelve people encircling and hitting me. According to them, they threw projectiles at me, kicked me, and threw a fire extinguisher at my back (it was the blow that hurt me the most, but at the moment when I received it, I didn`t know what had hit me). I could see on my uniform traces of boots and soil, lots of pieces of a set of porcelain dishes, material that vandals and thieves use to easily break the windows of vehicles and hit in the inside corner of the window. I believe that these pieces were part of the projectiles I received, and there was also an extinguisher on the ground. (…)»

Finally, they nonetheless arrested me and accused me of armed assault, mischief over $5000 and disguise with the intention of committing a crime. I was let out on bail after a week at Tanguay prison, with a curfew of 11 pm.

In this account, I would like to emphasize the courage of the people who, rather than continuing to run and escape, showed themselves to be extremely solid and trustworthy comrades, in turning back to wildly attack the cop who arrested me.

More than a year passed, and on June 13, 2016, I was sentenced to mischief over $5000, obstructing arrest, disguise with the intention of committing a crime and carrying a weapon (porcelain); 3 years of probation, and 125 hours of community service. The judicial fees to pay in 45 days is $600! Your contribution would be appreciated.

Amélie

After-party riot at Francofolies: fuck la police

Comments Off

Jun 242016

Submitted to MTL Counter-info

Triggering fomo (fear of missing out) in anarchists across Montreal who aren’t francophone music fans, over a hundred Francofolies festival-goers rioted last friday night after a performance by french rapper MHD. The crowd, mostly under the age of 20, threw bricks, bottles, and traffic cones at police, smashed the windows of at least 20 businesses between St-Denis and Drummond street, overturned vending carts, and attacked the headquarters of the SPVM, breaking multiple windows along its Saint-Urbain street facade. Six cops were reported injured.

Accounts say that cops had mounted the stage to confront fans who had went on stage during an earlier performance. At this moment, chants of ‘fuck la police’ could be heard, and when the show ended, the crowd proved that even the smallest indignity, relatively speaking, at the hands of police in this city is grounds for a full-fledged riot. Unfortunately, there were two arrests, and few participants wore masks.

It seems that over the last few months in Montreal, events in which anarchists have participated have created a climate in which hostility towards the police is more widely shared and more readily translated into violence against our enemies, among not just anarchists but all people living in the city who have reason to hate the police.

Anarchists, though, could be more ready to intervene in those eruptions of revolt that are possible outside of political demonstrations and anarchist-initiated attacks. Let’s recognize and act on the potential of these moments to expand the space and time of lawlessness, to create breaks with normality unforeseen by power and therefore more likely to get out of control, to shake the faith of activists in their social movement calendars, and to link anarchists with others in unpredictable complicities.

One more time: Fuck the police!

For the proliferation of the balade: some thoughts on the anti-police demo in Hochelag’

Comments Off

May 102016

From Anarchistnews

After having participated in what was called as a demo against the police in Hochelaga on Thursday April 14th, we had the urge to share some reflections outside of our living rooms (towards yours perhaps?).

First off, we were fucking excited to see a flyer circulate that was calling for a neighborhood demo in Hochelag’. We want to be able to participate in moments of struggle in the neighborhood and not only downtown and/or in demos called on Facebook.

We can clearly point out that the demo felt more like an action than a demo, because only around thirty people answered the call. Could it still have been a demo even if it was called in this way? Probably not. It seems difficult to subtly circulate flyers, less than a week in advance, and have a hundred people show up. But we don’t feel like people should have called it an action either, in which case we would have the impression that the invitation can’t be public (for safety reasons) and that there would be a clear objective, that people must follow. So we fall into the trinity cul-de-sac typical of Montreal; demo/action/demo-action. We don’t feel like what happened was a demo, and we don’t want it to be called an action either. We propose employing another term for this kind of offensive march: a ‘balade’ (roughly translates to stroll). It maintains the spirit of a march, which can be wandering, and we would add a connotation of combativity – no matter the form that this offensiveness could take. And the invitation could be made publicly, and people would know that there is space in the balade for them to take their own initiatives. The balade is open like the demo, offensive like an action.

Onwards.

This moment was called as a demo and the offensiveness wasn’t specified, so the situation lacked transparency for people who came and participated – this is dangerous for everyone. The vagueness of the call-out meant that some of the people who showed up weren’t adequately prepared for this kind of moment. It would have been worth mentioning in the flyer that people should come ready to participate in a black bloc, or to wear clothing to disguise their identity. This would have then allowed people to expect to participate in a combative demonstration. Although we understand that people don’t want to necessarily reveal the details of what they have in mind when they send out an invitation, we nonetheless believe that people should have a minimum of information to decide if they want to participate, and if that’s the case, to prepare themselves mentally and physically. It’s a matter of security and confidence, and these are essential in the long-term for our capacity to hold this type of offensive position.

Also, the starting point of the demonstration was highly problematic. Around thirty masked-up people in a park is going to freak out the neighbours, and this is how we found ourselves with two cop cars on our backs even before anything had really began. In the future, we need to find places that are more subtle to assemble or else the same scenario will repeat itself. Consequentially, because the cops showed up from the get-go, the people who had more information to share weren’t able to – or only in a highly rushed and even shouted manner as we attempted to get onto Darling street to go up to Ontario. Having a better starting point would have probably resolved, to a certain extent, the lack of transparency of the flyer.

Props to the gang, after all, because we knew to stick together from the moment when the cops showed up. We have the strong impression that if everyone dispersed from the beginning there would have been arrests. The fact that we decided to continue together, to trust each other, and to follow the instructions to the exit point clearly saved a good number of us from being arrested.

Props to everyone who charged at the cops to de-arrest that person who got snatched by police.

Props to everyone for the ferocity and the violent tenacity that allowed us to hold the cop cars at a distance while the condo real estate company Royal Lepage was attacked and while people found the way to escape a potential police trap.

Props for having attacked the fucking cops who permit this colonial, patriarchal, and capitalist world to exist against us.

Props for a balade in Hochelag. In hoping that we find all kinds of strategies to continue the offensive.

See you in the next black bloc!

Xox

Rage against the Police in Quebec

Comments Off

Apr 162016

From Submedia.tv

April 2016, Montreal cops murdered Jean-Pierre Bony by shooting him with bullet to the head, for allegedly fleeing a drug raid.

Jean-Pierre was unarmed. His community took to the streets to express their rage. People attacked a police station and set several vehicles aflame. Later that week, police in the indigenous community of Lac-Simon murdered Sandy Michel, a 25 year old man, whose brother was also killed by cops.Last night, people in Montreal protested this latest killing. Montreal police attacked the crowd with tear gas and assaulted protesters.

Older Entries Newer Entries