June 13, 2020 – Montreal – At 12pm today, one hundred Montrealers gathered in front of the Bordeaux prison to call for defunding the police and decarcerating prisons. Black activists told the crowd about the violence inflicted upon their communities by prisons and the police. The crowd held banners with slogans such as “Prisons Kill,” “Black Lives Matter,” and “Defund the Police,” and made noise to show solidarity with prisoners inside Bordeaux. ...

1. Nothing justifies police violence; whether we’re on a morning jog, using a counterfeit $20 bill, or breaking a jewelry store window. What the colonial state determines as crimes are often attempts at escaping poverty and systemic violence, or the result of these two things. We advocate for a restorative justice centered on the needs and experiences of victims, not a punitive justice centered on the needs of commerce and state control. Those who partake in protests while reproducing the discourse of the dominant class and playing police are doing the oppressors’ work. ...

(There is also a PDF of this text available for printing) We’ve seen a lot of people on social media spreading rumours and sharing conspiracy theories about the uprising currently going on South of the border. These might be rumours about potential white supremacist attacks and interventions or conspiracies about police agents being responsible for violence carried out by protestors. This kind of online behaviour is harmful and undermines the movements you’re probably trying to support, and we thought we’d take a minute to break down why we should collectively push back against this trend. ...

Revolutionary greetings from the insurrection sweeping throughout the occupied territories of the so-called United States of America. We are asking comrades across the world for immediate and unrelenting acts of solidarity against the United States. In the past few days, we have accumulated experiences that amount to decades of learning. In doing exactly what we previously thought was impossible, we have exposed this country for what it truly is: nothing more than a fragile paper tiger. Tearing at its massive technological police state, the black people of America have demonstrated that they will from hereon refuse to ever be intimidated by a power structure upheld by white terror and violence. ...

Supporting the uprising spreading across America over the police murder of George Floyd means bringing it home. We got a sustained glimpse of exactly that Sunday in Montreal, as for the first time in years, the police lost control of downtown for an extended period of time. After the end of the organized march, a young and multi-racial crowd fought the police outside SPVM headquarters, responding to tear gas with rocks and bottles. People erected barricades and set fires to slow police movements. Over the following hours, hundreds of demonstrators continued to hold space in the street, as storefronts were smashed and goods expropriated up and down Ste-Catherine, the main shopping artery, including at Birks, a high-end jewelry store, which was also attacked with a molotov. ...

The pandemic that hit the entire planet full force beginning in January 2020 has, at least temporarily, completely altered the political climate, given that the lockdown and the ban on gatherings mean that social movements cannot default to their traditional tactics, e.g., demonstrations to denounce injustice and propose solutions. Far from being some pause or time out, the pandemic constitutes, among other things, an increasingly intense political situation, during which class relations exhibit their inherent violence at its bluntest. Racialized minorities and poor neighbourhoods experience the carnage at its most brutal, domestic violence rises as the lockdown drags on, the police forces take advantage of the state of emergency to harass and abuse the people they usually target with even greater abandon, people from immigrant communities, particularly Asians, are even more stigmatized than usual, the state issues decree after decree to force large sections of the population to work in unsafe conditions for starvation wages in the name of its sacrosanct economy, and on it goes. ...

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➝ @stormie_petrel ➝ Anarkism.info ➝ No Jail No Juvi ➝ CK , Katarokwi/Kingston ➝ Mae B ➝ Alice + S, Edinburgh➝ Harvey Hacksaw in Olympia, WA ➝ Katarokwi/Kingston ➝ Olympia, Washington ➝ Surrey ➝ @mittlevandejag ➝ noprisons.ca / Zola ➝ LOKI ➝ Naomi RW ➝ Zola Call for “Art and Anarchy” across Distance The twenty-first edition of the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair has to look radically different this year, but we’re striving for as much connection across distance as we can during our daylong gathering on Sunday, May 17, 2020. To that end, rather than our usual Art and Anarchy exhibit in the physical bookfair space, we’re calling on people to physically share anarchistic art and banners on the streets of cities across the globe. It’s a way of embodying our love and solidarity for each other, and also illustrating quite literally that we’re still here, that anarchism is still alive and well. ...

In the context of ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks in Canadian prisons and jails, I was curious about other times in history that prisoners have faced similar situations and especially times when prisoners have been released as a result. Today’s interview is with a local prison historian about epidemics and public health in Canadian prisons, mostly about the 19th and early 20th century. Also some stories about prisoners being released, what health care was like inside and outside of prison walls, and what kind of world people were returning to. ...

20 May, Montreal – In the wake of today’s announcement that a 72-year-old prisoner at Bordeaux has died of COVID-19, family members and prisoner advocates are calling for immediate and significant actions to keep prisoners and the community safe. In doing so, they reject Minister of Public Security Geneviéve Guilbault’s claim at today’s press briefing that the preventive measures implemented by her ministry are working and that nothing more needs to be done. ...

Using the jumper-cable and wires method described elsewhere the track signalling system on a CN mainline in Hamilton was sabotaged last week. This was done in continuing solidarity with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and land protectors. Work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline continues without the consent of the chiefs and despite the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the chiefs with BC and Kanada. the colonial governments and capitalist industry do not indicate that they will respect the sovereignty of the Wet’suwet’en. ...