June 11th 2016: International Day of Action
For June 11th, 2015, we emphasized transition in the struggle and in the lives of the prisoners we support. This year we’re focusing on a different kind of transition: the restructuring of the prison system and thus doubling down on opposition to Maximum Security, isolation, and `s. High-security facilities are not new: for example, Communications Management Units isolated Daniel McGowan and Andy Stepanian for years. But now we are at a new juncture: there is both a fresh focus on the part of the authorities reorganizing prisons to maximize repression against long-term and combative prisoners, while simultaneously cutting costs. In response there has been a wave of resistance and revolt–in the streets and in the prisons. As this wave spreads organically, we feel impelled to contribute in support of our imprisoned friends and comrades.
Around the world, repression intensifies against anarchists, their comrades, and their families. The left-wing SYRIZA government in Greece continues the isolation of rebellious prisoners in the C-type maximum security prisons. The Spanish state attempts to criminalize anarchist solidarity through an “anti-terrorist” spectacle of raids, arrests, and show trials. Anarchists from Santiago to Kansas City face decades in prison for choosing the path of revolt and for their refusal to bow before pressure from the state. Everywhere we look: the state’s jaws clamp down on rebellion.
But all this cannot break our comrades or the spirit of our struggle. As Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar are sentenced to twelve years in prison, anarchists respond to their persecution with smoke and shattered glass. As the Greek state levels its force against the families of the imprisoned comrades of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire and condemns Nikos Maziotis to life in prison, fugitive comrade Pola Roupa attempts to hijack a helicopter to free the imprisoned fighters. As Osman Evcan and Eric King both fight the state’s attempts to starve them for their refusal to consume flesh, comrades mobilize to ensure that their demands are backed with acts of solidarity. As the Chilean state continues to arrest and imprison anarchists, an intransigent minority strikes back in vengeance. As the State of Ohio continues to restrict Sean Swain’s communications, those holding the controls find their names and addresses spread online. As the state constructs an “anti-terrorism” roundup in Belgium, the multiform struggle against prison society there continues, unflinching and defiant. As the United States prison system continues its brutal enforcement of white supremacy and the social liquidation of undesirables, prisons from Alabama to Nebraska face the flames of rebellion. Everywhere we look, the revolt against prison society deepens and spreads.
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