Five days of gatherings and debates
September 29th – October 3rd 2015 in Brussels
The program of events can be found here.
If the state counted on silently building in Brussels the largest prison complex in Belgian history, it was mistaken. Against this maxi-prison project, a struggle was born and has intensified. An uncompromising struggle that has taken the initiative, which creates paths without political parties or formal organisations, that embodies itself in self-organisation and direct action against what makes the maxi-prison possible.
The project to build a maxi-prison is inscribed into a wider economic and political context. In this time of new economic and political instability, the Belgian State, like other States, level up with strengthening the repression. Whether this translates into tougher laws, more control at all levels, cameras everywhere, militarisation of borders, soldiers in the street, urban regeneration to “restore order”, there are also all types of extensive prison building programs. Because prison will always be one of the threats used to try to make us fall into rank as well as a powerful state tool to keep in order its world divided into rich and poor, powerful and excluded, oppressors and oppressed.
If ideas and actions have to join hands, if thought and experience can sharpen the fight we lead, if the construction of the maxi-prison is not just a question of four walls, but perhaps above all a social issue that affects the whole of this society, these five days of gatherings around the struggle against the maxi-prison could be a valuable opportunity.
At these meetings, comrades from different corners of the world will chat about their experiences of struggle, bringing along their reflections around insurrectionary struggle and explore ways to deepen the fight against the maxi-prison, but not solely.
Tuesday 29th September, 7:30pm
Le Passage – Rue Rossini 11, Anderlecht
The hour of the revolt (comrade from London)
Wednesday 30th September, 3pm
Lion D’or – Avenue Jamar 5, Anderlecht
The struggle against the maxi-prison
Wednesday 30th September, 7:30pm
Pianofabriek – Rue du Fort 35, Saint-Giles
The struggle against the new Type C prisons in Greece
Thursday 1st October, 7:30pm
Acrata – Rue de la Grande Ile 32, Brussels
Towards the insurrection (comrade from Italy)
Friday 2nd Octoer, 5pm
Acrata – Rue de la Grande Ile 32, Brussels
Undermine the prisons of the democracy in Chile
Friday 2nd Octoer, 7:30pm
Le Passage – Rue Rossini 11, Anderlecht
Rebellion in Spanish prisons (comrade from Spain)
Saturday 3rd October, 2pm
L’eau Chaude – Rue des Renards 25, Marolles
Feedback and perspectives of struggle
in French, Italian | Program of events in French and Dutch (pdf)
Further reading: “The struggle against the maxi-prison” (pdf)